The Sweet Taste of Retirement

  I am starting to really enjoy the edible image printer I have and so are other folks.  It is amazing that I now get more orders for folks wanting edible image cakes which is how this order started.  A colleague called and asked if I might be able to make an edible image cake for the retirement of one of her husband's colleagues.  She had designed the invitation and wanted the invitation as the image.  No problem there.  So a quick e-mail later we had the custom image ready to go.  A butter cake to feed about 100 in the colors on the invitation.  Sounds simple right?  It would be except for one thing, Mother Nature.
Thanks to a predicted ice and snow storm the retirement celebration had to be postponed a few weeks.  Fortunately, I had some sort of sixth sense, and an unscheduled trip halfway across the country, that kept me from baking the first cake.  So two days before the rescheduled event the baking began with about a pound of butter, flour, granulated sugar, eggs, vanilla, powdered sugar, shortening, and other baking goodies.  After freezing the butter cake it was time to ice it.  After successfully placing the edible image on the cake it was time to fill in with borders.  The cake made it to the party and I have no doubt after this send off, retirement was really sweet.

Dancing is Just a Little Sweeter

  It's that time of year again around here.  Time for the United Way Dancing with the Robeson County Stars.  The annual event has become quite the fundraiser for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library which United Way of Robeson County coordinates locally.  The first year they found that the big night which includes dinner and bidding was just one of the big attractions.  The dress rehearsal without all the luxuries became a big hit and they were able to sell tickets to that as well.
  To thank the dancers for all their hard work practicing and raising money, United Way tries to make the green room (room where the dancers are until it is their turn to take the stage) a pampered event.  There is food and drink, and of course cake.  For the last several years I have been honored to make the cake for these events.  They never ask for anything too exciting, just a United Way edible image cake each night.  Needless to say, the cakes for each night are not identical because that just wouldn't seem right to me.
Each cake is our popular butter cake.  Making sure the edible image is the most important thing we did a simple white background on a sheet cake and then highlighted the dress rehearsal cake in gold and bordered the cake for the night of the big even in blue with a little writing.  No doubt it will be a great night.  To find out all the step by step information you can check out United Way of Robeson County's Facebook age or follow them on Twitter.

Paw Patrol is on a Roll

  It is such a good thing I have friends with young children or I would know nothing about pop culture.  For example, when this friend came to me and said her sone wasn't sure what cake he wanted this year but they were leaning towards Paw Patrol.  I must admit this is my first brush with the patrol but I am might impressed.  I have learned about all our puppy superheroes and which ones are each person's favorites and why.  I unlocked an entire sub culture working on this cake, and I must admit it was fun.
  Since I could not do one specific Paw Patrol member, and sort of had to create this one from scratch I was thrilled for my edible printer, which keeps me off the cake wrecks blog and Facebook pages.  I found a picture with all the members of this elite team and printed and edible image that should make everyone familiar with this team happy.  Having found one of their famous sayings it took nothing to finish this cake off for Jackson on his birthday.  Just hoping he had a great birthday and the opportunity to, be on the roll.

Edible Art

I must admit I have a neat job and some really neat hobbies that let me meet interesting and talented folks.  I met this gentlemen a long time ago in a previous career when he was painting a mural for the city and offering art lessons for kids.  Years later I met him through his wife who volunteered in the program that I am blessed to be a part of.  Not only was he painting (one of his landscapes actually hangs in my home) but also writing.  He wrote a series of science fiction books inspired by his son.  I must say I was honored when he asked me to edit the Jack Ryder series and throughly enjoyed reading them.
What brings us to this post and ultimately the cake, is his most recent medium of spray can art paintings.  Only limited by his imagination Jim Hurst has created a series of incredible paintings using, not paintbrushes, but spray cans.  Not only have I seen him adjust his craft and hone it over the years now I get to see him achieve a level of success not many artists achieve.  Today Jim is opening up his first public exhibit at the Carolina Civic Center.  The Carolina Civic Center is a historic theater in downtown Lumberton, North Carolina.  A Mecca for performing artists for more then a century this theater is pleased to offer a venue for visual artists as well.  You can read more about his work and this exhibit in the local paper that spotlighted his exhibit.
When Jim's wife asked if I would do a cake for the opening of the exhibit I was so very honored.  The instructions were simple, a butter cake which would appeal to all segments of the cake eating public. Then they asked me to make an edible image cake utilizing any of Jim's paintings.  Although there were many paintings I loved, getting the images downloaded to print caused me some challenges.  I was finally able to get an incredible painting he did utilizing the Cape Hatteras light house.  I was struggling how to make this a Jim Hurst original cake (customizing it with more than the painting image) and as an artist realized when I am done with a painting I make it forever mine by signing it.  So I did my best to emulate the Hurst signature at the bottom of each of his paintings in icing.  I utilized the same black icing to create a rope frame around the photo and voila!  Jim had his own work of art for his art opening.  We hope he has a successful exhibit and enjoys the success that this talent artist deserves.

Shea Cake Strikes Again

If I ever go into baking full time two things will have to happen. First, I am going to have to charge more. Second, I am going to have to change the name of my company from Custom Cakes 4 You to Shea Cakes. It seems that the tag my coworkers have tagged my cakes with has stuck. I am honestly grateful that they often talk about their Shea Cake and how much they enjoy its to other people. they have done it so much that people are now asking for a Shea Cake. Something I find absolutely amusing, because it honestly seems to have taken off.
Point in case...one of my incredible coworkers daughters came home from college a couple of weeks ago and asked if I would make a small birthday cake for her boyfriend. Mind you she is San N.C. state student. In other words she lives in Raleigh,the Mecca of food and bakeries in this state. You know the big city. However she came home and asked me to bake the cake, because her boyfriend had asked her if he might be able to try a Shea Cake that he had heard so much about from her. Besides the fact that I am enameled with almost all of my coworkers children and would help them out with any baking project I can, this story I couldn't resist. Apparently the cake recipient is a Minnesota Vikings fan. This made it even easier.
Essentially I made an 8x8 butter cake with an edible image on top. Searching for the right image wasn't a problem. Finding one that would fit on a square cake....well that was a little more difficult, but obviously not impossible. A little purple icing border and the cake was ready for delivery to Raleigh. We will see what the recipient thinks.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Testing a New Image

I love toys. I especially love toys that involve technology. A couple of years ago for Christmas my mother gave me my own edible image printing system. Problem is I have not had a place to set it up until recently. When I received an order that would require me to use the new system I made it a priority to get it set up and try it out.

However not only it was it an edible image cake order, it was an edible image cake order for an ice cream cake. Not sure if there would be a temperature issue with the edible image paper I decided I needed to test out the system and test it on an ice cream cake. So I used an image from our fair to print out and purchased an ice cream cake from our local Dairy Queen. I did learn an important lesson and that is that edible paper does crack. So as not to crack the image it is important to carefully get it away from the backing and then cut it down. After placing it on the cake I decorated the edges to make sure it would be a seamless transition between image and background.

Of course I needed someone to test this on to make sure it was not a funky taste or texture between cake and image so I took the cake to the office. My co-workers seemed pretty happy to try it out and give me their opinions. After rave reviews on the cake I had to ask about the image and decorating. They each asked, "You mean the cake didn't come that way?" That was good enough for me that the image had melted into the top of the cake making a seamless decoration for others and new toy, I mean tool, for me.