Aug/Sept. 2013

I have had a lot of fun these two months creating detailed masterpieces.  Fondant has been the most
incredible use of icing I have found to use.  I used to paint with acrylic on canvas and try to sell my art work in coffee shops in Australia.  I have found that my new form of edible art sells much better.  I get to design exactly what the customer wants, and even fine tune it better than they could even imagine.  So, all to say - - I am having the time of my life discovering my new found cake creating ability.  I would love to open up my own cake shop one day!  That would be absolutely exciting!!!

JULY Cakes!!

I had a great time creating this beautiful cake for my baby girl's First Birthday!  The month of July was a busy cake month for me as well as teaching swimming lessons in the heat!  Please see my new photo updates to see all that I created in July! 

June 2013

What a grand and beautiful month!  The crab apple trees were in full bloom on the weekend of our family reunion as we got together to celebrate my grandfather's 85 wonderful years on this earth before entering the gates of heaven.  I created a piano cake for my grandfather's memorial service as he was an amazing pianist.

May 2013

What a beautiful month, watching the flowers bloom and the rain cover the earth as everything turns green and colorful once again.  I enjoyed baking 350 cupcakes for a rodeo banquet.  I also got to design a number of beautiful custom cakes.  I have learned so much about the use of fondant as well.  It is a great challenge and I am still learning more about creating that perfect cake. 

This cake is from the Zelda Warrior Games.  It is Majora's mask.  This cake took over 10 hours as I had to do quite a bit of research to figure out the best design.  I enjoyed working with all of the colors!

Happy Spring!!  For the Easter Celebration  I made a gorgeous fresh vanilla bean Madeira Cross cake covered in handmade roses that I created out of white and dark molding chocolate.  65 handmade leaves decorate every edge of the cake. This cake took days of preparation and turned out divine.  It has a Ganache icing over a layer of apricot glaze. 

March Fondant Icing Enjoyment!

Although it is still the middle of winter and spring wants to come, it gives me reason to bake and experiment with the cold weather keeping me indoors with the children.  I baked a lovely Madeira cake, created into free-hand horse design, buttercream icing, fondant icing, strawberry preserve filling! I decorated with dark chocolate creations, a colored fondant bridal and curly ribbon for a mane!  It turned out fabulously! 

I then created an igloo with 11 penguins and 1 snowman out of fondant icing.  Again I baked the dense, moist, delicious Madeira cake!  It was a hit for the 11 children that came to my son's 2nd Birthday party!   Each taking home a penguin with them.   

Cake Pops!

February, the month of Love!  It was a very busy month for me!  I had a week to myself on a tour of Washington DC, for the first time.  Upon my return to my children and home we got to work on Valentine's Day goodies!  White Chocolate Dipped Strawberries, Key Lime Cheesecake Pops,  Chocolate Cake Pops, and lots of sweet hugs and kisses!

January 2013

     How wonderful, a New Year!  How exciting to spend so much time in the snow!   We enjoyed baking Gingerbread Pirates and icing them with layers of colored icing and candy!  The boys loved it!  I let them take over, which was FUN!  I am looking forward to trying my hand at making cake pops soon. 
     Not much baking this month, more time in the snow, sledding, and long walks. 

Christmas Time!!

     "Oh it's the most wonderful time of the year..."  What a beautiful holiday season to be baking, spending money on Christmas presents for others, decorating a lovely tree with every sort of sparkle and shine!  My kids and I have had an incredibly wonderful December already and still two weeks to Christmas!  I love watching the kids dance to Holiday music while I bake and clean, and to join in and feel like a kid again myself!  I am in the process of making delicious pumpkin fudge and peppermint fudge!  YUM!!  My eldest, Malachi, tried fudge for the first time at the store, "taste testers", and immediately said, "More budge please mom!"  So cute!  The four of us had a photo with Santa and my two boys wrote letters to Santa as well.  Malachi rehearsed all morning what he wanted to ask Santa for and tried to figure out how we could cut a hole in the ceiling so that Santa could come in since we don't have a chimney!  Love it!

Thanksgiving

There is so incredibly much to be thankful for! We celebrate with a heart of Thanksgiving every day at my house!!!

I created an entire choir of Thanksgiving Turkeys  out of Oreo cookies, chocolate covered Carmel balls, Reeces Peanut butter Cups, black icing, candy corn, yellow icing, black and red licorice.  They turned out incredibly cute and were easy to make even for the kids. Photos soon...

Fondant and Chocolate!

     I did manage to roll out my fondant a few too many times with too many interruptions and too much Crisco!  So, it worked the first roll out and was not so happy with me after I worked it too much.  But, all about experimenting with new flavours, ideas, and the three kids to tend!!  I opted for something even tastier and much more relaxing and lovely to work with..........yes, CHOCOLATE, white and dark. 

     I made molding chocolate, white chocolate roses, white and dark chocolate leaves, and dark chocolate baskets!   The dark chocolate cake I baked to apply my fondant to ended up covered in mocha butter cream icing and my white chocolate garnishes!  I will have to work more with fondant to find out its' secrets!  I have already learned so much about fondant from numerous internet videos that I found very helpful. 

Fondant

     I made butter cream flavored fondant from scratch today!  It was hard work kneading out the icing to form a perfect consistency.  It has a great flavor, which was my main goal.  Fondant can look so amazing on cakes, and then I find the flavor to be disappointing.  So, my aim to create a great flavored fondant worked. 
     I have yet to roll out the icing and decorate a cake with it.  I am looking forward to seeing what happens and if I can get just the look for a cake I hope to create with the fondant icing.  My 1.5 year old son decided he would help me and poured out the expensive bottle of butter flavoring all over the kitchen table.  I just kept a smile on my face and gave him a different project.  Glad I had already used the 2.5 tsp. needed for the recipe so I did not have to head to the store at the last minute.

Marshmallow Animal Harvest Farm

     What a fun filled, busy few days as I stayed up til 1:30 am a couple of nights decorating cakes.  It is the best time to do it with no interruptions from my three little kids!  I enjoy the art of detail and realism, so combine that with baking and lots of icing, wow!  Terrific!  I love to experiment and found some new creations to do for Thanksgiving, so keep your eyes out for new photos on my blog.  I am also excited to try my hand at making my own fondant as well.  I will let you know how it turns out, as I try to come up with an incredible flavour of fondant, not just a great look.

Autumn

Pumpkin Fruit Cake!

     What a beautiful time of year, Autumn!  I love the crisp air, the colorful array of leaves, the smell of wood smoke, and a house full of the smell of baking!  I just completed a Pumpkin Fruitcake and decorated it to look like a pumpkin with chocolate leaves!  It tasted delicious!  My older son helped me decorate and taste test and even made two chocolate covered leaves on his own. 

Happy Birthday Bear!

 This was the Teddy Bear cake I made for my son's 1st Birthday!  I used colored M&M's, rolled out gumdrops, and jelly beans for decorations!  And lots of chocolate icing!

For a Love of Cake!

After watching and helping my mom bake cakes and being absolutely amazed at her incredible talent of cake decorating, I decided it was time to get more serious and dedicated to the art of cake decorating myself.  I have since spent numerous years experimenting with cakes for many occasions and taking photos to create quite a collection!  My craziest moments in time were the heat and humidity in Australia, and trying to get the icing just right so it would not melt off as I was putting it on!