Happy Birthday America!

I admit it.  I have a problem (no snickering from the peanut gallery please).  I hate to say no to anyone.  If it something I don't want to do or honestly can not do I will and can say no.  However often times if someone asks me to bake a cake (which you know I love to do) I just can't say no.  Sure enough this morning a friend asked me if I had the ingredients for a cake.  Silly question, of course I have the ingredients for a cake.  The next question was, do you still have that flag cake pan?  Once again, silly question, I have never gotten rid of a cake pan.  This was all just a prelude to the real question of, would you bake a cake for me, for today, for fourth of July?  My friend had to work and thought it might be a nice surprise for others in the same predicament.  So I said, of course I would love to bake a cake.  It was nothing too special just a butter cake aptly decorated as our American flag.  It twas a rush job so I have to admit I took some shortcuts to make sure it got done quickly.  However no one complained about it, and apparently the entire cake disappeared, which is the highest honor I can receive for a cake.
Happy Birthday America!  Happy Independence Day to all Americans!   

It's a Rosey Birthday

  A few posts ago I spoke of a co-worker, Janice.  I had made a cake for her daughter Catie's birthday.  Guess what?  Janice's birthday was right around the corner from Catie's.  So when I got pulled aside by two of the people who report to her saying they wanted to do something extra special for her birthday, and would I please bake her a cake, there was no way in this world I could say no.  However on her actual birthday she was working out of the office so I convinced them to wait until Monday when she would be back in the office.
  In the meantime I wanted to come up with something extra special for Janice.  Something elegant, but casual.  Something I have never done before.  After spending a little time on Pinterest, I found it.  A cake decorated with hombre roses.  Now I was not sure I could do this, because I had never done it before and decorating on the sides of a cake can be, well, tricky to say the least.  So I baked a ten inch two layer butter cake.  After the normal prep, I dirty iced the center, sides, and top and went to work on the roses.  It was actually amazingly easy and the overall effect is gorgeous.
  Knowing that Janice had a day camp that day and would be early I made sure I was actually extra early so I could deliver the cake to my coworkers without Janice seeing it.  However part way through she saw it.  So one employee, let's call her Tamika played it off like the cake was for her daughter.  Janice apparently gazed at it saying what a pretty cake it was and how good it would taste.  After an entire day of this, around three the entire staff came together to sing happy birthday to Janice.  She was stunned and it took awhile for her to realize that the cake was actually for her.  As it turned out one of the children in the day camp also had a birthday and a teen volunteer had turned 17 the day before.  So in the spirit of birthdays and fun, Janice shared her cake with everyone.  I have to admit I cut it in such a manner so that she would have plenty to take home and share with her family.
  After we got done with all the days events, Janice said she was touched by the cake.  She said she could not remember the last time anyone had made her a birthday cake.  The fact that people had wanted to go the extra mile for her, just made her feel so special that day.  That is what this cake was all about.

Fishing for a Cake

"What are your plans this weekend?" is often an opening line, not for a date, but a request for a cake.  One of my coworkers, lets call her Denese was going to the beach with her family.  She wanted to surprise them with something sweet while they were there so she decided she wanted a, "Shea cake."  I promise I did not come up with this term but it is one that is used by many of my coworkers, and I am finding it seeping into my vocabulary.
  I digress.  After the opening line Denese asked about a cake for the entire family, since she had to travel she preferred a sheet cake.  Knowing Denese fairly well I knew that she was not a laying on the beach, toes in the sand, kind of person.  So this left me a little befuddled until she told me this was a fishing trip.  Now somewhere in all my stuff I was sure I had a guy in a boat fishing.  However when I went looking it was not there.  Plan B.  I went to the store and found the seaweed, turtles, fish, and star fish that would work.  A little blue gel, brown sugar for the sand, and we had a great fishing/beach scene that the family could devour.
  One of the great things I have learned thanks to a previous cake for Janice in this blog is that sheet cakes fit perfectly into a long flat rubber made tote.  I packaged it up for Denese and sent her to the beach.

A Birthday Fit for a Princess

  I love the random call on a day when the world is just full of questions asking for a cake.  It sort of brightens my day and gives me something to look forward to.  That is how this cake started.  A mother in search of a special cake for her daughter.  She was looking at the photos we have posted and after a little talking back and forth decided to go with the castle.  Her daughter likes flowers, butterflies, and peace symbols so I went with the flowers flowing up the sides of the castle wall with this design.  It was a basic butter cake for the inside and just enough to feed about 20 people.  I hope this helped make this little girl's birthday something special.

A Picture Perfect Birthday

As you may have noticed, it is not often that I have a photo of the cake recipient to post along with the cake.  Catie is the daughter of one of my wonderful co-workers, Janice.  Actually Janice has two daughters for which I have had the pleasure of creating cakes for.  Now mind you the two are as different as day and night.  I do not point this out to say it is a bad thing, I mention it because it makes this story all the more special.  Catie's sister, Ally, is the planer.  She starts months before her birthday and plans each detail of the cake.  All I have to do is interpret her design through icing and baking to make it come true.  Catie on the other hand is as quiet and unassuming as a person can be.  She does not mention birthdays and is just thrilled if others remember the day.  So when Janice came to me and asked for a birthday cake, I had to throw the typical questions out there, of what does she like, how big should it be, what flavor, because unlike Ally who usually has a big custom design with bright colors, Catie is very different.  As I started firing off the questions like a sub machine gun, Janice just looked at me with her eyes getting bigger and bigger.  I stopped and backed it up and said chocolate or butter?  "Butter" she replied.  "Lots of people?" I asked.  "Just the four of us, Catie likes small celebrations," she replied.  Now for the big one, "What does she love?" I asked.  "her family, her job, oh, oh...." her eyes suddenly got bigger, "N. C. State.  She loves N. C. State."  Well that I knew I could do.
The other thing about this cake was that it was one to be done by the next day.  Normally I would not do that, but for Janice and Catie you bet I would do whatever I could to make her day even more special.  I got home and went to work, baking like a wild women.  The baking was fairly uneventful but when it came to decorating, I have to admit this was the messiest cake I have ever decorated.  I realized as I went to decorate I was out of bags.  For those of you who say run to Wal-Mart or use a Ziploc with the corner cut off, well I thought of that.  At two in the morning I found found that travelling to Wal-Mart by myself is not my favorite thing to do.  By the way I did try the Ziploc but it could not handle the pressure needed to squeeze the icing out and split in several places.  So plan B.  I had some parchment triangles and thought I would use those.  Although they worked it was difficult at best to them folded into the right shape to get a coupler attached and I did end up with icing all over me.  In the end however it all worked out and the N. C. State cake looked just like the block S it was supposed to look like.
I delivered it to the office and imagine my surprise the next night when these photos were shared on facebook for me to see.  There is Catie blowing out the candles when the family went to dinner to celebrate.  Also a shot of Catie and Ally as she cut her birthday cake.  I have to say the photos made my day and made me feel included in the family celebration.  Catie really seemed to enjoy her cake and her special day.  Happy Birthday Catie!
Oh, and one other side note, that I think Catie might like me to mention.  Happy Birthday N. C. State which turned 125 years old this year.        

Don't Say We're Chicken

  I love special requests.  One of our wonderful 4-H Volunteers and a fellow Master Gardener came to me and asked if I could do a cake for her.  She was having a working get together.  What I mean by that is she invites friends and family out to her farm to help do maintenance, build pens, help repair fencing, and she feeds them for a days worth of work helping her out.  I have to brag on this for a moment.  In September she really started working at marketing her farm, where she sells fresh chicken and eggs.  It is a great start up small business and she has more than quadrupled her sales in the last 8 months, which is really impressive.  That being said, every little bit of help she can get on the farm is essential, hence her working invitation.
  The request for the cake was to make it look like a chicken, similar to the invitation she sent out.  We decided to go with a butter cake and a fudge cake to please everyone who might be coming to help.  So my plan went into action.  I made the nest out of chocolate cake and hollowed out the center to place the chicken.  I admit my chicken is a little fat, that's because I carved it from a rubber duck cake mold that I have.  Now the tricky part was not making the nest look nesty but making the chicken in the design on the paper.  I took a little creative license and made the white icing fluffy to look like feathers then implemented as much of the design as I could.
  When I delivered the cake, the recipient seemed thrilled that I had actually gone further than making a chicken, but tried to copy the paper design.  I understand that the chocolate cake was a big hit and the chicken didn't last much longer than the rest.

Going a Little Nutty...Coconutty That Is.

  Sometimes I like to surprise people.  Surprise them with nice surprises like a cake.  A friend of my mother's mentioned on Facebook that she likes anything involving coconut.  Specifically that day she was in need of a coconut cream cake.  Living 5 hours away it's not like I could make the cake that day and deliver it.  So I did the next best thing.
  A couple of weeks later I was visiting my mother, as part of a multi-cake/ multi-event weekend and thought I might try my hand at making a coconut cream cake.  Having never done this before it was going to be a new and exciting experiment.  Add to that, that I am now used to baking in a gas stove and my mother has an electric oven that does not get much use, and I knew that it would either be a recipe for greatness or disaster.  I started by baking a white coconut cake (two 9 inch layers).  After letting them cool I poked them full of holes then drizzled a mixture of sweetened condensed milk and coconut milk.  I placed the cakes in the fridge overnight (so it could absorb all the milky goodness that I had poured over it and into it) and then had the difficult task of getting them out of the cake pans.  My trick to this is to put the cakes into a warm oven for a few minutes (which will loosen up the edges) and it should fall right out.  Needless to say this is a heavy (weight wise) cake.  I made whipped cream (which a small amount of sugar in it) to ice the cake with (between the layers and on the outside).  Of course it is not truly a coconut cake without coconut which I placed on the top.  My biggest concern was that this 6 inch tall cake would be too sweet.  As it turned out, the recipient said it was not too sweet and she was kind enough to share it with neighbors and friends (I must admit that it was a really big cake).  I was hoping it ended up like my butter run cake that was so moist it dissolves in your mouth.  However I think the cream vs a rum mixture would make it a little heavier.  Overall I think I might try this one out again.

A Special Birthday Delivery

  According to my Daddy the perfect birthday cake was round, chocolate, two layers, with white icing and yellow roses.  To that end all traditional birthday cakes that I make tend to look like that, although I can't say I ever made one like that for my dad.  So when my cousin's bridal shower (see previous post) and my Daddy's Aunt Betta's birthday fell in the same week I could not help but bake an extra cake to celebrate.    This was her 97th birthday, so I made a butter cake (because not everyone loves chocolate, go figure).  When it came time to decorate all I knew was that I was to include flowers.  So in a moment of chanelling Daddy the cake had yellow roses.
  We presented the cake to Aunt Betta at the bridal shower (with the bride to be's blessing).  She seemed tickled with it and I promised something bigger and better for next year, thinking as we get close to 100 we need to get bigger and better.  Happy Birthday Aunt Betta.

Traditional Bridal Shower 2.0

  My cousin is getting married.  I guess technically she is a second cousin, but when it comes to picking relatives I will promote her because she is a pretty awesome person.  At Christmas word had leaked out that she was officially engaged, to a pretty terrific guy (I say this because he survived a family gathering at my mother's house around Thanksgiving and did not run out screaming-he even appeared to have a good time which in my book makes him a good guy).  So now that we know that my perspective is slightly squewed and that I most definitely have my fathers sense of humor, let me carry on with the story of the cake.
  So with news of the impending nuptials my mother offered to throw a bridal shower, complete with cake from me.  Now you know it takes nothing for me to make a cake.  I love baking and decorating and making people smile when they put something sweet in their mouths.  However this cake came with some challenges shall we say?  The shower was for female relatives and being held at the Commonwealth Club in Richmond, VA.  This is about an hour from where my mother lives in Virginia.  So that meant baking cakes in North Carolina, driving five hours to Virginia with the cakes.  Decorating them at my mother's house, then driving another hour, to put them together at the venue site.  No pressure or anything.  The cake needed to feed 25. A typical cake feeds 20.  So I was going bigger and better (kind of like Tim on Home Improvement, with more power).  Putting my I pad to good use and the Wilton cake app on it to better use I found a combination of cakes to use.  Now the original cake would feed 65.  I made it smaller so this cake would feed about 40.  I baked the butter cake layers at home and transported them everywhere.  The plan was to assemble and decorate on site before the party.  However one element did not happen.  I made two big Es (for Elizabeth) in color flow to place on top of the cake.  However when I got there the Es had melted due to the humidity so I had to plan B.  Fortunately I took a large amount of icing with me and all my cake tips.  I made a big E on top of the cake, not exactly the effect I was going for but not a shabby plan B.
  When it came time for the party I had done a little decorating, everyone arrived, had a good time.  Lunch was some kind of fabulous, and the bride to be walked out with lots of items to stock her new kitchen.  All and all I would say it was a successful day and I hope the happy couple much happiness together.

Trying Something New for Retirement

  Most people who retire are ready to sit back and enjoy all the things they haven't had time to do.  Rarely does that list include house cleaning, laundry or mowing the yard.  Usually it is things like traveling, taking up a hobby, devoting time to church or other organizations.  For this lady, I have no doubt retirement means just devoting time to other areas of her life that bring her so much happiness.
  Not long before this post I had a retirement celebration cake post for this person.  So when her sister asked me to make a cake for her for another retirement celebration that her family was throwing for her I was a little befuddled because I put my all into that last cake.  When this sister called me and asked me to do the cake just like the last one but not tiered and no clovers, I was once again befuddled.  So I went with the old standby, what colors are you decorating in?  She said orange and green.  So I had to ask, dark, bright, pastel?  "I don't know it's orange and green.  Not 4-H green not evergreen just green."  With time being of the essence I said OK and starting trying to figure out how to do this cake.
  I did three cakes again of different sizes but did not tier them.  Knowing my pallet was green and orange I threw in a little white to balance things out and went to work.  The first cake I decorated with a white base and orange and green polka dots.  The next cake had an green base with orange polka dots, and the last cake had a orange base with green polka dots.  Mind you I still had two issues.  The first was that I still didn't think these cakes said, "Aggie." The second problem was that I did not know exactly what shades of green and orange I needed to match the decorations, so it either matched or clashed.  I had no idea and no way to fix it at this point.  Since there was no way to address the second problem I went straight to the first.  To make this cake more Aggie like I worked with a new medium, color flow.  Essentially it is an egg white powder that you mix with water and confectioners sugar to make a writable and edible objects to put on cakes.  I decided for my first time out to make an A and a R, the retirees initials.  Now please don't think that I am so talented to do this on my own, I printed out the letters and placed wax paper on top of them so that I could trace them with the color flow.  It take 24-48 hours for this to dry and then you peel it off the wax paper and place on top of the cake.  So I waited until the next day and packaged up the letters in a Ziploc with instructions to place on the cake.
  Believe it or not this was a particularly busy weekend for cakes, so this one I delivered to my office for the family to pick up since the party would be on Saturday and I had to travel to Virginia for the rest of the weekends cakes.  Now here is the other kicker.  I was told the party was a surprise.  So when I got a call at 5 pm on the Friday before the party saying the cake had not been picked up, I was slightly panicked.  We could not call the honoree because she did not know about the cake or the party (I found out later that she knew about the party, but not the cake) so who would we call?  the sister who contacted me did not answer at the number I had.  Fortunately, our receptionist at the office, thought to call another sister to come get the cake.  Unfortunately the letters got left behind when the cake got picked up so the final Aggie touches were never put on the cake.
  After the event, I was told that Aggie was tickled with the cake.  As a matter of fact her daughter apparently walked in after the celebration program and took the small cake and put it away for herself and left the two larger cakes for the rest of the crowd.  As it turned out the colors on the cake matched the decorations to a T.  Aggie had no idea about the cakes until she walked back and saw them, and I was happy to add to her special day, again.        

A New Look

It never hurts to update things and make them a little more attractive.  Today is the day for this blog.  I had the opportunity to change the look a little and hopefully make it a little more attractive and easier to read and find things that you might be looking for.  The other thing I have done is added a new photo page.  Often I have calls from people asking to see photos and I refer them to the blog.  However I realize an electronic photo catalog is also a good thing so voila; direct from Shutterfly is a cake link.  Please feel free to give me feedback if you think I should separate the cakes out by subject area to make it easier to view. 
I hope you like the new look and the slide show of photos.  Stay tuned because more great cakes are expected by the end of the week.

Inspiration

  Having a little direction is a good thing for me because sometimes I can just leave the confines of the box (that I am supposed to be thinking inside of) of kind of go a little nutty.  So when an incredible co-worker came to me and asked me to do a cake for her niece's first birthday I was tickled.  She brought me a plate for the party and said they needed enough to feed thirty and a smash cake for the princess who would be turning 1.  Needless to say the first thing that came to mind was doing two cakes, a butterfly and flower then a colorful smash cake.
  Both cakes were made with my traditional butter cake.  The first was a butterfly cake which I decorated using purple, pink, orange and yellow.  All the colors found in the plate that would be used for the party.  The second cake was a peace flower which I used green, pink and yellow to decorate.  I wanted to make sure the cakes were similar but not exactly alike and not to matchy match with the plate. 
The smash cake I made with angel food cake so it would not be quite as messy as the butter cake.  Using a combination of colors found in the plate and on the other two cakes I was able to make something purely for smashing birthday fun.

Nothing Wrong with a Little Rum

  I have talked about this group of ladies that I eat lunch with.  We have a habit of celebrating just about every one's birthday (everyone who likes to celebrate that is).  We have done it in a variety of ways.  Of course I always volunteer to make a cake and try to design the cake specifically for that person's likes or dislikes.  This is one of those cakes.  I had thought about making a shaped cake, perhaps a monkey unlike one that I had ever made before but for some reason that idea did not work for me.  I wanted to do something really special and different and that's when I remembered this cake.
  I have not made this cake for years and it seemed especially fitting for this group of ladies.  I decided to make a butter rum cake with chocolate rum frosting.  The cake is actually made in a bunt pan and when it comes out I pierce the top and pour a simple rum syrup (yes actual rum not extract) over the top and let it soak in for about a half hour.  The cake is very moist so when flipping it out I recommend going directly to the serving dish not trying to move it again because there is just not a good way to move this cake without it coming apart.  The chocolate frosting is made with semisweet chocolate, rum, Karo syrup, and heavy cream.  After heating it in a double boiler and letting it cool until it is slightly thickened I pour it over the cake.  In case you are wondering I did not run out or have so much to drink while baking that I missed a spot.  One member of our lunch group does not like chocolate so I wanted to make sure she could eat the cake as well.
  The biggest complement had to be when one person's eyes got big and big, "ohhh" came out of her mouth.  I was concerned something was wrong but she said I put it in my mouth, my teeth did not touch it and the cake melted in my mouth."  The birthday girl seemed pleased with her cake and we had a good time consuming as much as we could before we all had to leave.  I think I will make one of these in the near future.

Leading the Way a New Way"

I often mention how much I enjoy where I work especially the people. As part of a leadership program that was being offered by our Extension Director a graduation ceremony takes place. Of course no graduation would be complete without a cake and that is where this cake's story begins. This is the second year of this particular program and by working at the Robeson County Cooperative Extension office I have had the privilege of providing the cakes for both classes. Now the requirements for the cake was enough cake to feed 100 people and it had to have the program logo. Since the cake has to feed a large group of people I knew we needed to go with the basic butter cake. The last cake I did was two sheet cakes with an edible image and red border. Thinking that each class is unique, I figure their cakes should be unique.
This time I decided on a 14 inch diameter 3 inch tall cake with a 10 inch diameter, 3 inch tall cake on top. I hand cut the image to fit the circular shape of the cake and then decorated with the blue icing border. As part of the event I cut the cake and feel like I cut cake forever. When I got done there was a very small part of the bottom cake left and that's it. Sounds like they enjoyed the cake to me. Congratulations to all the graduates.

It Really is a Celebration

This is one of those bittersweet moments that I am finding myself and this cake wrapped up in. You see someone that I have worked with for the last 10 years is retiring. Lets call her Aggie. Now on one hand I hate it because I can't imagine Aggie not being at the office everyday, working side by side with her on something she is so passionate about. On the other hand I am so happy for her that I could turn cartwheels. After 17 years of giving, toiling, making the best better, she now has time to enjoy the things most important to her. She can spend time with family, friends, and do the things she wants to do without a second thought. Of course when someone gives so much of themselves it is imperative that you throw one humdinger of a celebration. For Aggie, humdinger doesn't quite cover it. As part of the celebration it was important to have just the right cake.
If you know Aggie you know that there is a special flair that was needed for this to make it representative of her. She always says she bleeds green, so we needed to include the 4-H clover. She is also big into polka dots lately. Not conservative little dots but big, bold dots that stand up and get your attention. Aggie is also allergic to chocolate which made it that much easier to get ermine that the inside would be a butter cake. Also, if you know Aggie, you know she is all about the sparkle. this is what let me come up with a cake that represents Aggie. The cake had to feed about 100 so i knew it had to be tiered. The design was a no brainer. Black with white polka dots on the bottom, green with 4-H clovers in the middle, and white with black polka dots on the top.
I had thought about putting fireworks on top for extreme sparkle but decided the fire marshall might get me for that so I settled for some sparkle cake candles. What I didn't know was that the candles were trick candles and when I put them in it was a little late to come up with a plan B. When it was time to cut the cake the candles added a little levity to what could have been a somber moment.
Aggie made sure the first piece of cake went to her pastor, and from there it was on. We cut and served cake like it was going out of style. All in all I would say it was a wonderful celebration of Aggie's 17 year career as well as a celebration of her life to come. Happy retirement Aggie!

Sunny Peeps

One of my favorite Easter memories is guarding my peeps that were in my Easter basket from my dad, who would try to distract me and make them disappear into his stomach. Back then (okay, I admit I am getting older everyday) you could only get peeps at Easter. This made these yellow sugar covered marshmallow chicks and pink sugar covered bunnies something truly special. In the present day I saw a design for a cake on Pinterest. As you may know from previous posts I am addicted to this fantastic web site so it should be no surprise that a cake idea would come from there.
  This is a two layer butter fudge cake, which was slathered in chocolate icing.  The edges of the top of the cake is lined with chick peeps.  The inside was lined with milk chocolate chips.  From a distance the cake looks like a sunflower.  I must admit I made the cake without a function in mind, when a work event presented itself.  The cake seemed well received and what was left was gobbled up by our staff the next day.

Celebrating 25 years

One of the great things about making cakes is being able to hear peoples stories and be a part of their future memories and stories.  This cake is a prime example of that. 
25 years ago one of my coworkers got married.  Although she says it takes a lot of work on both of their parts they very much enjoy their relationship which makes what happened on their 25th wedding anniversary very understandable. After a great deal of thought they decided to renew their vows, and celebrate their union with friends and family. 
What was really neat about this celebration is that the pomp and circumstance that often surrounds weddings, was missing.  The invitation appeared on the groom's facebook page saying."I'm reenlisting.  I'm 25 years in and my lovely wife and I are going to renew our marriage vows this coming Saturday at 3 pm at Purdie's United Methodist Church on HWy 87 between Tarhell and Dublin (the bride's father's home church.)  This will be a very short, simple, informal affair, but the meaning behind it couldn't be more important.  I love my wife.  Everyone is welcome.  No RSVP's, no gifts, no dress up.  Just show up.  There probably will be a little cake and punch afterward."
Needless to say when making this cake I wanted it to be something different and special.  In talking the the bride, we needed a cake to feed 80.  In case you could not guess from the invitation this was a laid back event that would require a custom design to fit this couple for this special event.  Taking a page from their daughter I designed the cake with swirls that she had wanted on a previous birthday cake.  Since this is a silver anniversary I did try for an off white icing with sudle silver embellishments, but that did not work as I had planned.  So out popped the silver degres for the top and corners of the cake.  All in all I would say it turned out well, even though there seemed to be plenty of cake left over afterward, I think the peices were quickly taken care of.

Where Do We Start?????

My last post was about a baby shower for a coworker of mine, let's call her Kerrie. As part of an office celebration we decided once again to focus on the joy of the new baby (jellybean) coming into the world versus losing a valued coworker to a new position. So it was time to make another cake. However after talking with several groups we realized that we would have a few extra guests at our social so I decided we needed more than one cake. Since we needed more than one cake it meant I could do more than one flavor cake and more than one theme. Multi-tasking in baking terminology, which makes me a happy baker.
So the first cake was to be a traditional baby shower type cake. After going through my pans I decided to use one that I had not used in years. I made a teddy bear cake out of Kerrie's favorite cake, Funfetti. Once again I must admit I feel bad about cheating and using a box mix for this but since it is her favorite I went ahead and used it. Once baked it was time to decorate. I decorated it in the colors that Kerrie and her husband plan to use for his (yes, the jellybean is a boy) nursery. The letters on the block represent the baby's name. On the side I have a J and a B for jellybean (I couldn't resist).
The second cake was my traditional butter cake. I know we have many people coming who like the butter cake so I fell back on the old standby. Kerrie is a horticulture agent so I thought a flower, okay a sunflower, would be appropriate. It made decorating very simple. When it came to the message I thought of many but still can't say goodbye so I just wrote her name across the center of the cake. I was thinking about using chocolate chips in the center to add to the texture, but several people I work with are afflicted with a terrible allergy to chocolate, so I decided not to risk it. However that is an option for the future.

We Shoot, We Score, We Surprise!

Got to love when you can every once in awhile plan and implement a surprise for a person who so deserves it. I often speak of my coworkers and one is getting ready to move west (okay not California west, but western North Carolina), as well as have a baby. Actually the timing is pretty cool because instead of saying goodbye we are having baby showers so we can concentrate on the upcoming celebration rather than being sad about her impending move.
As part of that this rather, incredible group of women that I have lunch with frequently decided we should have a baby shower. Each of us planned through facebook messaging when and where and planned to bring something as well as gifts. One of my other coworkers who is part of this group asked the guest of honor if they could go to lunch, a final goodbye luncheon as it were. So plans were in place.
As you can guess I offered to make the cake. It is one of several cakes I will be making for this person and her soon to be child that we affectionately call jellybean. So I wanted to make it something different. I did think about making a jellybean with a nut border (yes, its a boy) but decided that might be in poor taste. So I went with the next best choice which is a baby cake and give him a Clemson themed hat (yes, mom and dad both graduated from Clemson). I must admit I do feel a bit guilty about one thing. She loves a funfetti cake, which of course is a box cake mix. So yes, I used the box mix to make her cake and then decorated like I always do. It didn't take me maybe two hours from start to finish for decorating, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. But I am jumping ahead in my story.
On the big day we had planned to have lunch at one of our usual places. When I asked my co-worker if she was going she said no and went into great detail about how she wanted to but our other co-worker might not appreciate a last minute change, and by the end of the tale she was about to shed crocodile tears. This is one of those moments where you have time to seriously mess with someone or not. If you know me I do love sarcasm and having a little fun with others so you might be surprised to find out that I just shrugged my shoulders and walked away from this one, deciding not to add an extra layer of torture on her. However when she got to the destination, she was quite surprised and even gave a brief lecture on how sneaky the group was. Lunch which ensued was devoured as well as the cake. The presents were opened the the soon to be lucky tike had quite a travelling haul. Stay tuned more jellybean cakes coming soon.

Thank Goodness for Friends

Ever watch the T. V. game show where you have the opportunity to call a friend if you are stumped on the answer for a question? I often wondered who I might call, and of course each time it depends on the question.
Often I will have a customer who will have a variety of occasions to ask me to make a cake. On this occasion it has become one of my favorite clients because she gives me a topic and lets me go to town creatively. Recently she asked me to make not one, but two cakes for her daughters birthday. Her daughter just turned three (and is absolutely adorable if you don't mind me saying so) and was in need of a cake for her pre-school celebration and her family celebration. Both cakes were to be the same character but different if possible. Both the cakes were to be ready for pick up on the same day. Of course when asked if I could make a cake with her favorite cartoon character Kai-Lani I said, "yes, of course." Confession time. Sometimes I say yes, before I realize what is needed.
Needless to say I do not spend a lot of time watching cartoons since my parents informed me in fourth grade that I was too old for them and there for not allowed to watch them anymore. I thought how hard can this be? I googled the character's name and voila, nothing. Slightly panicked (and of course I was doing this the night before the pick up so there was no way to call anyone to double check) I sent a text message to a dear friend of mine who is a cartoon guru and who happens to have a magnificent seven year old daughter who would know if mom did not. After explaining my situation the magic response came to look for ni hao kai-lan, the name of the show. Sure enough that did the trick and a boat load of images came up. Needless to say I saved the image and used my edible image paper and printer to create two very different cakes. On one of them I even found out how to write happy birthday in Chinese to add to the oriental flair of the cake.
When mom picked them up the next day she seemed please with the final product and her daughter could not wait to see the birthday cakes and dig in.

Happy Valentine's Day One and All

A friend of mine asked me if I had a bunch of cakes for Valentine's Day and I honestly replied no. As a matter of fact this cake was for a week after the big event. Honestly I believe most people associate Valentines day with flowers, chocolates, bouquets (rather it be flowers or fruit) rather than cakes, but I wouldn't mind working on adapting that vision.
I have a fairly new customer who asked me to make a cake for her church Valentine's day celebration. It was a cake that needed to feed 50. She requested heart shaped and said, "this needs to feed 50 Robeson County folks not 50 by way of the cake measuring standards." Completely understood. Other than the cake saying Happy Valentine's the design was mine to create.
When making a cake for a bunch of people I always suggest a butter cake, that way those with chocolate issues are not left out. I made two, two-inch tall layers, 16 inch heart shaped cakes. this should be enough for 90 people. After adding icing the cake was probably 5 to 6 inches tall. I added a scroll design similar to the birthday cake I made for Ally. However I made the scroll design in white, just like the background of the cake with the writing in a center heart. So the design was slightly understated.
I understand the cake was devoured and there was just the right amount for everyone. Maybe I should start a Valentine's Day cake offering for those who want to get something a little different for the romantic holiday.

Rocking this Candy

I have always wanted to make candy, specifically rock candy. I have tried off and on through the years and have never been successful at this venture. Thanks to my new found favorite website, Pinterest, I discovered directions that seemed a little too good to be true to make rock candy in a week. I must say the week part was a little too good to be true, but the rest worked like a charm.

Before you start take bamboo skewers and get them wet. Role them in sugar and let the sugar dry on the stick (this will be the starter for your rock candy). As those dry its time to move to the stove top and a heavy duty saucepan. Essentially the plan is to start with equal parts of water and sugar, I think I did three cups of each. You heat the water on the stove top and start stirring. When the sugar dissolves you continue to add more to have a ratio of at least 2 to 1, or 3 to 1, sugar to water. I had 8 cups of sugar to three cups of water by the time I got done.

I let it cool for a few minutes and poured the mixture into glasses. I used icing gels to color each glass (you can also add flavorings at this time). I took a bamboo skewer and placed one in each glass without letting it touch the sides or bottom. I used a clothes pin across the top of the glass to balance the skewer. If the stick touches the bottom or sides this will not work correctly. I placed the glasses in a window sill and waited.

I have to say anytime you are making hard candy the weather and location (temperature and humidity) can make a difference in what you are doing. This took me about three weeks rather than one, although I did see growth after one week, I wanted more and was willing to be patient. There was build up on the bottom and side of the glass when I got done. A little hot water and it dissolved very easily. This would be a great thing to make with kids, and helps teaches patience. It would also make a great science project to show crystallization. Just a thought for educational reasons on making this sweet treat.

Choo Choo Birthday!

I have often talked about my day job and the wonderful people I work with in and out of the office. Many of them have asked me to make cakes for some of their most important milestones. This cake is no different. One of my co-workers, let's call her Michelle, asked me to make a cake for her son's second birthday. One of his favorite things? Choo Choo trains. So what could be more perfect than a Thomas the Tank Engine?
I started with my traditional butter cake and went from there. The cake was done in traditional colors. When decorating a popular character for a two year old I have found it best to stay with what the child will recognize. When I was done I made the number on the tank a two in honor of his second birthday, then added a Happy Birthday and his name to the board to make sure the world could know whose birthday we are celebrating.
Apparently the cake was such a hit that when mom went to cut the cake the birthday boy was crying that they were tearing up his cake. I later got a photo of what was left. This is one of my favorite photos because it says that they enjoyed this birthday treat.

All About Chocolate

Opps I did it again. No I have not lost my mind or been listening to Brittany Spears. What I did was overindulge with a chocolate basket. Can you even imagine? I started with the idea of creating a hot chocolate basket for the North Carolina State 4-H Volunteer Leaders Conference and what I ended up with was nine pounds of incredible chocolate bliss.

Seriously the plan was to get two mugs, a half dozen different types of hot chocolate and maybe some hot chocolate reciepes and leave it at that. Ok, so you know me better than that by now and I must admit when I got creative with it I just couldn't stop. In my last post I told you about my new favorite web site, Pinterest. One of the things I saw on there was jet puffed marshmellows dipped in carmel and chocolate that are used as hot chocolate stirrers. I was not sure how well carmerl would travel in basket so I adapted. The marshellows were dipped in melted choclate and rolled in choclate chips. I also made chocolate spoons. Two were plain chocolate, two were in white choclate with pepermint and then two were in chcolated with chocolate chips. Of course I did not stop there.

I went a little crazy buying at least six different types of chocolate to fill the basket with. There was carmel chocolate, dark choclate, chocolate covered almond kisses and the list goes on and on. Getting it to the auction was another story. My wonderful puppy offered up photos of some of the goodies on his facebook page. Bless his heart it got more responses than most of his posts, and by the time the basket got to Raliegh, 4-H Agents were plotting to appropriate different parts of the basket. However, once I convinced them that they know the person who got chocolate happy and would be more than happy to get choclate happy or spasdic for them. So with the basket safe for the auction all we could do was wait. Around 9:30 pm it was time for the chocolate basket to be auctioned. The crowd was on the light side at the auction. So when the bidding started off at $5 I wasn't shocked. Dollar by dollar the bidding started up and at $20 someone was going home with a basket, literally on a chocolate high.

A New Twist on the Fairy Tale

"Can you make a tangled cake?" Of course the first thing that runs through my head is a Johnson and Johnson shampoo commercial about less tangles and no more tears. Then a flash of inspiration hits me as the person placing the order, let's call her Penny, is talking about her niece's birthday party and how she loves the Disney movie Tangled. Of course being a fairly new movie I do not have a cake pan for that, but I do have an edible printer.

The cake needed to feed about 25 people so I made a simple rectangular sheet cake with the Tangled main character on it. Apparently the birthday girl is partial to purples and pinks which is good since that was fairly easy to incorporate with this design. I also added some flowers to add to the embellishments on the printed edible design.

Overall the birthday girl seemed as happy with her cake as she was with her tremendous birthday party with her siblings, cousins, and friends who came.

Cake a la Crockpot

I have discovered the most wonderful website, Pinterest. It was described to me by a coworker as the female version of fantasy football. It is absolutely fantastic. Basically it allows you to create virtual bulletin boards and link things from all over the Internet (or things you create) to your boards. You also link with friends and you can see what they pin to their boards and repin it to your own and visa versa. It did not take me long to have well over 1,000 pins and lots of neat ideas I wanted to try. That's where this next cake came from.
I saw this recipe and though there is no way it will work, it was for a crockpot cake, specifically a Rocky Road Cake. It involves a box mix, pudding mixes of different flavors, vanilla, milk and other such stuff that I like alone so it should be good together right? I followed the directions which can be found on my Pinterest food bulletin board, which links you to this blog, and plugged that crockpot in. I must admit as I watched this cook, I got a bit panicked. The lid started rising up and I was sure there was going to be a tremendous mess. Alas no such mess (until I drove it around in my car-not such a good plan by the way, at least not until it is done cooking). I have to admit there were some recipe changes. Not being a nut fan or German chocolate cake fan I adjusted to use a chocolate cake mix and left out the nuts. I had everyone's attention when I added the last two ingredients. Although we were all sure it looked not nearly as good as sheep snot might, my friends, being true friends say serve me up a little piece. A little piece here and there turned into larger helpings and taking some home. I tried a little and must admit it was warm smooshy chocolaty goodness like no other and very easy to make.
It may be ugly but many I suggest indulging, it will be a desert you will never forget.