Roses and babys breath cake

This is one of my favorite cakes.   I've made something similar to it in the past, but it's always fun to do a cake with roses and babys breath.   (FYI, I have a tutorial on here on how to make babys breath like this, if you wanted to learn how).

Congratulations to Alaina and Jason on their recent wedding!

Oh the Places You'll Go Cake

A friend asked me to make a cake for her son's birthday.   She wanted the theme to be from Dr. Seuss's "Oh the Places You'll Go" book.   What a fun book and idea for a cake.

So, of course I looked online to get some inspiration.   I found a few cakes that I liked and decided to take different aspects from a couple of them and combine them into one cake.

When making cakes, sometimes it's nice to try some new techniques too.   This was the first time I did a topsy turvy cake (top layer only though) and using some of the Duff cake wires.

I think the cake turned out great.   Happy Birthday Shane!!

Finished cake.   I loved it!

Outlining elements of the cake with black, allowed me to make it look like the drawings in the book.

Tree Stump Cake

My sister-in-law asked me to make a birthday cake for my niece's 11th birthday.   She asked that it would have animals on it.   Other than that, I could do whatever I'd like.

I knew exactly what I wanted to make.   A cake that I've always wanted to make.   A long time ago, I bought a Debbie Brown book that had a tree stump cake in it and I fell in love with it.   It's so adorable.   So, I decided to make it for Lucy for her birthday.

The cake was vanilla with buttercream icing and fondant.
The entire cake is edible except the few skewers that are used for structural support.

Here's some pictures.

The face in the tree trunk was a challenge to get it to blend all together nicely

Lucy loves birds.  A must-have on the cake.

Love the details like the little stairs and door opening on the side

Back side.  There were some small blossoms on the vine, but I added them after this pic

Happy Birthday Lucy!

Minecraft cake

I was asked by a friend to do a birthday cake.   The theme that she wanted was Minecraft.
My kids love that game, but I on the other hand, have never really played it.   So, I took a while to get on and explore the game and find out what it was all about.

I had a lot of fun brainstorming ideas for this cake.
I was quite happy with the way it turned out.

The pigs are one of Shelby's favorites.   I knew the cake needed at least one.

Happy Birthday Shelby!!

100th Birthday Cake

I am so slow on any of my postings.

So, a few months ago, my Grandma celebrated her 100th birthday.   100 years, it's quite the accomplishment.  Especially since Grandma still continues to live independently in her own home by herself and keeps very active.

So, as her birthday was coming closer, my sister Fern and I decided that we'd like to make a cake for her birthday party.   We wanted something fairly big with a unique design that tells the story of her life.   We brain-stormed and came up with a few ideas.   In the end, we decided to do a 4-tiered cake with edible images and hand-painted accents.

Fern and I split the work between the two of us.   I was very thankful that I have a sister that makes cakes like I do and I didn't have to do a project like this on my own.   It would have taken forever!   The cake consisted of three different flavours.   One tier was chocolate, one tier was berry and two tiers were vanilla.

Anyways, I am so happy with the way it turned out!  Hope you enjoy the pictures.

The finished cake

Fondant figure that I made.   I must admit that I found it tricky to make someone so old.

Edible images printed on rice paper, fondant frames, hand-painted wheat

The cake at the birthday party

Fern and I.   We make a good team.

Grandma with her birthday cake

Fern, Grandma and I

All 4 of my kids with Grandma.   What a great day to celebrate!

One of my favorite pictures.   Matthew giving his Great Grandma a kiss on the cheek.

What was fun too, was the fact that the Sun newspaper and Global news were both at Grandma's party.   How excited I was to see a big picture of Grandma and my cake in the newspaper the next day.   I had a friend who noticed the cake and thought of me, not realizing it was mine and texted me to go check it out.   Too funny.

Happy Birthday Grandma!   Looking forward to your 101th birthday!!

Buttercream Ruffle cake for my sister

My sister, Heather, LOVES cake.   In fact, she LOVES buttercream icing.

So, every year I try to find a pretty cake that has lots and lots of icing for her.

Heather's birthday cake turned out so pretty!!  Decorated in all buttercream and the flowers are made from fondant.

Happy Birthday Heather!!

Boy Baby Blessing Cake

A friend of mine asked if I could make a cake for her grandson's baby blessing.   

I wanted to make something that was mostly white with a little blue and something completely unique.   Here's the cake I came up with.

I actually had Elora make the little bear for me.  She loves  it when I ask her to help me.

Buttercream Ruffle wedding cake

I've seen this type of cake done before on the internet, except it was decorated with royal icing.   When a friend announced her wedding and another friend offered to host an open house, I knew this would be the perfect time to try my hand at making a cake in this fashion.   Except, instead of royal icing, I wanted to do it in Buttercream.   I think it turned out very pretty!! And with using all buttercream (except the fondant flowers), it tasted so good too!

Large carnation type of fondant flowers

Buttercream ruffles.   So pretty.

February 20

Day 51

Our fabulous Europe vacation has come to an end.   As sad as that is, I think both Cam and I would agree that we were ready to come home.

February 19

Day 50

Last day before heading home.
We spent the day touring around Munich.

First place we headed to was Schloss Nymphenburg.   Another summer palace.   This one was ridiculously big (like pretty much all of them).   There were lots of swans swimming in the pools.  I absolutely loved it when they had their wings up and looking pretty.   Schloss Nymphenburg has some large gardens, but we decided to skip walking through them because there was so much snow and all the statues were all covered up by big wooden boxes (so disappointing).   The palace was beautiful with lots of details.   Okay, here's some pictures.   So glad they allowed pictures inside, unlike the rest of the castles we walked through...

Schloss Nymphenburg.  So big, I couldn't even get it all in the picture!

Beautiful swans.   There were lots of swans in the decorations and details of a lot of the castles.  Kind Ludwig II in particular liked swans.

Beautiful detailing

If you look closely at this chandelier, you can see golden swans as part of the detailing.

The ceiling

The bedroom where King Ludwig II was born

Portraits of some of the most "beautiful" women.  Although I thought half of them were quite unattractive women!

One of MANY sleighs and carriages that King Ludwig II had (remember, this is the same king that was building the Neuschwanstein castle!)

I wish you could see the detail on these carriages.  It was crazy!

We then headed over to Karlzplatz and did some shopping.   Lots of nice shops.   It was in this area that I bought my beautiful mechanical coo coo clock.

The OLD Town Hall

The NEW Town Hall.  I love how the new one looks older than the old one.

New Town Hall.

 

We walked through Frauenkirche.   Another old church.  

The crypt

We then walked through Viktualienmarkt.  We decided to stop at one of the little shops and try some of the traditional foods of Germany... some bratwurst, sauerkraut and some kind of meat on a bun that we saw everywhere.

The weather was starting to get colder and it was just starting to snow when we went to see Peterskirche & go up it's tower.   The stairs going up the tower were super narrow.  Makes it really difficult to pass other people!   And it's too bad that it was starting to snow, because it sure limited our view from the top.

Narrow stairs.   Good thing it wasn't busy and we didn't have to pass too many people!

A geocache in the stairwell going up the tower of the church

Lastly, we went for dinner at the Hofbrauhaus.   Where we had a traditional German dinner and some traditional dancers, music and other entertainment.   It was a good dinner and we enjoyed our visit with an older couple sitting at our table who lives in Berlin.