Super 17 Birthday

I had an order for a 17 year olds birthday. They liked the flower cake from a few weeks ago, but wanted it in more fun, trendy colors. So we went with pink, purple and yellow.I think it turned out pretty cute.

I already have another order for this style cake – it may just become a signature design.

I made a cake for consultant for a project I am working on at work. We have 3-4 hour meetings about every other week and this meeting happen to be on this person’s birthday. I figured if I am going to make someone sit through a long meeting on the afternoon of their birthday the least I could do was make them cake.


I continue to update my photo album with new cakes, if you want to check them out, you can find them here.

100% Pure Boy

A friend of mine ordered a birthday cake for one of her sons. As they were looking through my album of cakes the almost 6 years old said all my cakes were for girls. I thought about it, a lot of my cakes have been for girls or younger boys, or were sport themed. But this was not what this young boy had in mind. He wanted an action figure for “The last Airbender.” The who I asked? Obviously I am not up on my cartoon action figures. I asked them to send over a picture of what they wanted. This is what I got. Hmmm… I think I can do that. Here is my version in frosting.

When I delivered the cake my friends reaction was “I think that is the ugliest cake you have made, but it is perfect.” The birthday boy was pretty happy as well.

They can’t all be cute.

Red Velvet

This summer there has been several new TV shows and specials on bakeries, cakes, cupcakes and all of them talk about their Red Velvet Cake. Admittedly I did not know a lot about this type of cake, and not sure I had ever eaten it, much less made it. I had heard some people say they just add a bottle of red food coloring to chocolate cake. Which did not make a whole lot of sense to me – what was the point?

So I set out to experiment with some authentic Red Velvet Cake. I found a recipe that looked good and I went to town. I also did some research on what exactly Red Velvet was. According to my good friend Wiki….

A Red velvet cake is a cake with a dark red, bright red or red-brown color. It is usually prepared as a layer cake somewhere between chocolate and vanilla in flavor, topped with a creamy white icing. Common ingredients are buttermilk, butter, flour, cocoa, and red food coloring or beetroot; although beetroot is traditionally used, many prefer food coloring since it is seen as more appealing.

A red velvet cake was a signature dessert at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City during the 1920s. According to a common urban legend of the 1960s a woman once asked for the recipe for the cake, and was billed a large amount. Indignant, she spread the recipe in a chain letter.

In Canada the cake was a well-known dessert in the restaurants and bakeries of the Eaton's department store chain in the 1940s and 1950s. Promoted as an exclusive Eaton's recipe, with employees who knew the recipe sworn to silence, many mistakenly believed the cake to be the invention of the department store matriarch, Lady Eaton.

I decided to make the recipe into cup cakes and over all pleased with how it turned out. I do think they baked for a minute too long and could be a bit more moist, so I will continue to play around with the recipe.

The cake recipe I found was paired with a meringue frosting. I decided to try that as well. That turned out wonderful and it a for sure winner.

Here is the result.

I realized when taking the picture that it was hard to see the shiny frosting against my white counter tops, so here it is on a better background.

I also think I achieved another baker’s right of passage with this experiment. On several of the shows, especially the challenge ones, people often get burned while melting sugar. In a recent episode one of the people needed medical attention due to the burn. I didn’t bet why this was such a big deal, until I experienced it. I got splattered with some melting sugar and it hurt a bit, but I did not think it was that big of deal. But then it I noticed it blistered almost immediately – crazy – that means it is a 2nd degree burn. Thankfully it was only a small splatter on my finger, but I can see how a large area would not be a good thing.

Last minute cake

At the end of the work day on Thursday, it was determined that food had not been figured out for a co-workers going away party. I was not part of the party planning to begin with, but as I was leaving, as I usually do, I asked if we were all set for the next day. When the answer was not really - I began thinking what could I easily whip up. Sadly, the default was not a cake- I was thinking my strawberry dessert or fruit pizza…. Then it hit me, I had everything in the house for a cake and a ton of colored frosting in my fridge. So I cautiously said I could make a cake.

On days that I work I like to bake the cake the night before I need to decorate to give it sufficient time to cool, settle. Trying to do it all in one night is really pushing it and usually means being up half the night. Especially when you find out at 5 p.m. But since it was a dear co-worker, I agreed to scrap all my plans for the night to make a cake. On the drive home I thought about the design.

This is what I came up with for the top.

And on the sides.

I have to say I think it came out cute. It is by far not my cleanest cake – I knew when I was doing it the lines were off, but it was getting late and I didn’t care so much. My co-worker loved it and that is what is important.

Here is the whole cake.

I also put several of my cakes into an album. I thought having once place for people to be able to look through the different cakes I have done made some sense. Here is the link….

Two days, two cakes, two anniversaries

This weekend I had two orders for anniversary cakes for two couples who have both been married for over 40 years. Each of these cakes was a surprise gift for the couple.

This was the first cake. I added a ribbon of yellow on the bottom. This is the second cake. I have total freedom with this cake and wanted to try doing a pattern around the side. Here is one side. Here is the other.

These cakes topped off a busy week of baking, Congo bars, Turtle Brownies and Blueberry muffins.

Peace Cake

My oldest niece turned 10 and the in thing these days for tween girls are peace signs. They are all over clothes, bags, shoes, school supplies…. So she wanted a peace sign on her cake. I thought just a plan peace sign would not be very cute, so I decided to make a striped one with her favorite colors – hot pink, lime green and electric blue. I then decided to do stripes on the side of the cake. While it turned out really cute, it did take a while to do since the frosting kept getting warm.

Here is another view of the cake.

A birthday cake

A friend of mine was having a birthday party over the weekend and I made a cake. It was one of the few times that I was given freedom to do what ever I wanted on a cake. I always enjoy those opportunities so that I can experiment. I wanted to do something bubbly and cheerful to match the birthday girl. This is what I came up with. I tried a new boarder on this one, and really like how it came out. I think it is a keeper.I had some left over cake batter, so I think I might play around with some filled cupcakes. Will let you know how they turn out….

Another Dora Cake

I had an order for a Dora cake for the 4th birthday of a darling little girl. When I was talking to her about what she wanted on her cake she mentioned she wanted Dora to have backpack on her back. So I found a picture showing backpack and went with that design. She also requested that she have chocolate cake and pink frosting.

Here is the cake. I still can’t quite nail Dora’s facial features, I am not sure why, but I will have to keep working on it. When I was taking pictures I realized I had forgotten Dora’s cowlick – so I quick added it.

Cake Balls Galore

In addition to the cakes I made last week I also continued to experiment with cake ball combination. I was not thrilled with the yellow cake/milk chocolate frosting/dark chocolate shell, so I thought I would try something new. Here are a couple of the chocolate ones. I decided on a cherry cake/cherry frosting/dark chocolate shell. Here is the outside of one.And the inside – see that moist cake!! I also tried a carrot cake/cream cheese frosting/white chocolate shell. Here are some of the white chocolate covered cake balls.

Here is the inside of the carrot cake ones. I had some left over chocolate cake and butter cream frosting, my decorated cake stand by, so I threw those together and added a white chocolate shell. This is what these look in the inside.So far the verdict is that the carrot cake one were the best, but they all were good.

Hmmm….there might just be something to this Cake Ball thing…….

Hello Kitty Supersized

I had an order for a Hello Kitty cake for a little who was turning 6 and wanted to bring it in as a birthday treat. The cake needed to feed 25, so I went with a half of sheet cake, which meant Hello Kitty’s head was going to pretty big.

Here is the cake. From the side. Here is the birthday girl and her class enjoying the cake.

Twilight – take 2

I had an order for a twilight cake and this time I added an apple to it, from the cover of one of the books. This was what I had intended to do on the first one, but ran out of time. Here is the final product. Here is the cake including the sides with the red stripe at the bottom. A close up on the side. I have another order this week for a Hello Kitty cake to feed 25 – pictures will be up soon.

Baseball Cake

Baseball is a big part of my brother in laws life right now, so I wanted to do a baseball themed cake. Originally I wanted to do a baseball diamond with a large bat and ball on top of it. As I was looking for pictures of a baseball diamond, I found a cute one with a glove. I liked how it looked and decided to go that route instead. Of course once I decide this, my printer was having some issues, and I was not able to print out the picture I found. This meant I had to draw it by hand. My nieces and nephew were over at the time and quite skeptical that I could draw it. They were quite impressed when they saw the finished sketch. They were even more impressed when they saw the finished cake.

Here is the baseball cake. With the side included.

I was pretty happy with how is turned out.

Cake Balls

Recently at work several co-workers were talking about Cake Balls, a trendy new gourmet dessert treat. After doing some research and finding out how super easy they were to make, I thought I would try them out.

First you start out by making a cake. I chose a classic yellow cake. Here it is cooled.Then you crumble it up into fine pieces. I have to say this killed me a little bit to ruin a perfectly fine cake.

Once the cake is crumbled you add frosting. I decided on milk chocolate.

Here is it is mixed together – the “dough” for the cake balls.

Then you shape them into balls.

I need to work on the consistency so that I can make them more spherical. Then you dip them in chocolate, I used a darker chocolate. The end result was cake balls. So far the reaction has been pretty good and I keep thinking of all these yummy combinations.

Side story - Caught in a Seattle Police Chase

I often find it interesting how seeing something on TV or in a movie can trigger a vivid memory of mine. Many times it has to do with travel, a scene in London will remind of wandering down Piccadilly Street, or the view of the mall in DC reminds me of the some crazy late night “adventures”, I see a location where I have been and all of a sudden I remember some random detail or event. Last week I was watching the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy (the most intense season finale of any show I have ever seen) and I found myself yelling at show, where is the rest of your swat team because I was suddenly brought back to the time I was caught in the middle of a police chase in Seattle.

Let me set the scene for you, it was July 1, 2008. I had been in Seattle for about a week at this point, for the start of the 9 week cross continental bike tour, called Sea to Sea that I was working on. In that week I had arrived in Seattle, finalized last minute details for the tour, met the 145 cyclists and 26 support staff, coordinated the weekend orientation, participated in a public celebration service, saw the cyclists dip their tires in the pacific ocean, dealt with the first fall, injury and hospital visit, and made sure things were all set for the first night in camp – nothing stressful at all. The night before I had left the tour and stayed at my cousin’s house, to spend a little time with her and her husband while I was in town. That night I was taking the red eye home. My cousin took the afternoon off of work so we could do some touristy things, so I decide to run downtown that morning to pick up some gifts for my nephew and nieces, and to make some rental car arraignments (in person since I was getting conflicting answers on the phone) for my trip to Seattle in September.

Prior to this morning, I had only been downtown once, but thought I remembered how to get there with out getting directions, and knew I had a map with me. I did fine, got off at James Street, but then turned the wrong way. I knew I was going the wrong direction as soon as it happened and looked for the first side street to turn around. The first street is 9th Ave, and that is right in the medical area of the University of Washington. I turned the corner and pulled over to check the map to find a street to take me back towards downtown. All of sudden, out of no where a tan/gold Jeep Grand Cherokee came flying past followed by a multitude of police vehicles. There must 40 – 50 police cruisers and motorcycles in pursuit of the Jeep. After the first 5 or 10 went by, I looked over at this older woman standing on the sidewalk at the bus stop and we just look at each other with a “what the heck is going on” look. After a few minutes (and I am not exaggerating here) the police vehicles stopped coming and I once again looked at my new friend on the side walk, non verbally asking do you think it is safe to go? We kind of nodded and said, I think it is okay, and I pulled away from the curb, thinking my adventure was over.

9th Avenue there turns into 8th and that bring you to Yesler Way, which would take me to where I wanted to go. As I got to the corner of 8th and Yesler, I once again found myself in the middle of this crazy scene – several of the police vehicles were parked all over the area and the officers were on foot, some running, looking for something or someone. At this point I was really wondering what was going on and called my sister to see if she could find anything online about what was happening. She was not able to find anything so I continued on. My plan was to head over to the Pike’s Place Market area and park, from there I could walk to the places I wanted to go. I planned to take Yesler to 1st Ave and cut over. As I was making my way, I began to hear the helicopters over head. I began to think, obviously something big is going on. I turned down 1st Ave and went for a couple blocks until the road was blocked off by the police and I saw that the Jeep was stopped in the middle of the street with several swat teams approaching the vehicle. As much as there was a part of me that wanted to stay and see what happened, the sensible part of me thought I should get out of there and go someplace safe.

I then cut over to Alaska Way and was right near the rental car place, so I decided to go there. I went in to make a reservation and saw the 4 or 5 helicopters circling the area. Thankfully they had a TV on and I asked what was going on. It was at that point I found out there had been a bank robbery and police chase and there was now a stand off on 1st Ave. I watched with the reservation specialist for a few minutes and actually corrected some of the information that was being reported. For one, they were reporting it was a black truck and I said, actually I am pretty sure it was a tan Jeep Grand Cherokee. It was at that point that the whole scene became very surreal, and it hit me that I was seriously caught in the middle of a police chase, I could be a witness. After making the reservation I continued down Alaska way and found a place to park there. I decided to go to some of the souvenir stores in the area, instead of trying to go back near the crime scene. The robbery was the talk of everyone at that point and in one store I learned that one of the suspects had jumped out of the Jeep at Yesler and 8th while the vehicle was moving. That explained what had been going on at the corner as I passed, and it was little scary, considering I was only a couple minutes behind the Jeep, and chances are the suspect had not been caught yet as I passed by.

After I finished my shopping and learning more and more details about what had happened I began to make some phone calls, to my sister again who had found the story online and filled in some final details, like the fact that the police had shot the man in the Jeep on 1st Ave. I also called a couple friends to tell them about the craziest thing that had just happened. I was then done with my errand downtown and went on with my day, not giving what had happened too much more thought, other than mentioning it to my cousins. A couple days later, once I was home, I looked up the details of the story, which you can find here http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008027502_webbankrobbery01m.html

This is just one of the many crazy stories I have, but don’t often think of or share, until something like Grey’s Anatomy brings back the memory, because I know the Seattle law enforcement community can capture two suspects in a vehicle driving all over the city much quicker than it took them to find a lone gun man in one building.

New Cake Brochure

Each time I make a new cake, it becomes my new favorite and I think it is really cute. Over the past months I have made several new cute cakes and I decided to feature these in my promotional flyer. If you would like a hard copy, I have plenty and am happy to get it to you. Also feel free to pass this along to all your friends and family or anyone else who needs a cake.

Train Cake

This week I had another cake to make. This one is for an adorable almost 2 year who is the son of friends of mine. He has the greatest smile and lights up any room he walks into. He wanted a train cake for his birthday and I was pretty excited to make it for him.

Here is what I came up with.

I think it turned out pretty cute.

Cupcakes Galore

I was one of the hosts of a Mother’s Day lunch today and my duties were to make cupcakes. Due to the quantity needed I enlisted the help of my 9 year old niece who is a great help. The color scheme for the event was purple and green and the table setting had a floral motif with pink, orange, blue and yellow flowers. So that is what I used as a base for the cupcakes. In addition we had one table that needed gluten free food, so I decided to make a cake for that table since it would be easier to keep that separate from the cupcakes.

Here are all the cupcakes and caked finished A close up of the cake Just the cupcakes A tray of purple ones A tray of green ones One of each I really like this green one And a cute purple one The cupcakes served as the center piece at the event. Here are the ones at my table.

Sometimes my cakes go in streaks – this week I have a train cake to make, I am excited to make it. Will post pictures when it is finished.