Audrina's Melted Ice Cream Cake

I wanted to do one of these "ice cream melt" cakes for sometime now and finally got the chance with Audrina's Birthday Cake.  I have been making her cakes for some years now.  Love doing it.  This was chocolate with butter cream filling.  Tasty!

I got the wonderful chance to make a barrel of flowers cake for an 82 year old sweet lady who loves gardening and flowers.  I wanted a chance to make butter cream flowers and this was the perfect project.  Chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling, Kit Kat bar barrel and butter cream flowers.  She loved her cake and I loved making it for her.

Tarts, Tarts, and More Tarts!

A friend of mine asked me to make something other than cake for her daughter's wedding rehearsal dinner.  I suggested tarts, especially fruit tarts as this is the season.  My friend is also vegan so I made a vegan raspberry tart for her.  Making these was time consuming but when I finally nailed the type of crust that worked best or me I was able to move along pretty easily. They make for a beautiful display on a dessert bar.  They were a hit for sure! 

Vegan Raspberry Tart with Date Nut Crust

Chocolate Brownie Tart with Chocolate Ganache and Chocolate Strawberries

Vanilla Yogurt and Fruit Tart

Lemon Custard Raspberry Tart

Chocolate Mousse Tart with Whipped Cream and Walnuts

Lemon Cream Tart with Raspberries

Paula Deen's Fresh Peach Tart

Casey Gets Married

I had the wonderful opportunity to make my daughter's wedding cake.  She is a Hodgkin's Lymphoma cancer survivor and to have a wedding instead of a funeral on December 24, 2017 is a miracle.  God saw this journey through and we had a wonderful celebration of life!

Jonathan and Casey wanted a rustic cake, kind of the thing right now.  I made a three tiered caked with the bottom being chocolate with chocolate ganache filling, the middle was butter cake with chocolate icing filling, and the top was lemon with lemon curd filling.  The frosting is butter cream. 

I put real roses on the cake as requested and topped it with a Willow Tree cake topper. Each layer was delicious and it cut well.  I'm always worried about it getting crumbly with just butter cream frosting as it tends to suck out the moisture.  However, this time I sprayed each layer with simple syrup to avoid drying out.

It was an Irish theme wedding, but they incorporated both of their likes.  It was beautiful.

Casey and Jonathan Harris and their boys David and Sebastian.

Cupcake Garden

I was asked to make cupcakes for the La Puente staff appreciation dinner.  As it is summer I chose to do flowers and make a garden. It's always fun to get creative.  I like how the roses and the hydrangeas turned out best.  The daisy's are okay but I will do something different next time.

I wish I had a proper picture that displayed these.  They were set up on terra cotta pots with ribbons and bows tied on each pot.  It was pretty cute.

Daisies - Lemon with lemon curd filling.

Roses - Chocolate with Truffle filling.

Hydrangeas  - Vanilla with chocolate ganache filling.

A Unicorn for Audrina

My little friend, Audrina, got a surprise when I came out with this beauty.  This unicorn cake was fun to make and not hard at all.

I watched several You Tube videos on decorating with multiple colors in a pastry bag to get the affect on unicorn mane. The cake is a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling and covered with white fondant.  The ears and horn are made out of gum paste and the center of the ears are painted with gold luster dust and gold sprinkles. I hand painted on the eyes.

Lizzy's Puppy Cake

My 3 year old granddaughter turned three this past week.  She loves animals so I made her a puppy cake.

I did a variation of the puppy tutorial I found on You Tube.  It wasn't hard and she loved it.  The cake is a Duncan Hines Strawberry cake and I used strawberry jam in the middle. It was pretty tasty and there was none left when the party was over which is the way I like it!

I covered the cake with a butter cream crumb coat and white fondant.  I spray painted the pink around the bottom of the cake and on the number  3. When we served the cake I put strawberries around the base to coincide with the flavor.

I also made some cupcakes using silicone flower pot baking cups.  I made them to match the cake.

 

When we started to sing Happy Birthday I guess it was too loud for Lizzy.  She did enjoy the cake.