Cake Endeavours

I was asked to make a dozen cupcakes for a friend of mine to take to a Christmas dinner.  These cuties are a favourite of mine to make.    Cupcakes: chocolate with vanilla buttercream; fondant leaves and snowman noses

I had an extra layer of cake and icing to use up from Christmas baking.  I knew it would go over well with my Friday night gang and it did! Added some crystal sugar for some sparkle.   Cake: 6" one layer chocolate with chocolate buttercream icing

Mr. T and I joined a bowling league and we are really enjoying it.  This is the first time in all the years we've been together that we've done an organized activity together.  After the first week we promptly purchased our own pair of bowling shoes but were not planning on purchasing our own bowling balls for quite some time.  However, another bowler offered Mr. T one of his that he was no longer using.  This was a very generous offer and he didn't want anything in return, until I offered to bake him his own cake as a thank you.    The cake was greatly appreciated. Cake: 8" 3-layer chocolate cake with chocolate icing

Always happy to make a cake for a former coworker and friend.  Even it if means working with fondant and edible gold dust!  For the trim around the bottom I used chocolate malt balls that I covered in gold dust.     Cake: 8" two-layer chocolate cake with chocolate filling covered in chocolate fondant.

Celebrating Mr. Dewell's 45 years of being the music director at St. Paul's.  I am so honoured to make his cake and cupcakes to celebrate the church's 188th anniversary. Cake: 6" 3-layer lemon cake with cream cheese filling covered in fondant. Cupcake tower! Carrot cake with cream cheese icing. Chocolate with chocolate mocha icing. Lemon with cream cheese icing Cookies N' Cream with vanilla buttercream icing.  

For Tarissa's 29th (again) birthday she requested a chocolate explosion cake.  I love doing these cakes.  One day I will master doing the drip.  I didn't intend for it to go all the way down the sides, but it is what it is!  I was able to cover up the drippings with candy and chocolate :)  Tarissa loved it, which is all that matters! Cake: 6" 3-layer chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling

Michelle and John renewed their vows today!  It was such beautiful ceremony.  To help celebrate I was asked to make cupcakes for the guests to take when leaving the church.     Purple icing continues to elude me.  One day I will master this colour and get the vibrancy and shade I want.  Until then, I will compensate with paper decorations!  6" 2-layer chocolate cake with buttercream icing Cupcakes: chocolate, carrot, vanilla and lemon Congratulations Michelle and John!

The wedding theme was Great Gatsby.  I found this headpiece on Amazon that would work perfectly for the theme.  I did a very simple white fondant covered cake with some art deco lines. Cake: 6" 3-layer cookies n' cream cake with buttercream filling.  Cupcake Tower: Black Velvet with cream cheese icing Lemon with cream cheese icing Chocolate with vanilla icing Cookies n' Cream with vanilla icing All topped with some gold dragees and dust Congratulation Courtney & Jordon! 

This was a super fun cake to make for one of my favourite people!  His theme requests are always the best.  I made the McDonald's sign using my cricut machine and I love how it came out.  For the rest of the decorations Mr T kindly went to the drive-through for me to get a happy meal.  Miss E ate the chicken nuggets so the box was empty as was the drink container.  However, the fries were the real deal.  I wasn't worried about them spoiling since they last forever in the wild.  The most challenging part of this cake was getting the icing to the vibrant red it needed, but I succeeded.  Woohoo!  Cake: 6" 3-layer carrot cake with cream cheese filling

I was asked to make some muffins for my cousin Courtney's bridal shower. Of course I had to go extra with the flavours I chose and made them extra large.   Here are the recipes I used: 1.  Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins 2.  Cheddar and Bacon Cornbread Muffins 3.  Caramel Apple Buttermilk Muffins I will be making these all again! Yes, I even made a savoury muffin.  I know Miranda Hart frowns upon this, ha! But I do enjoy a savoury muffin!  Especially cornbread.  

A big cake for a big milestone.  This one was two 9" x 13" cakes put together.  I rarely pipe on writing as I really need to practice more to be confident.  The 100 came out too wobbly for my liking so I added some embellishments to make it look like vines to make it look like that was on purpose.   Cake:   9" x 13" two-layer chocolate cake with buttercream filling               9" x 13" two-layer vanilla cake with buttercream filling

Victor's request for his birthday theme was tree-top trekking which included a giraffe and a monkey.  It is so humid in our place that I wasn't going to mess with a lot of fondant.  I ended up making this fun cake topper on my Cricut and I love how it turned out. I covered the cake in blue fondant.  It's so shiny because of how humid it is!  Trees I painted on with food colouring mixed with a bit of vodka to help them dry faster.  The alcohol evaporates as it dries.  Cake: 10" 2-layer cookies n' cream cake with vanilla buttercream filling.

Alexia's request was for a flamingo themed cake.  I knew right away that I was going to make 8 flamingos on my Cricut machine to represent Alexia turning 8.  They would each be decorated with a bright pink feather.  Little did I know that finding pink feathers would become a wild goose chase for Mr T and Miss E.  They did not realize what they were signing up for when they went out to buy them for me.  After at least 6 different stores they were able to find pink feathers on cat toys.  At least our cats got some new toys out of it, minus any pink feathers of course!  Cake: 8" two-layer vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream icing

I made this sweet chocolate cake for Miss E's bestie for their birthday celebration.    Cake: 6" 3-layer chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling.

For my Dad's birthday I like to go all out!  This cake did not disappoint for him! Next time, I think it would take a heat gun (from a distance) to make the chocolate chips shiny.  I didn't want to test that theory in case I melted them! Dad ready to dig in.  Love celebrating up at their trailer.  It was a gorgeous day! Inside view of the cake.  It is decadent! Cake:  Hershey Chocolate Bar Cheesecake

I love doing cakes for this most adorable cutie!  He lives in Miami now but comes up in the summer for a visit with his family.  This year's theme is Blippi.  The weather cooperated while working with fondant.  In the summer you never know with the humidity and living on the 20th floor how it's going to go. The glasses I made on my Cricut and laminated them.   Cake: 8" two-layer cookies n' cream with vanilla buttercream filling.    I some batter left over so I made some cupcakes for my Friday night crew to enjoy.

A fun wedding cake delivered today.  No one is as surprised as me that the fondant ears turned out and survived the car ride to the wedding!  Cake: 10" 3-layer vanilla with vanilla buttercream               8" 3-layer vanilla with vanilla buttercream   Gluten-free chocolate cupcakes for some guests to be able to enjoy dessert!

I made this cake to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday and brought it with us to the restaurant for dessert.  Cake: 6" 3-layer super lemon cake with cream cheese icing. Super delicious if I do say so myself! 

Super fun Paw Patrol cake for Emma's 3rd birthday.  Her favourite number is 5 and it was her request to have a 5 on it.  I did 3 lollipops to represent her third birthday.  Love doing the lettering on the base of the cake in vinyl cut out on my Cricut machine.  It's so much easier than fondant! Cake: 6" 3-layer vanilla cake with lemon curd on as the first layer of filling and strawberry as the second.  

I had so much fun making this cake!  To supsend the M&M's bag I stuck a bubble tea straw in the cake and covered it in blue icing then added the M&M's "spilling" out of the bag and all over the cake. The letters I cut out with my Circut machine in vinyl. Cake: 8" 3-layer chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling.

 Always happy to do a cake for my bestie's mom.  She loves carrot cake.  I covered it in cream cheese icing and the flowers are done in vanilla buttcream icing. Cake: 8" 3-layer carrot cake with cream cheese filling

Sweet cake for a baby shower.  The elephant and Welcome Baby Mattie sign I cut out on my Cricut machine.  Covered the cake in pink fondant with a white chocolate drip and lots of sprinkles.  Cake: 8" 3-layer red velvet with cream cheese filling.

 Made this cake for my friend's mom for Mother's Day.  Strawberry shortcake is her favourite.   Cake: 6" 3-layer strawberry shortcake with creamc heese whipped cream filling. Used the extra batter to make cupcakes to take out to Bowmanville to share.

 I'm always happy to do a cake for anyone in Elsie's family!  This one is CoCoMelon themed.  I printed off the characters and laminated them.  The 2 I cut from my Cricut machine and colour with my Copic markers to look like a watermelon.  Cake: 8" 3-layer lemon cake with cream cheese filling            6" 3-layer lemon cake with cream cheese filling Lemon cake is the family favourite. :)

 This year for my family's get together I made this cake for Easter.  Flecked with dark brown dye to give a robin's egg look and topped off with some Cadbury chocolate mini Easter eggs. Cake: 8" 3-layer carrot cake with cream cheese icing

 I was thrilled to be asked to do this cake for an amazing family celebrating their parents' 50th wedding anniversary.  I also love delivering cakes to the venue.  It's so much fun to check out new places that I've never been to before.  This cake was being delivered to the David Duncan House.  We pass by it all the time, but have never been.  It's a beautiful old house that is a fancy steak house.  They had a private space on the second floor for the celebration. I've never covered a cake in sprinkles before.  Watching youTube videos, they made it look very easy.  In theory it was, but I'm sure I'll be finding sprinkles for weeks to come in hidden spots in my kitchen and probably the living room too!  The bottom tier was much more relaxing to decorate with the edible gold dust.  The bottom tier was a 3 layer 8" chocolate cake and the top tier was a 3 layer 6" lemon cake.  Happy 50th Anniversary! 

 Molly's birthday request was a LOL doll cake.  I was not well versed in the these toys and I did not realize how popular they were.  After some research on Google I picked out some LOL dolls to print off and laminate as decoration for the cake.  My favourite is Rocker Girl with the pink hair.  She reminds me of Miss E so much.  This was a three layer 8" vanilla cake as per Molly's request with lots of buttercream icing!  

 Mr T had originally said that he would be fine with a Tuxedo cake from Costco for his birthday but I couldn't not make his birthday cake!  Not that there is anything wrong with a Tuxedo cake, it is amazing and I have no desire to attempt to replicate it. But, it can be saved for my birthday.  Ha! Instead, I went with this  recipe  for a chocolate mocha cake that I knew would go over well with the family. I sent Mr T this preview picture when I was done the cake.  I remembered to take pictures before I put it in the fridge as the chocolate drip ganache loses its shine once in the fridge! This recipe called for swiss buttercream which I normally shy away from because it takes time and a lot more effort into making, but it goes on the cake and pipes so smoothly.  It has a very different texture from regular buttercream.  I'm glad I didn't switch it out.  Look, I was able to centre the cake on the plate this time.  Woohoo! A behind the scenes look of how I photograph a cake wi

 Today I got to visit some friends that I haven't got to hang out with in so long.  I decided to bring along some cupcakes as a treat.   I used some of the left over dyed buttercream icing that I had from the two previous cakes to add some colour to the top.  Dying and bagging icing for piping can be tedious and wasteful so it's great when I have a few projects on the go that I can use up everything.

 Tonight we celebrate two amazing women turning 27 *wink wink*.  That's the age they are sticking with anyway.  This was our first get together since before the holidays.  It was so nice and so much fun to be able to celebrate in person. This was a 6" three layer chocolate cake with whipped cream filling and chocolate ganache icing.  I had also made vanilla cupcakes which I neglected to take a photo of but I do have a chocolate version coming up in my next post.   One day, I will figure out how to centre a cake on the plate properly.  I never notice how off centered it is until I go to take a picture.  One day....

Mr T and I took a drive out to Bowmanville this afternoon to deliver this surprise birthday cake.  It was a beautiful day for a drive and we were able to deliver the cake without the birthday girl knowing about it as her birthday isn't until tomorrow.  This cake was a 6" two layer vanilla cake with a raspberry filling decorated with vanilla butter cream icing.  The cake topper was made using my Cricut machine.

This super chocolatey cake was super fun to make.  Shopping for all the different candy and chocolate was definitely not a chore.  Ha!  Though I went to several different stores looking for the rainbow whirl lollipop which is not to be found.  I swear I see them all the time when I'm not looking for them, or maybe it's because I didn't go anywhere touristy.  Maybe that's where I'm used to seeing them.  Also, trying to find gold foil wrapped chocolate bars is virtually impossible these days.  They are all wrapped in plastic now.  Thankfully, I was able to get a PC dark chocolate bar that was wrapped in gold cardstock.  I designed the Tommy turns 6 cover in Willy Wonka style, laminated it and glued it on top of the packaging.   In the end, the cake was a 3 layer chocolate cake with fresh whipped cream filling and chocolate ganache icing topped with a chocolate drip.  Before it set I added all the candy and chocolate.  Mr T and I delivered the cake and the car smelled

 A fun cake to make on a cold wintry day to remind me of summer.  This was a two layer 6" cake with homemade strawberry filling and covered in almond flavoured buttercream icing.   Doing a cake for a friend that lives in the building is great for pick up/delivery.   Update:  Her mum has been enjoying a piece of cake with every meal.  Love that!

Lemon cake is currently a popular choice and I am not complaining.  I love the smell of lemon zest and lemon juice.  It is so refreshing and so sunny! A co-worker of Mr. T asked me to make this cake to celebrate her mom's birthday.  This was a 6" two layer cake with lemon butter cream icing.  This time after slicing the lemon for the top I patted the excess lemon juice off of the slices and let them dry out for a while so that lemon juice wouldn't drip down the side of the cake.     I had bought a box of Ferrero Raffaellos and decided that these would look great on this cake. For the drip I took some leftover icing and added yellow dye then melted it for a few seconds in the microwave.