Choo Choo Birthday!

I have often talked about my day job and the wonderful people I work with in and out of the office. Many of them have asked me to make cakes for some of their most important milestones. This cake is no different. One of my co-workers, let's call her Michelle, asked me to make a cake for her son's second birthday. One of his favorite things? Choo Choo trains. So what could be more perfect than a Thomas the Tank Engine?
I started with my traditional butter cake and went from there. The cake was done in traditional colors. When decorating a popular character for a two year old I have found it best to stay with what the child will recognize. When I was done I made the number on the tank a two in honor of his second birthday, then added a Happy Birthday and his name to the board to make sure the world could know whose birthday we are celebrating.
Apparently the cake was such a hit that when mom went to cut the cake the birthday boy was crying that they were tearing up his cake. I later got a photo of what was left. This is one of my favorite photos because it says that they enjoyed this birthday treat.

Who Doesn't Want a Car at 16?

We have someone at our office who is fairly new and extremely important. Keith is our custodian who takes care of our building and us. You could not meet a kinder, genteeler, more humble man anywhere. He often tells us how much he appreciates us and we appreciate him. So when he came to ask me a favor it was a no brainer to say yes.

His daughter's 16th birthday was coming up and he was wondering if I could do some sort of cake for her. She likes sports cars and you can tell by the sparkle in his eye that she is the light of his life. So I came up with something out of the ordinary. I made a 3-D car, which is usually a beatle but this one was decorated in a sporty manner. I asked about her favorite colors and he said blue and black and not a blue like tar heel blue. So I went to work. Of course I had to add a little something special just for her and put her initials on the front license plate of the car. Apparently she was so excited at dinner she let her family eat all of the car except the very front end with her initials on the license plate. He was pleased as punch that she liked her special cake and I know she had a great time at a special family dinner with her dad.

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.

John Deere Green

So this cake just makes me smile every time I think about it. It is like any good story. It involved great people. humor, and ingenuity to make the whole thing come together and make a special day for someone who brightens many people's days.
Like many people I have a group that I like to eat lunch with. They are a unique group of women and you would have no idea that we fit together so well. You might also be shocked at some of the conversations we have but that is another story entirely. This cake starts with the story of a flamingo. To celebrate birthdays we purchased a pair of the tackiest plastic pink flamingos we could find and placed them in the birthday person's yard each year to let the world know that something was up at their home. Over time the flamingos took on new colors and themes based on the person and their personality. This time the flamingos spent time in a barn and became John Deere Green. So I really should not have been shocked when I got a text message from, let's call her Amy with a photo that said, "Shhhhhh.....John Deere Green." So when we all started posting "It's John Deere Green" on this birthday girl's (let's call her Tanya) facebook page. If I remember correctly it took a day before she went outside her house and found the rather green flamingos with John Deere stickers on them in her front yard.
I tell you this rather silly story to set up the cake. When it came time for her birthday lunch, we of course needed a cake. If John Deere green is the theme, the only cake you can make (besides a flamingo) is a John Deere tractor. Thus, in a butter yellow cake we gave birth to a traditional John Deere green tractor. When it arrived she looked, looked again and busted out laughing saying it was the perfect cake for the occasion. I happen to know she shared but then hid what was left at the office to snack on. It took less than a week for her to polish off the cake and seemed to be in need of another one...good think I happen to know one is on the way! Stay tuned for a sweet ending to this addiction.

A Birthday that is Candy Apple Red

I love people who plan ahead, even if I don't. I am one of those people whose ideas come to them at midnight or in the shower, never a week in advance. One of my co-workers, let's call her Denese, is very organized and plans ahead like no one's business. That is why when she asked me to create a cake for her Husband's 60th birthday she asked about a month in advance to make sure I could do it. Then she gave me time to be creative. We know her husband, let's call him Tommy, loves his cars. Cars, trucks, he loves his vehicles. However the most spectacular idea had not come to me yet. A week before the cake Denese brought me a photo album that Tommy keeps in his glove compartment. It has photos of all of his vehicles. We also went through the cake photo album and she really liked the race car. That is when the idea began to take shape.

I baked the race car cake. However this would not be the traditional race car. It was decorated with different elements from his different vehicles. To mimic his first car it was decorated Candy Apple Red (I checked with an expert on this color) with what is supposed to be a black leather top. The wheels are from a Ford truck. The number of course represents the age so we know which birthday it is. The checkered flag, well how could I not have a checkered flag on there for the race fan.

When Denese and Tommy arrived to pick up the cake the look on his face was spectacular. I don't think he could have been any more surprised or excited about the cake. I understand that the cake did not quite make it through the holiday weekend, but the photo will last forever.

Racing to the Birthday

I know I keep saying this but I can't help it. I LOVE the people I work with. About a week ago I got a call from a very polite nice young lady whose name I should have known but could not place until she said, "I'm Christy's daughter." Oh boy did I know who she was. If you read this blog much you have read about Christy and have probably seen Amanda's graduation cake that Christy designed and I tried to incorporate into cake.

Anyhow I digress. Amanda asked if I could make a race car cake for a friends son and make the number of the car 7 since the little boy was crazy about racing. Race cars are fairly easy for me (and I have done several) so I figured yup let's go for it. Amanda even had a sample car for me to follow the color scheme. I was so excited!

I made a butter cake and got to decorating. The car had a blue roof, hood and trunk while the rest was white. I put it on a checkerboard flag background and voila. Our birthday boy's name is Hunter and where else would you put a name on a race car but on the hood.

When I got the cake to the office, photos were flying to and from cell phones and shortly before noon I got to meet our orderer in person. I must say it was a little like meeting a celebrity because I have heard so much about her (and even seen her in a commercial for Lumbee Guarantee Banks). She seemed very pleased with the cake and I hope Hunter is as well and has an unforgettable seventh birthday.

Plowing Up a First Birthday.

For those of you who know me you know I am not a person who was raised in the soil. As a matter of fact you know that it would probably make me sneeze. So know what a tractor is and what it looks like might be a stretch. So when Penny came to me (and for those of you unfamiliar with Penny she is one of my co-workers at the office and has been mentioned many times in this blog) and said her brother and sister in law were hoping for a tractor cake but she thought that might be out of the realm of my talents, boy was she surprised when I said no problem.

Let me explain it is Penny's nephew's first birthday and of course we needed a cake, and a smash cake. For those of you not familiar with a smash cake it is generally a smaller cake that is baby size and appropriate for a one year old to stick their hands into and smear all of their face. Since most adults who attend the birthday party would prefer not to have a smashed cake from a one year old there is the official cake and the smash cake for the child. Back to the story...the theme of the party was John Deere which is very simple, just a green and yellow tractor. To jazz it up a little I painted my decorating bag with the green and yellow icing colorings and piped the border from that which gave it a tie-dyed effect and was kind of cool. The smash cake was actually made from cupcakes and was in the shape of a one. I put the tie-dyed rosettes across the top and iced the rest smooth.

Penny said her nephew sat and looked at the smash cake for awhile and then stuck his finger in it. Apparently after licking his finger and realizing that he liked it and getting a quick sugar rush he delved right in and smashed the cake and literally shoved it into his face. Which means he got the range from his chin to the tip of his nose and up his nose but did not seem to mind. He did not mind that is until mom put a stop to his fun and had to get the cake out of his nose. Other than that I would say his birthday was a big success.

Almost Grown Up Cake

My friend Dillon turned 11 recently. What you need to know about Dillon is that he would have made a great guest on Art Linkletter's show "Kids Say the Darnedest Things". Sometimes the truest and boldest things can come out of his mouth so when he mother came to me to ask me about a cake and was laughing I knew this would be good. She said when discussing his birthday there was the usual choice of Chuckie Cheese (as with many boys he is a video game guru) on the table, or a movie but this year Dillon wanted something different, he wanted to go with a friend to play laser tag! He also informed his mom that he wanted a cake but he was too big for those cartoon superheros and little kids games. He wanted something more grown up. He wanted a motorcycle cake! A little while later he said he wanted a motorcycle cake that was red. Then a little while later he came back and said it would be more grown up and cool if it was red with flames. After that he said the motorcycle needed to have his favorite color green on it too. As she was giving me the color schemes all I could think of was that the motorcycles are mostly black and grey (tires and chrome). The seat, tank, and fenders are often colorful but if I used all of his colors this was going to look like a Christmas Tree on wheels (adults are often limited in their thinking) but I agreed to all the colors and would do my best with the flames. So when designing his cake I made a green background, red seat with flames on the tank (unfortunately it is hard to see the flames with the tank being so small) and his nickname (D.J.) on the license plate. When Dillon saw the cake his eyes lit up and he said, "look a motorcycle!" His mom said he didn't want to wait when he got home he asked if he could go ahead and cut it. He also said he couldn't wait until he got big enough to get his own, real, motorcycle. I just wonder, if he gets one, if it will be as colorful?