Portfolio: Yellow Baby Shower Cake and Carriage Cookies

Another weekend, another baby shower!

Babies are so exciting...and even more so when you don't know what you're having!  My friend Kristen is throwing a shower for her little sister who is having a baby soon.  Megan has opted to leave it a surprise, and to celebrate, her friends were throwing her a delightfully elegant and girly shower.   Kristen asked me to make carriage cookies again, but this time, we chose yellow since it's ambiguous.  I also did a cake for the shower, vanilla with strawberry filling, and I got a little adventurous with it this time.

Kristen wanted to know if I could try and match the shower invite, which was a really cute sort of henna/mendhi/floral design in pink, yellow, and gray.  Since baby's gender is a question mark, I chose yellow as the overall theme and accented with gray and pink icing.  Does anyone else her that scene from Steel Magnolias play in their head when they hear the words "gray icing"?  No?  Ah, well, I digress.

The cake gave me lots of trouble (probably because I didn't sleep well and the house was hot, etc), but I think it came out beautifully.  It totally made my day when my husband and my daughter walked in and both of them immediately said, almost in stereo, how much they liked the design I'd chosen.  Kristen loved it too, and I think it was fancy enough without being over the top and not too overtly pink...just in case Megan ends up with a boy!

I love the technique I used on the side and plan on doing it some more.  I have to admit, I didn't ever think I would love using buttercream so much, but it really is so much easier to work with, even if it does create lots of dishes!

Happy baking,
Kelly

Portfolio: Carriage and Onesie Cookies

Everywhere I go, I hear of yet another mama that's expecting or just delivered.  It's that time of year!

My buddy Kristen asked me to whip up some cookies for a baby shower and specifically requested baby carriages and onesies.  The mama to be is having a little man, so we did everything up in a blue and white and brown theme.  They came out so cute that I'm doing carriages again soon!

Congrats Mama to be...may you have an easy labor and a healthy baby boy!

Happy baking,
Kelly

Portfolio: Bird Cake

This past weekend I had the pleasure of creating a cake for a bird themed baby shower.  My friend Anna had sent me a picture of a similar styled cake and asked for strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting with the same design.  Having returned from picking almost six pounds of fresh strawberries the weekend before, it felt like serendipity.

The design was fairly simple and easy to recreate; the difficulty was getting the frosting to be smooth all the way around and on top!  I think I did a pretty good job of getting that accomplished.

The best was also a little bit tricky since I remembered it at the very last minute.  All week, I had been doing things and gathering stuff to prepare for the cake, and I totally forgot to think about the logistics of the nest.  Michael said I should just make another batch of chow mein marshmallow nests, but I didn't have any more chow mein noodles and it was already pretty later.  Besides, I wasn't too sure how it would look on the cake.  I had some royal icing that I was using for the flowers and the leaves (because temperatures in Texas have begun to heat up and I didn't want them to melt if I used cream cheese frosting), so I tookt he leftovers, mixed them together, added some black and brown, then draped a plastic baggie over something concave (a candy dish in this instance) and started going to town trying to create a nest like texture.  It came out beautifully!  The eggs are fondant.

All in all, Anna said the cake was a hit and that the lucky mom to be was able to take home the leftovers to share with visiting family.  I hope this inspires you to make you your own birdie themed cake!


Happy Caking,
Kelly

Portfolio: Nest Cupcakes and Bird Cookies

Ah, spring.  Time for flowers, birds, and babies!

A friend of mine is having her first baby in the next couple weeks and we threw her a shower this weekend.  Because I had other things going on, I wasn't able to make the cake for the shower, but I did promise to do some cookies for the favors.  I ended up with extra cupcakes from the car party, so I did a quick decorating job on those and they looked super cute with everything else.

The "nests" were easy to do; just swirl and dollop using a large star tip on the top, then set your eggs in the middle and voila!  Bird's nest cupcakes!

Originally, the theme was a Parisian spring baby shower, based on the baby bedding.  But we found out later that mama to be had changed the fabric on her baby bedding!  It actually worked out, because my design for little Eiffel tower cookies was a total bust.  I didn't have a cutter and so I thought I'd use a Christmas tree cutter and then pipe small Eiffel towers on them.  Good idea in theory, terrible idea in execution.  The cookies were too short to get a decent looking Eiffel tower on them, sadly.  But they were just perfect for birdies!

All wrapped up and ready to go!

My artsy fartsy cookie photo

I love these little birds.  It's a good thing there were so few cookies left after the party, because otherwise, I'd have eaten them all they were so dang cute!  I tried a new recipe for the royal icing too, which was a bit of an adventure, but I have to say, I'm sold on it.  I still use my trademark lemon juice in the frosting, but the consistency is much nicer.  I may try adding some corn syrup or something else in the future to get a glossier finish.

Since I wasn't able to commit to the cake, one of the cohost's had her stepdaughter do the cake.  It turned out really cute, and apparently is a very popular design this season–I immediately recognized it as the same design for another cake I'm doing at the end of this month!

The cupcakes were super easy to decorate and are perfect for Easter!  I whipped up a milk chocolate ganache and piped it on top of the cupcakes to look like nests, then nestled Robin's Eggs candies into the centers.  Super tasty and cute!

Congrats on the new baby Amy...we can't wait to meet her!

Happy baking,
Kelly

Portfolio: Noah's Ark Baby Shower Cake

When it rains, it pours...literally and figuratively!  We had lots of rain this weekend and I had a lot of cakes on my plate too!  After completing a birthday cake, a first communion cake, I had a request for a baby shower cake as well.  The grandmother to be is a friend of a friend and she contacted me to do a Noah's ark cake for her daughter's baby shower.  Wilma sent me pictures of the partyware along with a picture of an adorable cookie jar her friend has that was also an inspiration for the shower.

Noah's List:  Elephants, Hippos, Lions and Giraffes.  And just for good measure, one white dove on top!

Portfolio: Bassinet Baby Shower Cake

My daughter's godmother requested a baby shower cake for a friend of hers this past weekend. From having worked together for a couple of years, she knows I love a challenge and simply told me she wanted a 3D baby buggy for a girl. Fair enough, I thought. While the other cake I did for her came out stunning in execution and design, this one was a nightmare. In the end, it came out beautifully, but it required re-sculpting and new supports and caused me no end of issues. This was also my first cake to use Satin Ice fondant and make bows, which in comparison were very easy.

My first major problem arose from the sculpture of the cake. I had a good basic shape and then crumb coated it and let it set for a bit. Unfortunately the weight of the cake was causing some structural issues, so I had to re-carve it some more, readjust the hood portion, and use new supports internally. By the time this was all done, I had barely enough icing to finish it, which led to my next mistake. Because I let so much time lapse between the crumb coat and placing the fondant on top, it was really hard to get the fondant to stick. If I'd had more icing, it might not have been so bad. I also had issues with getting the lace and the other details on there without tearing or cracking the fondant.

Front view of the cake

On the plus side, using Satin Ice was lovely. The taste isn't as bad as I imagined it to be. The lady at the bakeshop said it tasted like the inside of an Oreo and she's right. It really is very pleasant. I think I rolled it out too thin which is why you can see the bumps and ridges on the cake from the layers and sculpting. I also need to figure out how to keep it moist longer which lent to my issues with the lace detail cracking and breaking on me. The bows were surprisingly easy to make. The cake ended up with three of them because during the night, the cake settled and the supports in the hood broke through. Fortunately, I had brought extra fondant with me to make more (we spent the time before the party at my parents house visiting since they were on the way to the shower). Note to self: should have brought my fondant colors for painting as well!

Back and side view of cake

Even though this cake gave me lots of issues and became a bassinet instead of a buggy, it still tasted wonderful and the mama to be loved it as did my friend. I just have to keep telling myself that every baker has their bad cakes and this is one of my mine; it yet another lesson learned. C'est la vie!

Happy caking,
Kelly

Portfolio: Dr. Seuss Baby Shower Cake

I do not like green eggs and ham! I do not like them, Sam I am!

Maybe the main character of that book would have liked them better had he tried mine first... them is mighty fine eats, if you ask me! A good friend of mine was helping to throw a baby shower for a friend of hers (lots of babies being born these days!) and the mom-to-be was having a Dr. Seuss themed shower. I LOVE Dr. Seuss and was stoked by the challenge. It took me awhile to come up with something, but finally I decided the hell with it and made green eggs and ham. The cake is actually tangerine flavored cake inside, dyed to match. The icing was American buttercream (not my favorite but it holds up relatively well in high heat) and then covered with MMF and royal icing. The eggs are sugar cookies (I made extra "eggs" with leftover sugar cookie dough and gave them to the hostesses to use as favors or treats during the party).


Overall, very fun to make, but a little challenging since this one required sculpting and I need some better serrated knives to do that. The inside of the cake didn't come out as orange colored as I wanted it, but the flavor was great and everyone loved it. Delivery was a bit squicky because I had TWO cakes to deliver (see post on Dr. Seuss grad cake!), my car's AC is not working properly, and my husband had to work, leaving me with toting baby and two cakes in 90F+ weather in a sweltering Texas summer. I ended up calling over a friend to come watch the baby while I delivered. She was also very helpful in writing the baby's name on the "plate" I created for the cake and eggs. She told me just before I left that I was missing the fork, so I found a black plastic fork, broke out the middle two tongs and jammed it in there.

Keep on baking!
Kelly

Portfolio: Star Wars Baby Shower Cake

Hi, my name is Kelly and I am a nerd...[polite clapping] Yes, folks, I am a nerd. My husband says I am the prettiest nerd he's ever met, which makes me feel much better about knowing more about Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and other geek culture more than the average male does. So what does this have to do with cakes? Well, the baby shower cake I made for my friend Kellie was such a success with her teacher friends that they asked me to make another one a week later! However, this time, the mom is decorating the nursery in Star Wars so they asked if it could be Star Wars themed. JACKPOT!!!

After I got over my initial excitement, I then sat down and realized, "Holy crap! How am I going to make a Star Wars baby shower cake in TWO DAYS?!" I typically give myself three to four days to make a cake, preferably with a full day in there to do cool stuff. But this was a Sunday afternoon and the cake was due on Tuesday afternoon right after school let out! And there was no way that I could take time off of work. So I did what I could in a couple of nights and here is what I did:

The top of the cake

The side of the cake

The mom-to-be loved the blue velvet cake from the week before so much that she wanted it for her cake too. And not being one to argue with a pregnant lady, I acquiesced. Having learned some valuable lessons from the week before made this go 'round a LOT easier, but still, it was rough given the timing. I colored the cream cheese as much as I could without altering the taste. I tell you what, there is nothing that irks me more in this world than icing that is dyed to within an inch of it's life and tastes like it too (Ok, littering and not using common sense is up there too, but this is a cake blog people). The stars and jedi baby are made out of MMF. I had to drop this off during my lunch hour since we had a very important company wide meeting at 3 pm when school got out, so I heard all about how awesome the cake was later. My friend Kellie did tell me that I need to watch my lettering; because of the heat, the word Jedi became Jodi. Whoops!

Next on my list of goals to accomplish: practicing my lettering and finding an icing recipe that has the taste of cream cheese but better heat resistance!

Bake on,
Kelly

Portfolio: Boy Baby Shower Cake

My best friend is getting ready to have her third baby, another boy. One of the first decorated cakes I ever made was for her other baby boy and it was a little pirate boy cake that said "Ahoy! It's a Boy!" on his hat. Since my friend's fellow teachers have never gotten to throw her a baby shower before, they decided they were going to, even though she insisted it wasn't necessary. Mom-to-be requested red velvet cake, but since it was a boy, I decided to give BLUE velvet a try. And it was really freaking yummy too! Everybody loved it so much that they were all requesting "my card." Yet another item on the start-your-own-business to do list...

IMHO, any velvet cake should always be paired with cream cheese icing, but because you can't do much with it in terms of decorating (it's really sticky), I like to use MMF on top. Kellie isn't a huge fan of MMF so I did cut outs of shapes and then laid them on top of the cream cheese icing. It came out beautifully, although I had a really tough time with the cream cheese icing. Because it's really sticky, it got all over me, all over my kitchen, and all over the fondant pieces. Grrr. But the final result was beautiful and mom-to-be loved it! She especially loved the onesie on top that read "Lock up your daughters - It's a Boy!" We heart funny onesies :o)

Congratulations Kellie...we can't wait to meet Baby Boy!

Love,

Kelly

Portfolio: Pink & Brown Baby Shower Cake

A friend of mine was co hosting a baby shower for a girlfriend of hers and asked me to do the cake. The mom to be is having a little girl and they wanted to use pink and brown since that's what colors the nursery will utilize. They also asked for the cake to be two tiered with the top tier pink and the bottom tier brown with matching cake flavors.

A big lesson learned: Do NOT schedule a cake on a weekend when you'll be out of town. Particularly when the destination will happen to be visited by serious thunderstorms almost washing you away in a flash flood! The shower was originally scheduled for a previous weekend but because of too few RSVP's, the hostesses rescheduled it for another weekend. Since I had committed to this cake prior, I felt obligated to see it through (you're only as good as your word!). I baked the cakes Thursday night, then wrapped them up nice and tight in plastic wrap and placed them in a safe, cool spot (not refrigerated) before we left on Friday. Then Sunday morning I pulled them out and began decorating.

My buttercream had issues that morning and had started to crust very quickly. I had to soften it in the microwave to get it pliable enough to do just the crumb coat and then subsequently trashed my kitchen in the process of trying to decorate it further. At one point, my husband forced me out of the kitchen and cleaned up some of the mess for me so that I could cool down for a few minutes. This helped immensely and I am so grateful for my husband! (Hands off ladies...he's mine!)


All in all, despite the crazy schedule and the issues I experienced, I think the cake turned out pretty well. The design was very similar to what the hostesses wanted and delivery went well. Stacking the cake went much more smoothly this time and some of the research I'd done on decorating and constructing techniques was very helpful.

Until next time,
Kelly