Flower Power!

This post is mainly for my friend, Shannon. When I told her I had made the flowers on Deepani's cake (see post below), she said "Shut up! I don't believe you!". So here we are. A tutorial on flower-making...

Cut flower shapes:


Find tube of magical pink pixie dust:


Push plain flower cut-out onto special sponge thingy with a rounded tool thingamajig dipped in above magical dust, then use thingamajig to spread pink onto the petals while curving and shaping them.

See - nothing to it!

Certainly would seem like a more impressive process if I actually knew all the proper names to these tools...

Thanks for reading!

Deepani's Birthday Cake

Our sweet friend, Deepani (isn't she lovely?) has her birthday on December 31st (poor thing!). So a few mommy-group friends decided to surprise her with a cake when we got together at Chantal's house for an early evening New Year's eve gathering (very early...we all have little ones!). Of course I jumped and volunteered - on December 30th. Nothing like last-minute cake-making to get your blood-pumping! :)

Ok - so I made two sheet cakes...because I wanted to have square tiers, but I wasn't sure how many, or what dimensions.

I thought I'd show you what's left over. Hmmm...leftover cake in my house. Dangerous.


It had to be chocolate on chocolate (a girl's best friend next to diamonds and waterproof mascara), and because of the last minute aspect, I didn't relish the idea of covering it in fondant. So, I left it with stripey chocolate buttercream on top, spiky on tier #2, and "smooth" on the bottom. Ok - so I really need to work on my buttercream spreading technique. But this is why I use fondant normally. I can't make the darn frosting look pretty! Thus, I made some fondant flowers to pretty it up.

Here's the first rendition:


And the final version, after agonizing over floral placement for far too long:


Happy Birthday, Deepani! And Happy 2010 everyone!!

Happy Birthday Jesus!!!

Bella and I collaborated on this little creation for our family Christmas dinner. I made the cake, frosting (both chocolate, of course) and baby, and she did the rest (even thought of putting knife marks on the yellow part of the manger to indicate hay).

Bella loves those edible ink markers as much as I do...and now that she can write - she is ready to take over all future signage.

Happy Birthday, Jesus! Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas Cookie Extravaganza

Ahhh yes - time to break out the cutters and royal icing and glitter and assorted doodads!!!

Made lemon sugar cookies - soft and chewy, rather than crisp, and not as sickly sweet as the traditional sugar cookies...though I won't turn those down if you're sharing...

Teacher Appreciation!

Ok - so apples are the traditional gift from student to teacher...usually rosy, shiny, red perfection.

Well...how about a green one (I always liked the tang of Granny Smiths!) with a little worm friend? (shows it's organic - pesticide free!!) To be completely honest, I decided on the green apple mostly because I had used up all the red for Lightning McQueen (see the post below), and of course, it also looked sharp and rather modern against the purple gift. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!


This cake was for Bella's teachers - they had a surprise Staff Appreciation Luncheon a few weeks before the Christmas holidays.

Being a teacher myself, I recognize fully the need for caffeine...and thus made them a rich, dark chocolate cake with layers of mocha buttercream. (Thank you to my lovely neighbour, Andrea, for supplying the Italian espresso powder!) The apple is made of a cupcake with the same flavours.

I also made a cheerful little rainbow thank you plaque with my new edible markers, rice paper and fondant.


Here's the cake surrounded by many other delightful treats in the staff room. Yummmm!