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.