Happy birthday chickadee!

This chocolate cake was covered with marshmallow fondant and was made for a cutie pie named, Ella, whose nickname is chickadee.

Look whooo's 50!

I made this for my beautiful mom who was turning 50 and loves owls. We surprised her with a trip to Ohio. I prepared everything before our trip and assembled it in Ohio. Note to everyone: fondant does not travel well on a plane! But it was still tasty!! :)

Farewell to Duke grad school!

A blue devils cake for a dear friend's nephew and his wife who are leaving for grad school at Duke. It's a 12-inch round with all buttercream. The design and lettering were free-hand, but I traced the 'D' with a knife before going over it with frosting. I would've done the same for the lettering by using toothpicks (a knife is too thick for an outline) but we ran out! So there was a lot of shaking of the hand and me holding my breath, but it came out alright. I would definitely suggest using some sort of outline/stencil for writing, however. It makes all of the difference and can ensure straightness and centered writing.

GO BUCKEYES!!!!

This will also go down as one of my all time faves. This Block-O cake was made for our friend Dave's rehearsal dinner cake. I have a silicone Block-O cake pan so the shape was easy (if you don't have the cake pan, just take a 9x13 and carve out the shape). The cake is frosted in buttercream and homemade strawberry filling every other layer and on the top. The Buckeye leaf and Buckeyes are made out of fondant. Since it was 100 degrees out (literally!) the strawberry filling started to thin out and drip, so I'll make sure to create thicker borders around the top to prevent this.

It took a long time but I enjoyed every minute of it!!

War of Warcraft Bachelor Party Cake

Another fun cake to make! This was made for my hubby's best friend's bachelor party. I have no idea what this symbol even means but I do know that it is apart of the game War of Warcraft. Started out a 9x13, cut into a diamond. Covered and decorated in fondant, with black lines painted on with gel color and paintbrush. Since our friend, Dave likes amaretto, the cake itself has some Disaronno amaretto, and the buttercream underneath the fondant has almond extract. Yum!

It didn't last very long!

My favorite graduation cake, take 3!

Made for my husband's med school graduation, this cake will probably always be one of my favorites. Decorated all in fondant, I learned a lot as I went. Even though I actually enjoy free-handing cutting out designs, you can save a lot of time with cookie cutters!

And below, are the great people who enjoyed the cake!

Graduation cake, take 2!

This cake was made for a dear friend who was graduating PT school, along with my husband's med school graduation. This was my first time working with fondant and I loved it! I covered the cake with a homemade marshmallow fondant and not only does it taste much better than store bought, it doesn't dry out as quickly, either. The graduation cap is confetti cake wrapped in fondant dyed black, and the top of the hat is a piece of cardboard covered in fondant. I painted it with additional black gel coloring to get a darker color. If I had to do it over again, I'd probably make the hat out of rice krispies as it wasn't very sturdy.

LOVE these Easter cupcakes!

These are definitely one of my faves and one of my cutest! For an Easter potluck at church, I made carrot cake cupcakes and died cream cheese frosting with green food gel. To resemble grass, I used tip #233 and added a few Easter colored Whopper Eggs on each cupcake. These were a hit, but if you're making a lot-make sure you have enough room in the fridge to refrigerate since the cream cheese frosting needs to be chilled to stay fresh. You can also use this tip to make hair, too. It was a lot of fun!

Hostess cupcakes

These were fun to make as I LOVED the real ones as a kid! (I wish I had a better picture, though!)

I filled the cupcakes with Cool Whip. I frosted with a chocolate buttercream but after talking with my decorating teacher, she suggested trying to dip the tops in a ganache and let them harden to get more of a shiny and slick finish; which is what I'll probably try next tie. This design is classic and I see myself duplicating this.

Graduation cake, take 1!

This was my last project for my first cake class and I really enjoyed making it. I stenciled the Dr.'s symbol by taking a print out from the computer of the image and transferred it with gel and parchment paper. All of the frosting: design, letters, and roses are buttercream.

*I still wasn't leveling the tops completely so there's the little dome on top. It makes the world of difference when your cake is completely leveled!

P.S. Roses are fun and actually easy to make!

My very first decorated cake!

This was my first project for my first class back in March 2011. I almost want to giggle over how many changes I'd make now to this cake! But everyone's got to start somewhere, right? It's a yellow cake, white buttercream frosting and strawberry jelling filling.