Christmas!!

Chris and I were asked to bring food to Christmas dinner. We decided on an appetizer and desert. So Christmas morning I baked biscuits for breakfast "biscuits and gravy," two loaves of bread for bruscetta (our appetizer) and two batches of cupcakes. Needless to say.. I shouldn't have to bake for a while!

So I made chocolate and vanilla cupcakes and again my butter-cream frosting. I striped the bag with red food coloring before I put the frosting in to make it swirled like a candy cane. 

Inside each cupcake I put a candy cane flavored Hershey Kiss in each cupcake. I didn't flavor the frosting but I could have with peppermint extract. 

I thought maybe that the Hershey Kiss would have melted but as you can see... still intact!

Happy Birthday Vivian!

 Our friends, Charisce and David, asked me to make a cake for their daughter Vivian. Miss Vivian loves Sponge Bob Square Pants. And she wanted a crabby patty cake


I baked two full cakes. the top bun was baked in a Pyrex bowl and the middle and bottom buns were 8" round cakes. Coloring the frosting was very difficult. I had a hard time coming up with right color for the meat. The bun was easy and I used marshmallow bits to make the seeds. Green and orange frosting was the lettuce and cheese.

Vivian was a very happy 5 year old. 

The cake was a success! 

Halloween Party for Us

My sister and brother-in-law threw a Halloween party this year. We were required to dress up. Joanna was a clown, Patrick was Bob-the-Builder, Christopher was a phone sex operator. Katie and John had just gotten back from their honeymoon so they were.. you guessed it... Honeymooners!! Mischa and Jacob were dead.. and Michael was part of the Mexican mafia.

What is better for a Halloween treat than cake pops?

I don't bake the cake in balls! Instead I make a cake and a very small batch of frosting. About 20 minutes after I have taken the cake out of the oven, I crumble it in the frosting and remix it with the beaters until the cake looks completely wet. I then roll it into balls and let it cool. While they are cooling, you have to melt chocolate and then dip your cake pop into the chocolate and sprinkles or toppings and let harden.

There are so many ways to display cake balls.. this time I just used my cake carrier. Over all it didn't matter! There were only two left at then end!

A New Baby

I love to bake. I love watching someone's expression and hearing the "yum" from them when they take the first bite. I make homemade butter-cream frosting which is milky and sweet but not too sweet!

This baking experience was for a work baby shower. One of my colleagues (actually his wife) had a baby girl and we threw him a surprise baby shower. How flipping cute are baby things!?!

 So for this cake.. I had to incorporate baby blocks.. and a pink baby buggy! We didn't know baby's name yet. All we knew was that it was a girl! What says baby better than blocks and a buggy.

I first frosted the cake with regular butter-cream and then with a toothpick, scratched the outline of the blocks and the letters. I wasn't sure how I was going to do the buggy so I didn't draw those.  With a star tip,I first frosted the blocks and then went back with a regular tip and did the letters.     

                                     

 I also created the buggy with a star tip in pink colored frosting (yellow and green too). Wilton has a great stencil for baby buggy's. I had made cookies with the same stencil and royal icing for my sister-in-law when my niece, Lucy was born. 

 This cake needed to be finished off with yellow shell border and more pink designs. So fun!