Have Cake and Eat It Too!!

My neighbor, who is also a very good friend of mine, recently celebrated her birthday and of course I just HAD to make her a cake...but this was no "normal" cake.  You see, my sweet friend is allergic to gluten.  Sadly, the main ingredient in cake is flour, which is nothing but a bunch of gluten.  Therefore, she had never really had a "real" birthday cake.  Her allergy was discovered when she was a baby, her mother would make her a small cake on her birthday while the rest of her friends ate "normal" cake.  How could I NOT make her a cake after finding all of this out??  It was a challenge and I stressed more than I probably even needed to over this cake.  I packed a bag full of ingredients and headed over to her house, I had her inspect everything I was planning to use.  Once my ingredient list passed the gluten free test, I began the baking process.  The first cake I made did not rise.  In fact, it looked more like a large cookie rather than a cake.  Epic Fail.  My second attempt went much better.  I was prepared for the cake not to rise, so I added more batter to the pan.  This worked! I wanted one layer to be chocolate cake and the other to be yellow butter cake.  The chocolate cake was the last one I made and it too turned out just perfect.

Before the cakes were made, I put my designing skills to work...threw in a little poetry and came up with the perfect design for her cake.

She loved her cake, as did everyone that celebrated her birthday.  It was a success! My first gluten free cake was a success!!

The best part was watching my friends reaction when she saw her cake for the first time.

The writing on the cake:

"Happy Birthday Christie,

Cheers to you!

Now you can have your cake,

and eat it too!!"

Basketball Birthday

These cupcakes were made for the daughter of a guy I work with.  She told her dad all she wanted for her birthday was a basketball.
Well, she got two dozen...cupcake syle!
Basketballs were made out of fondant and hand drawn with an edible food marker.

1st Birthday Monkey Style

This cake was the smash cake for a friends little boy.
His mommy made cupcakes to match and requested I make the smash cake.
The cake was yellow, frosted in homemade buttercream.
The monkey face was fondant.

A Baby Shower Themed Monkey Cake

The bottle was sculpted out of RK's and covered in fondant. 
Everything else was hand sculpted out of gum paste.
The cake was marble, frosted with homemade buttercream icing.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

"The Grinch hated Christmas - the whole Christmas season. Now, please don't ask why; no one quite knows the reason. It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight. Or it could be that his head wasn't screwed on just right. But I think that the most likely reason of all may have been that his heart was two sizes too small." or maybe, he knew not how to bake and no one had ever given him his very own cake!!! (yeah, I went there, haha)

I had a blast making this cake. Have I mentioned I love Dr. Seuss? Designing a cake after one of his books is never boring. The cakes are iced in buttercream, all decorations are hand sculpted out of fondant. The features on the Grinch and max (the dog) are hand painted with a food pen.

Forgotten-Forgive Me

I'm here! I'm here!

I wish I would of thought to post a note here sooner, alas' I decided to take a break from cake decorating back in January and never thought to post an explanation.
I started taking a handful of classes at my local community college (web design and creative writing!!) and trying to juggle life, school and my many hobbies was proving to be a tad difficult.
Forgive me for not providing an update sooner.

I checked my email today, the first time in over a month (I'm horrible! I know!) and realized I had let many fellow cake lovers down. Forgive me!!!!

I do have a few more pictures to update the blog with and I will get to posting those asap.
I am also taking cake orders again and will slowly begin to post here along the way.

Thank you for the sweet emails, comments and words of encouragement along the way. Thank you for continuing to support this crazy hobby of mine!!

GO GAMECOCKS!!!

This cake was a LOT of fun to make largely because...well, I'm a South Carolina Gamecocks fan!

This cake was actually a birthday cake, made for a guy that loves Gamecocks and Ralph Lauren Polo.
His daughter requested that I find a way to mix the two.
At first I thought it might be a bit of a challenge, but I was actually very pleased with how it turned out!

Here's a little peek into the "before" process of a cake:

Cocky (the Gamecocks mascot) was hand sculpted out of RK's, fondant and gum paste.

Cocky is always holding up the #1 sign! So this mini replica was no exception.

The polo images were actually hand painted on gum paste discs that I cut out and then allowed to air dry before drawing the images on. I actually looked at the image on a polo shirt that I own and just free handed it with edible markers (a very cool tool by the way!).

I used a toothpick to hand carve each of the feathers.