Let's Talk about Truffles

It was my husband's birthday Christmas Eve, and I always try to do something special for him. He has always loved my homemade chocolate truffles and I am constantly catching him sneaking a few from my kitchen. So this year, he requested instead of a birthday cake, an order of Chocolate Truffles. I decided to make him a Truffle "Cake". I had seen this idea in a bridal magazine a while ago, so I thought I would replicate it. I made over 100 truffles in hazelnut, rum, amaretto, and raspberry flavours and then attached them with white chocolate to 2 Styrofoam cake forms. My husband couldn't believe all the work I put into making all those truffles.Needless to say, I am little "truffled-out" after this one.

A New Look

If you haven't noticed yet, you will see a far different look between my website and my blog. When I first started out in business, I was providing a lot of custom home baking and a few cakes on the side, however, in the past 2 years, the demand for my cakes have increased substantially. So, I decided since my business has grown, so should my look. After much contemplation, I figured that the red gingham and the baking girl had to go, and a more sophisticated, "grown-up" elegant look was needed. I contracted this company in Grande Prairie, nine10inc., to produce a fabulous new logo and business cards for me. They were awesome to work with and I would strongly recommend them to anyone. I'm still in the process of changing everything around. I still have to get new signage(which is on order) and my website "look" should be completed by January.

Christmas Cakes

In the past, I have always made up gift baskets of assorted goodies. But, this year I decided to be different. I decided to give little 6" cakes as Christmas gifts to my children's teachers and bus driver. Each cake was chocolate and vanilla layered with chocolate truffle filling, covered in buttercream and fondant. I also gave a large 10" vanilla cake with raspberry filling to the staff at their school too. It was a chance for me to try some new designs and also a really, neat snowflake cutter I recently purchased.

January 2009 Bridal Trade Fairs

For all you brides out there, I would like to invite you to attend the bridal fairs in both Dawson Creek and Fort St. John. I am very excited to be a part of both of these trade fairs. On January 18, 2009, TLS Wedding Designs is hosting the Divine Designs Bridal Expo in Dawson Creek. Just Like Gram's is proud to be both an exhibitor and one of the sponsors of the trade show. There will be Fashion Shows, Guest Speakers, Early Bird Prizes and the Divine Designs Ultimate Wedding Giveaway. The other bridal trade show being held is on January 31, 2009 in Fort St. John and the North Peace Cultural Center. I encourage all brides to come out and attend these fairs. Check out the latest wedding trends and meet all the exhibitors. I am looking forward to meeting you. See ya there!

Music Birthday Cake

A wonderful group of ladies meet every so often to have celebrate one of their birthdays and have a "Ladies Night Out". I love making cakes for them since they give me creative license to usually do whatever I feel like that coincides with their hobbies or interests. The birthday "girl" this time loved music and crafts, so I came up with the idea of incorporating sheet music. Cake is traditional white with raspberry cheesecake filling, traditional buttercream and covered in fondant. Decorations are fondant accents. Happy Birthday Cora!!!

Mariposa Birthday Cake

Today was my daughter's 5th birthday party. She just loves playing with her barbie dolls and her favorite colors are pink and purple. Of course!!! This year she really wanted a Mariposa cake, so I decided to make her a doll cake with wings and butterflies. Cake is chocolate with vanilla pudding and Italian Meringue Buttercream with fondant flowers. The wings and butterflies were made out of gumpaste and then dusted with luster dust to make them shiny.

RCMP Red Serge Cake

This weekend I also had the pleasure of creating a surprise groom's cake. When the bride and groom had originally booked their wedding cake, we had planned to do an additional cake just for extra servings. When I found out the groom was a RCMP member, I asked the bride about doing a surprise groom's cake and replicate the red serge uniform. She was ecstatic about the idea.

I had so much fun designing this cake. A big THANK YOU to Kelly of Little Birdie Designer Cakes in Regina for all her help and inspiration and letting me use elements of her design. Cake is chai spice with cream cheese filling, covered in fondant. Decorations were made out of fondant and gum paste and then dusted in gold dust.

Congratulations Tim! I hope you enjoyed your cake.

Silver Snowflake Wedding

This weekend I had the pleasure of creating this 4 tier silver snowflake wedding cake. The cake was lemon poppy seed with raspberry filling and red velvet with white chocolate cream cheese covered in fondant. Snowflakes were piped out of royal icing and painted with silver dust. When I went to set up the cake, the hall was beautifully decorated with silver balloons, red carnation centerpieces and white glistening snowflakes. The day was sunny and the snow glistened in the sunshine. A beautiful day for a winter wedding. Congratulations Niomi and Tim!

"Let's Decorate a Cake" Party

A while back I was asked if I would teach some girls how to decorate a cake as the entertainment for a birthday party. I said sure "why not". Seeing how I am a former foods and nutrition teacher, I figured it w0uld be a lot of fun. Anyway, I prepared some cupcakes, a 2 tier iced, but undecorated cake, lots of colored icing and fondant, icing tips and bags, roll out mats and cutters, and away I went.
I was met in the driveway by the girls who were ecstatic that I was there (it apparently was a surprise for Janyce "the birthday girl") and couldn't wait to get started.
After a brief demo of some basic piping skills and I showed them how to make a rolled fondant rose, I let the girls get down to serious business decorating their cupcakes and cake. They had SO much fun. Needless to say, I was very impressed in the creativity and individuality that was displayed that day in each of the decorators.

I hope you had an AWESOME birthday, Janyce!!!

Women's Day Out Fair

This past weekend I had the opportunity to participate in our local Women's Day Out Fair. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet other small business owners in the community. It was also a great chance for me to display my cakes to the public and provide them with a sample of my baking. I baked over 300 mini-cupcakes for sampling, but we ran out in the last hour. "Thank you" to all those who stopped by my booth to sample a cupcake, I really enjoyed meeting you.

Future "Cake-Decorator" in the Making

The other night I was making some cupcakes for our family - chocolate filled with chocolate pudding and chocolate bar chunks with a swirl of butter cream. My daughter, who will be 5 next month, wanted to decorate them. I figure "why not?" and let her at them. She got out the sprinkles and some sugar decorations. She explained that since it was just Halloween that we should have some Halloween cupcakes. I thought she would just dump the sprinkles on, but as I watched her she methodically selected what sprinkles she wanted and carefully sprinkled them on, and then gently inserted the sugar decoration on top. She was so pleased with them that I had to take a picture of her with her finished product.

Where do you get your ideas from for your cakes?

It's funny how many times I get asked this question - pretty much every time someone orders a cake? Well, generally about 50% of my clients have a general idea of what they want. Most of my brides come with a picture of a cake they like and then we fine tune all the details, changing a few of the details here or there. However, I have seen some brides do a 180 degree turn and change their minds totally at the end of our meeting and order a completely different cake than what they had in mind originally.

Personally, I love doing cakes that are truly "outside the box". I find they really challenge me to think creatively and stretch my "artistic" boundaries. So, where do I find some of my ideas? Well, it can range from pictures, invitations, party napkins, wallpaper samples and fabric swatches. Here's a funny story to share. One night I was sitting on the couch with my husband watching TV and in my PJ's. I looked down at my PJ's and thought, "Hey, this would make a cool cake." My husband kinda looked at me if I was nuts and shook his head. In the long run this is what I came up with:

I have also designed cakes around a bride's dress. One of my brides came to me with a picture of her wedding dress, and after months of planning, I came up with this design.

Christmas is Coming!!!

I know Christmas is coming fast and I thought I had better start getting prepared for it by getting my Christmas Dessert Package lists distributed throughout the community. Well, it's not yet Thanksgiving and I just received an order already. So, if you are wanting to order Christmas baking, hurry soon and place your order. Since I am a one-man-show, I only do limited number of Christmas dessert packages. Want to know what's included in each package, you can check out my website - http://www.justlikegrams.ca/. I have a variety of packages to choose from. To order, you can email me at justlikegrams@xplornet.com .

Congratulations Lyndsay & Chad

I met Lyndsay, who was a teacher at the Child Development Centre in Fort St. John, while my daughter was attending preschool. You can say, Lindsay had ample opportunity to sample my baking from the various cakes I had donated to my daughter's preschool class.

Lyndsay chose a simple design based on her favorite color - Green. Her invitations and centerpieces were also green. When I dropped off the cake I saw that on each table, there were bowls of green stones with a pink gerbra daisy floating in the water.

Congratulations Lyndsay!

Welcome to my new Blog!

Well, I finally took the plunge and started my own blog. I have been toying with the idea for several months and one day, said "why not".

So many people are always asking how I'm doing, what's new and, of course, how's business? Well, I figure here's one way I can answer all those questions.

So far, 2008 has been an awesome year. The number of wedding cake orders received doubled from the previous year. Plus, add on all the other cakes I have done - birthdays, showers, corporate. Not to mention, Christmas is coming up fast. I have had several inquiries already as to ordering Christmas baking.

I'll try to post on a regular basis so to keep up you up-to-date on what's new with me.