Oreo Cake

I made this cake for a fundraising auction at my church. It is an Oreo cake with a chocolate wrap. It had two layers of chocolate cake with one layer of vanilla cake in the middle. (so when you cut it, it would look like an Oreo) All with vanilla Italian Meringue buttercream with Oreos stirred in. Amazing. Like eating a milkshake on a cake. Thanks to my awesome friend Michelle for tipping me off on that one. It's become one of my most requested.

Piece of cake...

Literally. I made this cake for a lady at my church I used to visit. This picture is several years old, and is one of my first attempts at a whimsical cake.

It was pretty small, made from slices of a 6 inch cake. Enough to serve 3 or 4 people.

The cutest couple ever.

This cake was made for the cutest couple I have ever worked with (and that is saying something). She is from China and He is of Scottish descent. They were so cute together! He even flew to China to ask hr parents if he could marry their daughter. How can you not love that? She wore a traditional red Chinese wedding dress, and he wore a kilt... When they saw this cake, there were no other options. They were only worried what the groom's mom would say when they told her they chose a red cake.

The backside. This cake was loosely based on a design by Colette Peters.

Side view. I made all the fans with Royal icing. They took forever, but I loved the result.

Here we go. The front. (I need camera lessons) The red fan I designed to match the embroidery on the bride's dress. The top fan was made in nine separate pieces and dried, then glued together with more royal icing to make 3D pleats. I love the china berry(the green berries) and the yellow flower stuff is called Scottish or Irish something. It was so much fun to combine these two cultures. I love celebrations like that!

I am a goddess. Worship me.

My husband wanted to take a treat to the neighbor who has been helping him out with something, and I had overripe bananas in the kitchen. The stars had aligned. I had taught our girls about banana boats recently (you take a banana, slice out a wedge lengthwise and insert chocolate chips, marshmallows and peanut butter, wrap it all up in foil and toss it in the coals of a camp fire until it gets all warm and melty and gooey. Unwrap and eat. YUUUUUUMMMY! ) So, I decided to try and recreate this campfire confection as a cupcake. Pretty, aren't they? They tasted sooo good. Banana cake, chocolate ganache, peanut butter Italian meringue (I'm still perfecting the recipe for this--but it was amazing) all topped with mini marshmallows that I took my little blow torch to to toast them. Now we can feel like we're camping with out the bushwhacking and dirty fingernails. Sounds good to me!

Sweet Little Baby Shower

Okay, Shower #2. For my good friend who had twin girls. I was planning on having the shower before the arrival of said girls, but they came 8(!) weeks early and so we had to postpone. This was a dessert open house shower, with "Sweet little baby cakes" as a theme. So, naturally, we had cupcakes! Again, I didn't get a picture of the whole table (a shame, because it was soo cute!) but I got the cupcakes... We had four flavors to choose from...Sweet little coconut baby cakes (deja vu...?)

Sweet little Oreo baby cakes...

Sweet little vanilla baby cakes (My friend Emily made these)...

Sweet little butter pecan baby cakes.

I also made red velvet cake truffle pops. All served with milk and pink punch. We also had fruit with really yummy dip, thanks to Harmony:)

It was great to sit and chat with all my neighbors and friends. I hadn't laughed that hard in quite a while. I think shower week was a success!

Boy Baby Shower

Last week was "baby shower week". I threw two baby showers. The first one was a car themed shower for my sister-in-law who is having a boy. We had a great time eating and talking and laughing with family. I was so busy I didn't get to take a ton of pics, but here's what I've got. Since the shower was on the fourth of July, I had to make a fruit arrangement with red and blue sparklers:)
All the fun is in the details. I am a firm believer of this...
The menu was so fun! We had convertible sandwiches (they were topless...) All wheel pasta salad made with the baby wheel pastas. (thanks Ariana for that idea) A fruit arrangement (not fitting with the theme, but it was patriotic..) Lug nuts...they were patriotic, too! I made candied nuts by boiling 1.5 cups sugar with 3/4 c. sour cream to soft ball stage, remove from heat and add 2 tsp vanilla and 1 lb pecans. Stir until the pecans turn white and cool on waxed paper. Then I added dried blueberries and crasins to make it yummy and patriotic!

We also had Carburated cranberry lime drink and mango mousse (Thanks again, Ariana!)

We also had to have car cookies for favors. They had cinnamon frosting. Yum. We played a game and the prize was a car air freshener, of course! I had a blast, and I hope Misa did, too. I am so excited for her little guy to get here!

This pic belongs to the next post, but I can't get it to delete. Sorry.

Chocolate Wraps

When I wanted to try a new technique for a cake a few years ago, my husband decided he wanted to try it with me. He made the marbleized one, and mine is the polka dot one. He's pretty good isn't he?

To make a chocolate wrap you melt your chocolate and spread it on a piece of acetate cut to the size you want. Let it sit till it is firming up, but not hard. Then pick it up and wrap it around the cake and let harden completely. Then, peel away the acetate and you have a beautiful and easy cake! Of course,with the polka dot wrap, I had to try brown and white striped chocolate curls!

(I should have made way more than I did..)

Sorry I haven't been around for a while...I've done two baby showers in 5 days and attended a family reunion...It is busy summer time. Pics of the baby showers to come soon! They were both so fun.