Avast Me Hearties!

My sweet nephew Donaven is turning THREE! :)

Right now he's really into Jake and the Neverland Pirates- but even more than that, he LOVES Captain Hook! So for his birthday, his mommy organized for him a pirate party. They dug for treasure, they went on a treasure hunt around the house, we wore pirate hats and eye patches- the whole nine yards.

And not very often am I really proud of one of my creations- but this one I have to say, is pretty rad.

It was surrounded by sand and "Go-daboon". I asked DJ if he wanted one- so I let him pick one out. I asked him if he was going to eat it and he looked at me like I was weird- but went to put it in his mouth. I explained I had to take the wrapper off- so I just tore at a little side of it. He about passed out when he saw was I was doing. His eyes got big and he grinned and said "CHOCOLATE!?" The next day he found a gold dabloon under the couch and tried to eat it. He was pretty bummed when he realized that one was plastic.

It's a new technique I learned on Pinterest. It's all hand piped butter cream. The cake is just a regular old chocolate cake- but it was my families first real time tasting my new frosting. Cake normally does not disappear in our house- but everyone was saying it was the best tasting cake I've ever made- and almost everyone asked for seconds. There were not leftovers.

Ahhh pride.

The next day I made a cupcake tower for my sister and sister in law's birthdays... those did not get eaten. Same frosting- but my family is biased. They only wanted chocolate. Lame.

Oren turns UNO!

My baby nephew is ONE! He's UNO! So his mommy threw him an Uno birthday party. It is also my brother's birthday, so baby and daddy got to celebrate together.
 

Since the whole soiree was her brain child (her's and Pinterest's) I'll leave the blog filled with birthday details to her-

Since it was an Uno themed party, Oren got an Uno themed cake.  Travis got Wild chocolate chip cookies (which I made- but they just look like regular ol cookies so no sense posting the picture) 

It was a dark chocolate and french vanilla cake with my new buttercream frosting recipe- but it was spread so thin that you couldnt even taste it. Gah! The frosting is the best part of the cake!!! Trial and error... I'll do better next time.

Cupcake Wedding

I don't get asked to do many wedding cakes these days. Maybe I should actually let people around here know I do them. This Bride is the sister of a friend I worked with in Idaho. It was actually fun to do a cake. It's been a while.

She ordered a two tiered wedding cake and 200 cupcakes.

The cake was a chocolate and white sour cream marble cake (as were the cupcakes)

The frosting was a buttery buttery butter cream (seriously- so freaking good that my diet was WRECKED for the weekend)

I had an example picture of what she wanted and I used that as a guideline for the filigree- but it is 100% free-handed.

My sister was kind enough to make pretty bows for the back. She makes the best bows ever!

I think the display of it was fun. They did a good job. 

Also- a HUGE shout out to my sisters and young cousins who helped in the production of flowers and stuff for the cupcakes. I always am more ambitious than I have time for. I also had a minor melt-down over a fondant issue- but everything turned out OK I think. 

Super Baby!

Hi! I know, I know, I've been absent for a while. But since I moved to Utah it's been hard to find reasons to make a cake- or the motivation. I was bound and determined to make one for Valentine's Day to take to work... and I decided at the last minute not to because I didn't feel like spending hours making a cake for my ungrateful (and mostly undeserving) co-workers. I bah-humbugged.

Anyway- The perfect opportunity to finally make one arose! My friend Carolyn is having a baby! But not just any baby- a SUPER BABY! They're decorating his room in Marvel Comics so when we started talking about throwing her a shower, I volunteered for cake duty!

Since the Avengers just came out and it's pretty much the most amazing comic book movie ever made- I went with them (thank goodness they're Marvel!)

This is Baby Thor.  Complete with armor cap adorned with little wings. (By the way- my real camera was dead and I didn't know till it was to late- so the pics are from my el crapo phone camera). He's  also sporting overalls and red cape.

Baby Hulk is fashionable in his torn purple pants. He was going to get a torn diaper- but it didn't turn out so well so I gave up. He is still buff through his baby fat and has a pouty grimace on his face.

Baby Iron Man... well, one can't really tell what is going on under that facade- but knowing him he's probably up to some mischief. Apparently he's the second edition Iron Man (hence the triangle instead of a circle on his chest) He also has little booster pads on his hands and you can't see in the super professional picture- but even the bottoms of his shoes are textured for safety.

Avengers Assemble! I wasn't able to make/fit all four little figurines on the cake- so I saved my favorite hero- Captain America- as the overall theme for the cake.  That way, even when the other little fellows were removed for the cake cutting, the Captain was still fully present.

I forgot how time consuming cakes are to decorate. But it was worth it. She's a good friend and it was a fun Super Hero themed shower. 

I don't know when I'll make another cake- but maybe I'll start posting some more cakes from the past just so there's not another 8 month gap on the blog.