Happy Birthday, Humma!

Our middle child turns 23 tomorrow. She now lives in Chicago, a mere 1,000 miles away. No more elaborate birthday cakes for her. Now she gets a tiny little six-inch that will hopefully survive the trip via the USPS. This is a pink champagne cake, with pink buttercream icing. Covered and decorated with fondant. I also sent her a dozen decorated cookies -- all high heels, purses, princess crowns and glitzy sunglasses. Shhhhhhhhh. It's supposed to be a surprise.

Rubber Duckies

A first-birthday cake based on the party invitations. That's a "smash" cake in the foreground ... a personal-sized cake for the birthday boy to smash into and enjoy, all by himself. Happy birthday, Bobby!

Fairy Tale Castle cake

Not the best picture I've ever taken. But this is a two-story vine-covered stone castle cake with sugar cube dentils and paper towel roll/ice cream cone turrets which were covered in royal icing. Chocolate cake, buttercream icing, fondant "stones" set into the gray cement walls. The vines had pretty little pink flowers scattered everywhere. Wish I'd gotten a better picture of it all. It was pretty awesome.

Kate's Birthday

Our youngest turns 20 today. We have no more teenagers! But by golly we have the gray hair and wrinkles to prove that we've been through those years three times now.

Kate has had a bubble gum fetish since she came forth from the womb, I swear. She has begged for a bubble gum machine of her own for every birthday since at least age 5. Of course, being the mean parents we are, we never bought her one. (All that sugar??!! Horrors!!!) Even her friends today will attest to the fact that every time they are out in public, she hits them up for a quarter to get a gumball out of the nearest machine.

Weird.

Therefore, I thought a bubble gum machine CAKE for her 20th birthday would be perfect.

That's 4 layers of cake carved into the "machine" shape and iced with hot-pink buttercream. Silver-painted fondant accents, genuine gum balls affixed with buttercream to the bottom of the cake and filling the glass fish-bowl-vase which is affixed to the top of the cake with fondant.

It is an understatement to say that the cake was a huge hit at her birthday party last night.

A piece of cake, a scoop of ice cream AND a gumball. What's not to love?

Hope. Change. Vote.

No, it's not really a political cake. Just a simple last minute "inspiration" cake for a group of people who are doing their best to drag their homeowners' association into the 21st century.

Unbirthday

A pink champagne cake (pretty-in-pink and delish!) with buttercream icing and fondant roses, for a woman of a certain age who isn't really crazy about the concept of "celebrating" birthdays any more.

Cinderella

I LOVE making these doll cakes. Cinderella's dress is a cake baked in a pyrex mixing bowl, and she sits atop a 9" cake "stage" in order to provide enough servings for the party. I love to imagine little girls' eyes lighting up when they first see their princess birthday cake.

Had I gotten one of these when I was five years old, I'm sure I would have fainted.

It's mermaid season again

I never tire of making these mermaid cakes for little girls. Her tail is a fondant/gumpaste mixture. The seashells are all white chocolate. This way, each party-goer gets a piece of chocolate along with a piece of birthday cake. What's not to like?

Bye bye, Em!

This is my cake for our Chicago-bound daughter's going away party. The house is crafted to look similar to the house she'll be living in, in Chicago. The Chicago map is an edible icing image applied to the top of the cake. If you can see the paw-shaped "indentation" right at the word "Chicago", that's from our cat. She wanted to make her mark and say her good-byes, too.

Fair Warning

For all of my fabulous fans ...

I'll have one more cake picture this week, then seven more from May 30 to June 4.

On June 5, we hit the road to help mid-kid move to Chicago and get settled in, and won't return until June 12th.

So you're going to have another cake-picture drought until mid-late June.

Try to deal.

German Chocolate Hennessey cake

Boy. Do I do "custom" cakes, or what? Even made up a new recipe to incorporate Hennessey cognac into a German Chocolate cake this time -- at the request of the birthday girl's friend. The traditional coconut pecan icing is pretty much impossible to decorate on top of, so this is what I came up with.

The foot cookie atop is some kind of an "inside joke," and all the sweets represent what is evidently a rather rampant sweet tooth on the part of the honoree.

While that lumpy drippy icing replete with coconut and toasted pecans is hardly the smooth finish of one of my fondant covered cakes, it surely is DELICIOUS. (Yes, I taste-tested it to make sure.)

We've got cake, cookie, frosting and candies all in one cake ... that combo surely should sufficiently feed even the world's biggest sweet tooth.

Recent dearth of pictures

Sorry, y'all. I've been so busy with cakes lately that I've hardly had time to take pictures of them before they go out the door, much less POST said pictures. Below you'll find about half of the cakes I've done in the past 3 weeks. Enjoy!

Wedding Shower Music Box

The bride and groom are music majors, their wedding colors are red and gold. This is an open music box cake, with red flowers spilling out over the front and side. Can you see the silver (gumpaste) engagement ring in the front? I also did some music-note and grand-piano cookies to go with the cake. Love this one.

Back side of the Music Box cake

Tea Party Birthday

A big birthday party for a six year old. She wanted the teapot and teacups birthday cake, with the colors all based on the party invitations. As this cake would not be big enough for all, below you will see ...

The big cake

Complete with silver royal-icing tiara. This cake is to feed the rest of the party-goers. And it's chocolate, per the birthday girl's request.

Another baby shower

Decor based on the shower invitation. How cute!

Baby Toile

A baby shower cake based on the nursery decor, which is white, pink and black toile. Love it. Wish I'd been cool enough to do the same theme in our eldest daughter's nursery.

Turning 18

I did his brother's cake back when he turned 18, and now it's his turn. Sadly and inexplicably -- this boy doesn't even LIKE cake. Who could imagine such a thing? But his mama had promised him a cake, anyway. And here it is. White, black and silver.

Stacked presents

For a young girl's birthday. Festive, fun and delicious!