Portfolio: Pink Zebra Birthday Cake

Hello everyone!

Today I had the pleasure of delivering an adorable pink and zebra patterned cake for a lucky little girl!  Addison turned one and her mom picked a cute theme of pink with zebra accents since her folks are "wild about her!"  I wish I had taken a picture of Addison's mom; she's 22 weeks pregnant and looked cute as a bug in her black sundress with hot pink mardi gras beads! 

Here's a side view of the cake...I really like using those mirrored scalloped boards!  Not only are they clean looking, but if you have fun pattern or texture, the mirror effect emphasizes it.

A full shot of the cake. I crafted ribbon roses in white, pink, and black along with lots of fondant "beads."  I like to think that this was what a stylin' little girl's jewelry box would be like.

The cake was vanilla with strawberry filling and buttercream icing.  I made a small smash cake to go along with it, but I totally forgot to take a picture of it.  It was solid pink with black polka dots on the side, a black pearl border, and an 'A' on top piped to look like it was made from zebra print.

My painting on fondant has gotten much better...I was very pleased with the script I created for this "wild" cake.

I had a lot of fun making this little beauty and I was very thrilled with how it came out.  Happy first birthday, Addison...may you have many more!

Happy Caking,
Kelly

Apologies...

Hi all,

I apologize for the lack of posts recently.  I've had a lot of things happening in my personal life that have demanded the majority of my time, but never fear...when I return I have some exciting things to share!

There will be more cheesecakes, more cookies, and more whoopie pies.  More cake designs coming soon and a giveaway!  Yes, a giveaway!  I will be hosting my first giveaway very soon, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, thank you for your patience and understanding!

Happy Baking.
Kelly

Portfolio: Monogram Cookies

I admit it, I love cookies more than cake!  Cake is nice, but I love that cookies are perfectly portioned for your hand.  You can sometimes have more than one without feeling guilty.  With cake, you eat more than one piece and people give you funny looks.  Unless it's my cakes of course, in which case, they're so good you can't help but have seconds! Ha!  I kid, I kid.  They are mighty tasty though.

Cookies are also wonderful because they are perfect to give as gifts and especially as favors at weddings.  I made these simple but elegant sugar cookies as favors for a wedding this weekend.  I used a fluted round cutter which adds some texture to the sides of the cookie and made them a bit more fancy, I thought.  They are all identical, with a white background and the new couple's monogram in apple green.  Packaging those little babies reminded me of my dog biscuit baking days, when I would package hundreds upon hundreds of gourmet dog biscuits in cello bags and sheer ribbons.  I was a little rusty, but in the end, all 284 of them were baked, decorated, and packaged well ahead of time to be delivered for the wedding.

Congratulations to the happy couple and many blessings upon you!

Happy Baking,
Kelly

America Tastes Sweet!

I hope you all had a lovely 4th of July!  We enjoyed a relaxed afternoon with our friends and neighbors and ate hamburgers, ribs, sausage, and hot wings. It was good times!  As usual, I brought dessert and I whipped up a humdinger of one!

My northern friends, you're probably more familiar with these than me and my southern compatriots, so forgive me for being a little loopy over them, but I am in LOVE with whoopie pies!

And so is my daughter:

Along with the rest of her friends:

These were red velvet flavored, which I dyed half of them blue and the other half red, and slathered cream cheese frosting between the two.  Heavenly!  Whoopie pies rock.  Cupcake, you're dead to me. Over.

In addition to whoopie pies, I created this little free form tart for further Fourth festivities with my folks and frere (I love alliteration):

Behold the Galette of Glory! 

It's a strawberry and blueberry galette which I further decorated by laying stripes and stars on top from pie dough.  My folks had some dried orange peel in a jar that complimented the fruit nicely, and topped off with some vanilla bean ice cream, it was delightful after a heavy meal of BBQ chicken and pizza. 

I tell you what, America never tasted so sweet.  And a very heartfelt thank you to the men and women in the service who fight each day to keep it that way.   Happy birthday America!

Happy Baking,
Kelly 

Inspiration: Fourth of July Desserts

Happy Independence Day!  The 4th of July is a wonderful holiday, complete with barbecues, swimming, hot weather, and fireworks.  My favorite memories of this holiday always revolve around fireworks and the food–we often ate ourselves silly on grilled meats, corn on the cob, pasta salads made with home grown tomatoes, and the desserts.  Oh, the desserts!  Cookies, pies, cakes, and best of all, ice cream! My mom would set up the ice cream maker in the morning and make peaches and cream ice cream with peaches gleaned from neighbors (that were usually traded for some of my dad's tomatoes) and come afternoon time, the freshly frozen soft treat would be ready for consumption.  My best friend Kellie jokes about how ice cream is the perfect dessert for such occasions, because it melts and fills in the little empty spaces in your stomach.  I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly!

To kick off the Fourth of July, I've compiled some of my favorite ideas for desserts, along with links to the recipes.  I still haven't decided what I'm making, but I think ice cream will definitely be on the menu!

Everyone loves pie...how about an Old Glory themed pie!  This beautiful and whimsical pie is made with cherries and blueberries:

Use small fondant cutters or a knife to create the stars and stripes!

Of course Martha has a whole slew of amazing looking desserts and recipes.  This one was one of my favorites.  Shortcake is always yummy!

You can always go the cake route for something a bit more traditional.  Dying cake batter in different colors and baking it together (a la the Rainbow Cake) is becoming very popular and it super easy to do.  I won't give a recipe to this one, since you can use whatever cake recipe you like (or cheat and use a box mix); all you need to do is portion it out and use food coloring to dye it according to your wishes.

Photo from Taste of Home.com

If you're trying to go for a healthier take on 4th of July dessert, you can always try this fruity dish.  You use a cookie cutter or knife to cut stars out of puff pastry, brush them with egg whites, then sprinkle sugar on top and bake them until golden.  Serve with them a bowl of fruit and a non-fat yogurt dip and you have a simple, easy, and healthy dessert!

Photo also from Taste of Home.com

I hope these ideas inspire you to make something new or spice up your traditional Fourth sweets.

Happy Fourth!
Kelly