The cake that started it all

This was my very first cake that I made for my husband's 33rd birthday. I can't believe he was ever that young, haha! :)

I was pretty intimidated to use fondant at the time, so I just used regular frosting. It made it a lot harder to do any sort of piping though, and the frosting kept melting because it was in the middle of summer. But for a first attempt, I think it turned out ok. It's also nice to see how far I've come. This cake would be great to do with fondant to give it a much cleaner look. I really like the throwback logo too as opposed to the newer logo. This is great for a birthday because you can change the number on the jersey to match how old they are. Enjoy!

Oh baby!

(Not the best picture)
This cake was made for a friend's baby shower. The elephant was made out of store bought chocolate fondant. I love the roses on the cake. They have been trending lately which is great because they are so easy to do and make cakes look very elegant. I printed the little sign off of my computer onto thick paper, cut it into the flag shape, and hot glued it to a skewer. There really wasn't any room for any writing on the cake, and they hadn't decided on a name, so I thought this was a good alternative.

PBR Cake

I think this cake by far was one of my greatest cake feats. It took me about 2 days to complete and again it was for my extremely spoiled husband :) This cake was made with 6 round cakes cut in half and laid on their side and frosted, and held together with dowels. It was then covered with store bought fondant. This is one of my favorite cakes I have made. It was so massive, we only ate about 1/4 of it!

My first wedding cake

So I did this cake last summer for a friend of a friend's wedding. And I actually got paid for it, yay! My original plan was to do a black gum paste mold. That did not work out so well, so I had to proceed to plan B. I ended up piping black royal icing onto the cake and I was pleasantly surprised. I couldn't believe how well it turned out considering I've never done piping that before on a cake. The bride was extremely happy too, so it was a win-win! This cake was made with store bought white fondant.

Taco Time!

This is my most recent cake that I made for my husband's birthday. I had to think of something he really loves, ( besides me, haha) and I had an epiphany. A taco cake! My husband loves ground beef tacos with the premade shells. I always try to go above and beyond and do slow-cooked shredded beef tacos with freshly cooked corn tortillas and an assortment of gourmet toppings. He loves those too, but most of the time he prefers plain old what I call "white boy tacos", haha. So I have to give in sometimes and just make something simple.

 For the cake, I made an orange marshmallow fondant. I have never made it before, but it turned out pretty good. I just googled the recipe. I made two chocolate cakes from scratch, cut them in half and coated the inside and outside with frosting. Oh and I incorporated a few cake crumbs into the fondant to make it look more like a corn tortilla. I also took some of the leftover cake after leveling them with my handy bread knife, crumbled it and toasted it lightly. I used that for the "ground beef:" on top of the frosting. The lettuce was made from dyed toasted coconut. I used a few drops of green and a few yellow to make it look more like iceberg and not so dark. After dying the coconut, it was really wet and sort of slimy. So i put it in my toaster oven on about 200 degrees until it was dry, about 20 minutes or so. The cheese and tomatoes were made from orange and red starburst. Try the "fruit punch" ( I believe) starburst for the tomatoes. The cherry ones were more pink than red like I wanted. The sour cream was white frosting, and to top it off was some raspberry puree to look like taco sauce. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of how it looked when I first made it and it was perfect. I decided to cover the cakes with my largest baking bowl so my husband wouldn't see his birthday surprise in the fridge. Huge mistake! The frosting stuck to the top of the bowl and sort of mixed everything together that I had worked so hard to put together so carefully. But oh well, you live and you learn, right? But other than that, I think it turned out pretty good. Some guests couldn't even believe it was actually a cake! So have fun and maybe you can try this cake one day for a loved one. Let me know if you have questions, thanks!

Barbie Cake

So I made this cake for my daughter's fourth birthday. I was made from a recipe which is just a 3-layer chocolate cake (it is a great recipe because I can use it and make different frostings each time and it is super yummy.) It was frosted with pink buttercream frosting. Then I just printed out a silhouette of barbie and cut it out from fondant. The fondant was then painted black with gel food coloring and lemon juice (you can also use vodka, which actually seems to work better). It doesn't really dry so be careful, but it has a beautiful shiny finish. Wear disposable gloves if possible so your hands aren't dyed like mine! Then I used some pink sugar and little edible pearls to decorate all over and to make the necklace. Nixon's name was then piped on with royal icing and royal icing beads on the base which helped to cover up my messy cake board. And Voila!

About me :)

Hi everyone, welcome to my blog! I created this blog to share cooking tips, recipes, and crafting ideas. Let's talk a little bit about where my inspiration comes from.

I am a self-taught cook and I learned a lot of what I know from a great cook, my mom. She nurtured my love for cooking at a very young age.I remember watching Julia Child when I was little, and my mom said I would rather watch Julia than Sesame Street any day! :)

 I was cooking on my own by about age 12. I loved to have my friends over and entertain them and cook for them. I think I may have surpassed my mom a little though in my love and passion for cooking. (But don't tell her that.) I am always striving to make my recipes better and better.

I recently got into baking, and cake decorating. I never used to like baking in the past because it seemed to messy, and once it's in the oven, there is no adjusting anything you did wrong. I have to admit I was a little intimidated by baking, but now that I feel like I have a pretty good knowledge of cooking, I thought it was time for a new challenge, so I took on baking. I can't say that I'm to the point where I can just make up a recipe like I can when I'm cooking, but hopefully eventually, I'll get there.

Another inspiration of mine is Martha Stewart. Is there anything this woman can't do?! I am seriously in awe at how much she knows about anything and everything creative! Yes, she wasn't always the most ethical person, but she built an empire from the ground up, and I definitely admire that.


Hope you enjoy my blog!