1st birthday luau!

In Hawai`i we celebrate first birthdays like no one else. These tend to be huge affairs rivaling one's wedding with tons of food, entertainment for the kids, musicians for the adults, etc. Crazy, crazy. Let me tell you, I'm already worried about planning my little one's 1st birthday and I've still got about 3 1/2 months left before we even meet the little guy! Lucky for me, this has been a summer of toned down mainland 1st birthday parties so cookie orders were placed for 50 and below (with the exception of the order I'm working on now.)

The ladybugs were done at the same as some really cute Hawai`i themed cookies for a former Hawai`i local now living in Vegas (or what we locals call the "9th Island.") You may remember the baby block cookies that were done earlier this year, well these Hawai`i cookies were done for the hostess of that baby shower. Yay for me that she trusts me and after she said "slippers and coconut trees" she let me run with it. Now you know that I don't like the make cookies the same unless I have too. Like coconut trees. What can you really do to a coconut tree to make them different from one another? The answer? Not much so all of my trees were identical but to dress them up a bit I added an outline and sprinkled some sanding sugar on it.

The slippers were a bit more fun. I wanted to have a pair of slippers and didn't have time to order one (okay, I'm lying. I didn't order it because the one I wanted was copper and I couldn't justify the price. LOL) so once again I hand-cut the cookies and made each cookie a little different from one another.

Yes, people wear camo slippers. I actually have a pair from Michael Kors, believe it or not!

I also busted out that faithful #1 cookie cutter again (which will be getting another workout in a week) and had some fun with them.

My favorite of these has to be the honu (turtles) swimming.

Now that these cookies have been eaten I can share a secret. These cookies went out on the same day and when I packed them up I neglected to notate what order was what and the boxes were all the same. I was really, really worried that I was going to get a phone call/text/email/FB message asking me what the heck happened! Thank goodness the right cookies made it to right party!! I've learned my lesson, I swear! The next time multiple orders go out, I'll mark the boxes, I promise!

Ladybugs!

In addition to Diego and monkeys, I also made ladybugs and Hawaiian themed cookies this summer for 1st birthday parties. First up were the ladybugs for the little lady in Arkansas. Such an adorable little girl! I'm branching out into making tags for cookies as well and it packs so much better than tying them with ribbon! For our little Southern cutie I did some giant ladybugs, okay, well not completely giant. They were 4" x 3.75" and gave them a little heart shaped mouth.

*Side note: In February I bought these teeny tiny mini heart sprinkles from Williams Sonoma. They are seriously the best decoration I could have bought. EVER. Remind me to post pictures of all of the cookies these sprinkles have been used for and I have barely made a dent in the bottle! I am not kidding. You can find these online everywhere. Pick some up. And angled tweezers to place the hears exactly where you want them.

Here are the ladies, all bagged, tagged, beribboned and ready to steal the show! At least until the birthday girl comes along! Just for fun, I added some 1 cookies decorated to match. Fun, right?



Hawaiian themed cookies are up next!

Camden's Circus Cake

Today I completed what will be my last cake for a while. It tired me out more than I expected - heck, you try rolling out enough fondant to cover a cake in between bouts of nausea! But apart from a few air bubbles, the cake actually didn't give me a lot of trouble.

The cake was a circus theme and apart from flavors, I was given free reign so I decided to make the cake a show ring and featured 3 acts - a Dumbo-type elephant, a tiger and seal. Honestly, I loved the little elephant and I so did not want to put him on the cake. I mean, look at him! He is obviously too young to be in the circus because he can't even do his act yet, the poor little guy! He's probably just nervous and he'll be better next time. The tiger and the seal were able to do their acts just fine - they're pros, you know.


For the cake itself I went with bright primary colors. Originally I thought about doing swags of red fondant but having never actually done swags I thought it might be a tad too ambitious and we definitely didn't want it to fall off of the cake so I went with crescent moons, green stars and some sugar animal lay-ons.


You see that big space in the front there? It's still missing a little something. What's a circus without some snacks?? I took a cupcake and piled on some white chocolate ganache and then added some popcorn that I had made out of fondant and then brushed with colored powder. I also made a cupcake wrapper and a popcorn sticker...you know, just in case no one could figure it out.


After everything was put together I think it came out pretty cute. Of course I would have loved to do so much more like a smaller tier for a ring master and maybe some peanuts but I ran out of time and energy. Oh well, maybe I can give it another try later. Or not.

Well, it's time for the circus to head on out of town. They have to get ready for the next gig.

Birthday cookies, oh my!

This summer has been a time of birthday party favors for sure! It started when my sister-in-law asked me to cookies for her 3 children's birthdays. No, she doesn't have triplets, she just decided to ask for all 3 at once. And I thought I liked to plan ahead!

First up was Diego for my nephew. For those of you who don't know who Diego is (like me, I had to google him,) Diego is the cousin of Dora the Explorer (now her I've heard of!) and he take adventures with his baby jaguar which confuses me because I swear jaguars were endangered so shouldn't Nick pick another animal?? What kind of message are they sending here?

Anyway! Here I am thinking this will be easy, he's a popular cartoon character so there's bound to be a cookie cutter somewhere, right? Nope! Then I realize I will have to hand cut this guy. Have you seen Diego? His hair is in points around his head like so:

The cookie could have been made round and then I could have have put Diego onto that but you all know how I feel about the easy way. Besides, then I would have had to use the projector and I just didn't want to do that. So the Craving Sugar solution? Hand-cut them, of course! So here's the finished product, all hand-cut and decorated free-hand, no KopyKake used at all. I'm so proud!


Diego was followed by monkeys for my niece and let me tell you, these cookies were HUGE! As in monster truck huge! I really wanted a cute monkey cutter, and just the face because I think if you have an entire monkey, it's just not as cute. After searching, I finally found a copper cutter that I liked at Copper Gifts.I like Copper Gifts - your order comes with a packet sprinkles that I ended up using on some slipper cookies (to be posted later.) =o)

In all honestly, I did not expect the cookie to be so huge. Yes, I looked at the dimensions before I ordered but it didn't compute in my pregnant brain so it was a shocker! But, the girly monkeys did turn out pretty cute and they all have their own little personality. I think the birthday girl liked them too. (Sorry, picture of the birthday girl not included.)


The next cookie isn't due until November so there's some time to figure that one out. It's Strawberry Shortcake and wouldn't you know it, there's no cutter for that either. And to top it off, there's a made-over Strawberry Shortcake! This will be interesting!

Do I go with the version I grew up seeing? Or the newer, I don't quite recognize her, apart from her hat version?

There are still a few more summer birthday cookies on the way! More later!

I'm seeing spots!

Polka dots are back! Well honestly, I don't think they ever left. They just fade into the solid color from which they came until they are ready to stand out again. What am I talking about? I have no clue. It's been a long week and I'm pretty sure my brain is broken and I am just talking bubbles. Oh no. Bubbles - spots - I really do think I broke my brain. Thanks goodness the weekend is almost here!

First I have to get through Friday. The good thing about Friday? It's a CW's birthday and that means cake! More specifically, it means cake that I made. My inspiration cake was this:

(Photo and cake by lara3teach)

I love the bright colors on it - it's a very happy cake. If this were your cake, you wouldn't even care what was on the inside. Okay, I'm lying. I would care what was on the inside. I knew that with my limited experience my hope of recreating this cake was slim to none. Sure, the circles are fondant and heck, even I can do that! But the cake isn't covered in white fondant. Nope. That is buttercream all the way.

Let's start by saying that I've never covered a cake in buttercream. Sure, I've used SMBC as filling and under fondant, but I haven't tried to cover an entire cake with a crusting BC. Oh, well, time to learn and it was harder than I thought! Smoothing buttercream is hard. Try it sometime and we can compare notes. Luckily I had already ordered the funky letter tappits and they came in on time. After playing with everything tonight and altering some recipes along the way I ended up with my own polka dot cake.

I don't know why the name looks blue. I really isn't, I swear and you can see the pic below. No blue. Go figure!

I ended up with butter vanilla yellow cake (boy that's a mouthful!) with a nutella mousse-y filling and of course, the buttercream...that didn't really crust but I did alter the recipe a tad so who know what sort of chemistry I created or deleted. I tasted each component separately and I liked it but we'll see how it all works together tomorrow for breakfast.

Breakfast?! Um, yeah. I had some spare parts so I put together another cake. But it's not really for me. It's quality control. ;o) Then maybe I'll be up for practicing smoothing again.

A cake, a milestone, and lessons learned

It's been an interesting week filled with baking and (apparently much needed) lesson learned. In addition to the Cinco de Boy's Day fish cookies there were also mojito cupcakes (which will make it here eventually,) and a last minute cake order.

Order?? Yes, order. Someone actually paid me to make a cake for them which was the milestone. Get it? A CAKE, A MILESTONE? If you don't, got back and read the title again please and if you still don't get it, get some ice cream. That fixes just about everything.

The cake request came from a woman whose daughter was having a Sweet 16 tonight with a bit of an Alice in Wonderland theme. While I had some great ideas - okay 1 idea - tumbling around my head, 2 days was not enough time for a novice like me to try it out. I ended up compromising and offered a blue fondant cake with white diamonds. I don't know why but diamonds seem to go with Alice. As you can tell, it's been quite some time since I watched the cartoon version and I sure didn't watch Johnny Depp's.

A couple of late nights resulted in a cake that I was "eh" about but I had no time to go back and start over and several lessons learned.

1. When committing to a design, make sure you have the right dang cutters - both size and shape. I suggested diamonds. Did I have a diamond cutter? Nope. Had to bend a couple of squares. Where they the right size? No, AGAIN They were too big for the cake so I had to cut everything down with a ruler and a knife. But I do like how the tips of the diamonds are higher than the cake, giving it a slight rabbit ear look.
   
2. Remember drastic temperature changes! I tried left the top tier out too long after I covered it and it developed a huge bubble that I couldn't get rid of. I had to cut the fondant off, re-frost, chill and cover again which brought me back to cutting the diamonds.
3. Allow yourself creative liberties. When asked about design, the client basically left it up to me and while searching for diamonds I found a heart shape that wasn't a typical rounded heart but instead more narrow. I tried it out and decided that I liked it. It still had an "Alice" feel to it.
4. Don't take an order 2 days before the cake needs to be done. Especially if you have a full time job and you know the next 2 weeks are going to be busy and stressful. It's not fun to go to work on about 4 hours of sleep. Even more so when your boss is having a bad day.
5. Remember that you do this because you enjoy it and your next cake will be better.
   
6. When all else fails, remember that you have a mojito cupcake hiding in the fridge!
7. The most important lesson of all - find a cleaning fairy! Then send her/him over here!