Yellow Rose Wedding Cake

I did my first wedding cake this week!  It is a 10-inch, 8-inch, 6-inch cake with coconut cake and key lime filling in the bottom tier, white cake with chocolate caramel ganache and pecans in the middle tier, and chocolate cake with vanilla bean cream cheese frosting for the top tier.  Then, I covered each tier in homemade vanilla rolled fondant, and decorated it with hand made sugar paste flowers.  Each rose took me half an hour to sculpt!  I am please with how well it came out!

Sugar Flour Bouquet

I'm working on my first wedding cake (yay!) and I have been making lots of pretty yellow roses and blue hydrangeas for it.  I put together this bouquet of them, which will be the topper for the cake.  Stay tuned for the whole cake!

Calla Lily Coconut Cake

I've been having a lot of fun making sugar paste flowers lately!  I made some beautiful calla lilies and thought they would be so much fun on a coconut cake!

The cake is coconut with coconut Swiss buttercream, then it is covered in my homemade vanilla fondant and decorated with sugar paste calla lilies and some fun little twirly sticks!

Birthday Roses

It is my mother-in-law's birthday this week, so I made her favorite chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting, and 8 large handmade sugar roses! Each petal is hand shaped... one rose takes 20 minutes to sculpt! They are so much fun to make, though, and so beautiful! Happy birthday, Cheryl!

Rapunzel Cake

I made this Rapunzel cake for my little niece's 3rd birthday! the cake is chocolate with raspberry buttercream. I piped on buttercream grass and added little sugar blossoms and a hand sculpted fondant Rapunzel with a long trail of fondant hair! Happy birthday, Emeree!

New Baby Niece!

One of my sister-in-laws just had a baby girl, so we went to meet her and brought her a cake! This is a chocolate cake with caramel buttercream, covered in homemade vanilla fondant, with hand made sugar roses! Welcome to sweet baby Evelyn.

Coconut Cake

My grandpa has been living with my mother this past year, as he is suffering from Leukemia and needs daily care.  My mom went out of town this week, so we came down to make him some dinner, and I also made him a coconut cake!  He (and I) love coconut cake, but my mom can't stand it, so it was the perfect opportunity to make some while she was not around!  It's just a mini 6-inch cake, and I put a sugar paste bow on top to make it festive!  It sure was delicious!

Thank-You Cake

My girls have been taking swimming lessons from a neighbor, and so we made her a mini 6-inch thank you cake!  It's white cake with raspberry filling and vanilla French buttercream, decorated with sugar paste roses.  I hand-painted the edges of the roses yellow, and they looked so lovely!  Anyone who works with my scaredy-cat and stubborn children in water deserves a cake!

Happy Birthday Debbie!

It was my step-mom's birthday this week, so I made her a cake, of course!  She loves See's candies - the nuts and caramels especially, and she really loves flowers.  The other day on facebook, she posted a picture of a bouquet of sunflowers and blue flowers which she had picked out of her garden.  So, for her cake I made a white cake and filled it with chopped pecans and whipped chocolate caramel ganache, and then I frosted it in more ganache and piped some sunflowers and blue roses on top with decorator's buttercream!  It was extremely delicious!

Whipped Chocolate Caramel Ganache

12 ounces chocolate chips (recommended: guittard semisweet)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup dulce de leche
pinch salt

Place chocolate chips in the bowl of your mixer. Place cream in a 2-cup liquid measuring cup and microwave, watching carefully, until it just starts to boil 1-2 minutes. Pour hot cream over chocolate and let sit 2 minutes. Whisk until smooth and glossy. Place the bowl in the refrigerator and cool, stirring every 15 minutes, until it feels cool room temperature to the touch (less than 80 degrees). Put the bowl into your mixer and beat on high with the wire whip attachment until it holds soft peaks, 2-3 minutes. Add dulce de leche and salt and beat on medium until fully incorporated. Frost cake immediately.

Homecare Cake

My husband works for Intermountain Homecare, and a bunch of the women who work there have birthdays this month, so one of his co-workers ordered a large cake for them all to share!  This was a 13 by 19 cake with layers of chocolate cake and raspberry cake, filled with chocolate ganache, and frosted with rapsberry Swiss buttercream!  Everyone enjoyed it very much.  The best part of cake making is knowing that my cakes brighten up someone's day - sometimes a lot of someones!

Modern Cake

I was asked to make a funky and modern birthday cake this week - chocolate cake with coconut buttercream!

I decided to stripe the sides with dark chocolate curls, cut from a Lindt dark chocolate bar, and shredded coconut, and then I created a "pom-pom flower" on top using shards of the Lindt dark chocoalte and shards from a Lindt white chocolate coconut bar.  It is totally awesome, and very delicious!

Wedding Cupcakes

One of my sister's friends is getting married, and she asked me to make cupcakes for her wedding, decorated with royal icing sunflowers and little blue flowers.

The cupcakes are white cake with raspberry custard filling, iced with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream, topped with homemade fondant, and then decorated with the sunflowers, blue drop flowers, and some leaves.  They came out so beautiful!

Cake Class Final Cake

Last night was the final night of the cake class I've been taking.  We were supposed to design and create a cake using techniques we had learned in the class, like getting the cake layers perfectly stacked and the frosting perfectly smooth, and how to create a design that visually fills the space well.  One of my favorite flowers that we learned to make was the "drop flower."  I made a whole bunch of these drop flowers out of pink royal icing in preparation for this class, because I wanted to make a cherry blossom cake.  I've seen many cherry blossom wedding cakes, and they are so beautiful!  The little drop flowers were just perfect, I thought.  So, here is my final cake - spiced carrot cake filled with cream cheese frosting, and then frosted with vanilla bean Swiss buttercream, and then decorated with royal icing cherry blossoms!  I'm very pleased with the result!

Teacher Cake

We have reached a new phase in life in our family... our oldest daughter just began Kindergarten!  It is strange to have her gone for part of the day, and also to have somewhere that we have to be every day.  She is loving school, and really loves her teacher.  For a back-to-school teacher gift, I made a small, 6-inch cake for her teacher.  White cake with vanilla Swiss buttercream frosting, dyed in two shades of purple.  It was just a simple little cake to say thank-you for her hard work.  I used to be a teacher... it is not an easy job!  She really loved the cake, and said the other teachers were jealous!