MJ Cake

Well, when I was asked to make a cake for Maggie featuring Michael Jackson, I was at a loss for what to do. You see, I wasn't exactly the biggest MJ fan. Not that I disliked him, but come on--he was kind of creepy. So her boyfriend sent me an image of a silhouette he wanted me to use, and that's basically all I had to go on.

Here's the initial "inspiration" image sent by Maggie's BF:

What I ended up doing was cutting the silhouette of MJ out of black fondant and putting it on top. Then, I added black fondant balls with silver balls in between to carry out the theme of black and silver. Finally, I cut out the words "Happy Birthday" out of white fondant and dipped them in disco dust (which is AWESOME but has me covered in sparkles even now...) and wallah! All of it was edible and I thought it turned out awesome!

Special thanks goes out to John, the best guy ever! He helped me so much with this cake, and even went to the store for me to buy all the glitz and glam (aka silver stuff) needed for it. What a great guy! Anyway, wanted to send a shoutout to him and let him know how thankful I am to have him in my life! Love you babe :)

Paul's Va-Va-VROOM Cake

Also known as his Ferrari cake.

Last week, my sister Eliza threw her boyfriend Paul a surprise party and I made the cake. We decided to go with a Ferrari theme, so the cupcakes were red and yellow and the cake had the logo on it. All in all, it turned out pretty cute (except for the fact that I CANNOT get fondant on smoothly...) and I think everyone really liked it!

Me, Eliza and Paul...Paul...Paul...("My Name is Earl" reference there)

Here's a close up of the horse. It's just drawn on a piece of fondant with an edible marker. And yes, I realize that the S and the F for the logo are not on there, but I chose to go without. There just wasn't enough room! I think it turned out pretty good though.

Hope your birthday was wonderful Paul! I am so glad you are my sister's beau!

Razorbacks vs. LS-WHO?

Well, last weekend the hogs played LSU in Little Rock and kicked butt! Personally, I am more interested in the people and food during these games than the actual football part, but I still managed to see a few cool plays(all of which occured when John would wake me up as I snoozed on the couch). Ah, true fan here.

Hey, at least I'm honest.

Anyway I ended up supporting the hogs in other ways. Like making cupcakes. And a cake. So there.

The first cake/cupcake order was for Cathleen's husband's birthday. It was a make-up order from the wrecked cake she ordered back this summer (read here to see the "disaster cake." That's its name. Really.) Luckily, this order actually survived.

Chocolate cake with chocolate icing.

Covered in red fondant and painted. :)

And of course, the infamous hog faces. About 100 of them.

Okay, not 100...30. Same difference.

I also made a batch of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing for John's parent's tailgate. I was going to do hog faces, but my hands couldn't take it anymore after all of those for Cathleen, so I just did some simple ones.

At least, they were simple. Until I pulled them out of the fridge the day of the tailgate, and all their perfect little red dots had turned a pukey-pink color. I may not be the biggest football fan, but I could not have that. So I did what any normal person would do. I picked them each off and replaced them. On 24 cupcakes. Yes, I'm crazy.

DOT MAYHEM!

Refinished cupcakes, packaged and ready to go.

So they turned out pretty good. AND they looked pretty sweet next to Erin's awesome cookies (check out her blog here). So jealous of her mad skillz.

A Different Kind of Cake

Last week, I ventured into a new decorating adventure, only this time it was a DIAPER cake! My older sister's best friend is having baby Coen in January, and my sister needed my help with the cake. She put it together, and I helped with the ribbons and bows.

Then, she finished it with the toys and baby things. I thought it looked wonderful! What do you think?

The finished cake! Looked awesome.

Please excuse the gross pics. iPhone doesn't always do the job right.

Cake Class, Part Dos

Alternate title: "I Never Said I Was Good At Spanish"

I'm sure all three people who read my blog are anxiously awaiting an update on how my cake went and, it was GREAT! I went straight to Blue Cake Company after work yesterday and worked tediously until about 10 p.m. WHOA. Crazy. Also crazy to think that I did not bake anything, make anything, prepare anything, NADA. I just decorated, and it took me SEVEN HOURS.

And people wonder why cakes cost so much.

Here's everything before I started:

One of the things we went over was icing a cake. I am terrible at this but I guess it turned out okay. Luckily I covered it with fondant so you couldn't see my streaks.

Buttercream iced and...

...fondant covered. Recognize that bow?

Anyway, enough of the boring stuff. Here's the thing you really came to see! The presents!

Doesn't Elfie look so cute perched up on his gift?


Rest of the class elves. Elfie's on the left again :)

Since I had a huge cake, I decided to take it into work this morning. I figured I would never eat it at my house (who would cut it for just one piece?!?!?) and my work buds are pretty big fans of food. Actually that might be an understatement.....They didn't disappoint and the entire thing was almost gone by 5. Luckily one little piece will stick around for a bit:

'Til next time.

-Kati

Elfie, my new best friend

Welp, I finally broke down and took a cake class. The class was at Blue Cake Company, and was so fun. I had never been there but walking in was really neat. There were only 3 of us in the class, and it was taught by the owner, Jan Lewandowski who was the nicest person I've ever met. Here's the description that got me pumped up about a month ago

Tiered Present Cake Class: Each student will fill, frost and fondant a 4" and 8" square tier and decorate with a present theme. We will demonstrate a variety of bows and tags to personalize the gifts. We will cover fondant covering and coloring, bow making, dowelling and traveling with tiered cakes. We will also cover figure modeling and make a figure for our cake. This is a two day class and will be Tuesday November 16 (filling cakes and making decorations) and Wednesday November 17 (fondanting and decorating cakes).

(sidenote: is fondanting a word? Okay, back to blog)

Last night was the first night of it, and although we didn't stick to the schedule exactly, I had a TON of fun. We ended up making decorations for our present cakes. AKA: bows and ELFIE (new best friend).

Anyway, I guess you want to see pics. Here are the bows.

I know, I know. Exciting, but no Elfie...

After the bows, we moved on to our figure. Thus, Elfie was born!

Is he cute or WHAT? How could you not love those little ears? And those buttons? Sheesh!

I had to leave little man at the bakery to dry overnight, so I tucked him into the corner with his friends. They love each other.

That's Elfie on the left.

Tonight I will embark on another adventure at the bakery. Can't wait to blog about it tomorrow! So come back and see the finished creation.

Peace.

-Kati

Hi Hat Cupcakes!

I have been dying to try these out ever since I saw Bakerella's post here. I made a small batch of Razorback cupcakes for my cousin, and decided the leftover cupcakes provided the perfect opportunity to try these babies out.

First thing (after making the moist chocolate cupcakes...MMMMM) was to make the frosting. I had never done the double-boiler thing before, so it was tricky, but I just followed Martha's recipe here and it worked out! Here's the picture of the "stiff peaks" the icing is supposed to achieve:

After I did that, I piped the icing (which was suprisingly light) onto the cupcakes as TALL AS I COULD (about 2 inches-ish) and put them in the fridge while I melted the chocolate goodness.

And finally, dip the frosting (upside down..YIKES) into the melted chocolate. This, I must confess, was truly frightening and I was scared more than once that my icing would plop off of the cupcake. Luckily, it stayed in place! Although I would say that next time, I'd double the chocolate so that I don't run out!

And here's the finished product!

For the recipe, try Martha's.

And yes, I do sometimes take my pictures outside. A point-and-shoot camera doesn't exactly take the best photos and I need a lil help from Mr. Sunshine.

Back from my Vay-CAKE-sion!

Hello all! As you may have guessed/assumed, I am back from my vay-cake-sion and ready for cake orders! Please let me know if you have a special event that you need a cake or cookies for, and I'd be happy to pencil you in.

Okay. That was a really short post.

Cupcake Apron

I have the most creative titles for my post, don't I?

Anyway, today I'm going to talk about my (drumroll please) CUPCAKE APRON! Many of you may have seen Sex and the City 2. In it, Charlotte is wearing the cupcake apron.

While I was in D.C. over the summer, I happened upon the same one. So I did what any normal young woman would do.

I bought it.

Sorry for the terrible photo...bad lighting and an iPhone will do that to ya.

Stay tuned for a new cake!

Go Hogs Go!

Well, the Razorbacks came to town last night, so John and I decided we might as well join in on the tailgating fun! His parents had a tailgate so we got spruced up and headed into the heat. For those of you not familiar with how we do it here in Arkansas, football is a big deal, and our tailgating events are the best.

Before that, though, I made some special treats in support of the hogs. They turned out really well until they started to melt. Luckily, I got this picture before all their little snouts started running off their faces. Enjoy!

To top off the end to a wonderful day, the Razorbacks won 31-7 against Louisiana-Monroe. Go Hogs Go! John and I will have to make it up to Fayetteville for a game soon!

Cupcake Craze

I guess it's been a cupcake sort of week. This was my 3rd cupcake batch in the past 5 days! I did these for a good friend of John's, Brad. Love that guy to death so when he asked me to make some last-minute cupcakes for his mom's birthday, I just couldn't say no!

Before this week, I never really understood the whole cupcake craze, but now I am totally into it. Not only are the delicious, cute and sweet, but they are a helava-ton easier to make than cakes, which require longer baking time, more construction time, more icing time, yada-yada-yada. Maybe I'll just do cupcakes from now on.

Only joking. Or am I?

I Scream, You Scream We All Scream for ICE CREAM

This weekend I made some sweet treats for Addie, a little girl who I used to nanny for. She had an ice cream themed party and turned the magic number 3! They grow up so fast...

For the party, I made 24 pink swirl cupcakes with big sprinkles. They were chocolate with cream cheese icing and they were SO GOOD.

close up of the cupcakes

Birthday girl with a birthday cupcake. Look at her cute dress!

But that's not what I was really excited about (although they were pretty much the best tasting cupcakes I've ever eaten). I was excited about the ICE CREAM CONES! Each of these adorable cones is filled with a cake ball (cake+icing mixed together and mushed into balls) and then coated in vanilla candy melts. Topped with chocolate and a fondant cherry, they were the cutest things I've ever seen.

Can you see the "dropped cone" in the middle of the stand on top? It was done on purpose and I thought it made the perfect top to the perfect stand (see info on stand below)

John made the stand and did a great job! He only had about a day's notice and spent his entire Friday making this for the party. Turned out PERFECT. Couldn't ask for a better guy.

Oh, and don't worry. I paid him back with a trip to the movies to see Inception. And I have a feeling he'll find some cash in a pocket of his one of these days seeing as he refuses to take moolah from me...

On another random side note, I didn't take the pictures either - Addie's dad, Steve did them since I refused to stay at the party for too long, knowing that I would only stress about something terrible happening (see disaster cake here for insight into what sort of nightmares I have). Anyway, they turned out great and I'm going to have to look into getting a better camera so I can take pics like these!

I love the little girls' faces in this as they eye the ice cream cones. Too cute!

I had a blast doing this (didn't cry once!) and would love to do it again. Word on the street was that everything tasted scrumptious and people went home happy. That's what we want, folks.

I'm out. Cupcake post #3 will be up later...

NOTE:

I got the idea for the ice cream cones from Bakerella. She has an amazing blog here, and you should totally check it out and see all of her wonderful creations!

Last Day Cupcakes

Today ends my 3 month internship at Thoma Thoma, where I've been doing graphic design. It has been absolutely wonderful, and to show them how much I love them all, I made some sweet treats for my last day!

Each cupcake had a different colored Thoma Thoma logo that I thought fit everyone best.

The back of each cupcake had their own little thank you note on it!

So farewell, Thoma Thoma - stay in touch! And HELLO Sells Agency! Can't wait to get to know all of you.

Love, love, love,

KW

Learn Something New Every Cake

So this week, I worked on a vow-renewal cake. The woman ordering it sent me some wonderful pictures of 3-4 tiered cakes, with ribbons, buttercream, and stargazer lilies. I was prepared.

I spent every night making cakes, cutting them, stacking them, etc so that all I would have to do on Friday would be to ice them, stack them, and add the decorations. No problem!

But life, it seems, doesn't like to be easy. Friday, I woke up and started icing each one. After icing the bottom tier, I left it alone for a few minutes to "crust" (which is where it dries a little and if you touch it, it doesn't come off on your finger). I came back to check on it and part of the cake had fallen apart!

Discouraged, I rebaked the bottom tier. Everything was on hold because this was the bottom tier! I had to have it finished before I could start on the two on top! 2-3 hours later, I started the icing again. Anyway, long story short, this is how it (eventually) turned out.

Not too shabby! Anyway, I called Cathleen (vow-renewal "bride's" sister-in-law) to come pick it up, and together we loaded the whole thing into her packed SUV for the hour-long drive to the event.

I was nervous. No, nervous doesn't describe the feeling. I was petrified. I watched them drive away and said a little prayer for the cake.

A few hours later, I got news from Cathleen that the cake had slid off the stand at the end of my street, that they had tried to piece it back together (but it's buttercream--I'm sure that was difficult) but that it at least tasted good.

Wanna know how I felt then? Mortified. Stunned. Embarassed. I think you get the picture. So I did some research to see what I could have done differently, and I got a solution: non-slip pads. From Walmart. Put them between stand and cake, and under stand for transportation. Duhh.

Sigh.... Learn something new every cake.

UPDATE: Here is a picture of the cake with a text from Cathleen:

"I showed everyone the before [picture]. We fixed it pretty good...Don't worry about it we are all laughing."

Follow up text from Cathleen: "Please laugh."

Okay, Cathleen. It is kind of funny. Better luck next time!

I'm out. No more cakes for awhile. I need a break!

Happy 4th of July!

To celebrate the 4th of July, I made this cake for an office party at the advertising agency that I'm interning at. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to be there to enjoy the cake, but I did get a sneak taste of one of the cookies that we didn't use. IT WAS SO GOOD!

Anyway, so the cookies are homemade and a recipe I borrowed from Erin (who has amazing cookie skills. Seriously. Check them out here) which I swore I wouldn't tell to anyone. They also have little sprinkles on them which is why they look a little bumpy. (Erin's would never look this bad!) The cake is white cake with homemade buttercream frosting (MMMMMMM) and fondant accents.

Anyway, I only got this one picture from an iPhone so not the best, but hope you enjoy!

HAPPY FOURTH!

Summer Vacay

Hello all! WOW - I have gotten SO much positive feedback about my cakes! I am so flattered and so glad that you are here to look at these little piles of sugar!

I have decided to take a small-itsy-bitsy bit of a summer break from making cakes and will not be taking any more orders until the end of August/beginning of September. As you may know, each cake takes me over 10 hours to decorate (on average), and that does not include the drawing, shopping, buying, planning, pouring, mixing, baking, waiting, blogging...you get the point. I just don't have the time or energy right now to pack in any more orders until then. Just wanted everyone to know, and I want to apologize ahead of time if you ask and I have to (regretfully) say no.

However, for all you readers who just wanna see this crazy journey, do not fear! I have plenty of cakes already planned between now and then so the blogging will continue and you will get to share my adventures with me.

Stay tuned! New cake should be up at the end of this week!

UPDATE:

I think I might have confused a few people: when I say that I'm not taking any more cake orders until the end of August/beginning of September, I mean I'm not taking orders. So, for example: if you want a cake for September 30, I can't commit to that date-you'll have to ask me at the end of August/beginning of September.

The reason behind this is that I'm currently looking for a job, and will hopefully have one by then. I don't want to commit to any cakes this far in advance since I don't even know what my future holds. Thanks for understanding!

Graduation Cake

Cake #2 of the weekend: Claire's graduation cake! I am so proud of how it turned out. Claire is a good friend of mine who I met in middle school (wow, I'm old...) and we went to high school together. I am an intern at her parent's ad agency and loving it and they asked me to make a cake to celebrate her graduation. She went to Wellesley (gotta double check the spelling...yep that's right!) and majored in French and Astronomy. Congrats Claire!

I love that little bookmark! SO CUTE!