2013 Round-Up

This year's birthdays have been pretty low key, cake wise. I never make my own birthday cake (mines the first birthday in the year), and the Doc gave me a super fab/amazing/best ever/fantastical surprise 30th birthday WEEK. Gifts, dates, shopping sprees, chevron wonders, and a surprise party at a great restaurant. 

He's the man. 

Next in line, exactly one week after my birthday is Beauty #2, who unfortunately had the stomach flu on her birthday, so there was no cake. We did celebrate a week later for her; but she wanted a cake from the bakery. 

How rude! 

Just kidding, just kidding. 

However I will not post a bakery cake on my blog. There'll be none of that.

After that is Beauty #1, and at 10 years old this year, and obsessed with zebra stripes, that's what she requested. I believe her exact words were, "no fondant, just something simple". 

Boom.

Those are our Winter/Spring birthdays. The boys rule the summer, The Doc, then the JMan. If you're keeping up; the Doc is a "traditional" cake/dessert dude, so I'm pretty sure it was cookies or chocolate cake again...his birthday "gift" this year was our beach trip. He does love a good cookie bowl full of ice cream. 

I make these in a cupcake pan.

JMan isn't quite old enough to request themes yet, so we went with chocolate on chocolate for him this year. 

Rounding out the year for birthdays is Beauty #3. Her birthday is just a couple weeks away, and she changes her mind daily. So I have no idea what we're doing yet. 

As far as cakes for others; I've been kinda "retired" for a while. I made a Hello Kitty cake earlier this year for a friend. It looked exactly like Peyton's from last year. 

Looking through all these pictures makes me sort of want to get back into it. Although life with little kiddos makes it hard to be able to give it adequate attention, so I don't know. 

We will see! 

Toy Story 5th Birthday

Beauty #2 turned 5 in 2012, and she was the first of the family to celebrate a birthday in our new house back "home" in Tennessee. 

She didn't have a specific cake in mind; but did know that she wanted a Toy Story party. 

I had a lot of fun with this one; from desserts to decorations. She also had one of the biggest turn outs of attendees at this party. The stars aligned & everybody's schedules were free. Love when that happens! 

By this time; Pinterest was on the scene, and I found lots of inspiration there. I decided to make alien cupcakes, chocolate mustaches (for Mr. PotatoHead), "Hamm" the pig cake pops, and a cloud cake (I always loved Andy's walls!). I ordered a super cheap chocolate mold tray on Amazon for the mustaches. 

I dyed white frosting for the alien cupcakes, and used mentos for the eyes, green apple "straws" (like licorice sort of), and black icing for the rest. If I made these again, I wouldn't use the mentos, the mint flavor was not wonderful. 

The biggest challenge for me were the cake pops! I can't remember what tutorial I followed...but my final result did not look as smooth & flawless as the pictures on Pinterest. Regardless; the kids loved them, and the party was a lot of fun! 

I found Andy's drawings online (again..I can't remember where...), and I made the birthday picture myself; drawing and hand cutting everything. 

The cake pops & chocolate mustaches were held up by jelly beans in jars. 

 
 

 

 

Little Owl Cake

Another cute cake I made a few years ago was this little owl cake. It was for a 1st birthday for a sweet little girl. 

I made everything on my own; and with no special tools. Seriously, I had some toothpicks, some bread knives, and a pizza cutter. I can't believe I made cute cakes with so little to work with, haha!

Looking back at these pictures is fun; but also I see where my mistakes were, too. 

For instance, though adorable, this cake needed more solid icing before the fondant was laid on. That's why there are little "ridges". Probably could have made the fondant more firm, as well. 

But you live & you learn! And for a YouTube/self taught cake maker; I think I did pretty good!

 

 

The Doc's Favorite Things

My main man/boyfran/husband, aka, The Doc is not a "fancy" dessert fan. He doesn't care for bells and whistles and fondant, blah, blah, blah. He likes the following desserts;

Chocolate chip cookies

Oreo Cookies

"Plain" chocolate cake (as in, chocolate frosting, yellow or chocolate cake)

Kit Kat's. 

Seriously. For Father's Day a couple years ago; I made him an Oreo cookie cake. It was super cool looking, and definitely tasty. But the verdict from The Doc was that it was too "Oreo-ey". Yep. Actually, I think it would have been better without the Oreo "crust" bottom. 

So for his birthday last year, I planned a surprise party with all his favorites; friends and foods. 

I felt so sneaky making cookie dough one day while he was out, then baking a trillion cookies another day he was gone, and hiding them in the back of a bottom cupboard. 

I also made party hats that had his baby picture on them (found a template online...can't remember where...this is why I need to blog regularly) and had those hidden as well. 

I arranged for our friends to come over to "babysit" while Don & I went out for a quick dinner. The reason he believed it had to be quick was because they could only stay for an hour. 

While he & I were out; they set up the party, as well as grilled the chicken & steak kabobs I had [partially] assembled before they arrived. 

Our friends rock because they really put the finishing touches on everything! 

When we got home; he really was surprised & that was the best part. 

http://youtu.be/TiuGd-KUOwc

(she's not pouting, that's her serious pose face)
 
 
 
 
 

Hello Kitty

When Beauty #1 turned 9 last year; she wanted a Hello Kitty party. We found tons of free Hello Kitty printables-seriously, just google it-and I designed a coordinating invitation for her to hand out at school (I no longer have them template because it was on our computer that died. RIP...). I came up with a pretty easy design for a cake and cupcakes. She had about 12 girls coming over, so I needed to make sure we had enough for everybody. 

I did not do fondant for these; we were all kind of burning out on that. 

Here's the thing about fondant; it's cool to use, you can do a lot with it. But it's a kind of weird texture, and even though the marshmallow recipe that I used was sweet (unlike the tasteless or poor tasting "other" versions); it was still really sweet. 

I digress...

So I decided to make the main cake just HK's face. I baked a 12in round for the main part, and two 6 in rounds to cut into the ears. 

Luckily her face is wicked easy to decorate & too no time at all. 

For the cupcakes, I used icing to add the details. I considered making fondant ears, or using candies, but decided to just skip the ears all together. And they still looked great.

 
 
 

Yo Gabba Gabba Cupcake Toppers

I don't know why I stopped posting on here...but I recently found lots of pictures of a few cakes/cupcakes that I made in the last couple years; so I'm adding them to the blog!

In 2011, when Beauty #3 turned 3; she wanted a Yo Gabba Gabba party. She was Yo Crazy Crazy for DJ Lance, Muno, Brobee, and the rest of the gang. 

She also requested cupcakes. So I decided to make fondant cupcake toppers, which were super easy & less time consuming than decorating a whole cake with fondant. They were a breeze to make! If I could open a fondant cupcake topper shop...I totally would. No cupcakes, just the toppers. 

I think I'm on to something here....

I also made some fun YGG decorations for the party, too. 

I can't believe this girl is about to turn 5....