Baby Bump

A couple of years ago another friend of mine asked me to make a cake for her friend's baby shower.  I saw this cake idea online.  Some people thought it was creepy to have a headless pregnant body, but I thought it was really cute...

Ahoy There, Matey!

Two years ago a friend of mine asked me to make a pirate cake for her son's birthday party.  She sent me a picture of a carved pirate ship, but I had not yet done a carved cake (I still have only done one, I think).  I came up with a still rather ambitious plan, and set out to make Diogo a wonderful pirate cake.  The finished product:

The "water" was covered in whipped frosting with fondant decorations.

The ship was all chocolate!  Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate fondant making the wooden slats.  The pirates are made of brownies and fondant.

A Colorful Birthday

Two-year-olds love to do pretty much anything and everything, including coloring.  So this 2-year-old had a coloring birthday party.

The cake was an 8-inch round cake with whipped frosting and fondant decorations.

There were also solid color cake and cookie pops.

Sticking with the theme, there was a buffet of colorful food, mock Sangria, M&Ms, and lots of crayons!.

Cupcakes

Cupcakes are fun for any occasion, because they are easy to grab and eat.  I made these cupcakes just for fun.  I cannot remember any more if I used buttercream or whipped frosting, but the roses are buttercream.

Dozen buttercream rose cupcake cost: $24

These were for a friend's son's first birthday party.

Dozen unfilled cupcakes with whipped frosting only: $15
Dozen unfilled cupcakes with whipped frosting and fondant decorations: $18


These fun little cupcakes were to celebrate a friend's engagement.  The bows are fondant and the flowers are royal icing.

Dozen unfilled cupcakes with premium decoration: $30

These "hamburgers" were to celebrate my husband's birthday.  I forgot to take a picture before the party, and these were all that were left by the time I remembered!

Dozen hamburger cupcakes: $18

April Showers Bring May Flowers!

So, we don't really get a lot of April showers here in Phoenix, but May flowers have been appearing in my kitchen this week!  Friday was my little one's last day of day care, so I made cake pops.  They are slightly time consuming, so I made some flowers and left the rest plain (for the kids).

The staff at her center loved them, and the center director asked me if I could make her some more for Saturday.  The lesson that I learned from that is that 2 dozen is the most that I can make in one day (without totally neglecting my family and/ or staying up all night).

Who wouldn't love a dozen roses for Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, or just because?

I had a couple fall of their sticks.  What a beautiful "reject!"

Flower cake pops: $3 each (with or without a stick)

Cookies!

I spent last weekend making cookies.  They did not all turn out like I was hoping, but there were some delicious cookies!  I was trying to make sugar cookies, but they did not roll out well.  I guess I will go back to my "original" recipes that I used to make the monkey and flower cookies when I want shaped cookies.

The peanut butter cookies were too dry.  I will definitely have to try a different recipe.

These cookies, however, were fabulous!  They are almond sugar cookies.  They did the best job with rolling out for cookie cutters.  I also made chocolate sugar cookies, which did not roll out well at all, and they did not photograph well, either.

There cookies were great as well.  They are Mexican hot chocolate chip cookies.

Here they are all packaged up for my hubby to take to work.

And here they are after traveling to St. Louis.  I sent one package to my dad and "bonus" mom, and another to one of my favorite college professors.  Too bad they crumbled on their journey!

A Very MInnie Birthday

Last summer a friend's daughter was turning 2, and she was having a Minnie Mouse birthday party.  She asked if I could make her cake.  Of course I could!  She was really thinking that I would use the Wilton Mickie Mouse cake pan, but I had something slightly different in mind.

The base cake was a white cake with strawberry cream cheese filling, butter cream frosting and fondant decorations.  The mouse hat was chocolate cake covered in fondant.

Since I had the supplies and tend to be an overachiever, I didn't stop there.

I made personalized favors for each of the party guests to take home - sugar cookies covered in fondant.  Then I packaged them nicely for each guest!