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.

Kiss the Pig, Help a Child

Have you ever kissed a pig? What? This is not something you have aspired to all your life? Actually that's what the nomination crew behind the scenes at the Robeson County Partnership for Children is actually hoping for. They nominated a variety of people around Robeson County to kiss the pig, as a fundraiser for the organization. The person with the most votes would have to kiss the pig (did I mention each vote costs $1). That way there were concentrated efforts of vote for candidate A not me, or please vote for any candidate not me. As time drew near to end the contest, Tanya Underwood a program specialist for the partnership even offered herself and her supervisor, Amy Cox up for kissing the pig if $1,000 could be raised over the last three days.
After all the votes were counted there was undeniably a tie between Hector Miray, a local pastor, and Leon Maynor a Lumberton City Councilman. Even better Tanya and Amy were also in line to kiss the pig.
Now there was great question about the pig. You see Fairweather Robeson, the mascot for the Robeson Regional Agricultural Fair was already planning on being there and some thought that this meant he would be the pig. However, thanks to Agriculture Extension Agents Michelle Shooter and Kerrie Roach from the Robeson County Center of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service another pig would be the highlight of the event. Petunia, as she was named was a piglet that would receive a diaper and tutu for the kissing event. She was kind enough to take four kisses and lots of cuddling.
Of course with such a celebration there has to be a celebration. What is a celebration without cake and punch? For such an auspicious occasion it was important to have not just one but two cakes. We had to have a pig and a set of lips. I know you have seen the pig before. This one was made with a butter cake. The lips are made out of a butter chocolate cake and were hand carved before being decorated. The nice thing about these cakes, besides they fact that they seemed to be enjoyed by all in attendance that day, is that it feed Tanya's cake need for another week or less. It is always nice to be able to provide cakes for an organization that is making a difference.

Puppy at the Beach

If you follow this blog you will notice that I make many of my cakes for people I work with. An earlier post was a cake for a co-worker that was leaving and sure enough so is this one. You could almost say that this blog could serve as a future job listing sight. However, I digress. Once again a co-worker came to me and asked if I could make a cake for someone who was leaving our office, lets call her Mandie. Mandie worked as a tourism agent and although that might seem like a wide open area to make a cake from, non of those ideas quite seem to fit her personality. However in her spare time she enjoyed camping on the beach, her dogs, and of course her boyfriend. Having not ever met him it made it difficult to include him in the cake, however the dogs who I have heard story after story about (they really are quite cute in the photos) so that was really a no brainer. We also know how much she enjoys her beach time and camping.
So the cake was to be a 3-D dog on the beach. I baked the normal butter cake and went for it. You would think since I had done this before it would be easy however mother nature decided to mess with me this time. It was humid and just starting to rain as the cake was cooling so the moist cake ended up with a neck break when I went to freeze it. I wasn't too worried because icing is a little like super glue it can fix anything. When it came time I decorated the cake got it fixed but was worried it would not hold, so I put it in the refrigerator. During the night it finally rained, and rained and rained allowing things not to dry like they needed to. Needless to say when I opened the refrigerator the cute, adorable little pup that I had shoved in there the night before, was headless. I examined the situation, loaded icing bags, tips dowel rods and my pipe cutter (to cut the dowel rods) and headed to the office (I admit I did brush my teeth, shower, and dress before I loaded up and left).
At the office I began again. Used two dowel rods to stabilize the cake, icing, and a lot of prayer. I got the cake up and spread brown sugar around it to make it look like the pup was on the beach. However I could not help but notice that the head was starting to slide forward. I fixed it again and took photos but at this point there was nothing left to do. The head broke into several pieces as it slid off the body and make it look like the pup had buried his head in the sand. Of course I told Mandie that he lost his head because he was so upset over her leaving. Although it was not the most beautiful outcome, the cake still tasted good and we were able to give her photos of what the original intent was. Next time I will check the weather before deciding to cook at 3-D cake when it is raining.

Talk about being a HAM

As you know most of my cakes have stories behind them and that is one of the things I find so interesting about making some of these. However, very rarely do I share those stories outside of this blog. This cake however was different. One of my day job co-workers, let's call her Ava, is moving forth to greener professional pastures (in other words she has a new job). Of course, being the wonderful and humble staff that we are we had a little going away social for her. The sunshine committee (that is what we call the group who plans these events) asked if I would make a cake. Like I would ever turn down the opportunity to make a cake. I asked if there was a theme, color, something that everyone thought would be appropriate and they said no they were leaving it up to me (you would think after all of these years they would know better).

So this morning when she said, "I really appreciate this but I have one question. Why a pig?" I couldn't help but grin. I said several suggestions came up including high heels, a horse, coffee, things that represented small portions of you but I did not think captured your essence. Instead the pig was chosen because you were brave and not only wore the Fairweather costume at the fair but because you will always be remembered for telling people around here that they were a hot mess. More recently we believed the moniker of HAM fit Ava, and although I can not spell out what HAM stands for, because this is a family blog, I can say the H stands for hot and the M stands for mess. Ava would not tell everyone what HAM stood for but had to agree the logic for this cake was sound.

It did not take long for us to cut into the cake and get down to some sweet eating. There were a few squeals and maybe some tails curling as they ate the cake and enjoyed our last day with our HAM of a co-worker. We wish Ava all the best in her new position.

An Utterly Cute Cake

This cake might fall into the , "it's the thought that counts" category. One of my coworkers, who is a livestock agent is having a birthday. She is very big on birthdays and the group of people we eat lunch with wanted to have a surprise birthday lunch for her. Of course I volunteered to make the cake. I wanted to make her a cow cake but it needed to be different from the last cow cake I made for a colleague of hers. This was going to be a traditional brown cow. Of course I did make it a girl and even put a pink bow in the tuft of hair at the top. However when I got done, I wasn't sure that it didn't look more like a brown bear rather than a brown cow. Of course it was made with milk which would be the difference between a cow and a bear. :)

Maybe a Little Monkey Business

You know me. I love a little monkey business, it can be so much fun. So when the sister of a friend called me and we discussed a cake for a baby shower this cake just jumped into my head. She was describing the colors with browns, blues, pinks a little yellow and well there wasn't a theme but there would be a monkey or two because the mom to be likes monkeys. Suddenly my mind went from crawling baby to stroller, baby bottle and suddenly a baby monkey. How can you tell a baby monkey from an adult monkey? By the diaper, of course. The cake itself was a butter cake, because the dad to be (who yes, was at the shower) is allergic to chocolate. Although there were several suggestions of putting chocolate creme in the part of the cake with the diaper, I did refrain. However, now I am in the mood for chocolate creme. Go figure. I think the cake, which had stiff competition with Krispey Kreme Doughnuts was a hit. There was not a piece left by the end of the shower. Congratulations Missy and Jeff on Sami who should be making her appearance in June.

Monkeying Around

I love monkeys. They are fun, funny, cute, and even the ugly ones have adorable features, and they tend to be rather smart. How could you not love a monkey. I have had a monkey cake pan for quite awhile and never had a reason to decorate a monkey cake until recently.
I eat lunch frequently with a group of professionals who have a tendency to turn lunch into a laugh-aerobics hour. We have a great deal of fun and great sense of humors are flying. Kind of like swinging from the vines sometimes. So when one of the group had a birthday it seemed appropriate to make a monkey cake. The cake was also the opportunity for one of my coworkers to try her hand at decorating again after a several year hiatus She did a great job of decorating and we had a good time getting the cake together. The chocolate fudge cake was a hit with the monkey as we jumped into it with both feet.
It is just a fun loving cake for any occasion, especially a birthday in this case.

A Ducky Birthday

Often when people ask how I am I say ducky! They usually laugh and shake their head but every once in awhile I have someone who asks what I mean when I say that. What I actually mean is that I am calm on the surface and paddling like mad underneath. I tell you this to say I have a special connection to the duck. So when it came time to make a birthday cake for our new interim director what could I do but a duck? I say this sarcastically as I try not to push my ideas on others.

However after only knowing him for a few months coming up with a great cake was tough so I called the one person who I knew who would know, his secretary. She was wonderful at pitching ideas and said he enjoys duck hunting. I knew that I had a 3-D rubber duck cake pan that I had once used to make a chicken cake, so how hard could it be to convert it to a normal duck? I baked a butter cake and ended up with a great 3-D duck cake. A little carving of the head and neck (and a photo of a mallard up on my lap top) a mallard duck was created. To help decorate several candy ducks were made to decorate around the cake. He might not be perfect but he did let us sing Happy Birthday before he lost his head, literally. It did not take long to devour this cake. The birthday man (boy seems a little inappropriate especially for your supervisor) seemed pleased with his cake too.

It Was a Moo-ving Experience.

It was an utterly wonderful experience, and there is no bull about it. I have a bunch of these, so I apologize now, it came from a story I did on Cow Patty Bingo, however I digress. This is the moo-ving tale of a livestock agent, a surprise, and a cow cake (great elements right?).

I was having an e-mail discussion with a group I work with about a meeting. In the midst of all the details it came up that one of our livestock agents was having a birthday the day of our meeting. From there were chewed on the information and determined a cake was in order. The only issue was how would the cake get there because I was not going to be able to go. So my counterpart who was coming over to drop stuff off offered to pick up the cake and get it there. In the back of my head I was milking the information, trying to determine how she would get the cake over there without the livestock agent seeing it since they were riding together, but what the hey? I knew she could handle it.

There was a quick decision about the cake. A livestock agent meant animals could be used, especially pigs, goats, lambs, and cows. After a little more thought we determined the cow would be the most appropriate and I some how milked the situation to create a diary cow, instead of a beef cow which is what she really works with. My colleague picked up the cake from me the night before and disguised it in a trash bag in the back of the van for ride over to the meeting. When asked by the intended receipt what it was she said casually, "oh just some supplies" which was accepted without hesitation.

After making the trip across three counties, and having lunch the meeting was getting ready to commence. For those like myself who could not attend, we were hooking up via computer conference to the meetings. The twist here is that the birthday woman was also the technical person. So, as the story was told to me, as she is working at getting it all set up and having technical difficulties they brought the cake in, candles, singing and all and red faced about the difficulties I believe she told me her thoughts were, " are you kidding? Thanks, but right now."

In the end the technical difficulties were grazed over, the cake was cut, and chocolate seemed to so the the tension and add a special sugar high to the meeting. I told you it was a moo-ving story.