Going Out In Style

I aspire to retire one day.  So you can understand why I take great pleasure in helping coworkers who have so deservedly reached that milestone celebrate.  Linda Gore is one of the finest 4-H Youth Development Extension Agents in the state of North Carolina as well as a good friend.  When another incredible 4-H Agent asked if I would do the cake I was honored, and needless to say jumped at the opportunity.
I have to admit retirement cakes stump me.  Finding a cake that represents that time, effort, and incredible impact a person has had at their career is difficult.  So I will say I turned to my new friend Pinterest.  After searching several retirement cake designs I combined several ideas to come up with this cake.  Since we were planning for 200 I had lots of opportunity to express what I needed to, but I also had to remember it was likely much of administration would be there so nothing too funny.  So in my mind I planned out the perfect cake, hoping I would come close to what I saw in my minds eye.
About three days before the event the number of folks in attendance was dropped to 100 which made this cake at least one tier shorter and a little easier on me figuring out how to get all the layers into the freezer at one time.  Frozen and base coated I loaded up the cake and headed to Moore County which is about a ninety minute drive.  Once there I worked to construct the cake and finish decorating it.  That included a couple of last minute additions and deletions to my design.  A 4-H clover was added to the side to cover the start and end of the ribbon on the second tier.  The hanging clovers from the top were a whole other issue in patience as the plan I had in my head had to be re-engineered to work.
In the end the three teir off white cake was made with three two layer butter cakes.  The writing on the front, "Linda the end is just a new beginning" was done in pure white to let it stand out from the base off white.  A green ribbon and floating clovers helped accent the cake.  As far as the lady of honor, well she cut her cake and shared it with the masses there to honor her and celebrate her special moment.  She enjoyed the cake and there was just a bit left for her (and anyone else) to take home to remember this special event.  

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.

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.        

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.

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.

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.

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.

Excellence in Families

I have often said how much I love my job. This cake is just another reason why. Robeson County Cooperative Extension delivers a program to families with youth between the ages of 10 and 14 called Strengthening Families. Families meet at the Cooperative Extension office one night a week for six weeks in a row. During that time they have the opportunity to have dinner together, then parents work in a group on discipline, communication and gaining a better understanding of their children. The children work on understanding their parents and gaining respect for them, communication and receive tools on how to handle tough topics like peer pressure, drugs, and sex. To date the program has been held three times with more than 10 families taking part in the program. About a month after the sixth session the group comes back together to meet, go over topics, talk about what works, and finally graduate from the program. Now needless to say, I always volunteer a cake but this time I did not know what to make. Finally the night before it came to me, make the kale like the certificate they would receive that night. Since we make the certificates it was nothing for me to save the certificate as a photo and print it out on edible paper. The cake was a butter cake and when I baked it it was much thinner than I expected so I cut it in half and made it a two layer cake. I already had an inkling that my audience liked icing so I was sure an extra layer of icing would not hurt any one's feelings. I printed the image on edible paper and then cut it down to fit the cake. It took less than a second to choose red for the border to highlight the red in the image. My other issue was that I could not find my traditional cardboard base to put the cake on. It so happened that the cake was the perfect size for my grandmothers cake plate/stand that I have yet to find a place for so it has been sitting on my dinning room table. Voila not only did we have a neat looking cake for a wonderful graduation for our families but I was able to kick it up a notch when I presented it. Which is exactly what tout families deserve. Congratulations to all of them on their graduation.

Ho Ho Holidays!

It wasn't just two days ago when a customer asked me if I had a bunch of orders for Christmas and I had to admit that I did not have a one.  Then just a few hours later I had a request for a Christmas cake of my choosing for an office Christmas celebration.  I love when people give me the choice because it just so happens, not long ago, I saw a cake design that I really wanted to try.
I used my paisley cake pan to create this Santa Clause.  I baked a double batch of my butter cake batter to make the cake and then went to work decorating.  The nice thing is that color wise it is simple.  Three colors and white icing to decorate the entire thing and there is not a lot of detail work until you get to the white icing with a rather large tip.  Then it was a case of making sure Santa had all the mustache, and beard detail that the spry old gent should have in all of our imaginations.  When I got done the cake had help give me a little more holiday spirit and I hope that those who had the opportunity to partake in the cake enjoyed it and got a little of the holiday spirit as well.

Cake Designer Meets Baker/Decorator for Dream Cake

I love people who know what they want. This cake is all about that. The Leadership Academy cake has made a splash with a lot of people. Especially one person who just turned 17. For her birthday she had asked for a party, down on the farm, with her friends and family. She planned a bon fire, chicken bog, and just fun and conversation. To make it right she needed a cake and she told me exactly what she wanted.
Let's call her Ally. She started off saying it was to be exactly like the leadership academy cake, which had her mom a little hesitant knowing that nothing is exactly the same each time, especially when you bake. However what Ally wanted was a little different. She started by designing her own edible image. She had her mom take the photos, then edited them together into her overall image design. She sent me a text to make sure it would work then sent the image, via her mom (who is such a good sport by the way) on a SD card so I could print it out. I was also instructed that two sheet cakes were to be used in tiers with the bottom one being my butter cake and top one being a chocolate butter fudge cake. So I had baked and had an image I just needed the rest of the vision. Once again, via her mom, she sent me a drawing showing the scroll work she wanted and the colors. Of course black and pink go with the image she designed. Now due to space I had to take a little liberty with the design. That always makes me a little nervous.
I delivered the cake at just the right time, right before the party was to begin. She was tickled with how it turned out and I must say that she did an excellent job of designing her dream cake. I gave her all the credit for how it looked because she was truly the designer for this endeavor.

I Think I Can...Celebrate!

I think today is the busiest cake day I have had in the history of baking cakes. When Michelle called and asked if I could make a train cake for her son I could not resist. She also asked for something a little different, two dozen cupcakes for the day care. Now as many of you know I do make cupcakes but they are not my most wonderful thing that I do. However when we started talking about a Thomas the Train cake it sort of all fell together.
I knew to do the cupcakes just right I needed to find some Thomas decorations. I went to one of my favorite little shops in Fayetteville, Crafts Frames and Things. There I found everything I needed. Although I could not locate a Thomas train pan I did locate a train cake pan and Thomas cupcake picks that I could use for the cupcakes. When I left there I was excited about the prospects ahead.

I started by baking the the butter train cake then turned to the cupcakes. I also used my same butter cake recipe to make the cupcakes. I iced the cupcakes in big white swirls of icing then sprinkled them with blue crystallized sugar to match the lightest part of Thomas's Engine. Then the pick of Thomas went into the top of each cupcake. I had thought about doing both red and blue cupcakes however with little ones I have learned that it is best to keep things simple and make sure everyone gets the same thing. When I got done I was tickled and the uniformity of all the cupcakes and wish I had extras to try one myself.

After finishing up the cupcakes it was time to turn to the cake. Since I was using a train cake pan and not a Thomas the Engine pan I had to do a little adjusting during decorating. The cake was a train cake adapted the best I could to make it look like Thomas the Engine. I puffed up his cheeks with grey icing and made sure his cars were in complimentary blue and red coloring. When Michelle came to pick it up she seemed very pleased with the cakes and cupcakes and was ready to celebrate her son's birthday.

Just a side note to this story....I recently took inventory of my cake pans (yes, there are many cake pans) and found my very own Thomas the Train pan that I thought I had. I have done a new catalog system so I can more easily find the pans and am happy to say there can be a variety of train cakes now.

Witchy Birthday

This cake request made me ask lots of questions. One of the people who attended the leadership academy enjoyed the cake so much she asked if I could make a birthday cake for her sister. I responded of course and gave her my contact information. She called and asked if I could make a wicked witch cake. I said yes, but thought she had originally suggested a birthday cake, but I did not question it because the customer is always right. On a subsequent call the customer told me that it was a birthday cake for her sister. This time I had to ask, "You wanted me to make a wicked witch cake right?"

"Oh, yes her birthday is on Halloween and she will love it. The uglier the better." So who am I to argue? The cake needed to feed about 30 people which took away my normal forms of wicked witch cakes because they feed 10-20 people, so it was time to get creative. I poured over my Wilton Cake books and came up with a possible solution. Using a paisley cake pan they had made a witch cake. Now this cake, in the book, was also decorated with fondant. For those of you who know me, you know that it is my personal preference not to decorate with fondant. That means I had to get creative and adapt this to icing. Ha Ha Ha! Actually she didn't turn out too bad, with lots of green icing for the face, icing nose and warts, and some really stringy purple hair. I did add a "Happy Birthday" to the band that went across the orange belt that ran around her witch's hat.

The nerves hit when pick up time came. I was still not sure if I had gone over board or if I had not done enough. With something like this and a new customer you never know. When she and her son came to pick it up he said "Woah! That is ugly!" She smiled and I knew that we were good to go! Later she reported that the cake was a big hit and there was more than enough to feed everyone. Most importantly she said her sister loved it!

Taking the Lead in Leadership Images

Did I mention that I have an edible image printer? Can you tell I am excited about introducing this technology into my cake baking? I am having a ball with the edible image printer and am happy to bake a cake for any occasion that will allow me to play with this new tool. Hence the next cake I am about to tell you about.
As many of you know my day job is as a 4-H Extension Agent. What you may not realize is that 4-H is part of Cooperative Extension. Cooperative Extension is the educational outreach of the land grant universities in each state. In North Carolina there is a Cooperative Extension office in each county in the state. So when our office administrative assistant asked me to make a cake for the first graduating leadership course group I could not resist. I knew our tourism agent had made a logo for the class which I could print out. The other key to this cake was that it needed to feed 90 people. That does not leave a lot of room for design so I wanted to make this different than your traditional sheet cake design.
I started with two sheet cakes made of every one's favorite butter cake. The bottom cake was a 13x 19 cake while the top cake was a 11x13 cake. The cakes had a base icing of white with a red shell border. In the center on the top cake was the logo for the leadership group. The cake was cut at the final lunch which included certificates for the graduates, a slide show and friends and family as part of the festivities. It was a great day of celebration and appreciation for all those involved.

A Monster of a Birthday

As I started my previous post I explained that it the frilly birthday cake was for a little girl and this cake is for her brother. When asked about his birthday cake he didn't want a stylish cake, as a matter of fact his response was that he wanted an ice bream cake. Although I have done ice cream cakes, they are not a speciality and I feel others can do it better and more inexpensively than I can. However when it came to this cake order there was a small issue. The place where the cake came from would not put the one thing this child wanted on his cake more than anything else. That's right, he wanted the logo from the Monster energy drink on his cake. The only other thing he wanted was his name in black. That's right he wanted his name written in black on his cake. So when I got the call about this cake it was a compromise. I asked Chandler's step mother to purchase the cake from Dairy Queen and I would decorate it. She did and I used the edible printer to print an image that I carefully placed on the cake, decorated around the edges and then, in black wrote the birthday boy's name. It was exactly what he wanted for his birthday and that is really what it is all about.

A Frilly Birthday

I had an interesting cake order the other day. I was asked to create cakes for two children (a brother and a sister) who have birthdays a week apart but were celebrating together. This post is about the little girl's cake, let's call her Casey.

Casey's step-mother came to me wanting to create a small but spectacular cake for this special little girl. They had looked on line at different photos and found some cakes that they liked but did not like the colors. So when the came to me they were looking for a butter cake with zebra stripes, hot pink fringe and bright colored flowers. They also wanted a big C in the center for Casey. They wanted a two-tiered cake, however only enough to feed about 10 people which made this an interesting mathematically conundrum. So an 8 inch square cake with a six inch round cake is what the shape of the cake worked out to be. Each tier had black zebra stripes while the edges were laced with hot pink fringe. I added yellow and pink daisies to the top along with a yellow dot border to highlight the letter in the center of the cake. It came out to be a special and spectacular cake for a special and spectacular young lady. Happy Birthday Casey!

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.

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.