My friend, Sheila, just graduated from nursing school and I was honored that she asked me to bake her cake.
I had a great time making this cake. I stalked her Facebook page and printed out photos of her with her family and boyfriend. I mounted them on card stock and placed them below her picture from the commencement ceremony to symbolize her tremendous support system, and I brought back the circles, loops, and dots, to signify her fun personality and whimsical spirit. And I added some bold, vertical stripes as "pillars of strength," if you will. Her parents provided a solid up-bringing which I feel is a major contributor to her success.
I have a feeling all symbolism was lost on her party guests who were just excited to eat some cake. That's cool. Whatever.
It had been months since I had baked a cake. Blame it on the final push to finish my Bachelor's degree, I suppose.
Instead of writing "Congratulations ME!" or "I'm Awesome," or bragging about my wicked sweet GPA (3.6 by the way...I AM awesome) I decided to take the opportunity to thank those around me for their support.
The loops, circles and dots were a new design thing for me at the time and I loved it. I still do, but now I think it's sort of reminiscent of a teenage girl cake. Not that that's bad or anything. Oh, before I forget to ask...who are you going to Prom with? We should get the guys to pitch in for a limo so we can ride together.
I made this cake for my monthly book club. Because I didn't read the book, I decided to take an idea from my "Hello, Cupcake" book and adapt it for a cake as I'm pretty sure I loathe making stupid cupcakes.
It's a one-layer chocolate cake with cream cheese icing "noodles" that were tinted with cocoa powder and a small smear of yellow to look like a pasta color. Luckily, I had no shortage of uncooked spaghetti noodles to compare the color to. :o)
To compliment the chocolate and cream cheese flavors, I used cherry pie filling "sauce." I beat it in my mixer to mash the cherries, and I think that was important step. I used Ferro-Roche chocolate truffles for the meatballs, although you could use Lindt truffles and they would look just as authentic. They might even taste better...
I sent this picture to my Grandma, and she liked it so much that she made a similar cake for her friends at her nursing home on April Fool's Day. Without a doubt, I know I got the "cake crazies" from her.
Cupcakes are cute and very trendy right now, but I think I hate them. I made these pumpkin cupcakes from freshly roasted pumpkin I had used for a Halloween decoration. I stayed with the theme and decorated them to look like pumpkins. The idea came from the book, "Hello, Cupcake." Although they were a hit, I don't think I'm going to do these again.
The roses are made from fondant and took about five days to make. They probably could've been done faster, but I wanted to allow a good amount of drying time between layers of petals.
The colors are Wilton paste colors. They are copper, golden yellow, and burgundy, and they all have a smidge of brown in them to make them a more autumny-type color palette.
This was my first multi-tier cake, and although I didn't have as much time to devote to it (school was still in session), I think it was still pretty good.
