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!

A cookie for me!

I have been so quiet lately! It's not that I don't have a lot going on because I do, but it's more the what that has been going on that has kept me quiet the past few months. There's a cookie that I have been waiting to make for a while now and earlier this summer I had the chance to do so. Without further ado, I am pleased to present the cookie that I made for myself! Well, for myself but to be given to other people.


Now I'm not sure how much cookie time I will actually have after baby arrives but I'm still going to try to find the time AND cram as much in as I possibly can now! I will be giving up caking for a while, though. I have one cake that's due next weekend and then I'm wrapping up the fondant. Although now that I think about it, it would be easier to give up the cookies rather than the cake since cookies (a) take up more space and (b) are a lot more time consuming. Hmm, I think pregnancy brain has gotten to me. Better not over-think.
You know, I think I'll eat some B&J's Chunky Monkey and not worry about anything else right now. Back with more updates later!

Wowza, busy month!

This month has been crazy. Really crazy for me! I have been baking and baking since the middle of April and I am happy to have a break! I love baking, really and truly, I do but the dishwasher was being a little vocal about the amount of squeeze bottles and tips on the counter not to mention the lack of space in the apartment.

Here's a quick round-up of May (minus a picture of a birthday cake and the Cinco de Scotty cookies that already had its own post:

I was a little skeptical when I found a cookie cutter for the state of Hawai`i but I have to say, it works! I just need to work on my spacing and we'll be representing the 808!

Cookies for my first corporate customer! The design represents the Core Values of an international company based here in Honolulu.

VROOM!! The monster trucks are rolling in!

These bad boys were made for a special little boy who turned 2! I think this must have been an awesome party with some HUGE (think 5"!) cookie favors! Happy birthday Mr. Nolie!!

Relay for Life cookies for Nolie's mama! She's an awesome woman with a huge heart for others - there really should be more people like her!



Peace cookies for a 5th grade graduation. Most of her classmates got a peace cookie brushed with some luster dust for hippie sparkle, her close friends received a cat cookie with a peace color. Interesting fact - so far, every time I have tried to type "peace" whether here or when emailing back and forth about this cookie, I have typed "peach." Maybe I should buy some peaches....

Well, that's May so far. What's next?

Cinco de Scotty!

Happy Cinco de Scotty! AKA: Cinco de Mayo and Cinco de Boy's Day, in my head anyway.

This weekend a friend of mine is hosting her annual Cinco de Mayo (known as CDS within our group of gals) party and since I can't be there in person, I decided to combine a shipping test with some surprise cookies. I had a small window of opportunity since her party is clear across the country but I was able to jam this out in 24 hours and delivered them to the post office quickly. I'm happy to say that only 2 cookies broke in their journey across the Pacific and the continental US. Of course, 0 is always better but 2 is good.

Horses masquerading as pinatas. Don't knock it, I worked with what I had. You know, pinata cookies are fun to make. You can make that horse any color combo you want, the brighter, the better! Who cares if it looks like the Crayola box exploded?

Beware the mustached hombre...

Have a great party guys! Wish I could be there!

Easter Round Up

Whew! Easter is over, thank goodness. Did the Easter Bunny visit you? I know he was at my friend's home this afternoon. I didn't have my phone on me so I couldn't take a picture but there was an actual photographer there (my husband and I had to take photos with good old EB,) so I may be able to provide some evidence of his existence. In case you are wondering, he wears a purple vest that has eggs embroidered on it.

I have been so busy this past month that it really isn't funny, and I'm not ready for a break yet. I still have 2, possibly 3 projects to complete before mid-May and then I should finally be able to rest my poor Breville for a while. My poor stand mixer (the 2nd mixer in 3 years thanks to my Kitchen Aid Pro Series breaking on me!) has been busy churning out cookie dough, cake batter, frostings, fillings and icing! But, once everything was baked and frosted we had an Easter that made the kids, both young and old, happy.

Cookie pop pot - one of the easiest projects of the week! Bake cookies on a stick, decorate. Buy a pot kit, cover with scrapbook paper. Insert cookies, done!

This Easter Bunny got a little too excited about the candy and fell head first into the barrel!

Bunny ear cookies - these are missing the photo of the finished project. They were bunny cupcakes a la Sugarbelle. Very cute. May have to ask the photographer for that picture.

Decorated chocolate dipped Oreos.

My second foray into disco dust. Still a little unsure about this element.

The Peep family! I don't know about you but mainstream Peeps are not my favorite. Last year I made my own out of homemade marshmallow, this year the cookie version, next year...still unsure.

Let's just ignore these bunnies. They're a little upset right now. I think someone stole their eggs and I'm pretty it's the dude in the candy barrel.

"Please don't decorate me! I'm ready to come out now!"

That's it for now. I'm exhausted and headed to bed. Thank goodness my hubby took pity on me and washed the dishes. Tomorrow we embark on the next project. Wish me luck!

Welcome baby!

Agh!!! I can FINALLY write about this!!! I have been barely holding myself back from blogging about this for weeks. Weeks I said! Today is my friend Andi's baby shower and while I would love to be there, small problem. It's in Vegas. I'm in Honolulu. So since I couldn't be there, I sent cookies. The only problem was that I didn't want her to know what I was doing. Now, I love surprises...when I'm the one doing them. Unless you plan on showing up with a cashier's check for a gazillion dollars, please don't surprise me. I had to avoid her for a few weeks lest I slip and either hint as to what I was doing or just come right out and say it.

You may ask yourself how I managed to do this and the answer is easy. I managed to use my cyberskills *insert eye roll here* to contact the person hosting the shower (thank goodness for Facebook!) and asked about sending cookies for the party. I think it helped that Andi asked me to do bring some cookies to Vegas last summer to celebrate the hostess' baby. Once we agreed that I would be able to participate, in my typical fashion, I'm steamrolled my way into a design and didn't ask for any one's opinion.

I had seen the cutest baby cookies on Amanda's blog at I Am Baker and I had been waiting for an occasion to make them. Since Andi doesn't know what she is having, I thought this was the perfect opportunity. The invite was polka dots and the decor was blocks so I decided to combine all 3. I didn't have a block cookie cutter but since it was less than 3 dozen cookies and went ahead and hand-cut them. It's a little crazy but if you think about, the cookie was straight lines so it was easy to do.

I'm so glad I took a picture of the cookie with straight lines!

Once baked I added lines to notate the sides of the block and flooded the cookie. Once that was dry, it was really time to have fun. I didn't do any a lot of wet-on-wet with these cookies but I did incorporate lay-ons, my poor un-used food color pens, and disco dust. Somehow my orange dust seemed larger than the blue and green so I didn't care for that much. I am making some dragonflies this weekend though so the blue and green dusts are getting another workout.

Half of the babies were girls so I used teeny tiny hearts to make bows. I used a pair of white hearts for one cookie...it turned out too much like Pebbles from the Flintstones for me.

Now, I dislike tying ribbon on bags but since I wanted to send these 100% complete, I found polka dot ribbon started to cut them, and wouldn't you know it, I didn't have enough ribbon! These guys had to go out the following day in order to make it to Vegas in time but I REALLY didn't want to go back out. I ended up kicking my husband off of the computer (it's okay, he was only playing Bejeweled) and trying to figure out how to make a cute tag that would tie in.

Now, here's where those cyber-stalker skills came in handy again. Andi had painted a mural onto her nursery wall and posted a pic of it. I copied the pic, pasted into Word and added a text box. Tags complete! Look at me - I can work in IT. Not. I'm happy to say that each cookie arrived safely thanks to self-sticking bubble wrap. The next time I ship cookies I am definitely using that again!

Yes, that's one of those school paper cutters. Doesn't every home have one?

Congratulations Andi & Doug! I hope you had a fantastic shower! And if you happen to see this on FB before you find out the cookies are from me, you never saw this!

Amanda from I Am Baker, thanks for sharing your great idea!