Mardi Gras Masquerade

MARDI GRAS!

Have you ever been to Mardi Gras? Me either...but I have certainly heard a lot about it. A friend of my husbands was born and raised in New Orleans, so when I was asked to make him a surprise cake, Mardi Gras seemed like the perfect theme, and you certainly can't have Mardi Gras without masks and beads.


So this mask, which I think is incredibly amazing and beautiful, and I wish I were a better photographer, so you could get the full affect of the mask, was painted by my new and fantastic friend Martha Hale Stoetzer. She is an amazing artist and a great friend and neighbor. We were talking a few days ago about painting and she said she would love to try fondant and gumpaste as new painting mediums, since she had never tried it before. I smiled and told her I had the perfect solution. She happily agreed to painting the mask. It is made from gumpaste and painted in food coloring, and is completely edible as are the beads. The feathers are the only non-edible things on the cake.



Enjoy and have a wonderful and yummy weekend!

There's a Chill in the Air!

Just looking at this cake makes me feel cold. It reminds me of waking up on a chilly winter morning, peeking out my window and the whole world was covered in a blanket of brand new snow. I loved those morning. I would grab a big blanket and a good book, then run downstairs, find an open heater vent, (our vents were on the floor) cover myself completely with the blanket, so I trapped all that hot air inside and I would read for hours in my nice warm tent.

I made this cake for a fellow employee in my husbands office. She is moving from warm, sunny Florida to cold, beautiful Connecticut and my husband wanted her Thank you/Good Luck cake to represent her new home. I had a lot of fun making this cake and I want to wish Helen Good Luck on her new endeavors in Connecticut.

The snowflakes are all piped using royal icing, and I was so happy when someone at Helen's Going Away Party noticed that no two snowflakes are alike on the cake. Yippy!

Best Wishes to Helen!

Cute! Cute! Coach Purse!

What a month we have had! December has been a crazy time for our family. At the beginning of the month we moved from West Palm Beach, Florida up to Orlando, Florida. So, for the first 3 weeks of December we spent our days at Disney World and lived in a condo while we waited for our home here in Orlando to be ready for us. I know...it's a hard life. We had family come and visit and also got to know some great friends better.

So far, we are loving Orlando. We have the greatest new neighbors and the people here are so nice. Our kids are making friends and it just feels like home.

On to the cake! After the long (very fun) pause in our lives, we are finally in our new home and my Kitchen Aid mixer was one of the first things out of the box. It has been so nice to be baking again.

This cake, I made for 2 of the nicest and funnest girls I have met, Shawn and Kaitlin. Our whole family has had so much fun getting to know them and we are grateful for their friendship. During our long vacation at Disney, we spent days at the parks and went shopping together. They both work at Disney World in Epcot. So I made this cake to say thank you to both of them.

I told them they could have any cake they wanted and they agreed almost immediately on a Coach Purse. Colors were an issue, so we made a compromise by making two shoes. One for each of them.

I hope they enjoy the cake. Shawn even came over a few days ago and helped me make the shoes. It was a blast!

Enjoy!!!

Gobble, Gobble!!! Turkey Cake Balls are here!

My daughter and I have had a wonderful time making these today. We made them just for fun. If you would like to make them, check out http://www.celebratefamilylife.blogspot.com There is a full set of instructions!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Got Oxygen?

First things first, A big THANK YOU to
Scott Lamont at ROTECH
for believing in me and challenging me with this great idea for a cake. I had so much fun figuring out all the components and details of this cake.

The regulator was especially fun to work on. I have spent many hours staring at the regulator Scott gave me to copy. But eventually I figured it out. This regulator is completely edible. Even the dial on the front is sugar. The inside is made of Rice Krispie Treats and it is covered by gumpaste.

The stickers on the front and the back are also edible.

Making this cake was so much fun and brought back great memories of my earlier years when I was once...can you guess?...A geeky lab rat. For about 6 years I spent my life in research and microbiology laboratories. And yes, I wore the lab coat and the goggles. I am very much at home sitting in front of a microscope or a HEPA hood. I worked for a brilliant research doctor who had the social skills of a lion. One wrong move and he would pounce all over me. Attacking every detail of my work, but listening to him talk and as I read his published papers I would sit in awe.

Back to the cake, I thought I would show the inside of the cake. It is 12 layers of Red Velvet cake with Almond buttercream filling. It's okay, go ahead and count them, there really are 12. I forgot to take a picture, but the top part of the cake is also Rice Krispie treats. Enjoy!

Thanks again to Scott Lamont and ROTECH. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with you.

It's a Slam Dunk!

The Utah Jazz!

Royal Palm Beach High School Varsity Basketball!

Happy Birthday to Mark Jensen of the Royal Palm Beach Varsity Basketball team! Mark loves the Utah Jazz and his favorite player is Deron Williams, so we found it very fitting to add a basketball to the cake with Deron Williams signature in sugar!

Making this cake took me back many years, to the time when I myself attempted to play basketball. I will admit that I am a much better spectator then a player. I remember being on my church team, so of course, everyone had to get a fair amount to playing time, and I was standing in the middle of the court thinking, "Please don't pass to me, Please!" I think I ran around the court looking completely perplexed, so my coach took me out. I was so relieved and forever after found every excuse possible to never play again.

Happy Birthday Mark and Good Luck in all of your endeavors!

A ROTECH CPAP Machine Cake

I was thrilled a few weeks ago when a friend of mine asked if I could replicate a CPAP machine. I always love a new challenge. I have replicated Coach Purses but never a machine. So thank you to Scott Lamont of ROTECH and everyone else at Rotech as well.

CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure and is a method of respiratory ventilation used primarily in the treatment of sleep apnea. For those who need these machines they are literally a life saver.

This is a Red Velvet cake with raspberry filling and Almond Buttercream icing.

Thanks again to Scott Lamont and the team at ROTECH! I hope the doctors and nurses love it!

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting!

Life doesn't get better than this!!!

These cupcakes are the most amazing, yummiest little morsels in the world! If you would like the recipe for these cupcakes check out my other blog at www.celebratefamilylife.blogspot.com
Enjoy!!!

It's a Halloween Party!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

No costume party is complete without a MUMMY and Frankenstein! And no mummy is complete without a spider.

I can't even tell you how much fun it was to make this cute little cake. I was up late last night just smiling away as I made the uni brow and all the mummy wrappings. It was probably a good thing my husband was fast asleep on the couch. He probably would of thought I had gone crazy, but then again, he knows me well enough to know that's just how I am.

It was a pretty simple cake to make, and that's what I was going for. Simple, sturdy, easily transportable, cute, fun and not too spooky.

So...Happy Halloween from Frankenstein, a mummy, a spider and ME!!!

A Spooky Halloween!

Tonight we celebrated my daughter's 4th Birthday! We had a wonderful time. She decided this year that she wanted a "spooky" Halloween birthday party. A few weeks ago she and I sat at the computer and I showed her pictures of haunted house cakes. She kept saying, "Nope, not spooky enough" So I got creative and decided to make a Topsy turvey haunted house cake. She loved it and I had a blast making it.

I love pumpkins! They are my favorite part of Fall, so naturally the Haunted House needed a pumpkin patch. As I was making all the little pumpkins I was thinking of the children's story The Big Pumpkin. I could just see the witch, the ghost, and the Vampire tugging and pulling on one of those pumpkins.

My daughter wanted to make sure that there were ghosts and "spooky stuff "on the cake. I did my best to make it "spooky" without making it scary.

I loved watching her and her friends tonight all dressed up in their costumes playing games and parading around the house Trick or Treating. We played Pin the Heart on the Skeleton and we took turns trying to toss chocolate kisses into a jack-o-lantern. Then all of the adults went into a seprate room of the house and the kids paraded around the house knocking on bedroom doors to get candy in the candy bags they had decorated during the party.

Details about the cake...if you are interested...The top and bottom tiers are Vanilla cake with Almond Buttercream icing. The middle tier is a Chocolate cake with chocolate Buttercream. All of the decorations are fondant except the ghosts which are Royal icing.

Extra tidbit...my daughter didn't even have any cake:) I cut the cake and she said, "I think I just want icecream" oh, I love her!

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This is the back of out Haunted House.

I hope you all have a fun and spooky Halloween!

Boo!