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.