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.

Monkey Cake

The final Monkey Cake for a friend's 19th birthday.  Practice cake can be seen here.

Spider Cake

This cake was made for a company gathering in Orlando of people from NY, MA, MD, PA, NC, GA and FL as a surprise for some people winning awards.

Tee Hee!  He's wearing a Harness

Kinda looks like an ant, I know.  Everyone loved it.  AND as an added bonus, I was given a $100 Massage Envy gift card as a thanks.  SO psyched!

Monkeying Around

Happy 2013!

The holidays were low-key, baking wise. I did make cookies for co-workers and teachers, and I can't find a single picture. Nothing too exciting.

My son's friend Lauren has been asking me to make her a cake for 2 years now for her birthday.  Every time in February, we have had something come up where I cannot make it for her.  This year, I committed to making her 19th birthday cake for her February birthday.

She loves monkeys so she & I searched for images and she chose this one from the now-closed Cake Girls in Chicago (fire in 2010 destroyed their storefront. They now just sell supplies on the web.)

Another baker on Flickr, Sweet Xpressions Cakes, made this cake with a few tweaks.

Shiny!  That's usually done with steam on fondant.

I decided to have a trial run because  I always do trial runs!  I don't want to start on a cake that I have never attempted before.

For the trial, I use box cakes (which I do not like at all for making the final cakes.  Too moist, not nearly as tasty as my homemade cakes either) just to save time and money.  I made homemade marshmallow fondant (mmf) too.

I decided to make rice krispie treats (rkt) for the monkeys' heads too, and see if I preferred that over solid fondant/gumpaste heads.

Notes I made:  The rkt is lumpy obviously.  I would need to put two coats of thick  mmf over them to cover the lumps or coat them thickly in royal icing before putting the mmf over it.  I only put one layer with no icing this time, so they looked lumpy.

I might just make them out of fondant or gumpaste after all.

Also obvious, box cake is way too moist, so I was not about to carve the top of the crate flat, but I knew this going in.  So ignore the rounded tops and sides.  Also box cake won't hold the weight of the monkey heads, so there was drooping.  That won't happen in the real trial.

I was mostly trying to see if I could make the monkey heads look good and how I would work the wood grain.

Considering the materials for this cake cost me a whopping $9 to make, I'm happy with what I made. I know what to do and what not to do, and when I make the real cake, those corners should be nice and sharp and the top nice and flat.

I sent pictures to Lauren on her cell as I was making it.  She was very excited to see the progress.

Messy, I know.  

Snowman Cake Pops

I had a few things going on at the same time.  Friends from Boston were coming down to Florida to spend Thanksgiving down here and a co-worker was transferring over to our Chicago branch (yep, crazy) and Wednesday was the last day I was going to see him.

I decided to work on some cute snowman cake pops for them.  These were from Bakerella's book and boy howdy -  very detailed.  I had some staycation days that I used baking and baking and decorating.  My back and legs were killing me from standing up for hours on end.  I made gingerbread cookies, sugar cookies, potato chip cookies and these cake pops.

They came out not too bad.

I made about 48 cake pops.

My Boston pals were given a total of 15 each and my co-worker was given 4.  I saved 4 for people coming over for Thanksgiving, leaving 25 for me and my family to enjoy - tee hee.

This is my coworker's "Things to Remind You of What You're Leaving in Florida" Basket.  A beach towel, flip flops, sunglasses, suntan lotion spray and golf balls.  I also put in the 4 cake pops, 4 Christmas cookies and 2 potato chip cookies I made.

Hello Ginger

The holidays are soooooo close?  Can you feel it?  I can!  I am so excited.  I have started baking and freezing cookies to have them ready for decorating.  Isabel's teacher, my co-workers, friends, etc.   I love decorating cookies.

This year, beside my regular sugar cookies, I decided to try a gingerbread recipe.  The house smelled so good. I can't wait to decorate these little guys.