Zebra baby belly cake

There is a funny origin to this cake. One of my very best friends was getting ready to PCS (for those non military folks that means permanent change of station or moving) and I was very sad. She had recently found out she was pregnant with her 7th....yes I said 7th child. She had yet to find out what we would learn the following week...she was having a girl!! We happened to be browsing the Internet for random things...one of our favorite past times....and she told me that I HAD to make this cake for someone. I said "why not for you?" and the adventure begins.
I used my trusty dark chocolate cake recipe and discovered that to appropriately make the chest and belly regions I needed to use certain pans. I used the Wilton ball pan set for the...UMMM chest....and a large mixing bowl for the belly. BE WARNED...if you use a mixing bowl to bake in, it MUST be metal or glass oven safe and the outside WILL bake much faster than the middle. There are things out there to combat this but I wasn't aware of these little tricks until afterwards. UGH. It wound up absolutely perfect in the end and I hand painted the zebra stripes using black food color and vanilla extract.
Such a cute cake but ultimately lead to me making a couple of other female shaped cake that had much less clothing on. Those posts will follow and I will be sure to make them as EXPLICIT in case you are viewing this with impressionable people.

Winnie the Pooh Baby Shower cake

 This was a recent creation for a friend's baby shower. This is their first little one and they are so excited. I know that the nursery theme was Winnie the Pooh so I wanted to come up with something that would be fitting. I took to the web and googled myself cross eyed looking for the perfect inspiration. This is part of my process. Most orders I receive do not include a cut and dry idea so it is my job to look through all the other amazingly talented people out there and find some inspiration for myself. I showed her a picture of a cake that was almost exactly like the one I wound up creating and she fell in love. It was now my mission to recreate this, with the utmost respect to the original, in order to make her big day the best I could.

I asked, as I always do, what her favorite flavors and combinations were and I was tasked with chocolate and raspberry. Everything else was up to me. That night I was brainstorming and it dawned on me....Winnie the Pooh....honey pot....I had to make honey cake. The resulting product was chocolate cupcakes filled with raspberry preserves and topped with fresh raspberry butter cream as well as honey cake with honey butter cream. Want to know a secret??? SHHHH don't tell anyone....the secret to amazing, not overly sweet honey butter cream is...wait for it....SOUR CREAM! Who would have guessed? The cake was chocolate cake filled with raspberry preserves and covered with the same raspberry butter cream.

The characters were some of my favorites and they were really very simple...except Pooh. It didn't realize that his face was so pointed and round and flat all at the same time. Let's just say he took about 3 tries. The ending product though was one of my most proud cake moments.

Fining Nemo Cake

This cake was my crowning achievement at the time. I created this monster for my 2 year old's birthday. He is an adorable and demanding little person. When I asked him, "what do you want for your birthday cake", I was met with a very loud and resounding "PISHIES!!!". My little guy loves fish and while he has never actually developed the attention span to sit through "Finding Nemo" in it's entirety, he is a fan and immediately recognized the characters. I also added an extra challenge for myself by trying my first attempt at a Topsy Turvy cake. This is not for the faint of heart. Those of you that would like to brave it, I have attached a pretty useful link on You Tube that will help give you a general idea of how to go about it. http://youtu.be/xHY_F53ClJ8

The cake was a very good rendition, if I do say so myself, of the famous "Charm City Cakes" pumpkin chocolate chip with cream cheese butter cream as well as a death by chocolate layer. These two cakes, because of their density, made carving much easier. I also make ALL my ingredients from scratch so the fondant was marshmallow based and the butter cream flavors were all personal creations.

My little guy will still come to me on an almost weekly basis and ask to see his "birthday pishies". I am happy I could make my little man so happy and this cake taught me a lot about how cake can both make you laugh and cry.

Wine Crate Cake

This being my first post to my new blog, I wanted to highlight one of my favorite cakes. I love wine. Now I am not just talking about liking it...I LOVE it! I am by no means a frequent consumer but wine holds a special place in my heart. This love of wine is most likely based on a deep rooted connection to my Italian heritage. I am also fortunate to have friends that enjoy this wonderful nectar as much as I do. It was because of this I made a wine crate cake for my friend for her most recent celebration of her 25th birthday.   The cake was made from a recipe that I also hold dear to my heart. It was the exact cake that my husband and I had at our wedding....champagne!! The butter cream was also champagne. The decorations included brown marbled fondant, white chocolate shavings and silk grape leaves. I topped this of with one of the most appropriate bottles of wine I could find....CUPCAKE! There is no fake wine bottles here....that would just create a sad birthday girl.