Monday, August 31, 2009

Another Diaper Bag Cake

Are you getting sick of cake posts yet?

Well, I actually have a couple of different things I want to post, BUT this has been a crazy weekend full of activities, so I just popped in today to post a picture real quick for those who had asked to see this cake.

Two years ago I made a diaper bag cake, and I was fairly happy with it. Not completely, but I thought it turned out pretty good. But when I made that cake, it was for a baby shower I was attending, so I just purchased a baby bottle and a few toys to stick in the bag and those were part of my gift to the expectant mom.

This year, I didn't know the mom, and was not attending the shower, so I decided to make all the toys and baby bottle edible. (Don't get too excited, I use molds for most of it, and just paint on details. I'm not very good with scuplting things!) :-) This time I was much happier with the final result.

The cake itself is french vanilla with buttercream filling. (I stay away from the fruit fillings with cakes that are stacked like this as they tend to slide around when they get tall like this.)




Next time I promise to post the goodness that is Vidalia Onion Casserole! Yummm.....

Friday, August 21, 2009

Virtue is En Vogue!




Last year my friend Linda got me involved in making cakes for the annual Virtue En Vogue Event that is put on by Vicki Courtney's Virtuous Reality Ministry. Last time, if you recall, I made this "fashion show" cake with real working lights along the red carpet.


Last year, however, they had an additional 150 people buy tickets at the door, and they ran out of desserts! And no, I was not the only one bringing desserts, I was merely one cog in a machine of bakeries and organizations and individuals that were all donating. So this year, when they were again asking for volunteers to donate desserts, I enlisted the help of my local cake supply/bakery All in One Bake Shop and they were nice enough to donate 100 cupcakes to the cause. I also asked my friend from church if she would help out since she is also a cake baker, and is known throughout our church for her yummy cake balls. She jumped on the band wagon, and along with other volunteers/bakeries we had plenty of desserts for the almost 500 guests this year!

And since my daughter was old enough to attend the event this year, she and I took our daughters with us and we all had a great time!

My struggle this year was in trying to decide what to make for the display cake. Last year, I made the above cake for the main table and then just made plain cakes to be sliced and served and therefore didn't require any fancy decorating. My inspiration for this year's cake came straight from the flyer promoting the event.

I decided to make this girl standing on top of a simple 2 tiered white cake with pink lettering.
I made her out of gumpaste that I colored black and then used pink icing to make her waistband and black icing to add dimesion. I totally forgot my camera, so I had to take this one with my phone, but hopefully, you'll get the idea!


We all had a great time at the event, and are looking forward to next year....but I think I need to start thinking now about an idea for NEXT year's cake now!

If you want to know more about this annual mother/daughter event, you can check out Vicki's Blog, Virtue Alert.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Can you say, BORING?


Hey everyone. Today has been totally boring...

I played some Farm Town, did some housework, and baked some cakes, but I've had this wicked acid reflux thing going on the past couple of days, so I didn't really accomplish all that much. Not sure what the deal is, but it's annoying!

And since I only baked cakes today, and didn't decorate them yet, I don't even have any good pictures for you...sigh. But I do have a couple of movies to recommend to you!

I've seen 3 movies in the past couple of weeks, and two of them were fabulous, and one of them was so totally aggravating that I wanted to a) get my $9.00 back, and b) hand out copies of the book to everyone in the theater who hadn't read it yet. I really liked the book "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Piccoult, and the ending totally caught me by surprise, so I was very excited to see the movie. But in the movie, they changed the ending and made it a totally different story....so in a word, AGGRAVATING!

On the other hand, the movie version of "The Time Traveler's Wife" was WONDERFUL! I was nervous about how it would translate to the screen...especially after the disaster that was "My Sister's Keeper", but they really did an amazing job with it. They left out all the little side stories from the book (which I didn't care for all that much anyway), and they focused on the love story between the main characters. It was really, really well done.

And then just last night, I saw "Julie and Julia", and I LOVED it! I laughed and laughed through the whole thing. Meryl Streep was perfect, and while I was disappointed to learn that Julia Child was not happy about Julie's blog, that was real, so it didn't affect my love for the movie.

So there you go, a lazy day for me, and a bunch of movies for you to go out and see (or NOT see as the case may be).

So how about you? Seen any good movies lately, or read any good books? Let me know in the comments if there's something I should be seeing or reading!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Hi Vanessa!

Hello there everyone, and especially Vanessa (because she told me last night that she clicks over here every day, and I never write anything any more)!

Well at least I've been productive while I was gone this time...

Here are my latest 3 cakes, and believe it or not, I have more coming up! So, if nothing else, at least I'll have cake pictures to post! :)

This one was for my great-nephew's 2nd Birthday...He's a big fan of "Wow Wow Wubbzy" (and after doing my research for the cake, so is my little Dave!) It's a little tough to see from this picture, but the reason there is only 1 candle on the cake that is on the cake (confused much?) is that the pink bunny, Widget is holding the second candle and is about to add it to the cake....just wanted to make that clear. :)

As for the particulars square cakes on the bottom are chocolate, the circular cake is white chocolate, the whole thing is covered in buttercream and then covered in fondant. The Wubbzy and the "kickety kick ball" on the top were formed out of rice cereal treats and then covered with a combination of fondant and modeling chocolate.


This is just a white chocolate cake with raspberry filling covered in fondant with a chocolate fondant bow for a friend's baby shower. Sorry, I took the picture before I brushed off the extra powdered sugar off the bow...I'm a true professional aren't I? :)


And finally, this was a chocolate cake with raspberry filling and iced in buttercream. The butterflies and dragonflies I made out of gumpaste and then painted with food coloring mixed with lemon extract. It's hard to see in a 2D picture, but they were all on sticks, so they stuck up from the top of the cake as though they were flying above it.

And that's it for now. It's been a long week, and another long day tomorrow, so I'm heading off to bed for now. But hopefully, I made Vanessa smile when she clicked on here today! :)