I am (baby) Groot!

One of the things I decided for 2016 was to try and do a cake a month, just because.  I wrote out a list of ideas and have been crossing them off.

This one is baby Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy .  "Who," you ask?

I like how he turned out.

And You Wonder Why I Don't Make Wedding Cakes?

In March, my nephew married his long-time girlfriend Jessica.  They were not having a church wedding.  In fact, they invited anyone who wanted to come, down to the courthouse to watch.  It was a Tuesday (they wanted to be married on the date of their first date) so I had to miss the ceremony, but I was able to drive down after work (2.5 hours away) for the evening get-together at a restaurant, spend the night & drive back for work the next day. LONG DAY.

I offered to make them a small cake for the dinner party. I was making our daughter's "Attack on Titan Cake" at the same time as prepping for their cake, which had to be delivered 3 days after Isabel's skate party.  It was a busy week.

The figures were for the AoT cake, the flowers for the wedding cake.

I finish up MONDAY NIGHT and take this picture.

I am pretty proud of my work, considering it's the second wedding cake I've ever made.   As I go to move this very top-heavy cake plate for a better picture, it starts to topple to the right. I see is falling in slow motion.  I grab it with my hands before it hits the table.  And then I just start to panic.

It's 8 p.m. and I have to deliver this cake the next day!

This is what I had to fix.  I was in a panic, but worked through to 10:30 p.m. fixing what I could.

I drove it to S. Florida, met them at the restaurant where (TWO HOURS LATER -long story) we were seated and I set up the cake with their cake topper.

Sweet 16 Cake

I was asked to do a cake in November for January.  Sure, I said,  Give me the details.

Due to family sickness, travel, etc. on their part, the party date was changed like 4 times (January, February, March, back to February), the color scheme changed twice, the party theme changed at least 3 times.  In the end, I was just not happy.  The cake came out awesome, but it took me 19 hours to make.  I work full time and it took me 19 hours of time that I could have been with my own family (One Saturday, David took Isabel out flying and they were gone a total of 6 hours while I sat at home.)  They were given a DEEP DISCOUNT because they're fellow church goers.  This cake, due to the number of servings, would have cost them about $250-$320 dollars.  I won't tell you what I charged them. It's my own fault.  In trying to be nice, I made myself unhappy.

I've resolved to only make cakes for my immediate family; sisters, nieces/nephews, my kids, etc.  That's it.  Unless someone wants to pay $250-$300, I am done undervaluing myself and making myself miserable.

On with the cake!

 Two 6 x 3 inch cakes and two 8 x 3 inch cakes; 64 servings.   The average for fondant cakes is around $4-$5 a slice.  $256 - $320.

Her 16 favorite things, all around the cake.  I didn't take a picture of the back, but you can see above all the things I made for it.

Owl Baby Shower Cake

I made this cake over 4 days for our pastor and his wife, who are almost ready to welcome their second child, Isabela Grace, into their lives.  Combined total of 12 hours, tons of eggs, sugar, flour, marshmallows, and love later, I presented the cake as my gift to them at the shower.

Dora & Diego

My sister-in-law contacted me last week.  "We're coming down Easter weekend. Can we get together for K's birthday?"  Of course!  "Where can I order a Dora cake?" she asks.

Uh.  Me.  Hello?  :)

"I'll do Dora and...the monkey. What's his name again?"  I ask.  "Boots."

Then I get another text: "She'd like to know if you can add Diego, too."  Of course I can.

I spent the next few nights not only prepping this cake, but getting the Good Friday cake ready.

Dora's cousin Diego and his Rescue Pack, which was attached to his back later.

Dora (feet not attached yet.)

Boots

My sister-in-law, her husband (my hubby's brother) and their two daughters were down Thursday & Friday at a hotel in Orlando and then drove up Saturday (K's actual birthday) to spend the night at our place and celebrate.  When they arrived, I was STILL putting the cake together.  I had their two young daughters help cut out and arrange the flowers on the cake for me.  They were shy at first, but then really opened up to me and loved helping out.

Happy 4th Birthday to our Adorable Niece K!!

Easter

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, for a meeting with our Grow Group (church small groups) this past Good Friday.

Cake was GONE in 5 minutes.  

One boy said "This is the best carrot cake I've ever had."  One of his younger brothers said "I don't like carrot cake!"  He had seconds. He would have had thirds, except his mother interceded.  :)

Cookies for Church

This is the second year that Spring Break coincides with the Women's Retreat at church. For a second year, I am providing the desserts.  Brownies, 96 or so cake pops and these 4 dozen cookies.

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Cake

Happy 9th Birthday to my Angel-Muffinlumps.

Gumpaste Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie

Rose Cupcakes and Cake Pops

The church we attend was having a Woman's Day retreat this Saturday that I signed up for.  I mentioned that I happen to bake and asked if they would like a cake?  Sure, but can you make them cupcakes? Ok. And what else can you bring?  Um, brownies?  Good,  What else?  Errrr, cake pops?

And that's how I ended up making all the desserts for the day.  LOL No joke.  Thank goodness my mother-in-law was here to help with the cake pops because they are really labor intensive.

Carrot Cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

I made pink rose cupcakes too (wish I had taken a picture), as well as brownies that I cut and individually wrapped in bags the church supplied for me.  

Yellow cake cake pops with vanilla frosting and white candy melts,
decorated with sprinkles or pink candy melts.

Purple Flowers Anniversary Cake

I mentioned earlier that I was working on a cake for a 90th birthday party that ended up getting cancelled due to unforeseen medical issues and car issues on our end.  The cakes remained in the freezer, the 400+ flowers in the pantry.  Since this weekend was our 10 year wedding anniversary, I made my own anniversary cake instead.  :)

Happy 10th Anniversary David

Golf and Deer Cookies

Hello!

I've been a little low-key on the baking lately.  I did start working on a cake for a relative turning 90, but things took a sideways turn, grandma went in the hospital and the party was postponed, so those cake plans were put to a halt.  Grandma is fine, by the way.

This past week, one of my best friends who works at our Baltimore company branch had a male co-worker in the hospital with a scare.  My friend/co-worker B is such a good person.  She went to the hospital several times to check up on our male co-worker K, as he has no family near and was alone until his family could drive in from out of state later that day.

While speaking over emails about him, we 4 gals who talk over email daily decided to do something for him to let him know we're thinking of him.  I offered cookies, they agreed and offered money to help pay for supplies and shipping.

K likes to hunt and golf, so I went on Google Images, found some cute designs and made these cookies below.

Part of company logo on shirt.

Isabel piped the grass on the golf balls.

I'll be mailing these off to him on Monday.  He's off recovering for a couple of weeks.

Get Well Soon, K!

Tangled/Rapunzel Cake

For our gal's party, she chose "Tangled" as her theme.  For those of you without kids, this would be Disney's version of the Rapunzel story.  It was also the theme to the 5k run I did at Epcot.  But I digress.

We found several great cakes on-line and Isabel chose her favorite one from one we liked off of a baker in the UK's Flickr pictures.

We started preparing for the cake a few weeks back, making gumpaste flowers and cupcake toppers.

Finally, it was time to get going.

Baby Rapunzel oversees the operation.

Gahh!

Bringing on the smolder

Our gal creates Pascal's tail

Cupcakes

Her hair's not really complete here.  I was afraid to transport her like this, so the bottom part of her hair is not attached to the part by her knees.   When we got to the party location, I had more gumpaste and my clay extruder, so I could add more and bring the hair together.  

The party was lots of fun!

Prep Time for Her Party

Our gal and I are working hard on her cake for her party later on in the month.

Any guesses??

How about now? 

Thanksgiving/Fall Cake

We had a house-full of people come over.  In all, we had 12 adults (counting my 17-yr. old), 4 kids and 2 babies.  We had a lot of prepping and cleaning to do, and I really thought I would not decorate a cake this time, but when I was icing my carrot cake, I decided to quickly decorate with the extra cream cheese icing I had.  I found a design on Cake Central that was pretty simple.

PS.  Never let your carrot-cake addicted sisters near a carrot cake.

Yummy Carrot Cake

Hi all,

We have been traveling and now our computer is dead!  Bummer!!

Using a borrowed laptop, I want to quickly show you the carrot cake I made to take down to my sister's house in July, to meet my new niece Ava.

I wasn't going to do anything special, until my son saw the basket weave instruction sheet from back when I took classes and he mentioned how he did not understand it.  I took the cake and started a row, just to show him, and then just kept going.  It looks really bad, and the side hit the side of the box on the drive down, but let me tell you, I make a MEAN carrot cake.  My husband overheard someone say, when I was not around, "This is the best carrot cake I've ever had.  Wow. Better than TooJay's!"

It says "Somebunny loves Ava"

We love you Ava!  I can't WAIT to make your first birthday cake!!