Cake and Co.

Dessert | Airplane Cake

2011-08-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

Hi Again,

Things are moving for me in August! My coworkers are such fantastic supporters of my work that orders keep coming in, my boss casually joked that the company may need to create a dessert department. I did the following cake for my coworker, Ann. Her boyfriend is a pilot and is celebrating his birthday today. Happy celebrating!

Next up, my boss order 5 cakes for our clients!
Until then, happy baking!
~Danielle

Cake & Co. in Portland!

2011-08-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

I hope that these past 8 months have treated you well! I am back with a renewed zeal for Cake & Co. I have been in Portland, Oregon for 8 months and I have recently picked up my whisk and headed back into the kitchen to do some baking. I have missed baking and everything that comes with it, the good smells, how happy I am when I bake and even the stressful times with fondant!

There are a couple of things in the works for Cake & Co., for starters recipes are being worked on and a new blog/website is in progress. So please stay tuned! In the meantime, I will leave you with a few pictures! I had the privilege to work on two birthday cakes for my coworkers children, a 1 year old lady bug cake and a ninjago cake. Enjoy!

Thanks for hanging in there! Happy baking!
~Danielle

New path...

2010-12-23T10:45:00.000-08:00

I apologize to all my followers for not posting in a long time. My husband and I are making the move to Portland, Oregon and I have been distracted these last couple of months with job interviews and packing. At the start of December, I was offered a great position with a marketing agency in Portland. So with some sadness, I am taking a break from Cake and Co. for a while. Thank you to all of you have read my posts and journeyed with me! I wish all of you a very happy holiday season and a great New Year!

Keep baking out there!
~Danielle

Dessert | 300 Cupcakes

2010-10-14T22:53:00.000-07:00

So, we survived the 300 cupcakes! Yes, we, Ty and I survived baking and frosting 300 cupcakes. My husband is amazing, he canceled watching football with his friend twice to help me frost the cupcakes. There is no way I would have been able to finish and it wouldn't have a been a tear free occasion {woot!}.

Close up of the carnation cupcakes!

I prepped all my dry ingredients for the vanilla cupcakes Friday night. On Saturday morning with my production line all ready to go, I baked for 4.5 hours straight! We then took a break and enjoyed a lovely dinner at Disneyland Hotel's Steakhouse 55 with some of our friends. Dinner lasted a little longer than I thought and we returned home hoping to frost half the cupcakes... boy, was I wrong. I made 24 cups of vanilla Swiss meringue frosting and that took about an hour and a half (my mixer is small and I could only make 6 cups at a time). I showed Ty how to pipe a carnation (thank you to Blue Note Bakery, your online video is great!) and off he went. I took over a little while later and by the time midnight rolled around, we only had about 48 completed. I figured out that it took us about 30 minutes each to pipe 24 cupcakes... not promising.

The next morning we woke up around 8:30am and started piping right away. We piped from 8:30am to 12:00pm. I think Ty finally understands the pain associated with cake decorating, ha!

All in all, the totals for the weekend:
13 hours for prepping, baking and frosting
10 pounds of butter
75 eggs used
4 Harry Potter movies that played in the background that weekend

12 boxes that held 2 dozen cupcakes each, plus one box that held a dozen

It was awesome to see all of them in their boxes! It was a definite sense of accomplishment

Thank you again to Ty who was the best sous that weekend, I still wish I was able to take a picture of you piping pink carnations for our kids one day! And thank you to Salisa and the Gamma Phi Beta Sorority for this opportunity!!!

Until next time!
~Danielle

Dessert | Carnation Practice... Marigolds

2010-09-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I am baking 300 cupcakes for the sorority Gamma Phi Beta... 300! I'm both excited and scared... I don't know if my little kitchen can handle this, but it's going to have to. I was asked to pipe carnation flowers, I learned by watching this video that no longer works and my flowers look more like marigolds than carnations. I wanted to share with you my practice run, my marigolds below. Wish me luck today as I start on the 300 cupcakes!

Dessert | Kristen's Birthday Cake and Cupcakes

2010-08-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

As promised, desserts!

Last week my coworker celebrated her birthday and our department goes a little crazy with birthday breakfast buffets...

The birthday girl and the breakfast spread

I never seem to be hungry for lunch on those days {it may be the delicious cheesy potatoes!}. Kristen happens to be my cubicle buddy and both of us graduated from Chapman University. We also happen to be 1/2 of a group our other coworkers have deemed the lunch bunch! There happens to be three ladies at work who I adore and work just wouldn't be the same without them! Okay, moving on from the mushy gushy stuff... Kristen loves the colors orange and teal {I found out later that her teal is more of a turquoise}! She even claimed dibs on those colors for her wedding, so we decided to incorporate that color scheme into her birthday decorations!

This one was a group effort and I have to thank the lunch bunch for all their help! Thank you to Lynda for providing all the paper decorations!

All the paper flowers scattered on Kristen's desk were cut out and the flowers are from her mom

Kristen loves red velvet, so I baked about 2 dozen cupcakes and a 4" mini cake for her! I couldn't cover the 4" mini cake with fondant and have freshly baked cupcakes, so I opted for a rustic frosting look with fondant decorations.

The cupcake wrappers were custom designed and cut by Jen. Jen is an amazing illustrator and designer, check out here work here.

Happy birthday to the birthday girl! Cheers!

Next up, piping carnation flowers... 250 of them...

~Danielle

Paper | Sources I love!

2010-08-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

You are probably asking why I haven't posted anything about cakes or desserts lately... I promise you the next one will be about desserts!

This post is about three of my new favorite party paper/design sources! First up, Minted.com! A modern stationary and invitations company based out of San Francisco that brings you fantastic designs! They have some new offerings that I may be purchasing down the line as the holidays draw near...

Minibook albums from their wedding line. Photo courtesy of Minted.

Menu Cards. Photo courtesy of Minted.

Baby Shower and Kids Invitations. Photo courtesy of Minted.

Skinny wrap labels... I totally want to use these this Christmas! Photo courtesy of Minted.

Second up, Style Me Gorgeous!

I stumbled across this blog through another blog and right away I loved everything that Sarah had to offer. It might be that I am a little big kid, but I am always attracted to kiddie stuff {huge Disney fan ~ remember the Minnie cupcakes}! She designs playful and whimsical mommy and children items! And you gotta love her company name! In the last couple months that I have been in wedding world, she came out with a "print, cut and party" line that is simply genius!!! Finally someone who offers more than just invitations, thank yous and menus. Here is a preview of her recent tea party line!

Photo courtesy of Style Me Gorgeous.

Here are some other printables she offers: Birdie and Elephant and Diggers and Dump Trucks. Visit her website to view her other offerings.

And last but not least, I saw these cute cupcake sets at Sur La Table and had to look up Meri Meri when I got home. If you are one of those that rather purchase than cut-it-out yourself, then this is the solution for you!

Oh Baby Baby line. Photo courtesy of Meri Meri.

Aloha line. Photo courtesy of Meri Meri.

Mermaids and mermaid invites! Photo courtesy of Meri Meri.

They do more than cupcake liners and invites... full party decor! Love! Photo courtesy of Meri Meri.

Now go have some fun! Happy cutting and partying!
~Danielle

Where credits are due:
Minted ~ http://www.minted.com/
Style Me Gorgeous ~ http://www.stylemegorgeous.com.au/store/pc/home.asp
Style Me Gorgeous blog ~ http://stylemegorgeous-bysarah.blogspot.com/
Meri Meri ~ http://merimeri.com/
Sur La Table colorful cupcake wrappers ~ http://www.surlatable.com/category/id/104489.do

Party | Little Inspirations

2010-08-17T18:11:00.000-07:00

So I was checking my email and guess what should pop up... an email from Crate and Barrel {no surprise there} and they announced a website redesign. I work in the creative web and print world, so these kinds of announcements excite me! I opened up the email and the second item listed... dessert tables!!!

Photo courtesy of Crate and Barrel

Oh how I love thee!

Crate and Barrel's new web re-design allows you to shop by ideas {sub-category: create the look}, which I think is a fantastic move! In today's world people are inspired by the crafty and the creative and they want to replicate that. Here is a screen capture of the first line of product within this dessert table idea.

Photo courtesy of Crate and Barrel

The cake pedestal prices are not too bad surprisingly. Some of my favorite ceramic and Mosser milk-glass cake stands average between $30-$60 a piece.

Mosser milk cake stands

And I love these glass jars and again the price points are not too bad. My coworker told me that TJ Maxx Home Goods and Ross are two places to keep an eye out for these jars if you are in need of a lower price point. These jars have multiple uses beyond candy and dessert bars…

Makes you want to go out and buy a couple of these, doesn’t it?

This whole post was inspired by a single email that I received, it’s amazing what can inspire you and what directions it takes you in. I’ll be picking up a couple of these jars this Halloween and I’ll make sure to post some of my ideas.

What are your ideas?

~Danielle

Paper | Party Accents

2010-08-14T22:02:00.000-07:00

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I am going to incorporate my other love {paper} and it's uses with desserts! For those of you who are just visiting my blog, I have a tendency to want to make things pretty - it might be the perfectionist in me, but I love to plate and dress food up! One of the easiest ways to dress up your desserts or even a party is by adding paper accents.

Seeing how much I love paper, our stationary set for our wedding was very important to me! We love ferns and it's symbolic meaning, so we ran with a fern theme. See below for how we incorporated it into our special day

Our complete set: save the dates, invite, cupcake wrapper, menu, thank yous and welcome recipe cards. Photo courtesy of Soul Mates Photo.


Paper fern cut out and cupcake wrappers. Photo courtesy of Soul Mates Photo.

Close up of the cupcake wrappers. Photo courtesy of Soul Mates Photo.


Paper mini fans, name place holders and menus. Photo courtesy of Soul Mates Photo.

Paper labels on wine bottles displaying seating assignments. The roses on the bottles were made out of paper. Photo courtesy of Soul Mates Photo.

More nameplates and using the ferns in our flower arrangements. Photo courtesy of Soul Mates Photo.

The photos make my stationary set look extra fancy, but in all honesty, these were all DIY - Do it Yourself projects {just in case you wanted to know what that stood for mom}. You can easily create these items at home by purchasing fun paper at Michaels or Paper Source and cutting items out using scissors or dies and dies.

We took this pic of great stationary ideas at Paper Source today!

I love the Asian themed dinner party set, especially the chopsticks holder!

I love Martha Stewart and she has some great templates available online for you to download for free and use for your next party! Up next, some places to purchase some pre-made party stationary sets ~ I think you'll be excited, I am!

Hope you are able to dress up your next party!
~Danielle

Where credits are due:
Soul Mates Photography ~ http://www.soulmatesphoto.com/
Cupcake wrapper die ~ http://www.sizzix.com/product/1924
Florals for the cake display, Teresa Sena Designs ~ http://www.whiteorchidwedding.com/about/ohana/theresa.php
Penguin Cake Toppers, The Pink Koala on Etsy ~ http://www.etsy.com/shop/thepinkkoala?ref=seller_info

Cookies | Tips & Tricks

2010-08-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday everyone!

I have a short little post for all of you! Sugar & Meringue put together an online sugar cookie book (with the help of Bake It Pretty, Cakespy, The Constant Baker, Not So Humble Pie, and Sweetopia) for all your viewing pleasure and best of all it's FREE! She has some great recipes in there, but the best part are her tips on how to flood and decorate sugar cookies.

Enjoy!
~Danielle

It's been a long time

2010-08-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a long time since I blogged, but hey, I was getting married {insert big smile here}.

In a previous post I mentioned loving table displays! You may have heard of Amy Atlas, some people see her as the Queen B of dessert tables and she really does do amazing work. Dessert displays are just like what they sound like - a dessert buffet but in today's modern world people are dressing up their displays and matching their desserts with their party's theme.

Zebra Patterned Dessert Bar, photo courtesy of Amy Atlas

If you know me, then you know that I'm a huge dork who gets excited about desserts and paper... yup, paper! I used to work for a printing company and now I traffic production in an art department for a craft company. I even have a favorite line of paper! What is that you say, line of paper... yup line of paper. The Curious Collection is amazing!!! {See, I'm a huge dork...}. So, with that being said, I can honestly tell you that dessert displays are exciting because they combine two things that I love!

Over the past couple months I've been thinking up different ways to extend my future business. I've thought about a store front, maybe a little boutique shop, maybe a cake supplies store... it's still a work in progress, but I have decided to incorporate paper and it's uses with desserts into my blog. My company's name is Cake and Company and paper is really good company!

It's easy to take your simple homemade cupcake, like the one below and dress it up!

All it takes, is either a decorating tip or some fun with paper. I'll be posting a few tips and DIY projects in the future so that you can also do it at home! So keep your eyes out for future posts! In the meantime, here a few images from our wedding. I baked the cupcakes for our wedding tower the night before the wedding, I know I am crazy but I wanted my family to taste my treats.

Close up of our wedding cupcakes. Photo courtesy of Soul Mates Photography

Our cake topper and a larger shot of our cupcake tower. Photo courtesy of Soul Mates Photography

To tie our cupcakes into our wedding theme, I had paper printed with our fern design on it. I then used a cupcake wrapper die to die-cut the wrappers. For the cake on top of the cake, I decided to go with fondant covered Styrofoam cake dummies. I didn't want to fondant a cake in Maui, because I have never worked in that type of climate before with fondant. So, to save my bridal sanity and frustration I took the simple way out and covered the dummies in California. Yes, I put the cake dummies in my carry-on luggage... I then die-cut a fern flourish out of green paper (I can just see the disappointed look in Kerry Vincent's eyes) to decorate the cake. Tyler and I are each others penguins, so I surprised him with our penguin cake toppers.

See the use of paper with desserts is amazing!

Here is one last photo of me and Tyler from our wedding


To see more of our wedding photos, check out soulmatesphotoblog.com

Until next time, happy baking and paper cutting!
~Danielle

Where credits are due:
Amy Atlas Events ~ http://www.amyatlas.com/
Soul Mates Photography ~ http://www.soulmatesphoto.com/
Cupcake wrapper die ~ http://www.sizzix.com/product/1924
Florals for the cake display, Teresa Sena Designs ~ http://www.whiteorchidwedding.com/about/ohana/theresa.php
Penguin Cake Toppers, The Pink Koala on Etsy ~ http://www.etsy.com/shop/thepinkkoala?ref=seller_info

Cake | UCLA Bruin's Groom Cake

2010-07-05T15:55:00.000-07:00

I love when clients "aka friends" have an exact idea what they have in mind and then trust me to create it for them. I will be honest, I was a little nervous about this one. Last year, it may be a full year, a friend from college asked if I would do a groom's cake for a friend of hers. The groom wanted a UCLA Bruins themed cake. I had previously done a USC Trojan cake (I can hear either the boos and the cheers in the background) last year, so I thought why not, I can do this!

I ran a few images I found off the web by the groom and groom decided he wanted to go with the Bruin drawing behind the UCLA logo. We picked this out last year, so when it came time to actually do the cake I was a little intimated. But I laid out a schedule and I accomplished the Bruin a little bit here and there. I started to work on the Bruin logo two nights before the cake was due. It would have been easy to purchase a printer, fondant sheets and edible ink and print out the logo (this works so well for corporate clients - sugar cookies and cupcakes). But I also like the look of layered fondant. So, with my handy dandy exacto knife I set to work cutting out different layers of the logo.

Night 1

Here is the final cake! I don't like to toot my own horn, but I think this is definitely a step up from the USC cake that I did last year.

Day 3, pick-up Day!

And I wanted to share this last photo, my friend, Leika took this at the wedding. I love the table display (I am all about table displays!)

I probably won't be able to post anything until after our wedding, so don't give up on me.

Until next time, enjoy the summer!
~Danielle

Cake | Simplistic Graduation Cake

2010-07-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to do a quick post on a cute little cake I did for my friend, W. W graduated in late May with a Masters in Biology. I wanted to do some kind of nerdy cake, like I did for Tyler's birthday last year (remember the Beer Yeast Microbe cake), but I decided to do something more simplistic.

W really likes my mint chocolate recipe, so I create a 6" cake for her. Mint chocolate cake with peppermint Swiss meringue buttercream. For an added surprise, I smashed up Girl's Scout's Thin Mint cookies (I buy a box every year and put it in my freezer... frozen Thin Mints are the best!) and sprinkled the cookie crumbles in between the layers of cake.

I did a simple black circle pattern on the outside of the cake and topped it all off with a Thin Mint cookie on top of the cake.

Here I am with the graduate. Congratulations on your graduation W!

Next up, a groom's cake which I think is beary beary good...

~Danielle

Cupcakes Inspired by Glee

2010-06-24T22:53:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a couple weeks. Work is crazy busy, we are getting ready for our big trade show and I am getting married in exactly three weeks!

I'm a pretty big fan of Glee, you may go so far as to say that I am a Gleek. I have the music from Glee on my iPhone and I listen to it almost daily at work, it gets me through the day! Anywho, a bunch of wonderful ladies gather weekly to watch Glee together

And in honor of the season finale, I wanted to make cupcakes. I was going to go the simple route and just pipe frosting on the cupcakes and spell out Glee or something like that. But then my friend Tals said we should make slushie inspired cupcakes. A day later we had this!

I baked red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. To make the cupcakes appear like slushies, I piped the frosting onto the cupcake. Then I dipped the cupcake into a bowl of large dusting sugar. I then used spray food coloring, red of course, to color the frosting to make it look like a slushie. I have found that the more you spray the wetter the frosting will appear. Tals bought small red cups and straws. We filled the red cups a little over half way with starbursts and then placed the cupcake gently in the red cup. We finished it off by cutting colored straws to 3 inches and placing the straw into the cupcake (thank you Stephanie for your help!).

Over head shot! I think they look just like a slushie would!

I had all the girls pose for a slushie in your face shot! If you haven't seen an episode of Glee, I highly recommend it! It may just bring some gleefulness into your life.

I'll have a new post soon! So many cakes to share with you! Thank you for stopping by, until next time, take care of that sweet tooth!
~Danielle

Shout out | Alex & Shae

2010-06-03T21:33:00.000-07:00

My blog was recently featured on Alex & Shae's blog, check it out here.

Thank you to Alex & Shae for my shout out!

Definitely check out their blog, the ladies specialize in stationary and jewelry. They also have an etsy.com store! Good luck Alex & Shae! I wish you two the best!!!

~Danielle

Minne Mouse Cupcakes

2010-06-03T21:12:00.000-07:00

Minnie Mouse themed Cupcakes

I love the mouse and I have always loved the mouse! I really wanted to do a bachelorette event at Disneyland, so with many thanks to my coworker and her future husband to be, my girlfriends and I were able to go for a day! I wanted to do something special, so I made these Minnie Mouse inspired cupcakes for all the ladies to enjoy.

Here we are posing in front of Disney's California Adventure. "C" is for cupcake!

I knew I wanted to do a least two different designs. Everyone knows the famous red bow, but not that many non-Disney fans know about Minnie's cute hat! Last year, while walking around the park, I noticed a cute new hat that you could purchase and I was inspired then to create a Minnie Mouse cupcake!

Minnie used to wear a blue skirt with white polka dots as well!

The cupcakes were chocolate cake with espresso swiss meringue buttercream. I created my own cupcake wrappers. I work for the craft company, Sizzix and we have an art room where we can use our machines for personal projects (I really want to buy a Big Shot Pro!). I found this fantastic red and white polka dot paper at Michaels and I used my Stampin' Up Perfect Setting die to cut out the wrappers. The Minnie Mouse heads were created out of black fondant. The red bow was created with red royal icing and my ribbon tip. After the royal icing hardened, I added a little ball of red fondant to complete the look.

The hats were made out of yellow fondant. I cut green flower wire to 1/2" pieces and laid them down on parchment paper. I then took a piping bag with a #2 tip and white royal icing and created a flower. After the royal icing dried, I pulled the flower carefully from the parchment paper and stuck the flowers onto the hat.

Tyler did a fantastic job taking pictures outside our apartment complex, the photo below is my favorite because the hat came out perfectly!

And here is a picture of my sister and I with our Minnie ears!

Until next time! Happy baking and decorating!

~Danielle

Cake Decorating Supplies!

2010-05-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

Half an aisle!!! Who was excited? I was!

Wednesday, while on my lunch break, I needed to go by Michael's craft store to pick up cake boards for a couple graduation cakes I am working on this week. As I turned down the aisle, I turned my head to the right and noticed a whole new display of cake decorating supplies and materials... and what brand do suppose I am talking about... it's not Wilton, but Duff from Charm City Cakes! Oh, happy day! No, literally, it made my day! I actually squealed in delight and the woman down the way looked at me like I was weird.

Some of you may or may not know, but baking and cake decorating is a side venture of mine. During my normal 40 hour week, I happen to work at a craft company. I am constantly bugging my product department to venture into the cake industry (hasn't worked... yet). Many cake artists use scrapbooking and sculpting tools, so it is nice to see our supply selection growing! Right now the Duff line is only being sold at Michaels.

I took these images with my iphone and I was a little excited (just a little...), so they are kind of wobbly. Mary Alice posted more pictures on the Charm City Cake blog, click here. Enjoy!

Printed icing sheets for easy use, Duff calls them Cake Tattoos

Nice Plan-o-gram action going on right here!

Texture Mats for use with Fondant and Royal Icing

Sprinkles and Royal Icing!

High quality fondant... who is willing to try it?

If anyone has tried out Duff's product, let me know what you think! I bought a texture pad and I'm hoping to try it out soon. I'll do a follow up post when I do.

Until next time!
~Danielle

Personal Cakes

2010-04-28T12:01:00.000-07:00

4" round cakes are about the cutest things you can possibly see. I like to call these little 4" round cakes personal cakes, even though it serves 4 slices... A couple weekends ago, we attended my friend's 3rd annual birthday party at the Olde Ship in Santa Ana and I brought along this cake for her.

It's a chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache. Decorated in fondant accents. I finally got to try a new technique, rolled ribbon fondant flowers... not too shabby if I say so myself.

These are great little cakes for birthdays, baby showers, bridal showers or even your occasional tea parties!

Hope you enjoyed, until next time happy baking!

~Danielle

Wedding Cake for Katherine and Kevin

2010-04-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

This is the largest wedding cake I have done to date and I was pretty proud of myself (no tears!). The bottom tier is chocolate and the other two tiers are vanilla buttermilk. Each tier has three layers of cake, so for the filling I did chocolate ganache and cream cheese frosting (per request of the bride). I pulled the piping pattern from the bride's dress. The dress was so gorgeous!

My favorite applique on her dress were these two mirroring flowers. I pulled this detail into the top tier of the cake. I didn't know if the bride and groom were going to have a cake topper, so I used these two flowers to symbolize Katherine and Kevin.

I got a text message from the bride's sister during the reception letting me know that the cake was delicious and the bride's mother emailed me the next day to let me know that the bride thought the cake was "amazing." Just starting out, it's so nice to hear comments like that. So thank you to the family! Congratulations to Katherine and Kevin! I wish you two the best!

Until next time, happy baking!
~Danielle

MSC | Peanut Butter-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

2010-04-18T11:46:00.000-07:00

Peanut Butter-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

On Tuesday, we had a bunch of people over to celebrate the return of Glee! I decided to make Martha's Peanut Butter-Filled Chocolate cupcakes and I have to say I was a little disappointed again. These weren't terrible, they were chocolate peanut butter goodiness! But they were to dry for my specific taste. I would have much preferred peanut butter-filled brownies (note to self - find recipe) or peanut butter chocolate molten cake.

The cupcakes formed a hard crust on top and I don't like biting into cupcakes with hard crusts. I don't know about you, but I don't like cutting the roof of my mouth when I'm eating delicious morsels of sweet yumminess. I ate my cupcake with a spoonful of ice cream on top and that was pretty good. These may be the type of treats you eat right when it comes out of the oven so they are still warm and gooey. The ingredients were fairly similar to what you find in the peanut butter chocolate molten recipe and those need to be eaten right away. Or they truly become hard as rocks! But they are so good!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Molten Cake

And just for kicks, here is the group shot from Glee night - thank you to everyone who came out!

Up next, the largest wedding cake I have done to date.
~Danielle

MSC | Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

2010-04-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, Ty and I gathered our wedding party over at our house. Our wedding party is made up of people from different times in our life and we wanted them to have a chance to get to know one another before all of us hop on a plane to Maui in July. The majority of the wedding party will be staying together in an awesome condo that we are all renting in Paia. Per usual, everyone brought a bottle of wine and some food to share. Of course, me being me, I baked cupcakes. Ty looked through the Martha Stewart Cupcake book and we both agreed that the Snickerdoodle Cupcakes would be the easiest to bake seeing as I already had all the ingredients in my pantry.

I tend to like recipes that use buttermilk and oil rather than butter. I have found that those recipes ultimately create moist and fluffy cupcakes. So, I was a little concerned when I saw that this recipe called for butter; I baked another one of Martha's recipes last fall with butter and the cake was a little dry. This Snickerdoodle cake was a little too dry for my taste. It did, however, taste really yummy with the frosting (Vanilla Swiss Merguine buttercream) and cinnamon sugar sprinkles. I am going to attempt to bake these again switching out a few ingredients (butter) for the ingredients (buttermilk and oil) that always seem to deliver.

Although, I do have to say that the cake batter was simply delicious! It tasted exactly like Snickerdoodle cookie dough.

Thank you for stopping by! Until next time, happy baking!
~Danielle

MSC | Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

2010-03-31T18:21:00.000-07:00

Two words... Thin Mints! If you love Thin Mint cookies then this is the cupcake for you!

This past month, I didn't take part in the cupcake recipe that all Martha Stewart's Cupcake Club bloggers were supposed to create. The reason being... warning, the next thing I am about to tell you is a little weird, but it's fact... I hate fruit and I don't like it when people put fruit in cake. As far as Cake and Co. goes, I made a decision in the beginning that I would not do fruit cakes, sorry all! I am a chocolate, vanilla, caramel, toffee, coffee, mint and peanut butter loving kinda gal!

So, I departed from this month's recipe and baked this fabulous recipe because Ty asked for it! The cupcakes were moist and were literally Thin Mints in cupcake form. The recipe is a definite bake again. I decided to top my cupcake with Thin Mint cookie crumbles and vanilla mint Swiss Meringue Buttercream. For Christmas, my father bought me a couple cupcake recipe books and I have been wanting to try this new frosting technique I read about in Cupcakes: Luscious bakeshop favorites from your home kitchen by Shelly Kaldunski.


To purchase this book, visit Amazon

She uses the Wilton #104 tip to create a ribbon frosting effect.

I love the look! I'm a big fan of ruffles in fashion and now I have ruffles on cake!

Happy Wednesday! Have a wonderful Easter weekend!
~Danielle

Hooray!

2010-03-28T22:49:00.000-07:00

Exciting news to share, I made it on Food and Fizz!

Many many thanks to Ty, who is an avid reader of food blogs and submits my pictures. So many reasons to love him! The Wizard of Oz cake that I did for my friend, Nick is featured and you can read about the cake by clicking here.I just wanted to share the exciting news! I have new ideas and plans in store for Cake and Co., so stay tuned!

Up next, Mint Chocolate Cupcakes!
~Danielle

Weddings and mochi!

2010-03-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know that I am getting married in a little over three months and I have been in wedding mode for almost a year. Yes, I was that 5 year old girl who used to play wedding and had her wedding planned out by the time I was 12. I love event planning and all the crafty things that come with it! Ty is a little worried that I am going to be depressed when the wedding(s) are over. Yes, I said, weddings, more on that later. But I don't think I am going to be depressed at all. I'm the first of my close girlfriends to get married, which means that there are many more weddings to come!

Our wedding was planned, finalized and designed back in November, but that doesn't keep me from looking at wedding blogs every day! Ty reads foodgawker every day and the other night, he stumbled upon weddinggawker and it literally felt like Christmas morning! Needless to say, I have spent many many hours in the past couple of days on that site. I love our wedding and all the details reflect who Ty and I are as a couple. But if I had to do it again, I think I would definitely pull in a few of these Japanese elements that I found on weddinggawker and Martha!

Kimono inspired wedding gown, cherry blossom dessert spread with mochi, cherry blossom cupcakes

Martha Stewart did such a great job using mochi ice cream. She accomplished the flower detailing on the mochi, by creating a cherry blossom stencil, laying it over the mochi and then using a sifter to lightly sprinkle powered sugar over the mochi ball. Then they placed the ball in the center of a cherry blossom cut out of paper.

I love mochi, especially mochi ice cream and I wish I could serve it at my wedding. Unfortunately, both the weddings are taking place outdoors, so I don't know how I am going to get around the melting factor.

Mochi for those of you who do not know what it is, is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice that has been pounded into paste and then molded into a shape. It comes in different flavors, it can be stuffed and it can be used in any meal of the day. Mochi in soup is sooo good! But my favorite is mochi ice cream, little balls of ice cream wrapped inside mochi. Mikawaya, a Los Angeles based Japanese dessert company is said to be the creators of mochi ice cream in 1994.

I love the fact Martha included mochi in this past month's wedding magazine. This is an idea that I will be filing away, so that one day when I have my own dessert studio, I will remember to do something like this. Or I could just use these ideas for my birthday this summer... there was also this party dress in that Kimono link... hmmm...

Until next time!
~Danielle

Oldie but Goodie! Hello Kitty Cake!

2010-03-07T18:33:00.000-08:00

I just started getting into cake decorating about a year and a half ago, I started out doing simple things. But when it came time for my good friend to celebrate her birthday last spring, I decided to try fondant sculpting. Jenn and I have known each other since college, we both consider ourselves to be Twinkies (we are Asians who are white washed) and we both love Hello Kitty. We even went to the Hello Kitty anniversary showcase in Los Angeles last Fall. So of course, I had to make her a Hello Kitty cake. Jenn also likes to surf and loves the color green (another thing we share in common), so I decided that I would make it a beach scene. Hope you enjoy!

HK in her cute bathing suit sitting on a sandy beach


This is the plastic doll I modeled my HK after

Jenn cutting into her cake


And just to prove it to you, we really did go to the HK Anniversary and it was awesome!

Jenn and I <3 Twinkies!

Hope you enjoyed this oldie!
~Danielle

Sweet 16 Heart Cakes

2010-03-07T18:06:00.000-08:00

Our kitchen designer's daughter was celebrating her 16th birthday and when it came down to getting her a cake, he asked if I would like the opportunity to do that cake. Our kitchen designer, Bruce at Le Gourmet Kitchen in Orange, California is a fantastic guy and he has done so many things for us... he let us use his showroom for our engagement pictures...

When Tyler put his knee through our under cabinet floor, we knew it was time for a kitchen redo... Bruce and the team he assembled did a fantastic job on our kitchen...

So, I didn't hesitate when he asked about a birthday cake for his daughter and her friend. The two girls wanted to mimic their invitation design which was two hearts. The most important factor of the cake, making sure it fed 80 people. My plan was to have each heart feed 40 people. I baked the cakes in a 10" square cake pan and hand carved the cakes into a heart.

Overall, I believe the longest measurement is 11.5" and I was scared about covering the cake in fondant. As some people may know, working with fondant isn't the easiest thing. Fondant is susceptible to drying out (aka crack lines or worse tears in your fondant) and temperature (anything but cold makes it sweat which can sometimes lead to running colors). So, in order to cover the cake I had to roll out a large piece of fondant. The first heart took me two tries but it got covered! And the second one only took me one try. My arms and back hurt the next day and I had no idea why until Tyler reminded me that I rolled out fondant. Oh, fondant and our love hate relationship.

The heart was to be covered in black fondant, with a white heart overlay and then the birthday message was to be piped in red.

I tend to under estimate my cakes... so I thought the cakes would error on the small side and I was worried it wouldn't feed the 80 people it needed to feed. So, with the help of Talya (my Sous), we made cupcakes to match! Yea... Each cake was about 4" tall and weighed about 20 lbs total. They were beasts and the cupcakes probably were not needed, but they looked cute!

And an overhead shot of the cake! I was pretty proud of my first carved/sculpted cake. I definitely liked that the shape of the cake was a bit different than what I was used to.

The cake was balanced on my lap in the car... it was a long car ride.

Happy 16th birthday Julianna and Morgann! I hope you two had a wonderful time at your party!

Until next time, happy baking and decorating!
~Danielle

Wedding Cake for Veronique and Jared

2010-02-24T23:30:00.000-08:00

So, I had the honor of creating a wedding cake for Veronique and Jared. Jared just happens to be the little brother to our "go to" aka the couple that happens to be our best friend unit. I couldn't have been more excited when Veronique asked if I could do their wedding cake. If I could snap my fingers and make things magically happen, I would totally be in the event and wedding planning/cake baking and decorating business. I love it all! And not just my wedding stuff, I just love all the details and the personal touches that go into each couple's special event.

Veronique and Jared wanted something simplistic and modern. Their catering was going to serve dessert, so they didn't need a large cake. So I decided on a two-tiered 8" and 6" wedding cake. I have to say I was a little lost on what to create, until I saw the picture of her dress. You will not be able to see it on the pictures that follow, but at her empire waist line and the hemming line where the mermaid tail flares, there is a layered ribbon technique used. I decided to pull this detail from her dress and use it on their wedding cake. Veronique had purple orchids dyed blue and I decided to use that blue in the ribbon detail. Here are images of the cake

I am pretty happy with how it turned out! We were asked to stay for dinner and I was really excited to see the bride and groom cut into and enjoy my creation. Here are few pictures of the bride and groom

Taking the famous pre-cake cutting pose

They were very nice to each other, no smearing cake onto each others faces


VJ being a good wife and feeding cake to Jared

Veronique liked the cake so much that she went back immediately for another slice! That made my night! Here I am with the bride

And lastly, a picture of inside the cake. Chocolate, vanilla, chocolate layers oh my!

Thank you Veronique and Jared for letting me do your wedding cake! And thank you for letting Tyler and I be apart of your special day! You two make the most darling couple and I know there are only good things to come for you two... one in July!

Until next time, happy baking!
~Danielle

S'more Cupcakes

2010-02-15T09:44:00.000-08:00

This month's Martha Stewart Cupcake Recipe, S'more Cupcakes was chosen by Mary Ann from Meet Me in the Kitchen. I love S'more marshmallow goodiness! But I was torn on whether or not to bake the recipe in the Martha Stewart book. 1. I didn't want to buy graham flour for a one time use and 2. in the beginning of January, Bakerella posted this yummy looking recipe for S'more or Less

Photo Credit: Bakerella

I mean look at this picture... can you see why I was torn? In the end, I decided to go with Bakerella (sorry Martha!).

One thing I loved about this recipe is that I already had all the ingredients in my pantry. I gathered all the ingredients I needed to make for two, yes two, cake batters (yes, I mais en plas with my new Parker bowl set that I got at my bridal shower - love these bowls!).

This recipe is fairly clever in that you essentially start with a base batter and then add cocoa powder to one and graham cracker crumbs to another.

The graham cracker crumb batter smelled so good! I had a hard time not sampling the product :)

Next, I made a graham cracker crumble, so once again I laid out my ingredients. Love the bowls!

Now I was ready to start layering the different flavors! First you put a spoonful of graham cracker crumb batter in the cupcake liner and you follow with a sprinkling of graham cracker crumbles

Then you cut large marshmallows in half and place a half into each cupcake liner

Next you pour chocolate cupcake batter into the liner and then add another sprinkling of graham cracker crumbles

These cupcakes smell really good baking in the oven! My entire house smelled like chocolate cake and pie crust. After the cupcakes came out of the oven, I let them cool a bit. Then I stuck a marshmallow on top and put the cupcakes under the broiler. Roasted marshmallows, my fav!

Look at all the layers! When you eat this cupcake, you definitely have to eat all the layers in one bite or you just won't get the full effect of this recipe. The texture is really interesting, moist but crumbly. The cupcakes were so good that I had one for breakfast the next morning!

Working for Sizzix has it's perks! We have this really cute cupcake wrapper die, so I had to cut some wrappers out. And I am so glad I did, because the cupcakes look extra cute!

A big thank you to Bakerella for an amazing recipe for the collection. If you haven't already, visit Bakerella's website for more amazing treats and fun ideas! And an even bigger thank you to Kelly and Shannon for my new Sur La Table cupcake tin and Linda, Jana and Ashley for my Parker bowls :)

Stayed tuned, this month is turning out to be a very busy month with a wedding cake and a sweet 16 birthday cake!

Until next time, happy baking!
~Danielle

The Perfect Sugar Cookie Recipe & Wedding Dress Cookies

2010-02-15T09:41:00.000-08:00

Finding the perfect recipe can be challenging and expensive. I tried 5 different sugar cookie recipes before I decided to open my personal cookbook to try my Great Auntie Alice's sugar cookie recipe. I should have stuck with family recipes because this one did exactly what I wanted. As you can see in the pictures, the cookies did not expand too much and the cookies were able to hold their shape! Plus the recipe is delicious! Not too sweet and not too buttery, it is perfect!

For my bridal shower, I wanted to give something to all the ladies that attended. I decided to go with wedding dress cookies and I also did little bouquets with the dresses. Tyler helped fill the cookies white royal icing and I conquered the minimal decorations. You can kind of see the finished product in the picture below. The cookies are in a clear plastic bag.

Wizard of Oz Cake

2010-02-09T16:27:00.000-08:00

Have you ever been to a tupperware party? Doesn't that sound kind of boring? I mean, it's a piece of plastic designed to hold your leftovers and get lost. That's it, it has two functions. I can think of so many other "parties" I would rather go to. A wine tasting party, kitchen gadget party, pajama party. They all sound interesting right? Bring a "consultant" into your house to show you and your friends the latest and greatest products? That is how our story begins as well as what brings us to today's cake. It's a little overdue on posting but it's worth it. Plus! Ty and I got a new camera! Nikon 5000D. We are still playing around trying to figure out all of the features.

Today's cake was commissioned by a friend who actually runs one of these parties. Yes, he is a "consultant." We first met him over a year ago at our first party and we've kept in touch ever since, attending various parties over that time. He makes it so much fun. How can you go wrong with drinks, food, and friends right? His birthday was coming up and he told me that his favorite movie of all time is "The Wizard of Oz." I got excited right away, because that is one of my favorite movies too! So of course I had to do some research to get some ideas formulating. I sat down with the movie and sketched out some thoughts. Wicked Witch and Striped Socks? No, cliche. Tornado Cake! Not possible I don't do extreme cakes (But call me Food Network!). Flying Monkey? Haven't mastered the art of making things float mid-air yet...hmmm...iconic, enduring, classic, Yellow Brick Road, Emerald City, Cowardly Lion. Perfect. End Scene.

Here are a few pictures that we took with the new Nikon 5000D.

Laying out all the tools I will be using: gumpaste flower tool, mini cookie cutters, paint brushes, gumpaste rolling pin and I got to use one of Sizzix's new impression folders. The impression folder used is brick texture, perfect!

Forming the Cowardly Lion. If you are not that familiar with the movie, the scene I chose to recreate is the one where Dorothy, the Tinman, Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion are walking through the field of poppies on the way to the Emerald City. The Wicked Witch of the West poisoned the poppies so that the characters would fall into a deep sleep. The Cowardly Lion happens to fall asleep on his back with his legs and arms up in the air.

Poppies in their first stage

Here is the side view of the cake. I originally wanted the Emerald Castle to be on top of the cake, but fondant can be a little heavy sometimes and it refused to stand up... that will be my next challenge

Here is a view from the top

A close up of the lion. Check out the brick impression!

Close up of the lion

And just for kicks, the cake was a 6" round cake, 4" tall. There were 3 layers of cake, two red velvet and one vanilla buttermilk with Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

MSCC Cupcake Recipe up next!

Until next time, happy baking!

~Danielle

MSCC | Coconut Cupcakes

2010-01-11T22:45:00.000-08:00

When I was in elementary school, I think it might have been 3rd grade, my teacher made us crack open a coconut and drink fresh coconut milk. That experience turned me away from coconut for a good fifteen plus years. The only time I had coconut was when I had Thai food... you can't have good Thai food without coconut milk. But I never had coconut in it's pure form not even on desserts. Then one day, I think my sister, Jennifer convinced me to eat a bite of Chocolate Haupia Pie (a local favorite to those that live in Hawai'i). It was soo delicious and I learned to try other food items with coconut. I can honestly say that coconut desserts and coconut shrimp are high up on my list of favorite foods.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited when I learned that our recipe for the month would be the Coconut Cupcake recipe on page 28 of the Martha Stewart cupcake book. The recipe was fairly complex for just 20 cupcakes (we had to grind sweetened coconut flakes down to a flour like consistency)... but the result was fantastic! They were fantastic for one main reason, the different textures. The texture of the cake was different than most of my cakes, dense and some what grainy from the grounded coconut flakes. I used my Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipe and then I topped the cupcakes with both toasted and non-toasted unsweetened coconut shavings. They were especially good in mini cupcake form where you can get all the different textures in one bite.
Ty and I were a little disappointed with the cake itself. We thought it lacked coconut flavor and a lot of coconut goes into the batter. Grounded coconut flakes and coconut milk, but yet the taste was subtle. I may try making my vanilla buttermilk recipe and adding some coconut extract next time... less work and less ingredients.

The recipe in the book calls for unsweetened coconut shavings, but I like toasted coconut shavings. So, I decided to toast some. I tried both versions and I think the toasted one was much better. Ty and my coworkers agreed that the toasted version was better (again, more textures and a slight crunch!). I prefer sweetened coconut flakes, so I may try that next time as well. On a side note: I have been bad these past couple months... my goal was to post something every week and I barely manage to post twice a month. I promise to be better! In fact, you'll see a new posting within a couple days, a Wizard of Oz cake.

Until next time, happy baking!

~Danielle

Snowflake Sugar Cookies

2009-12-18T22:55:00.000-08:00

My first try at decorated sugar cookies... I took the picture with my iphone, so please excuse the poor picture quality. I just wanted to share this picture, because I was pretty proud of how they turned out :)

Happy holidays again!

~Danielle

MSCC | Gingerbread Cupcakes

2009-12-18T22:31:00.000-08:00

Oh, I am sooo late posting this. It has been a long month at work so far and I have been feeling drained. By the time I get home, all I want to do is grab a glass of wine and sit in front of the tv... and that is exactly what I have been doing these past few weeks.

Anywho, I did manage to bake these cupcakes! I baked these last Sunday (I could have posted this on time... grrr) and took them to work on Monday. I followed the recipe for the cupcakes but decided to use my cream cheese frosting. I sprinkled some nutmeg over the frosting to add a little more flavor and some color. I had a sugar cookie order, so instead of making gingerbread cookies, I made gingerbread shaped sugar cookies. I also sprinkled these with nutmeg and some granulated sugar.

The recipe called for molasses, so I was already nervous about trying this. Molasses has a very earthy flavor that I just don't like in my sweets... Overall, I thought the cupcakes were extremely dry. My cupcakes developed a crust on the top, did anyone else experience this? In the end, this recipe left me very disappointed. I probably won't make this again, but I like the gingerbread cookie cutout idea!

And, at least the pictures came out cute, thanks again to my boss!If I had to make a cupcake or cake for the holidays, I would probably have to go with the sweet potato cupcakes we did last month. I just can't get enough of those!

Happy holidays everyone! Wishing you a safe and joyful season!

~Danielle

Amanda's Baby Shower Cupcakes

2009-12-18T22:07:00.000-08:00

Recently I had the opportunity to do baby shower cupcakes for one of my coworkers and I couldn't be happier with how everything came out! Amanda requested "no pink" but she did mention that she liked sage green. I love that color too! I really like how this color palette ended up.

I wanted to use fondant decorations because I haven't done much of that lately. I had two different designs... onesies and a flower. I played with embossed fondant and non-embossed fondant. I also used a cupcake wrapper template that Judy in Her Natural Habitat came up with. Thank you Judy for the wrapper design! The most hilarious part of creating custom wrappers is that I work for Ellison, who is the parent company of Sizzix. Sizzix is a crafters dream, anywho, they make cupcake wrapper dies... if only I had planned ahead I could have used the die machines to cut out the wrappers instead of spending a good half hour cutting out wrappers. At least it was bonding time with Tyler :)

So here are the creations! First up, the fondant decorated ones...

I also wanted to do frosted decorated cupcakes for the frosting lovers in my company, which is almost everyone.

All the frosting ones disappeared first!

Thank you to my boss for taking pictures! Crossing my fingers that I get a camera from Santa this Christmas and then I'll need to learn how to use it...

Hope you enjoyed the cupcakes!

~Danielle

All my favorites!!!

2009-12-05T11:12:00.000-08:00

I love chocolate cake, it may be my favorite! So, when I had an order for a chocolate cake over Thanksgiving break, I decided to make a few extras for myself and my coworkers.

After trying multiple chocolate cake recipes, I have finally found the one! Colette Peters you are my hero, thank you for this recipe! I changed it just a bit to make it my own and I definitely can't share that little secret, but you should definitely go out there and buy her book! We have also been wanting to find a good coffee frosting recipe. When I interned at Sweet & Saucy, Melody did a lot of variations of cream cheese frostings and they were GOOD! But I love swiss meringue buttercream, so I sought Martha's advice. I didn't use her recipe (I have my own already), but I did follow her steps when it came to adding the instant espresso powder. I did double, okay maybe I tripled the amount of espresso powder though... it needed more coffee flavoring! Let me just say that this is my favorite frosting of all time!!! So good! And for good measure, I also sprinkled on salted caramel (I think it would have been better without it). Enjoy the pictures and be on the look out for new postings this week!

MSCC | Sweet Potato Cupcakes

2009-11-09T08:30:00.000-08:00

I didn't think I was going to like these cupcakes at all... I didn't even want to try them. But I am glad I did, these cupcakes are amazing! You can barely taste the sweet potato, if anything I think it adds moisture and texture to the cupcake. These cupcakes are what fall is all about - fall spice, roasted marshmallows and candied pecans... um, yum!!! They are not too sweet and are therefore extremely dangerous because you could find yourself eating too many of these delicious morsels.

I followed the cupcake recipe exactly how it is written in Martha Stewart's book. When it came time to roast the marshmallows, the book recommends placing a few marshmallows on to a metal tray and then roasting them with a creme brulee torch. We tried this and it wasn't melting the marshmallows fast enough, instead we got blackened marshmallows. Next, I decided to place little mounds of marshmallows under the broiler. Although this worked... it was a little messy transferring the marshmallows onto the cupcakes. So, I tried another technique. I placed the marshmallows and candied pecans bits onto the cupcake and then placed the cupcakes under the broiler - much easier! And it didn't leave a mess, score!

I didn't use the candied pecan recipe from Martha Stewart. Back in October, I made pecan bars for my engagement party... my mom really wanted to try some, but living in Hawaii she wasn't able to attend our engagement party. We are going to visit my mom this week, so I decided to make her some pecan bars. I used the pecan part of my bars as the candied pecans on the cupcakes. I use orange and lemon zest in the bars, so it definitely gives a little extra flavor.

Now that I am working, I have two companies to share by goodies with... so I made a batch for Tyler to take to school with him and I made a batch of mini cupcakes for me to take to work. Look at how cute these are! They are the perfect bite!And I wanted to show off our new platter... wood grain to add to the rustic feel of these cupcakes. Thanks to Shira for the platter, we love it!

Unitl next time, happy baking!

~Danielle

The difference a camera makes

2009-11-06T13:11:00.000-08:00

I did an engagement cake this past weekend for a good friend of the family's and I had left over red velvet cake batter. So, I decided to make mini red velvet cupcakes for my coworkers. At work, we have a photo box to take pictures of our product and my boss graciously took pictures of my cupcakes. This picture is 5 million times better than what my little camera takes, so I just wanted to share it. I like how the cupcakes are reflected onto the plate! Tyler and I are looking at used professional cameras online, crossing my fingers that we can find one soon! Until next time, happy baking!

~Danielle

Kitchen Remodel!

2009-11-01T11:24:00.000-08:00

First a teaser! I forgot to take "before" photos and the only one I could find was from last years Halloween dinner... so here we are, Tyler, Talya and I celebrating Halloween 1950's style! Please note the gray cabinets... our kitchen cabinets were old and falling apart, Tyler put his knee through the under sink cabinet when he was doing some work... so it was time for a remodel!

And for a good laugh... here is this year's Halloween picture! I didn't have my pajama costume on yet, but Talya was a fierce woman from the '70s!

Okay, let's begin the story! Any work done on your house takes a lot of you, it's a lengthy process and for us it was difficult because we didn't have access to our favorite room in the house.

Tyler and I always joke around that one day when we get the chance to build our own house, we are going to make the kitchen the largest room in the house. And, the best part is that we aren't really joking. We love being in the kitchen! Tyler and I love to cook and bake together. We share a passion for all things food, wine and beer related. Having this new kitchen has been great, Tyler and I are like little kids in a candy store... so here are the pictures, enjoy!

Our cabinets have arrived...

... which means, demolition can begin! And Tyler wanted to take care of that part himself!

Almost all of the cabinets have been removed at this point.

The fridge was moved to the dining room, so we could still have access to it. We also set up our coffee maker and old microwave on our dining room table... living off of microwaveable food for 5 weeks is really hard especially when you're a foodie like we are.

At this point, we could start construction on our kitchen. We had a huge water heater in our kitchen (it was in the far back corner, you can see the hooks that held it in). We decided to remove the water heater and install a tankless water heater in the attic instead to give us more room.

After the plumbers completed their initial tasks, our electricians came in and rewired the kitchen. They gave us more outlets!!! We only had 3 before and now we have 5! We also had recessed and under cabinet lighting installed.

Once that was complete, it was time to install the cabinets. In the picture below you can see the team at Le Gourmet Kitchen at work. They did a wonderful job and they were such great people to work with!

All the cabinets have been installed! Now, it's time to get the counters measured for our silestone counters. We had to have the counters measured because Bruce, our designer, put in rounded corners in the entry way to make it feel larger (it's amazing what a difference that made).

Okay, are you ready... here it is, our brand new kitchen! First, I have a shot of the stove. We left the stove in the same location, but we installed an overhead microwave (giving us more counter space... our redesign was all about giving us more room!).

Next, we have a view of our fridge and new pull-out pantry! This is my favorite feature... whoever invented the pull-out pantry is a genius! Our pantry is located where our water heater used to be and we moved the fridge over a bit.

Next is the view to the left our fridge. We have pull out drawers for our pots and pans... love! And we have a lazy-Susan cabinet in the corner where we store our mixing bowls, rice pot and all those other random items you have in your kitchen. We also installed extra upper-cabinets!

And the last view is of the sink area. We have a large and deep stainless steel sink that is amazing!

We are so thankful that we were able to do this remodel! Thank you to Tyler's parents and Tyler!!! And we also want to thank Bruce and his team for the work they did and for letting us use their showroom for our engagement photos! And now, it's lunch time and I need to go down to the kitchen to prepare lunch. Thank you for stopping by and until next time, happy baking!

~Danielle

Quick Halloween Cupcakes

2009-11-01T11:03:00.000-08:00

This past week was a long week for me... I finally went back to work after being unemployed for 9 months. It's good to be back in the workplace, but I missed baking. So, I decided to bake some cupcakes for my coworkers for two reasons, 1. I wanted to bake and 2. I was hoping I could bribe them to keep me (it's a temp to hire position) :P

I baked three different types of cupcakes, vanilla buttermilk, chocolate, and chocolate with a Reese's peanut butter cup baked inside of it. The last one was so rich, it needed to be eaten with a cup of coffee or a large glass of milk.

Adding chocolate treats is pretty easy, I just placed the peanut butter cup in the cupcake liner and then poured the chocolate cupcake batter over it.

The batter didn't bake up as well as it does on it's own, but you can still eat it (and that is all that matters). Yum yum!

Needless to say, I think the cupcakes were a success! The peanut butter ones were the first to go!

Next up... the revealing of our kitchen (I know, I should have posted this weeks ago...)

~Danielle

Hello Kitty and Shopping!

2009-10-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago my friend, Celine asked if I could make some birthday cupcakes for her sister. She had two themes in mind, Hello Kitty and Shopping. Hello Kitty was pretty easy, I did a cake last year for my friend's birthday. But I was a little stumped on the shopping... finally I decided to do items that reminded me of shopping... shopping bags, a purse, heels, and a big ring (Celine's idea). Scan down to the bottom of the blog for a "how to" on fondant decorations. Here are the cupcakes in a cute pink cupcake box!

Here is a view without the box... I am sorry for the really bad photos. My iphone does a better job at taking photos...

And a close up of the shopping cupcakes

Close up of the Hello Kitty inspired cupcakes... the pink bow is my favorite!

The "How To" in fondant decorating... at least how I do it

I first like to sketch out my ideas. Next, I decide on the size of the fondant decorations. I use my round cookie cutters to help me decide on sizes. Then, I sketch the item within the boarders created by the cookie cutter. Next, I take parchment paper and trace the item again with a permanent maker. I will use these as my templates.

Next, I roll out some fondant to about a thickness of 1/8" and then I place my template on top of the fondant. I then use an exacto knife (you could use a sewing needle as well) to poke little holes along the lines of the sketch.

When you lift the parchment paper you will see little dots and you can then cut along these dots with your exacto knife. You can create a lot of different things with this technique. It may take a good amount of time, but this trick does come in handy when you don't have an edible ink printer. I have used it with lettering, logos and even the Optimus Prime cake I did in August.

Good luck with your own decorations!

Thank you for stopping by! Until next time!

~Danielle

Engagement Party Treats

2009-10-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

Tyler and I celebrated our engagement with a few of our friends down here in Southern California and I of course had to create a mini dessert spread :)

Thank you to Byron for taking photos of my desserts!!!

First up... Mini Chocolate cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting and Salted Caramel (all my favorite things in one little bite)

Next... a local Hawaiian treat, Mini Haupia Pie (normally, graham cracker crust, haupia and chocolate pudding... but in my version I replaced the chocolate pudding with chocolate ganache)

Pecan Bars... I love pecan pie and I love these Pecan Bars!!! I piped a monkey tail fern design on the bars with chocolate ganache.

Mini Vanilla Buttermilk cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Mini Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

And Vegan Red Velvet Cupcakes with a Vanilla Glaze

I am so sorry for the bad picture quality, my camera just doesn't take good photos of food. If anyone out there has any recommendations of a good camera, please let me know. And if you have any advice to give on taking pictures of food, I'd like to hear them! Thank you!

Until next time, happy baking!

~Danielle

P.S. I wanted to add a few extra pictures... meet two of my closest friends, Bryon and Aaron... they decided to take my mini cupcakes aka cuppies and dip them in the chocolate fountain :)

adding to the chocolate cupcake, peanut butter frosting and salted caramel...

You gotta love it!

MSCC | Pumpkin Patch Cupcakes

2009-10-12T20:23:00.000-07:00

This month, the Martha Stewart Cupcake Club decided to bake the Pumpkin Patch cupcake recipe. My favorite thing about this recipe... it calls for Autumn spices!!! I of course sampled the batter before adding the pumpkin and I loved the flavor! The cupcakes were extremely moist and fluffy. The recipe makes 32... so I had Tyler take the majority of the cupcakes to school with him. Let's just say that the teachers at his school may be a little spoiled this year :)

I was torn on the decoration of these cupcakes... my girlfriend and I wanted to have a dark vintage themed Halloween dinner party, so I didn't want to decorate these cupcakes with anything Halloween related. Finally I decided to frost my cupcakes with my usual swirl of my cream cheese frosting and then I added royal icing decorations. I've seen this royal icing technique used multiple times on cooking shows, so I thought I would try it out myself. First, I had to decide what I wanted to trace. I could have gone online and found a pumpkin or two, but it was midnight when I did these so I went with what I had. I took my mini pumpkin cookie cutter and traced it with a ultra fine point sharpie on a piece of regular white printer paper.

Then I mixed up some royal icing and added orange food coloring gel. I put the royal icing in a small piping bag with a #2 tip. Next, I placed a piece of parchment paper over the piece of white printer paper. Then with the piping bag, I traced the lines of the pumpkin and added some definition lines in the middle.

I let the royal icing dry overnight because I don't decorate the cupcakes until the next morning right before Tyler left for work. I like when the frosting is freshly whipped and piped on the cupcake! Once the royal icing was dry, the pumpkins slid easily off of the parchment paper and I stuck a pumpkin in each cupcake.

You can try this technique with pretty much any pattern... you'll be seeing it again in a posting coming up. Until next time, happy baking!

~Danielle

Autumn Spice

2009-10-12T19:09:00.000-07:00

I love this time of year! It started to get chilly last week, but I have no idea how long that will last... knowing Southern California we could be back in the 90's next week (please no!). I love the first chill in the Autumn air because that means I get to wear fleece! This time of year also means delicious sweets with flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. I once had a friend that would describe these sweets as tasting like Christmas, but I disagree, I think it tastes like Autumn, Autumn spices to be exact!

As a tribute to fall, I wanted to make some Oatmeal and pie spice cookies (pie spice = Autumn spice).

As I was discussing these cookies with my friend, Nicole aka W, she reminded me of one of our favorite ice cream flavors, Ben and Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie Chunk. If you haven't tried this flavor, drive yourself to your local grocery store and treat yourself to a pint! With ice cream on the brain, I decided to revise my original plan and make ice cream sandwiches. So here are the ice cream sandwiches, two oatmeal and pie spice cookies with vanilla ice cream in the middle. Yum! Yum!

Until next time, enjoy your fleece!

~Damielle

Zucchini Spice Cupcakes

2009-10-08T23:31:00.000-07:00

In September, the Martha Stewart Cupcake Club (MSCC) baked Zucchini Spice Cupcakes (or muffins), unfortunately I was unable to participate at the time (our kitchen was non-existent). So, even though our October recipe is due next week, I still wanted to try this recipe. I'm normally not one for vegetable and fruit cakes, but I love zucchini. I was very interested to see if I would like this recipe. I made half the recipe and topped it with my cream cheese frosting recipe (once you find your recipe, you don't deviate) and little flowers I punched out from the leftover zucchini.

All I gotta say is.. you can't even taste the zucchini. It just tastes like a spice cupcake (or muffin). I love spice cupcakes (or muffins), so I definitely like this recipe!

I have noticed on other MSCC member's blogs that there is a small debate as to whether or not we can call this recipe a cupcake recipe and I have to agree. To me, it reminded me of a muffin, right down to the flavor, the density and the texture. Tyler on the other hand says if you close your eyes it tastes like a cupcake. We brought this discussion to dinner with our friends and each person had their different opinions of what defines a cupcake and a muffin. After talking, we decided to make a hybrid name. From now on I am going to call muffin and cupcakes that blur the lines "muffcakes" or "cupkins."

Stayed tuned, a lot of baking is going down in the next week... MSCC October recipe and engagement party desserts. Plus, I'm trying to find the best chocolate cake recipe and may have just found it!

Cake Dummy

2009-10-05T10:29:00.000-07:00

Almost a month ago, Tyler and I had our engagement photo session with Soul Mates Photo, Melissa the photographer does amazing work! I've used her work as my profile pic and header image.

Tyler and I love to cook together, so we thought it was only fitting for us to have some pictures of us working away in the kitchen (see our engagement session here). Because I love to bake and decorate, I wanted to make sure we had cakes in the background... enter my first cake dummy! I loved decorating the cake dummy, why you may ask... because I don't have to worry about puncturing a hole in the cake, I don't have to worry about the cake being lopsided... I just get to decorate! So here it is, my first dummy cake!

I love Japanese patterns. In college, most of my paintings for my advanced painting class were inspired by Japanese patterns. Japanese patterns are geometric and simplistic and I just love it! The pattern you see above is the classic wave pattern. After covering the cake with fondant, I cut out a scalloped shaped fondant piece and wrapped it around the cake. Then I went in and hand-painted the wave pattern in. It didn't come out the way I wanted it, but it kind of has that Japanese wood-block print feel. So I like it now. I want to do this cake again and I may try my hand at pipping royal icing instead of hand-painting.

The remodel of our kitchen has been completed, so look out for yummy treats!!! Until then, happy baking!

~Danielle

My First Wedding Cake

2009-09-27T13:51:00.000-07:00

Back in May I announced on my facebook page to all my friends that I wanted to pursue cake decorating. At the time I had already done birthday, homecoming and graduation cakes for friends, but I was very nervous when a college friend asked me to do his wedding cake. A wedding is such a momentous event, I didn't want anything to go wrong. My finance reassured me that I was talented and that I could do a wedding cake (he really is a wonderful man!). So, I decided to take on my first wedding cake.

The bride, Sara wanted something very simple and classic. After emailing ideas and images back and forth, we decided on a three-tiered vanilla buttermilk cake with a simple dot pattern. The bride graciously forwarded a few professional images of the cake (hooray, no blurry images!), so here is the cake!

I love the added touches that the florist gave the cake.

The cake toppers are so cute!

And here is a picture of the beautiful bride, Sara and her husband, Tyler.

Photography by Peardon-Carrillo Wedding Photography

To Sara and Tyler, may your marriage be filled with happiness, laughter and love! Congratulations again!

~Danielle

Martha Stewart's Cupcake Club

2009-09-09T10:39:00.000-07:00

Back in June, my best friend gave me the Martha Stewart Cupcake book.

175 recipes... how am I going to bake all these recipes. Answer: the Martha Stewart's Cupcake Club! A group of baking bloggers who have come together to bake one recipe at a time! I am so excited that I got membership... there is a waiting list right now...

Check in on the 15th of every month to see what our club is baking up!

Beer Yeast Cake!

2009-09-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

When it comes to personal style, I have two sides. I love solids that are clean and sleek (my city girl outfits are modeled after that thought) and I love cartoon shirts (it’s the nerd and dork in me, what can I say). I may be 26, but I still love Hello Kitty, Gummi Bears, Harry Potter, Angry Girls, and anything Disney, so I rock their t-shirts! I also love t-shirts from Threadless and Think Geek.

Which brings me to this week’s cake… If you’ve never visited ThinkGeek.com, you should! It was Tyler’s birthday this past week, and seeing as Tyler is a science nerd (I say that with love) we were inspired by the giant plush microbes found on thinkgeek.com.

They have a beer yeast microbe. So, we thought it was a perfect match to his beer-tasting event.

Tyler has an appreciation for beer, so I thought we might as well continue the beer theme and make a stout cake. The recipe is from the Martha Stewart Cupcake book and it was interesting. It was a spice cake with a lot of molasses and stout. I personally think the recipe calls for too much molasses, and the next time we make the cake it will definitely have less molasses and more brown sugar added to it. I filled the cake with chocolate ganache, which helped cut the earthy taste. I then covered the cake with fondant and created beer yeast fondant figures. I thought it would be funny to have the microbes sit in a Petri dish at 100X magnification… later in the day, I thought it would even more hilarious if we saw the microbes having a little party of their own, so I added red cups.

I, personally, am not a fan of the stout cake (Tyler loved it), so I decided to make vanilla buttermilk cupcakes (my favorite!) with vanilla buttercream frosting as well.

I also made cake lollipops with the leftover stout cake and buttermilk cake. I learned this technique at Sweet and Saucy and people just love cake lollipops.

Hope you enjoyed our nerdiness!

I will be taking a break from my "1 new recipe a week" for the next 3 weeks. I do a have a couple things up my sleeve to show you, make sure to stay tuned. I can give you a small hint... our kitchen is being remodeled! Until next time, happy baking!

New Recipe of the Week

2009-09-04T09:36:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned last week, I will be trying at least one new recipe a week. This week, we tried a Matcha Green Tea recipe. I love the color green and I loved this recipe!!! The recipe at first made me a little nervous because it called for 2 Tablespoons of Matcha powder. That seemed like a lot to me, so I only added 1 Tablespoon at first. You could barely taste the Matcha, so we added the extra Tablespoon. Check out the green batter...

The cupcakes smelled like shortbread cookies while they were baking and I loveee shortbread cookies. We decided to make the green tea buttercream frosting to go along with the cupcakes. The recipe ended up being very thick so I added a little lemon juice. I think I will add some milk next time because it still ended up being very thick.

The cupcake was delicious!!! The cake itself had a subtle green tea taste. The initial taste was of a regular yellow cake recipe, but after your first bite you will find you can taste green tea and that taste will linger in your mouth. However, when you eat both the cake and the frosting together... it is amazing!!! The sugar in the buttercream brings out the green tea flavor really well in both the frosting and the cake.

I think I found my green tea recipe!

If you live in the area and want to try a cupcake, lemme know!

Coming soon... stout cake recipe and some more science cupcakes!!! :)

Hand-Painted Optimus Prime

2009-08-29T22:49:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned, I did a Transformers themed ice cream cake today. But I didn't get a chance to talk about the decoration. So here are a few behind-the-scene pictures of Optimus Prime.

I used this image from Google as my guideline

I used modeling chocolate and fondant for the base

Because of the gradient in the colors, I had to do more hand-painting. So, I got another chance to practice my skills!!! Woohoo!

And that's it! I hope you like it!

Until next week, happy baking!

~Danielle

My First Ice Cream Cake Experience

2009-08-29T22:40:00.000-07:00

I was asked to do an ice cream cake for a friend today and I thought it would be interesting to try it. Here is the final product with an Optimus Prime (from Transformers) decoration.

So let the story begin...

I had wanted to make an ice cream cake. I looked up directions online and it seemed easy enough... line a cake pan with cling wrap.

Spread ice cream onto cake pan, cover with more cling wrap and then re-freeze.

After a layer (or two) of cake that has baked and cooled. Stack the cake and then flip the ice cream layer on top of the cake. Sounds simple, right... Well that part was, but spreading frosting on an ice cream cake is a totally different story.

We had originally wanted to frost the cake with a chocolate ganache glaze. We poured the ganache over the cake and the ice cream started to melt immediately. I ran to the freezer and started taking things out to make room for the cake (my mind was racing, I just needed to get the ice cream back into the freezer). Sadly, we just wasted all the ganache, so I asked Tyler if he could run to the store and buy store bought frosting (I know, I don't do the store bought thing normally). Tyler came back from the store and I frosted the cake in the freezer :)

In the end, the cake worked out (I was a little worried about it melting on the drive over to the party, but luckily it didn't).

Good luck with your ice cream cake experience!

Who wants to be a taste tester?

2009-08-25T18:45:00.000-07:00

I just finished my month long internship last week and it's weird to be home all day again (praying that I get a full time job soon). The one good thing about being home... I get to try new recipes.

Eventually, I would like to have my own dessert studio and deciding what cake flavors and frostings you would like to offer is one of the most important first steps. I already have three flavors that I offer, red velvet, vanilla buttermilk and chocolate. I want to offer more, so I've decided to try a new recipe a week. I definitely want to pull influences from my Asian and Hawaiian roots, I think I will try a Matcha green tea recipe next! I also want to try to tweak my recipes to be more health conscience (my vanilla buttermilk recipe is actually low in calories as far as bake goods are concerned) and I would like to try some vegan and allergy sensitive recipes as well.

This past week, I tried Martha Stewart's brown sugar cake recipe topped with a browned butter glaze.

It was pretty good! The recipe is very interesting, it has similar ingredients to chocolate chip cookie dough minus the chocolate chips of course. It smells like cookie dough and it almost tastes like it too... I LOVE chocolate chip cookie dough! I would rather eat the cookie dough than the actual cookie. I am going to tweak Martha's recipe here and there, but I definitely have one fan that I know of :)

This is Isabella and she is just waiting for the box of cupcakes to fall...

If anyone would like to be a taste tester, let me know and I'll let you know when I have the next batch baked.

Happy Baking!
~Danielle

Hibiscus Cake

2009-08-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

My little sister turned 21 last week and all she wanted from me was a cake with a hibiscus on it. So, I thought I would use her cake as an opportunity to practice my hand-painting techniques. Her cake was a 6" 4 layered cake (2 vanilla buttermilk, 2 red velvet) covered in white fondant.

I haven't learned how to do gumpaste flowers yet, so I couldn't make the hibiscus three-dimensional. Hopefully, I'll be able to take a class soon!

But, my best friend did give me a fondant/gumpaste tool set for my birthday that I wanted to use. I decided to make the petals come off the cake a little to give it a bit of dimension.

Then I hand-painted each hibiscus. Here is the finished look with red velvet cupcakes to match :)

Happy Birthday Jen!

New Decisions

2009-08-17T23:13:00.000-07:00

After some thought, I came to the conclusion to start a new blog. Something a little more professional than Flour Flinger/Messy Baker (even though I loved those titles, it reminds me so much of my mom and I). With the help of my finance, Tyler and I decided on the name Cake & Co. It's simple and straight to point and that is what I like. It also let's people know that I do more than just cake, I do cupcakes too and now that I see the awesomeness of mini desserts, I will be doing that as well!

I have been helping out at Sweet and Saucy Shop for 3 weeks now. And it was just what I needed... with my history of jumping from one job to another (I am just interested in so many things...), I was a little nervous about the idea of changing careers once again. I had many sleepless nights thinking, "what if I didn't like it" or "can I really design cakes and not run into a creative block?" One question I didn't ask myself was "can you stand on your feet for 8+ hours." Turns out, not only can I stand on my feet for 8+ hours, I can also walk away from the shop every day with a smile on my face. How can you not smile, baked goods really makes everyone around you happy!

So, it is my desire to have a career in this industry eventually. But for now I must continue to look for a full time job and do dessert artistry on the side. Here goes nothing :)

Side info. - Cake & Co.'s initials are also CC which also happens to be our abbreviated version of "cupcake," the nickname that Tyler gave me. His nickname is Stud Muffin :)

Internship

2009-07-30T00:10:00.000-07:00

Now for some exciting news!!! I started my month long internship with Sweet and Saucy today!!! I get the chance to learn so much stuff and this opportunity is really a blessing.

Today was fantastic and I am so excited for Melody (the owner and pastry chef). The cake studio is going to be awesome! Check out the website www.sweetandsaucyshop.com

Stay tuned... but for now, here's a pic of me in my Sweet and Saucy t-shirt!

I baked my own birthday cupcakes!

2009-07-23T16:59:00.000-07:00

I know, I know... my friends said I shouldn't bake my own birthday cupcakes, but hey, I'll take any opportunity to decorate! I want people to look at my cupcakes and go "yea, that's Danielle." I love black and white... everything I own (journals, jewelry cases, filing folders and clothes) are black and white. So, I wanted my cupcakes to be black and white... and then I came across these really cute yellow polka dotted cupcake liners at the baking supply store... sigh. In the end, the cupcakes turned out to be yellow, white and black. :)

Enjoy! (I apologize for the bad picture quality)

I colored the fondant pale yellow and embossed the fondant with a Parisian wallpaper stamp

I colored the cream cheese frosting with yellow food coloring and used a very large piping tip to create the dollop look. I then used a gum paste flower cutter to cut out these cute flowers! Then I sprinkled yellow colored sugar and added some candy pearls.

This one is a little hard to see... I tried to get a good shot, but I couldn't. I created a happy birthday pattern by pressing a "happy birthday" stamp and a present stamp into the fondant. Then I added those cute little flowers again.

Finally, I cut out a little circle of black fondant and laid it in the middle of the cupcake. I used a piping bag and a decorative tip to create the peddles of the flower. I sprinkled some yellow colored sugar around the black circle of fondant.

Here are the four cupcakes side by side

Will you be my bridesmaid?

2009-07-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

I'm engaged!!! Although most of my bridesmaids already knew they were going to be bridesmaids... I wanted to do something special for them. So, what better, than to bake! I baked sugar cookies and decorated them according to our color theme. Our wedding will be black, white and gray with green as the accent color. The bridesmaids will be wearing black dresses and they will hopefully be holding a boutique made up of green flowers (think green cymbidium orchids or jade roses).

I found this really cute quote and printed it out on paper and attached a paper gardenia (I love these flowers, but they wilt quickly).

Let me know what you think. And stay tuned for some exciting news... until then happy baking!

Bright Birthday Cupcakes

2009-06-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

I finally had the chance to really decorate cupcakes (with fondant and embossed fondant!). I was asked to make a dozen cupcakes for a birthday party. The birthday girl loves bright colors... orange, yellow, green and blue. This is what I came up with.

This one is especially for the birthday girl :)

Thank you for visiting! Until next time, happy baking!

Argyle Birthday Cake

2009-06-25T13:44:00.000-07:00

Today is my best friend's little sister's 21st birthday and so an argyle cake was asked to be made. Here it is! It's a red velvet cake with cream cheese icing (everyone's favorite).

Sorry for the grainy pictures...

There will be a new post tomorrow!

Surprise Birthday Cakes and Cupcakes

2009-06-20T20:18:00.000-07:00

This week was full of birthday surprises!

My girlfriends and I threw a surprise birthday dinner for our friend. The theme of the dinner was The Little Mermaid, so I decided to give the cupcakes an "Under The Sea" kind of feel. I made buttermilk cupcakes with buttercream icing. The coral flowers, seaweed and fishes are made out of fondant. And the sand was yellow colored sugar.

About a month ago, my friend asked me to make a ninja cake for her husband. I have been so excited to make this cake! She gave me a couple sketches and we came up with this... I hope you enjoy it! The cake was blood red velvet... hehehe.

This is definitely one of my favorite cakes!
Until next time, happy baking!

11.5 hours of cake decorating

2009-05-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy week! I had my first cake decorating class and I had three requests to decorate. On Wednesday, my boyfriend, Tyler asked if I would make cupcakes for his classes. The cupcakes were the prizes for the students Jeopardy like study session. Tyler teaches 8th and 9th grade science, so the cupcakes were either H20 molecules or tiles from the table of elements. :)

I pulled an all-nighter last night... I decorated for 11.5 hours. I haven't pulled an all-nighter since my freshman year in college. Half way through the world cake an air pocket formed beneath the fondant. I had to remove the fondant (and all the work I had completed) and start the decorating process again. Let's just say, I learned a lot! There were two cakes due this morning for my number one repeat customer (my best friend, thanks Shira!).

One cake was for her brother's graduation celebration. He just graduated from USC yesterday, so we thought it was fitting to incorporate a USC theme into his cake. Everything on the cake is edible. The lettering and the Trojan head are made out of fondant. The cake was a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.

The other cake was for her sister who just came back from Semester at Sea. Shira and I decided to include a map of world (well part of it) and the flags from each of the countries she went to. There were so many details on her cake that I decided at midnight last night that it would be best if I hand painted most of it. Everything on this cake is also edible. Her cake was a rich chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream icing.

First Baking Class

2009-05-12T23:41:00.000-07:00

I just completed my first baking class! Advanced Cake Decorating with Chef Rachel at her bakery, Blackmarket Bakery (http://www.blackmarketbakery.com/index.html). I picked up a few tricks about coloring and rolling out fondant. I learned that topsy turvey cakes are difficult to construct-I will definitely need to practice more.

Here is the cake I made :)