Word is out!

Well, I had nine cakes through my little business this weekend, and only five at the bakery. This didn't please my manager, but I keep reminding her that what I make on my own is what allows me to come play there!
I had four for an 85th birthday party, two baby showers, a big Spiderman 3, and two other birthday cakes.


One of the baby shower cakes was pretty specific, with a photo reference. They wanted it to match their party goods. So we put the carriage on top and all the little baby words around the sides. It was really fantastic! The other baby shower was not as specific. It was for a little girl and they wanted it in pink and brown, maybe with a carriage or blocks or something. I just made another carriage! I really liked that design, too. I might even use it again!

My tough one was a Spiderman 3. It's stacked and airbrushed at several points. The bottom half of the building is red and black, then you add the next layer and airbrush it blue and black, then add the sand and fire and airbrush that. Just a lot of steps, but so much fun. I'm really having a ball with this new airbrush! Thanks Jaymi!!!



The set of four was for the mother of Dad's neighbor and friend. These boys, Craig and Larry, are long time friends of Dad's and two of four kids. I only knew of Craig and Larry (who my kids call Uncle Larry!), but met their sisters when I delivered the cakes. Craig was very specific about flavors and colors on them. I mostly followed instructions, but when it comes right down to doing them, sometimes things change last minute. He wanted one of them trimmed in green. I was just hoping that he wasn't thinking about the rosebuds having green leaves and needing to add something else, so I added the purple and lavendar myself. On the chocolate one, he wanted brown trim. Well, I base iced it in chocolate which leads to an obvious brown, but then it needed color, too. I added pinks since pink looks so striking on brown. Fortunately, everyone was extremely pleased!!


My last order was actually the one that's been on the books the longest! Two November birthdays, one being a 90 year old, and the other being one of my best friends, whose birthday is on my anniversary! I've had his planned for a while. They wanted something really small, so I ran off a tractor that's at least in John Deere colors. The fall one was actually my favorite. I told Michael I wanted to keep it! I made some yellow orange roses, light brown acorns and chocolate pine cones. I really love fall cakes, and this was my first chance to make one!

Sarah

This is another one of my first cakes. I think it was number three, in May of 2005. I don't have a very impressive picture (one is scanned and one is a really lousy digital camera!), but it was an impressive cake! It had love phrases in yellow.The groom's cake was served at the rehearsal dinner. It was a baseball "signed" by all the players and coaches... the bridal party and parents!

Halloween Birthday

My girlfriend's husband is a Halloween baby, so we made him a spooky birthday cake with the airbrush she just gave me! I had tried to do the red stripes on the bowling pin with the airbrush last week, but I couldn't get it working right. I knew this one had no fine lines, so I played around with it. Eventually, I discovered that the needle had a profuse bend at the tip. So I got that straightened out enough to do this one and will get another needle ordered this week. The strange thing on the tombstone is his Waterbuffalo hat. He was the Grand Poobah for a couple years!

Anniversary

There's a sweet couple at the Ambassador, and their daughter ordered a 66th anniversary cake for them. The kids and I had just visited them and they have a whole wildlife sanctuary and playground outside their window, so I decided to put wildlife tracks all over their cake. I also added a couple piles of leaves, but I'm not sure that turned out as neat as it looked in my head!! Anyway, while I was making this one, I got a call from Michael saying that it was their 67th anniversary. So I called their daughter back to confirm. Sure enough, she had gone through the same conversation and assured me that it was correct! So anyway, it's so nice to give the residents a little taste of home and we are certainly glad to know this sweet couple!!

Molly

I finally felt on top of things this time. I had Friday and Saturday both off from the bakery to focus on this one, first of all because it was pretty big, and secondly because it included a groom's cake. I don't particularly like the flat stacked cakes because of the difficulty getting them set up on site, and also because of the balance factor! There is just so much that could go wrong. However, everything that went wrong had nothing to do with that! It was actually the humidity. Once we got everything unloaded at the site, the frosting started to slide right off the sides of the cake. We redid several places, then I rewrote all the love words on the sides. We spent a couple hours getting it back and then left a note to the bride about really hoping it stayed. The bride's mom talked to me yesterday and said no one saw anything wrong, so I was exceedingly relieved to hear that!!
The groom's cake was a bowling pin, which I told him would not be correct in size and proportion if they actually wanted any cake from it! I also made a separate keepsake tier for Molly and Chris for their first anniversary.

Cathy

We started early on this one! 285 roses. She wanted Nebraska red roses, so the lightest ones didn't work out. I think there were still over 150 roses on the cake! This little guy is the individual topper I've been making for my brides. It seems to be well appreciated by the brides, but I'm sure even more so by the cake cutters!!

Go Diego Go!

One of my homeschool friends ordered this one. It's one of the printables I can make at the bakery.

Residents

Since I'm a bit behind, here are the last two birthday cakes for the residents at the Ambassador. The white one is September and the chocolate is October.

Brecka

Had to post this one because I just heard from Brecka. They have reached their first anniversary and just had their wedding cake topper. She said it was still really good!! That's great to know after a year in the freezer!! I've had a lot of fun with the wedding cakes. Just did one last weekend and have another one this weekend. The camera's still in my purse, but I'll try to get it loaded soon. Just had to get this one up, though because it's one of my favorites. Actually, there's only one I didn't like and that was because of the flowers, not anything about the cake. Brecka was actually the one that got me started on the little keepsake toppers. Her top tier was an 8" square, which I thought was a lot of cake to put away, so I made her a 6" keeper. Then we could serve the 8" tier. It worked out so well to just put the keepsake tier right in the fridge and not have the cake cutters have to mess with it that I have done that ever since. Everyone seems to be very pleased with the idea! Anyway, must get on to other things. I have a birthday cake for the residents this afternoon!

Happy 50th Anniversary

Just a quick job! Five sheets for a little party!

This was at Janice's church, but not for Janice! I just posted hers, but it was from her party earlier this year.

For this one, I did two chocolate with chocolate frosting, one white on white, and two lemon cake with lemon frosting.

Janice

I was talking to Janice today, who was looking at my blog for the first time, and couldn't seem to find her cake. Well, here it is! It was a lovely white cake with a lovely white bead border. I offered the frills and roses, but she wanted a simple cake with real roses. It really was pretty, but I told her I really could have done more!!

Double weekend

I don't ever do this, but I did a two wedding cake weekend. One was a true wedding cake, but a small one, and the other was for Jenny, my very special "little sister." This was a bridal shower cake for Jenny for tomorrow. Since it wasn't a request and I could do whatever I wanted, I decided to just make it like the other one. Well, after I finished the "other one," my arm was as dead as when I did those sotas I just posted. Yes, that's why I posted that now!! It had some really pretty lace work and some fleur de lis, scattered with dots and roses. The roses are royal icing and there's nothing I like more than that!! I just delivered that cake; I didn't set it up, so the topper and the crystals for the base weren't set up yet when I left. Jenny's is at my house and will be decorated more tomorrow, so I may replace the picture then. I also made a separate top tier for Tolly, something I've been doing lately. This is the main reason. I'd hate to have to dig the top tier out of that mess to save it. This way it's all ready for the freezer! I also made Jenny a little topper to take home to Nate. She spoils him, so I guess I should, too!

Pain from the past

It may not look like it, but this was one of my hardest cakes ever. It was for a 50th anniversary a few years back, and had sotas on top of each tier. What's a sota? Well, it's basically cornelli lace that wanders and overlaps. I got a little carried away and made it pretty thick, so you couldn't see the top of the cake. It was very beautiful, but my brain lapse came when I matched the three sheet cakes to the sotas. My arm hurt forever. It took a week to recover from that one. But it really was one of my prettiest and most elegant!! I decided never to do that again! It can be thinner and still be very pretty!

Toni

This is another one from the past. I thought of it this weekend as I was saying how glad I was that I didn't have a Labor Day wedding cake this year! LD weekends are pretty busy for me, but this one was over the top. So that brought me to this, the wedding cake I was doing last year. It was a lot of fun. I made chocolate fondant wandering ropes and little horseshoes. Even that was difficult. I looked everywhere for horseshoe cutters, but finally had to make one from a tiny tulip cutter. She really had a nice cake. She had a western theme and everything went so very well together.

Little Girls

This request actually came in to the bakery, and I knew it would be more time consuming than we allow there, so I left a note for Cindy and sure enough, she gave her my number. It was really precious. Base iced in pink, pink tipped roses and little white daisies and a dress with cornelli lace. I was supposed to meet her before work, but she didn't show so I had to take it inside. (See the post about the sunflower cake if you need more info on leaving a cake in your car.) Everyone at the grocery store was talking about it. It was so adorable!!
And yes, she did come to pick it up, our clocks were just an hour off!!

Fire Bird Ballet

Every once in a while, I get a request that just makes me say ??? This was one. Precious little gal, had her in Cubbies, totally taken with ballet. She assured me that all she needed was a fire ball with wings. That's great until you go to actually do it. In my mind I'm still saying ??? so I Googled the Fire Bird Ballet. Great info, no help. Well, this wasn't at all what I had in my head to happen, but Aspen seemed so excited that I'm hoping it really was what she wanted.

A cupcake wedding!

Have to move quickly; my family is waiting for me! This bride wanted mini cakes or cupcakes. When we figured everything out, she decided on jumbo cupcakes. I think they turned out pretty well. Each has a blue and silver shamrock on it. That took forever!! The whole family was working on those last night!! But they look very nice now. The lighting wasn't great, but I do think this looks fairly nice. The band around the topper and all the shamrocks are made of fondant. We had a lot of fun on this one. Bring the family together!

Don't try this at home, kids

I really liked this one. A sunflower in our garden is about to bloom, so I just had to make one for the residents' cake this month.

I was a little disappointed that I didn't want to wait for the Ambassador to call back with the names like I've been doing, but I needed to get it done and get back to this week's wedding cake project.

Michael took it to work, and then remembered it was still in the car around 7pm.


I think it looked a little better before!

I'm also just noticing that Michael cut down that sunflower in the garden. grrrr

Happy Birthday Morgan

The next generation:I got a new dream castle set from the bakery, although Morgan had other plans for his birthday cake. He quickly changed them. Unfortunately, everything he wanted included a lot of rolled fondant cut outs. I convinced him that m & m's would be enough! I learned a lot from this and am really glad I got a practice one! If I ever do this one again, there is a lot to do differently. The plus is that Morgan really wanted to do this himself, so he really felt like he did.

My bad...

My favorite "little" family ordered this one for a son-in-law. They order a lot of cakes!! Rachel said he likes fishing, so I know that game! I got this idea off of a taunting little shirt Michael's mom sent him. It just so happened that it was too small for him, so I got it and she sent him a bigger one!! Oh, the fun we have with those. So anyway, here's hoping Rachel and Josh have a sense of humor!!

Happy Trails

How do you say good bye to all your troubles? Just kidding, but they did almost order a black cake. The whole thing was pretty funny, but they had good cake!

Carrot cake

Just had a small order this morning, but fun. It's a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

Elizabeth's Little Dots

This was supposed to be an all fondant cake, but I told Elizabeth that I can smooth out the buttercream and save time and money, plus people won't be picking off the fondant! She said she just wanted it like the picture and wanted people to like it. Everyone seemed to love it! Not sure how I always end up cutting cake, but hey, I guess I'm getting pretty good at it!! Mallory played the punch fairy again and all was well in the world.

The groom's cake was a soccer ball. I'd done this design as a baseball before, but it sank into the cake a bit. Thought I had the problem solved by putting supports under the ball, but then the ball just "deflated," so I'm not sure I solved anything! Well, it looked great to the bride and groom, but it just wasn't what I was thinking it could be. Next time, I may fondant cover the whole ball and see what that does. Like I said, it wasn't traumatic, but I was nervous.

I've also been making separate toppers for my brides. It's so much safer to have her layer to save already be saved! Since her cake was in three colors, I made her topper white with all three colors of dots. It was really pretty, but I just never could get a decent picture of it.

Fremont County Fair

So I took a little something to fair this year... and found I hadn't followed the rules!! All cakes, no matter what category, have to be tasted. Well, I hadn't counted on that. It is real cake, but I just didn't pay attention to things that I normally HAVE to! Didn't even watch for egg shells, no idea if I washed my hands and REALLY overbaked them so they could hold for three days. A normal cake stands for about six hours, so I knew three days was going to be a test in itself! They gave me a purple ribbon, but I'm afraid it may have been an act of compassion!! I checked for next year, and they said one edible tier would be fine. I can do that, but I'd still like supporting tiers to be completely overbaked!!

Anyway, the roses are royal icing, which means they're hard enough to crack teeth, but also strong enough to stand the Iowa heat. If I had been thinking, I would have put posts in each one. Had to learn that the hard way. I was putting them on the night before and at least four of them fell... actually rolled... off and I had to fix a little streak all the way down, along with the vines and shell border. What a mess. So, on a score card of 100 points, if I even got the 25 points for appearance I'm a lucky gal!!

You need what?!?

Always a fun time when you're knee deep in last minute fair preparations and Darling Hubby calls asking if you're remembering the residents' birthday cake. Of course, dear. They wanted white, right? That's good! Anyway, as we were going over the names, Michael told me who was no longer there, and it took me a while to realize he was saying that his favorite resident had passed away. I can only imagine how hard that is on him. She was a fun one. Always a dandy... "Finer than chocolate candy," was always her response to how she was doing. So, this is also in memory of Mary.

...catching up

This one was for my favorite twins. Nic is kind of sporty and Matt is pretty farmy. However the differences don't really end there. In fact, I've never seen any similarities in them other than their date of birth. But anyway, this was a somewhat last minute cake, so we had to come up with something fast. It was a bit disappointing because Nic is so fun to impress. Matt was impressed enough... it's cake. Normal reaction from him!! They're great boys and so talented.



The order for this one came from Michael's work. He just wanted a birthday cake for some gamer friends of his. No, I still don't have my airbrush; this is actually spray paint for cakes. It's new at the store and I haven't found it anywhere else yet. It can really fog up the house quickly, so next time I may try doing it in the mud room!!




...Then there was a groom's cake. A brownie, actually. It was for a Cubs fan, obviously!! The bridal cake was done by a family member who actually preceded me at the bakery. I never got to work with her, but I've met her a few times and she is a complete riot. Anyway, her cake was all red velvet (don't envy that job!!), so the groom's cake needed to be something far out of the ordinary. The bride's mom suggested brownies, since they were the groom's favorite. Don't know how you go wrong with that!! He loved it!!