Exciting News

I'm going to see how much I can squeeze into this post...

First of all, I would guess you're wondering about the exciting news!! Well I missed April Fool's to pull the "I'm pregnant!" gag... hehe! No, we really do have big news. My husband and I are getting to move back to our hometown! Both of our families are there and we're so excited to be moving back. He got a fantastic new job which he is incredibly excited about and there will be new opportunities for me!!

Now down to business... We have a house to sell! I'm telling pretty much everyone so I might as well mention it here, just in case there's someone who needs/someone who knows someone who needs a house. It's a 3 bedroom/2 bath 1300 sq. ft. house in West Mobile built in 2003. We love it, but must move on.

I won't bore y'all with all the details, so if you're interested PLEASE let me know. I will get you all the info you need!!

Now on to cakes and cookies, of course!! I was pretty excited about these cookies. These are the first cookies I've done for a lingerie shower.

Here are a few of my favorites...

Here's a pretty basic birthday cake. It's for a boy, so they're not much on decorations...

Here's a groom's cake. It's chocolate cake and peanut butter icing. Yummmmy.

 Nothing too special, but it smelled delicious.

 Before we leave town, I have a few cakes I want to make for some people.  This is the strawberry margarita cake. I made it a couple weeks ago and thought it was delicious! I had to share! I ended up having a few layers...

 Top it off with lime cream cheese icing and you're done!! Oh my goodness, it's so good!

 This was for a friend of mine's wedding shower. She's actually the one who trained me at my job when I first moved to Mobile! I was attempting to mimic a design I saw that had the dots sparse at the bottom and more as they went up the cake. Not sure I pulled it off. I wish I had done a little more to the cake. Maybe a ribbon border at the bottom or something. Bummer. I really liked the colors too. I don't think the cake met it's potential :(

 So I finished up the cake, packed it up and drove 15 minutes to meet my friend...

 BOOM!

Lovely explosion.

 Not just in one place either. Nice huh?

I've been told the sun will have that effect. Heat, etc. But it gets much hotter in these parts than it did last weekend. Not sure quite what happened. I sure prefer that it happened on this cake and not the wedding cake the weekend before! 

 And check it out! Only one burn ;)

It's been a while since I've burned myself. 

Here's another cake I wanted to make for someone before I left. It's a peanut butter cake with chocolate buttercream icing. I like the piping. I never do stuff like that.

 Of course, then I swamp it with ganache! But I had some left over and there was no need to waste it!

I hope the recipients enjoyed!

Was that enough in one post? We'll see what else I have time to make before I go! Buy my house!!! :D

OH YEAH!! I actually won a giveaway from a blog! I feel so special. I'm even mentioned in the post!
Check out Cup a Dee Cakes!! Here's the post where I'm listed as the winner! Hooray!

St. Patty's Day

Just to be upfront with you, I have no festive creations for St. Patrick's Day (but maybe I'll throw an oldie in there now that I've mentioned it:). Nope, St. Patty's Day weekend just seemed to be a really popular weekend to celebrate anything! My cousin got married on St. Patrick's Day, but I wasn't able to make it (it was 6 hours away) because of all the cakes. Obviously, I love making cakes!! But I was sad to miss out on his big day and visit all my family. So what kept me so busy??

Friday I had a birthday cake for a girl at my church. Her birthday is on St. Patrick's Day and last year I made this for her.

 This is the festive cake I said I would throw in. I was pretty excited about this cake. I thought it turned out very well. The rainbow is fondant. I did have to use some cardboard to help keep it standing.

This year I made a cake that looked like a phone case she was getting for her birthday.

It was with Nutella icing! Yum. Of course, I like my buttercream because I can decorate with it. Other icings aren't always as cooperative, but I think it worked out alright in this case.

Saturday, I had 3 cakes: 2 anniversary cakes and 1 birthday cake. One anniversary cake I didn't even get a picture of. It was pretty basic anyway. It was a strawberry margarita cake (don't worry, no alcohol). Strawberry cake with lime cream cheese icing. I can't wait to make it again!! It was soooo good! I had some left overs so I got a taste or two :)

This next cake was for a 30th Anniversary for a couple at our church that were renewing their vows. The daughter-in-law who asked me to do the cake, gave me a picture from Pink Cake Box for what they were wanting with a few tweaks. Whew!! Umm just in case you don't know, Pink Cake Box is an amazing cake business! So kinda scary when they see pictures like that and who knows what they're expecting from me!

 The bottom layer was a vanilla with hint of lemon and the top was a vanilla with hint of orange, both with raspberry filling and buttercream icing. Little bit different that the norm, but that's a good thing!

 This is one of the new stands I got!! I'm really excited about it. I got a set of 4 for what I think was a good deal. Hopefully it was, but it's done now anyway!

 The flowers are forget me nots. I think I made them too big. Oops. I didn't hear any complaints, but the couple might just be too nice. Overall I am really exciting with how it turned out.

Next was a birthday cake. A 3-tiered birthday cake. A mini 3-tiered birthday cake. Yup, 8", 6", and a 4" to top it off. With houndstooth decorations and booties! Whew.

 The one picture I managed to get before they picked it up.

The houndstooth booties. I'm pretty happy with these too. It was my first time to make booties and to make them houndstooth, also! Glad it worked out!! :)

Sunday, I had cupcakes to make for a baby shower at church. I didn't get pictures of those either. They were just vanilla with pastel icing. Monday, I had another birthday cake. Ironically, it was for the same birthday girl from Saturday. A coworker wanted to give her a cake at work; therefore, cake no. 2.

 Another mini-tiered cake. 6" and 4". I think I should turn down 4" cake options... But at least I did it Saturday so I had the hang of it. The only way I can figure to properly ice it is to go ahead and stack and dowel it so it'll stay in place!! And the cakes don't usually come out too nicely from my 4" springform pan. They stick a little so I end up having to make the correct shape while icing. I think it turned out well both times, but maybe I should forgo cakes less than 6"...

 Each tier ended up being 3 layers. I had the extra cake and I needed it to be tall enough to do the stencil. Speaking of, I need to use this stencil on fondant!! I'm pretty sure I just make it harder on myself attempting to do it on buttercream... and 2 colors...

I ended up making the design like this on the back since there was only so much room on that 4". Just about when I finished making the cake, I realized they wanted a square cake... I think. I had been given a sheet of what they wanted and it was worded strangely. And how the situation was, it never really got addressed. Therefore, round cake. Which really stinks because a square cake would've been easier with stencils!! Ugh. Oh well. It all turned out ok. 

Oh yeah, and there's another stand I got!!  A 6" stand... who needs a 6" stand?? Obviously it's too small for the smallest cake I make. I guess if you want to display a single cupcake?? But I was determined to use it at least for pictures :)

So that's that.... 3 tiered cakes, 2 regular cakes, and 24 cupcakes in 4 days. Feels good once it's all done!

Gumpaste Shoes

Last weekend, I played with the new brooch molds I got. I was so excited about them! I was thinking of how I could use them.... then it hit me! Decorations on shoes!! It went hand in hand with another plan I had. My mom is in town to help me out because I got my wisdom teeth out today. Well, of course I wanted to make her a cake! And she loves shoes! I had some ideas (which I won't mention, in case I plan to do them in the future ;)

She deserved a cake!! Coming over 400 miles to help take care of me! Definitely! And even more so because she ended up having to take an extra flight to get here (5 hours later than planned). Gotta love flying. And her birthday is coming up!! I don't get to see her on her birthday so I had to take advantage of this. Can't mail a cake (or at least I do not plan to try!).

I saw a recipe I really wanted to try... Lemon Blueberry Cake. YUM! I wasn't sure about the blueberries since it's not blueberry season, but in my opinion it came out great! It was so tasty!! {I haven't gotten to eaten any of the actual filled and iced cake because of the whole wisdom teeth situation. Uncool} I decided to put a lemon filling in it also. Because of the filling and the blueberries it has to be refrigerated. I think that's kind of a bummer because it was so fluffy and tasty cooled down out of the oven. Not sure about the cooled taste.

 Here's the lemon filling. I should mention that I had this idea Saturday and she came in town Wednesday night. I had little prep time. I made the filling Wednesday after work. All good, except it is done on the stove so it was very hot when done. I didn't have much time and tried to cool it down as much as possible. I still think it was warmer than preferred when I put it on the cake. Live and learn.

 All the lemon and blueberry goodness! Yum. This is when it got so messy. I tried to keep the filling in by a border of buttercream around the filling but that wasn't very successful. I think it's tricky filling it anyway, but I'm convinced it would have been better if it was cooler. The left overs congealed very nicely later. Glad I had leftovers because once I cut the cake, not much filling survived the stacking.

Once I started icing, it was a mixture of buttercream and lemon filling. Such a mess. I was frustrated and losing hope. She was coming in a few hours and I wasn't going to finish!! Then her flights changed because of situations out of her control and she was going to show up 4 hours later. I hated what she had to go through all that but I'm really glad I was able to finish before she got there.

So the cake was a mess, I was frustrated, I was trying to fondant it and it was just awful! I ended up taking all the fondant off and started over. Hate to waste but it was worth it. Fortunately my husband fell asleep so I had the time to myself to do it all over.  

Ta-Da!!

 This is one of those cakes that I feel should not have been as difficult as it was. And the fondant work on the box was still not very clean. But it worked for this situation. I'll definitely allow more time if I ever do another.

 If you see cakes alot, you might notice that several people do gumpaste heels. Well this was specialized for my mom! And she does not usually wear heels. We're flats kinda girls :) Therefore, I pull out one of my pairs of flats. I made a template (using saran wrap, aluminum foil, and card stock paper) from my shoe, trying not to touch my shoes to what-will-be the tempate. My template could probably use some perfecting. Learning all the time....

I used fondant for the sole. Mistake no. 1. I know I should've used gumpaste, but I already had black fondant and did not want to make black gumpaste. So I had trouble with getting it completely dry. But I knew this and it was ok for this. Then I mixed fondant and gumpaste for the green. Again, probably best to use 100% gumpaste, but I had some pretty green fondant leftover that I wanted to use. Trying not to waste.

It was interesting trying to form these. Especially doing two to compliment each other. I did the first and it was ok, but I saw details that I'd prefer to change. Then I made a few others... that first one started looking way better!! Haha! I made the sole for the second one. I kept re-doing the green part and once I finally got it somewhat decent, I realized that I should've remade the sole. I think it ended up being larger than the first one somehow so it was throwing off matching the other. I was running out of the fondant/gumpaste mixture and I knew if I made more it would most likely not match the color I had made -- I wasn't even sure what I had used to get that color. So that was that. Eh, it was my first go-round.

 I couldn't figure out how to make it without the seam in the front :( I hated that.  

 I wanted to write something on the box, but I wasn't sure how I wanted to position the shoes; therefore blank. And I should've used a bigger cake board, but I knew it needed to go in the fridge, so I stuck with the smaller.

Was that enough pictures? I know they're basically the same but I'm leaving them posted. It doesn't take long to flip through pictures anyway.

And in case you wanted to see the pictures I couldn't get to post last week, here you go :)

I'm feeling surprisingly well after the surgery this morning. But I've been warned it's worse the second and third day. Oh dear. Thank goodness for pain medicine!!

Brooches & Baby Shower

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!! I wish it had been a little warmer, but it is still February so what can you do? I had to snuggle up on the couch instead of basking in the sun. Tough life. I'm sure spring will be here before we know it. 

I received some molds in the mail this week! Sooner than I expected them too! They're brooch molds. I love brooch molds but when I looked a few months back, found nothing that I liked. Then I happened across these a couple weeks ago and had to have them! I played with them a little this weekend.

Oh my goodness, I'm so excited to use these! Don't you think they're pretty?? Especially with the gold and silver shimmer. Maybe the picture isn't the best, but I really like them. I'm not sure what to do with these now, because I am not throwing them away! I'll figure out something.

And I thought of a great idea for using one on a cake!! I plan on doing it soon so we'll see how it turns out. If it's any good, you'll see pictures :)

I also made a baby shower cake this weekend for a young lady at church due in April with her first. It's a girl!! 

 It's vanilla cake (new recipe --- everyone seemed to like it. Hope they weren't just being nice!) with cream cheese filling and covered in buttercream. Fondant decorations.

 I think the pictures from my phone were actually better, but I can't get them to download so these will have to do. (ugh)

 I didn't realize it was blurry :(

This is a picture of the cake that the sister-in-law of the mom-to-be gave me to use as inspiration.

Hopefully you can see a resemblance! 

Night night!