Happily Ever After.....Divorce!

Sometimes, your divorce is the best day of your life...case in point with my most recent cake order.

My ever faithful friend Charlotte who has order numerous cakes from me, asked if I'd be interested in making a Divorce Cake for her friend who was throwing a Birthday/Divorce party.

Ummmm....yes, please!

She sent me this picture and requested I do something just like it because she loved the whole chopped off head deal with all the blood :)


I wish I knew who made this cake so I could give them credit for the inspiration it gave me to do my version of the cake, but I couldn't find a link to the direct source of the picture :(

Since the party was being hosted at a night club, Charlotte requested it be on the smaller side - not knowing how many people would stop dancing to eat some cake. She also wanted Red Velvet, to go along with the whole bloody theme.

I made six 9" round cakes, 3 layers for each tier.
I filled and frosted both tiers with chocolate ganache instead of the traditional cream cheese because I knew this cake needed to hold it's shape and sit out for a few hours, something cream cheese isn't ideal for.


I covered both tiers in white fondant and used royal icing to pipe on some not to pretty decorations...definitely need more practice in that department.


I rolled lots of round fondant balls and then dusted them with pearl dust for a pretty shine which I used to line both tiers of the cake.


I used seedless raspberry jam whisked with red and a drop of blue food coloring until I got a runny bloody texture...raspberry goes well with red velvet and chocolate.

I purchased some inexpensive Bride and Groom toppers from my favorite local place, The Cake Works because they carry a massive amount of Wedding supplies on top of all the cake supplies they have. I needed toppers that were separate and not connected as well as not insanely expensive or fancy since I was going to do some decapitating.

I brought my little Groom to work and asked one of our guys to kindly chop his head off. Done.


Then I shaved down the Bride's bouquet and painted the excess green paint white to match her dress. I took small bits of red fondant and glued them to both the headless Groom's body and his head then used a thumb tack to give it some fleshy texture.


Then...I glued his head to the bride so it appeared as though she was holding that in her hand instead of the bouquet. Love it.


Since this cake was coming from my house going to Charlotte's house, then to the club for the party...I knew that just placing these toppers on the cake wasn't going to work. So I used wooden skewers as long picks to go through the entire top tier serving as good support for all the traveling.


Once the Bride and headless Groom were in place on top of the cake...it was time for the fun part...blood, blood and then some more blood.


And my work is complete!

Here are some photos from the party:


That's my buddy Charlotte, she is super awesome.



This is the newly single Birthday Girl, Trina with her cake and toppers :)


See...I told you it was Red Velvet :)

1st Birthday Cake

Finally an opportunity to use my giant cupcake silicone baking pan! I bought it online months and months ago and haven't used it yet. I wanted the Wilton one, of course...but it cost almost $40.00 and this bad boy was $6.95.

I also bought a giant doughnut pan....so someone order a doughnut cake please!


Anyways...I was sent a picture of cake and asked if I could do something like it.
It was for a little girl's 1st Birthday.

The customer requested chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream.

The bottom tier was two layers, covered in buttercream fondant.


The bows and curls are a mixture of fondant and gumpaste, colored and positioned for their shape which took a day to dry.


The #1 is also a mixture of fondant and gumpaste, to ensure it would hold up and not flop over.
I made two numbers exactly the same and placed a wooden skewer between the layers which will serve as a pick that will go into the top of the giant cupcake.


The giant cupcake was placed in the center on top of the bottom tier.
It was covered in strips of alternating pink and purple pieces of fondant with star piping in between the pieces - which is my one regret. I wish I would have left the small gaps of white fondant showing, rather than piping in between.


I piped the vanilla buttercream is small roses on top of the cupcake for a realistic cupcake look.

The bows and curls were added on both sides of the cupcake and stayed in place without much work.


EMILY, the fondant balls lining the cake and most of the dots on the bottom tier were touched up with a bit of pearl dust.

EMILY and the #1 were dotted with some white decorating icing.



and done!


This cake had some traveling to do, so I had to make sure it was boxed correctly for safe travel.
Of course the #1 topper had to come off and the cake had to go into a box sideways.
I cut off two of the box flaps and left two which would only close half way, which works well so that you can keep an eye on the cake.


I am currently hating the new light bulb that went into my kitchen light...it gives all my cakes a yellow tint. Me no likey.

I will be taking care of that this week.

Valentine's Day Cookies...40 Dozen of them!

I got a last minute call from a customer a couple weeks before Valentine's Day asking if I could make 39 DOZEN cookies for some preschoolers...the baker who had the order was going out of business.

My schedule was and is already pretty tight until the baby arrives, but I couldn't turn down an order for preschoolers!

The customer requested heart shaped sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles, nice and simple - nothing fancy.

Thank goodness...because with that many cookies, who knows how long it would have taken me!

I prepared all the dough and had it chill for a day in the refrigerator.
I had to multiply my recipe by 10!
I managed to fit all the dough in these two containers....which I proceeded to drop on my foot when pulling them out of the refrigerator for this picture.


I decided to use two different cookie cutters for the order, one basic heart and one with a ridged edge.


I baked 1/2 the cookies on Friday and the other 1/2 on Saturday.


Half way through baking on Saturday, lost in my routine of pulling one sheet from the oven and popping in a new sheet to bake - I picked up a hot sheet with my bare hand, burning all 5 of my fingers.

Needless to say, I took a break - not only because I was clearly in need of one, but because it's kinda hard to roll cookies dough, cut cookies and bake them with one hand.

Sunday was all about decorating.

I used red and white royal icing and an assortment of different sprinkles and color combinations.

The icing had to set for about an hour before I could stack and box the cookies, so it made for a long day since I was only allowed to do so many cookies at once.

I used every inch of counter space and appreciated the breaks in between each batch.


I boxed the cookies up, 10 dozen to each box.
I rounded up to 40 dozen, just because.


I delivered the cookies this morning to the Preschool.


Happy Valentine's Day!!!

CASINO Cake

This weekend was my friend's 31st Birthday party.
His wife asked me to make him a cake...with a Casino (the movie) theme because he loves that movie.

We threw around some ideas that would ensure the whole mafia tones came through without putting machine guns on the cake but also the Casino theme without it looking like a poker cake.



The cake itself was white cake with vanilla buttercream and fresh banana filling.


I kept the cake covered in just buttercream and no fondant, for a more traditional look and because I think it just tastes better.

The black pinstripe tie, cigar, dice and poker chips were all made with fondant.
I tried to incorporate the number 31 wherever I could, can you tell?


His wife came up with the verbiage...ain't it cute?


I am still working on my hand-piping writing skills...bear with me.

I used gold sparkle piping gel to write CASINO on the front side of the cake, like the movie title...kinda...except crooked.


I was also asked to make a small chocolate cake for a nephew who was also celebrating his birthday at the party.


It is devil's food cake with chocolate buttercream and ganache, topped with some chocolate squiggly thingies.


Here are some lovely cell phone pictures from the party for ya: