Happy Birthday, Karl!

A few months back, my cousin, Claudine, threw out the idea of having a suprise 40th birthday party for her husband, my cousin, Karl.  It was pretty quickly decided that it would be "beer" themed, since Karl does enjoy his brew!  I knew that I had to make my favorite Car Bomb Cupcakes, which I've posted on here a few times.  After that was decided, I searched the interwebs for a good idea for the cake.  I found something fun that I wanted to try, and here are the results.

The cake was made with four 8 inch round cake pans.  I used Martha's One-Bowl Chocolate Cake recipe.  I used her fluffy vanilla icing recipe for the yellow base and her swiss meringue buttercream for the "foam". I covered a foam twist tie in plastic wrap and then fondant and shoved it into the side of the cake. 

The "beer" was made by caramelizing sugar and pouring it over a dowl and twisting.  I will admit that this was the hardest part.  I've never made candy before, and we really burnt the first batch.  Matt helped me figure it out after a lot of googling!

Jack was my baking helper that morning!

I wanted to give the "beer" a golden color to match the Fat Tire Beer that Karl loves so much, and Matt found this gold shimmer sugar in our pantry, and we added a little to the caramel mixture.  I think it added a nice sheen to the the "beer."

There was a lot of talk about how to cut the cake, but my dad figured it out.  My sister in law makes this recipe all the time, and it is always fantastic, so I thought I'd try out that recipe.  It tasted different than hers, but still delicious. 

Holly helped her daddy blow out the candles. 

Happy Birthday, Karl.  We love you!!!

Jedi Jack!

Happy 4th Birthday, Jack!

Our godson, Jack, loves himself some Star Wars, which is why he was thrilled when we named our son, Luke.  When Jack walked into the room just a few hours after was Luke was born, the first thing he asked was, "Is he going to be a Jedi?"  Needless to say, his fourth birthday was Star Wars themed.  Again, Matt came up with a pretty neat idea for his cake...a Death Star!  This time, even my dad got involved.  He helped me roll out fondant and even designed the rivets in the bottom of the cake. 

Matt was super excited to buy Jack a Darth Vader helmet.  It actually is a voice changer as well.  Matt had fun saying, "Luke...I am your father!" over and over again.  Unfortunately, with Jack's skinny legs, he ends up looking a little more like
Dark Helmet from Spaceballs. 

Even Luke got in on the action with a teeny tiny Star Wars onesie. 

Happy 4th Birthday, Jedi Jack!  May the Force be with you!!!



Go Phillies!

Happy 4th Birthday, Connor!

Several months back, I was contacted through the fabulous world of Facebook by a friend of mine to make her son's 4th birthday cake.  Kelly and I played basketball together in high school and even ended up at the same college.  We have been out of touch for awhile, so I was thrilled and surprised when she asked if I could make a Phillies themed cake for Connor.  Although the cake was needed for only a few short weeks after Luke was born, I couldn't pass up an oportunity to make a Phillies themed birthday cake.  As you probably remember from posts past, my husband is a Mets fan.  I am, however, not.  And I am determined to make my child a Phillies Phan!!! 

Kelly asked for a cake for the party and cupcakes to take home as favors.  Conor is allergic to nuts and likes vanilla cake, so I made my simple vanilla cake recipe from my Magnolia Bakery cookbook.   I will admit that the design of this cake is all Matt.  For a Mets fan, he really got into making this cake (I think he's a Phillies Phan at heart!). 

I cut all of the designs out of fondant for the cake and just piped on some red icing for the cupcakes.  I think they turned out pretty good.

Kelly wrapped the cupcakes up in these adorable boxes and tied them with a pretty red ribbon.

I will admit here that I am terrible at covering entire cakes in fondant.  I need a lot of practice.  Because of that, I had a lot of cracks along the side of the cake.  Matt came up with the great idea of covering oreos with fondant to make baseballs.  Genius.  Necessity is the mother of invention...

In order to cover up another large crack, Matt cut out this great MLB logo out of fondant.  I think he may be better at this than me!



Happy 4th Birthday, Connor!

Speaking of the Phillies and trying to make Luke a Phillies Phan, we got one step closer a couple of weeks ago while on our way to visit my parents in Raleigh, NC.  While waiting for our plane, the Phillie Phanatic and a few players were helping out at Southwest Airlines.  Luke got in pictures with a few current players, a few past players and the Phillie Phanatic!  He even made the local news...CHECK IT OUT!!!!!

Here is Luke with Larry Anderson, Gary Matthews and John Mayberry, Jr.  A few weeks later, my brother and sister-in-law met John Mayberry, Jr. at a charity function, and he said he remembered Luke!!  So cool.

Here is Luke and I with Shane Victorino. 

And of course with the Phillie Phanatic!!!

It was such a cool experience that we ended up missing our flight!  Luckily, Southwest Airlines was very gracious and put us on the very next flight and we were only an hour later than we originally planned. 

GO PHILLIES!!!!



Holly turns 3!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Holly!

I'm sure you all remember Holly from birthdays and showers past...

Well, Holly turned three this year and decided that she wanted a "Pink Piggy" party.  With some help from my mom, Matt and a baby who sleeps well, we were able to accomplish some cute cakes and cupcakes. 

I will admit that in my new mom stupor, I messed up one of the batches of cupcakes, but we recovered and produced a small chocolate cake and two batches of cupcakes...one chocolate and one vanilla.

After mulling around some design ideas for a few weeks, my godmother stopped by and gave me a new cupcake book.  Wouldn't you know, they had a cute idea for piggy cupcakes!?  So, after a few modifications, this is what we came up with...

I was a little preoccupied in that Luke was less than two weeks old so I didn't get any pictures.  Luckily, Matt was a little more on the ball and snapped these gems. 

Happy Birthday, Holly... We love you!!!

A slightly inappropriate post...enter at your own risk :P

A swim team baby shower...

One of my bestest friends, Denise, asked me to make her a small cake and cupcakes for a baby shower her swim team is throwing for a teammate.   She asked that it be swim themed but baby girl-ish, too.  After about a month of googling, thinking and brainstorming, I came up with an idea for the cupcakes. 

They asked for purple, hence the purple frosting.  

The ducks are made of homemade fondant that took a little while to get to the right colors.  I definitely recommend gel food coloring when using fondant.  Much more vibrant colors.  I used a food coloring pen for the eyes and to fill in the goggles.

When it came to the cake, I was going to make a bigger ducky to go on it, but after talking to Denise last night, she made a special request.  This is what she came up with.  Slightly irreverent but very hilarious.  She swears the girl will find it funny, and I hope she does!  I was hesitant to post this but I think the warning in the post title should be enough! 

This cake speaks for itself....there are no words....

Here is everything all together.  I hope the team has a great time celebrating the newest member of their swim team!

Happy 1st Birthday, Meah.

Meah turns 1.

A friend of mine's niece turns one this weekend, and she and her boyfriend asked me to make a cake and cupcakes to commemorate the occasion.  The only direction they gave was that she was turning one and she is very "girly."  I did some  googling and came up with a cute but simple idea.  Again, I stuck with chocolate cake and vanilla cupcakes, since most kids like simple flavors.  Again, I used Martha's Fluffy Vanilla Icing recipe, which I think is the easiest to work with and tastes fantastic.  All of the other details are made of fondant...

Its snowing here, which always puts me in the mood for baking...

I think the look of the daisies is simple and cute.

I really wanted the cupcakes to coordinate with the cake, and I think it turned out great.

The cake...

The cute little teddy bear...I am digging teddy bears these days and have been wanting to do something with them on a cake...

I asked Matt to come up with a cake board for me since I ran out of them and didn't want to run out to the store in the snow.  This is what he came up with.  Cute, right? 

Happy 1st Birthday, Meah!

Happy Birthday, Erika!

To be 25 again...

Our friend, Erika, celebrated her 25th birthday last weekend.  Although she isn't a big dessert person, she still needed a cake to blow out her candles!  I made some vanilla cupcakes with Hershey's Cocoa frosting....simple and delicious.  For the cake, I made a devil's food cake with chocolate ganache icing.  It didn't turn out quite as pretty as I had hoped, but Oh Boy was it delicious!  Perfect dessert for a late night party!

I topped off the cupcake with a chocolate covered sunflower seed.  Looks purple in the picture, but it was actually pink...one of Erika's favorite colors.

I found these decorative cake wires at Michael's and thought they might be fun.  I topped them off with some sparkly baubles.    The only problem was that my battery to my camera died while I was taking pictures, so this is the only one I got of the cake...





Pink themed baby shower

Pink, pink and more pink...

A few weeks ago, my cousin, Karen, aka my best customer, asked me to make a small cake for a "Sprinkle" she and her friends were throwing for their friend, Deb.  The only theme I was told was "pink" since this will be her first girl after a few boys.  I've been wanting to try a quilting technique I have seen, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity.  Since these ladies are classy people, I didn't want to "baby" the cake up too much with storks and bears and such.  I just wanted it to be pretty in pink.  I made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and topped it with pink fondant and candy pearls. 

 I told my cousin to tell people not to look to close.  Its like a Monet, from far away, it looks pretty, but up close its a big old mess.  (Bonus points if you get the movie reference).

I love the quilting technique and hope to perfect it in the near future.

I had some leftover ribon and a cake box.  I always think it makes it extra special when it arrives in a nice package!

And the mommy-to-be.  I've never met you, Deb, but I'm sure your little girl will be precious!  Congratulations!

Happy 30th Birthday, Jennifer!

I love the 80's!

One of my bestest friends, Jennifer, turned 30 in August, and her sisters and friends decided to throw her a totally awesome 80's suprise birthday party.  Not only was I excited to celebrate Jen, my mind was spinning with ideas for the desserts!  I thought about this party for months and couldn't wait to get started. 

This is the first time I've used fondant in such large quantities.  I decided to try out Duff's line at Michael's and used a lot of his products.  I have to admit, I loved most of them.  Well, except the white fondant.  Awful.  When I opend the package, the fondant was liquid!  I don't know if I got a bad batch or what, but I was definitely disappointed.  I will stick with my homemade recipe for now.  However, the black fondant was fantastic.   Also, I used some of his cake tatoos.  They were fun to use and worked well for the tie dye cake. 

First, we have Michael Jackson gloves and neon RayBan sunglass sugar cookies.

Next, we have a Rubix Cube chocolate cake!

Miss Pacman chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting.

Simon vanilla cake.

The total package. 



The cake for Jen to blow out her candles.  Neon tie dye cake!

The inside of the cake..so much fun to make.

And finally, the fabulous Repetto sisters, all decked out in their 80's gear (Jennifer is on the right).  Jen was completely surprised, despite my bad acting trying to get her there.  And her sisters picked her the perfect outfit for her to change into once she arrived.  Happy (belated) birthday, Jennifer!  We love you!