My Going Away Party!

It's been a year, and I am finally posting this....

That's right! I am moving (or have moved seeing as it has taken me a while to finally update my blog) to Asheville, North Carolina to pursue a dream job of mine.... This means that I will be temporarily closing up shop (for now, with a potential of reopening in NC!).  Continue to stop by and check out the pictures because I will hopefully be updating this blog with things I am doing at work!

Pumpkin Cupcakes with a Spiced Cream Cheese Icing

Chocolate Chip and Gingerbread Cookies

Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes with a Chocolate Buttercream Icing

Banana Cupcakes with a Vanilla Buttercream Icing

Red Velvet Cupcakes with a Cream Cheese Icing

Sour Cream Spice Cake with a Spiced Cream Cheese Icing

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes, Guinness Chocolate Cake with a Irish Cream Icing

Eggnog Cheesecake squares

Apple crumble 

Pumpkin cheesecake mousse with graham cracker crumbs and whip cream

Mini Pumpkin Pies

The overall spread.... I think people were pleased!

Chocolate Birthday Cake

This was a very simple, yet delicious birthday cake.  It was a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and glazed with a chocolate ganache.  The border and writing was piped out of white chocolate and it was garnished with fresh fruit.  There are cookies crumbs pressed on the side.

4th of July Wedding Cake

This was a buttercream three tier cake with buttercream piping decorations.  The bride created the topper and drew the firework design she wanted.  Bottom tier had royal blue fireworks and border, the middle tier had regal purple fireworks and border, and the top tier alternated royal blue and regal purple fireworks and border.

Design up close before the topper was put on

M&M Birthday Cake

These are the birthday cakes I made for one of my co-workers who LOVES M&M's.  The Yellow M&M is coconut cake with cream cheese filling and the red M&M is red velvet cake with cream cheese filling.  Both are covered in fondant.  These cakes were so much fun to make!

Halloween Wedding

This was SUCH a fun cake! I did this last year and apparently forgot to post it.  They had a costume wedding on halloween.  It was so much fun!

The Whole Cake

Their initials were AJJ so the tombstones had AJJ, J2010 and Until Death Do Us Part

Fondant pumpkins and the design was mimicking the wrappings on the cupcakes the bride wanted

The topper was made out of royal icing and the royal icing bats were hanging from metal wires

View of the whole table

Cupcakes the bride purchased placed around the cake

I Was Bored... So I Experimented....

 I was bored one day so I decided to go though a few magazines and experiment with some unique cookie recipes.  

This was a mexican hot chocolate cookie.  It was a chocolate cookie with cream of tartar in it, so it was similar to a snicker-doodle.  It also had cayenne pepper and ancho chili pepper so it was mildly spicy. This cookie was beautiful when it was presented.  Next time I believe I will lightly dust it with powdered sugar after it is baked.

This was a coconut macaroon.  I made the egg white mixture and mixed in shaved coconut.  Then I created these little cones and toasted them in the oven.  The were soft, yet chewy and were a real hit with all of the coconut lovers out there!

This was by far the most unique cookie I made during my experimentation day. It was a bacon ginger cookie.  It was similar to a gingerbread cookie because of its soft texture.  I used both bacon fat and small bits of bacon in the cookie and topped it with granulated sea salt, so it was the perfect balance of salty and sweet. The ginger addition was nice because it cleansed your pallet after the richness of the bacon.  

A Hawaiian Bravo!

This cake was simple yet elegant for a graduation celebration. It was covered in vanilla buttercream with pink fondant ribbon. The hawaiian flowers were made out of gum paste and were colored with luster dust. 

Kaitlyn is 21!

This was one of the most fun cakes to make! It was a red velvet cupcake cake with brown cream cheese icing.  Due to the fact it was made out of cupcakes, it was easy to serve at the 21st birthday celebration.  

Sandy's Sunflower Wedding

This was a simple yet elegant way to do a fall themed wedding cake.  This client was on a strict budget so fake flowers were used, however it could easily be done with real flowers or even gum paste flowers.  The bottom cake was carrot cake with a cream cheese filling, the middle was a pumpkin spice cake with spiced cream cheese filling and the top cake was a spiced apple cake with vanilla cinnamon buttercream.  The whole cake was covered in white fondant with real ribbon acting as the borders and decoration.  I covered the cake board in leaves (also fake) to finish off the fall theme. 

Jenny's Beach Wedding

This wedding cake was fun to do! The bottom tier was carrot cake with cream cheese filling, the middle tier was chocolate cake with strawberry filling, and the top cake was a gluten free carrot cake with cream cheese filling (the bride has a sever gluten allergy). 

It was covered in ivory fondant and decorated with real seashells, which I bleached and cleaned before using.  I used cookie crumbs mixed with sugar to imitate the sand at the bottom.  

This cake was fun because the unique style of starfish were used throughout all of the decorations and on the table settings.  

Baby Bassinets

For a baby shower a client asked that I make 2 bassinets (the mommy to be was having twins). These were oval shaped cakes covered in white fondant with fondant decorations. The whole cake was then airbrushed with a pearl sheen to make it shiny.  

I made the top of the bassinet out of crispy treats and covered them with fondant as well.

I used a pastry cutter with a decorative edge to make each of the blankets look quilted. The sides were given a triangle quilted pattern and I used edible blue and pink shiny pearls on the sides.

The bear was made out of fondant, and there were baby foot prints surrounding the base of the cake. I used fondant to also make the ruffle along the top and the bottom of the cake.

The babies were made out of fondant as well, and were decorated to look like the parents to be.

 Overall these were fun cakes to have at a baby shower and could easily serve 25.

A Fall Tasting

 This was for a dessert tasting, so I made small bite size desserts. The first dessert were mini French style apple pies, with the crumb topping. 

The second dessert was layers of cheesecake filled with a cranberry orange jelly and a toasted graham cracker crumbs.  It was topped with a small amount of the filling and some fresh orange zest.

Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the last dessert, a mini pumpkin cake with a dollop of spiced cream cheese frosting. 

It's a Duck Wedding

This was for a small wedding, so a single layer cake was what the client was looking for.  It is a red velvet cake with cream cheese filling and was covered in fondant.

I did a swirly pattern on the top out of buttercream.  The client provided these adorable bride and groom ducks.

I used a stripe of pink fondant around the base and decorated it to look like ribbon using pink and yellow buttercream as well.