Saturday, June 25, 2011

Daddy's Girls

My mother will tell you in a heart beat that I was most definitely a "Daddy's Girl." I will very quickly take that as a compliment and agree. So when I got a phone call from a friend in a neighboring county, let's call her Peggy, asking me to create a "Daddy's Girls" themed cake I must say I was intrigued. My first thought was great, this is right up my alley! My next thought was, how in the world do I do this on a cake??? So the questions ensued. I learned that this theme and cake were for a women's church conference. That sort of stopped me for a second as I worked at figuring it all out, thinking the typical little girly theme wouldn't work. Little did I know. The colors included pinks, blues and purples. It was very much a little princess type of party. About 50 people were expected at the conference, although I was told the cake did not need to feed 50. As we discussed a princess crown and other decoration she said, "have fun and go to town with it. A princess theme is perfect." Oh little did she know what would happen when she said that.
I baked an 11x13 yellow butter cake for the base. Then my plan was to use a crown cake pan. However apparently in my head I had that pan because I could not find it anywhere. So while I was looking a better plan B presented itself. I used my blue ribbon cake pan to create an actual crown wearing princess. I gave her red locks and wrote the "Daddy's Girls" theme on her crown. A couple of big bright pink cheeks balanced out with some freckles (yes, I am partial to them since I have a few of my own) finished her off.
I delivered this little princess cake to the church just in time for the conference. The ladies who were there seemed thrilled with the cake and said it was just perfect. I hope they have a wonderful conference and the cake helps them with their celebration.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Birthday Balloons

For those of you who do not know me let me make a small confession right here and now. I suffer from allergies. As an adult I know have this image of myself as a child being nerdy and constantly blowing my
nose. (Image popped right into your head didn’t it?) Now that might be a great exaggeration but one of my many allergies includes flowers, all kinds of flowers. So sending me flowers of any kind, although
beautiful, is less than an exciting proposition for me and generally just makes me miserable.

I tell you all of this not for sympathy, or to give you any ideas of how to make me miserable, but to explain my excitement over this next cake, I received a phone call from a wonderful lady that I have the privilege of working with, let’s call her Sandra. Her mother’s birthday was coming up and could I bake a cake. She was not really sure how many people might be there, but there were other people they
could share the cake with so going large was not a problem. She said simple would be best. A simple sheet cake would be great. When I asked her how she wanted it decorated, she said with bright primary colors, maybe flowers or balloons. When I started asking my normal questions about favorite colors etc., our conversation stalled out a little. So Sandra decided the cake should have balloons and be colorful, very happy. I must say I was excited about the balloons because as a child and even as an adult
instead of flowers for events I often received balloons. As a matter of fact there are photos of my high school graduation with pink and green balloons everywhere, with the April Hare was here, written on them but that is another story entirely.
With my order in hand I got to work. A yellow butter sheet cake (about 11x13) was baked. Then basic white icing was used for the background with colorful balloons in primary colors. A quick text message latter (what did we do before text messaging?) and I had my text for this simple, happy and fun
birthday cake.