First Birthday Fun

My little girl just turned one, so being that I love to do cakes, I was so excited to do a cake for her birthday. I had seen a giraffe birthday cake in a Wilton Yearbook, and since she loves giraffes (...okay, maybe it's me that loves giraffes, but I'm slowly brainwashing her to have giraffes be her favorite animal :)

My husband gave me one rule when it came to her birthday cake--no fondant. He wanted it to taste good for her when she dug into it and took that famous first bite that parents so look forward to, with camera in hand.



The giraffe's body was made from a football pan, the head from half of a sports ball pan, the muzzle from a mini ball pan, and the neck, ears, and legs from sugar cookies. It took a lot of time, and a lot of stars, but I finally got the cake covered.


I think that he turned out pretty cute. And I only used fondant on the hat and sign! That's pretty good considering that I love working in fondant.


The next decision to be made was what to feed our party guests. I found this idea at bakerella.com, and when my husband saw it, he thought it was the coolest idea, so that is how we ended up with these cute little "hamburgers" made from cupcakes (buns), brownies (meat), frosting (mustard, ketchup, lettuce), and sugar cookies (fries). That's my kind of hamburger!


I had a dilemma, though. I needed some way to tie the giraffe/animal theme in with the hamburgers and fries. That's where these little boxes came into play that I found at orientaltradingcompany.com. Too cute and too perfect to make little happy meals with the hamburgers and fries for all of the kids.

And as everybody knows, a happy meal must come with a toy or prize. Aren't these little bubbles adorable and totally perfect to help tie everything together?!

Everything turned out perfect for her party. The weather was great and the company was even better.

And here is our little angel, enjoying a bite of the giraffe's ear. I guess that she's more of a cookie girl than a cake girl. We'll see if we can change that :)

Baby Gracie's Cake

We had a baby shower for my friend Jamie who is due in December with a little girl (Grace). My friend Tosha and I worked on this cake together. We stuck to using pink, green, and brown to coordinate with the colors Jamie is doing for her nursery. We had a fun afternoon working on it together and were pleased with how it turned out.

The bottom is an 8 inch triple chocolate cake with vanilla icing as filling, covered in fondant. Tosha had a cute mini-bear pan that she used to bake up the bear. We covered him in tip 18 stars, and used fondant to decorate the rest of the cake with a bow and flowers.

Eagle Scout Cake

I just finished a cake for an Eagle Scout Court of Honor for my friend Lisa's son. I molded the medal out of fondant with the lettering on it in royal icing, and painted the "metal" parts with silver dusting powder mixed with clear vanilla to get it to resemble real metal.

The cake itself was a 12x12 butter cake filled with a strawberry cream and iced in lemon buttercream.

Brownies on a Stick

I saw something similar to this in Wilton's Brownie Fun book, so I decided to give them a try for our Stake Relief Society dinner that we had before watching the General RS Broadcast. I thought they turned out pretty cute.


I used the Wilton Brownie Pops mold, although it was pretty tricky to get them to come out of the mold without breaking (more difficult than their directions let on to be). I dipped them in melted chocolate candy melts and rolled half in toffee bits and the other in some cookies n cream crunch decorative sprinkles put out by Wilton. Next time I think that I'll try dipping them in caramel instead. Sounds more yummy to me.

Michael and Tasha's Wedding Cake

I had the privelege of making the wedding cake for my brother-in-law and his cute new wife this past week. It was quite an undertaking, but everything came together and I loved the way it turned out. Even better is that the bride loved it. That's all that really matters.

I did 6, 9, 12, and 15 inch tiers. 2 were a chocolate fudge cake with vanilla buttercream filling and the other 2 were a butter cake with a chocolate ganache filling. I covered it in fondant instead of icing it in buttercream because it was an outdoor reception in August, and I just didn't want to run the chance of it melting. The stringwork and roses were done with royal icing and some of the other little borders were done with buttercream. My mother-in-law did an amazing job with the flowers for the cake as well as everywhere else (she is an amazing florist and is fabulous at doing flowers for weddings). They cut it about 2/3rds of the way through their reception and it all got eaten (except the top tier of course--that's for their 1st anniversary). I'm glad that it tasted good too.

Baby Shower Daisy Cake

My friend just adopted a cute little girl that they named Daisy. To celebrate I made a Daisy cake for her baby shower. I did a butter cake with homemade strawberry jam for the filling, iced with a lemon buttercream. I was very happy with how it turned out, and just a little sad that I actually couldn't be there for the shower. (I had to leave for San Diego for my brother-in-law's wedding and to make the wedding cake.)

Father's Day Scrabble Cake

For my husband this year, I surprised him with a "Scrabble Cake." I actually just made rice crispy treats, since he is not a huge fan of cake, iced it in a thin layer of vanilla frosting, then covered it in fondant. I used chicklets for the scrabble tiles and Reeses PB whoppers for part of the border along the lower edge. It was really fun to plan out and decorate. It was fun on Father's day morning to see the shocked look on his face when he walked into the kitchen. Since I love scrabble, I sure had a good time making this surprise for him.