Pumped for Pie

Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I decided to make today's post about pumpkin pie. I love pumpkin pie, yet only really eat it this time of year. It is also a tradition of mine, thanks to my wonderful Poppop, to have a slice of pumpkin pie for breakfast the following day. This year, my parents, as they have done in past years, came to visit for an early Thanksgiving celebration. I made the usual...turkey, stuffing, corn, mashed potatoes and pie. But this year my oldest declared the pie I had made boring. She thought it needed decorating, so I obliged. I pulled out my stash of marshmallow fondant and my fall cookie cutters and away we went.

I cut out some little acorns and started painting them with some food coloring.

I liked how the brown and green looked here.

My oldest, Samantha, was in charged of painting the leaves. I gave her some red, orange and yellow food coloring to play with. She quite enjoyed herself.

I arranged our creations on the pie, and voila...

a non boring pumpkin pie. Now as for the recipe, I have to admit I used Pillsbury pre-made pie crust and followed the recipe on the back of the can of pumpkin puree. It tasted great if I do say so myself.

I wish you all a Happy Holiday filled with loved ones and yummy pie! Happy Thanksgiving.

Something Old, Something New

I know by the title, you would assume that this was a post about a wedding cake. Well, it is not. The old is me covering a cake in fondant. I haven't done it in awhile, and when I have, I haven't always been thrilled about the results. So I figured I would practice and show you how to cover a round cake.

First you want to have a cake with a beveled edge. Hopefully you can see it in the picture here. Then give the cake a crumb icing. By this I mean, just a thin coat of buttercream, frosting or jam is good. You don't need to make it perfect because it's going to be covered in fondant. Refrigerate your cake for about an hour.

Dust your rolling surface with some cornstrach and roll out your fondant to about 1/4 inch. I always tend to roll mine out to thin. It's something I need to practice.

To easily transfer your fondant to your cake, fold it in half and then lay it on to you cake.

Then unfold the fondant to cover the rest of you cake.

Trim your edge and use your hand to smooth out the top and sides of your cake.

Now for the new. I have been seeing these beautiful cakes where the person has hand painted them. I must say, these people are truly artist and the things they create are amazing. Since I was happy with my covering of the cake, I decided to try my hand at some painting.

I started off easy by painting some leaves. I figured my children can draw leaves, so I should be able to paint them on a cake. First I put a base coat of yellow down to get the shape of the leaf.

Then I added some red highlights to create a contrast for my leaves.

And then I finished with some brown and a very fine paint brush to add the final details of the leaves.

And while I had the brush out, I painted the birthday wish on the top. This cake was to celebrate my wonderful father -in- law's 65th birthday!

BOO...I've Got my Eye on You

With the start of October comes a month long making of Halloween themed goodies. I started the monthy making some cake pops for my friend Stephanie for our Bunco night. Then I made an order for a friend Heidi, for her Halloween party. And to finish up the Halloween cake pops, I made some for my daughters to take to school and pass out to all their classmates and teachers.


Cake pops ready for Bunco and a Halloween party. When making the cake pops for Bunco, I wanted to make mostly chocolate covered ones because I know people prefer them over the white chocolate ones. However, I just could not resist making the eyeball ones, it is the month of Halloween after all.

My oldest daughter Samantha took these for her 4K school party. I made them out of Pink Lemonade cake, white chocolate coating and them some marshmellow fondant to complete the look.

For my daughter Mackenzie's school party, I made some ghost for the kids. I used vanilla cake and then mixed it with some green and purple buttercreams. The result was a kind of spooky purplely gray cake inside. I thought it went well with the whole ghost theme.

Pretty Pretty Princess

I know I had a small hiatus there, sorry about that. I didn't have any cake orders and then I had one for last weekend, but since I don't like to show the cake before the people whom order it get to see it, I had nothing to post. Anyhoo, the order I had for the past weekend was for Gabby, who was turning four. Her mom, Jess, asked for a princess cake and sent over a picture of a beautiful cake that Gabby herself picked out. With a few adjustments, Jess and I came up with what you will see below.

The original cake was a three tiered cake, but Jess didn't need quite that much cake. The cake is a marble cake with two layers of a wonderful raspberry filling and one layer of chocolate.

The princess crown was made with marshmellow fondant and then brushed with pearl disco dust to add some shimmer.

I loved how bright the colors of the cake were. Happy fourth birthday Gabby!

All a Flutter

One of the moms from my playgroup asked if I could make the cake for her daughter's birthday. Wendy said she would like something with butterflies. She also stated that she was planning on using blues, purples and greens, and nothing pastel.

The cake was a white cake with two layers filled with lemon curd and the third layer filled with a strawberry filling. I was going for a strawberry lemonade flavor combination.

I thought it would be fun to have the butterflies flying up the side of the cake. The flower's petals were actually made from the large butterfly wings that I had made to put on the cake, but decided not to use.

All the butterflies were hand painted. I figured by hand painting them, I would keep the color bright and vibrant. This was a fun cake to create and I really like how the butterflies turned out.

Chugging Along and Constructing Some Cakes

My friends Aimee and Laura had a joint party for their boys, who just happen to be the best of friends. Their cakes were a lot of fun to create, incorporating the likes of each boy. I wanted each cake to be different but coordinate with one another so they looked good together at the party.

Josh loves diggers, so Aimee gave me a bunch of toy diggers to use on his cake.

We went with a construction theme for Josh's cake, which was chocolate with a chocolate filling. I loved the way the rocks, made from marshmallow fondant, turned out.

For Noah's cake, which was vanilla cake with vanilla filling, we went with a train theme.

Laura gave me this great little train set to use on Noah's cake. I had fun making the train seem to go through the cake. I also like how the trees give some added color to the whole cake.

The boys both loved their cakes, which made me very happy to hear. This was a different way of doing cakes for me. It's not too often I get to use toys to decorate cakes. I liked how each cake got to represent the little boy it was created for. Happy belated Birthday Noah and Happy Early Birthday Josh.

The Gift of Cake

So my cake challenge for this past weekend was to make a cake for two precious little girls for a joint birthday party. A mom from my playgroup Stacy, had first asked if I could make a cake and a smash cake for her daughter Violet's 1st birthday party. She had no particular theme, but wanted a cake that looked like a present and wanted the ribbon to be violet in color. Then she decided to have a joint birthday party for Violet and her other daughter Lily, so we added another smash cake to the order. At first, when asked, Lily said her favorite color was red and therefore I was going to put a red ribbon on her cake. Then she changed her mind to pink, so we went with a pink ribbon, and then used both pink and violet ribbon on the large cake to tie everything together.

Sorry this picture isn't better. I think I need to take some classes on photography when I'm not making cakes.

For the smash cake, I made over sized cupcakes, leveled of the tops, turned them over and made little presents out of them.

The ribbons and name cards were made out of marshmallow fondant.

The cake, a pink lemonade cake with lemon curd filling, was frosted in a pale yellow buttercream. I took great care in making sure the yellow did not get to bright so that the cake would in no way resemble a Minnesota Vikings cake. That would not be looked upon favorably here in Packer country.

I made the ribbon loops and name cards the night before so they could dry and then me put into place. The flowers are made out of marshmallow fondant and then hand painted.