Taking a moment to breathe...

Well, the month of June is now behind us and we can now catch our breath! It was SUPER busy here at Just Like Gram's.  We were so busy that I didn't get a chance to take pics of every cake that went out our door, but here are just a few.

Clifford the Big Red Dog Smash Cake created for Lana Hamilton Photography. Love the paw prints going up the side of the cake!

We created this hockey theme cake for a young man graduating from high school. It featured the colors and logo of his favorite hockey team... the Edmonton Oilers. Sugarpaste accents included hockey sticks, hockey skates, puck and a grad cap.

Here is another high school graduation cake we created for a young lady.  This cake was centered around the theme of music. The bottom tier was designed to look like piano keys, with scroll work and musical notes on the second tier. Topping it off was the grad cap with a gold tassel.

 I absolutely love the simplicity of this wedding cake. This 4 tier square wedding cake featured white sugarpaste blossoms at the corners of each tier which were wrapped with a green and overlapping black ribbon. Later I received this message from the bride,  "Thank you again Tara! It was perfect, delicious, and exactly what we wanted."

Another wedding cake that went out our door was this 3 tier square wedding cake. It featured simple scroll work  with a yellow and orange ribbon wrapped around each tier.

Received a call from a lady out of town who wanted to order some cupcakes for some friends. She chose a variety of theme, such as these Golfing Cupcakes. She later sent me a message saying, "LOVE them!! Thanks soo much!!"

Beer Mug Cupcakes

June...and We're only Half-Way Through....

One thing I have noticed over the years is that some years, June is quiet and some months June can be completely insane. You can never predict from year to year, what it's going to be like. In the past, I have had a ton of weddings in May with few in June, but this year.. the EXACT opposite. June seems to be THE month to get married. Let's also add in the fact that it is also graduation season and people don't stop having birthday's either. We are only half-way through June so I thought I would post some pics of the cakes we have completed so far.

Buttercream piped basket weave flower basket with all hand made sugar flowers.

The following three cakes were created for a client (and upcoming bride of mine) who planned a "ladybug" theme party for her little girl turning 1. We created a ladybug smash cake, ladybug birthday cake for the guests and additional ladybug cupcakes.

 














One week later, I created this wedding cake for the mom "the bride". She had a destination wedding and then came back to hold her reception. We chose a bold blue color her wedding cake with some simple white scroll work. Chocolate seashells and fresh orchids were added at the end to complete the overall look.

Another wedding cake created last weekend was the this ruffled cake complete with yellow ruffled gumpaste flowers. The bride requested a design by Maisie Fantaisie. The original design had pink flowers which we changed to lemon yellow. I also added additional ruffles than the original design.

It's been a while...

I know I haven't posted in a while, so now that we are halfway through June, I sit back and look at the previous couple of months. After taking off most of April, my husband and I took our children to Disneyland and then after being home for a week, I headed back east to Kitchener, ON to attend a course taught by Karen Portaleo, of the Highland Bakery, hosted by Chrissie Boon of Icing Inspirations.  I was only there for one night and came down with the flu. Running a fever of 102, I wasn't about to quit. I gritted my teeth, filled up on meds,  and somehow got through the course. I spent lots of money just to attend with airfare, hotel costs, etc so I wanted to get my money's worth.  We learned a ton of stuff about modelling and working with chocolate. It was too bad being so sick with the flu that I didn't really have a the chance to thoroughly enjoy it. Hopefully, I will have the opportunity to take another course by Karen. Unfortunately, I never finished my cake (I WONDER WHY???), so ONE day when I have some spare time, I will finish it.

After my course was done, I headed to my sister's in Alberta for some R&R, shopping and visiting family.

May brought a whirlwind of cake orders.  Here are just a few of those completed...

I work closely with the wonderful Lana Hamilton of Lana Hamilton Photography. She specializes in family and children photography. She also does Smash Cake photography too. Her work is AMAZING, plus she is fun to work with.

Set of two Smash Cupcakes  for a set of twin girls.

Smash Cupcake for a little boy who was into Dr. Seuss  (who isn't... "Big A, Little a. A, A, A", yes I read that book to my son a ZILLION times)

Smash Cupcake featuring purple polka dots and matching bow.

Sculpted Martini Glass Cake for a young woman's birthday.

In addition, to the sculpted Martini Glass cake, we also created this pink cake with black zebra stripes. Matching fondant martini glass applique was applied to the top.

I received a lovely phone call from Mary Anne on Vancouver Island who wanted to order some cupcakes for a young lady's birthday (she had just moved up here). Isn't that sweet?  I created some Red Velvet cupcakes with Italian Meringue Buttercream sprinkled with silver dragees and purple gumpaste blossoms.

Snoopy Revisited...

Last weekend I created this adorable Snoopy Doghouse cake complete with Snoopy and Woodstock molded from sugarpaste. I had created this cake design, complete with cupcakes, a couple of years ago for a baby shower.  When I first received the request a few weeks ago, I asked the client if she wanted the EXACT same cake or should we add something to the cake to make it more "individualized". The client requested the same design. Now, I really don't like replicating the same cake design.  I like making each cake customized and a little different for each client.  You know... make it "yours". So with this particular cake I made the roof have some texture by using a brick-like impression mat and we also put a large "5" on the back of the doghouse for the birthday boy. 

To complete the cake order, she requested additional cupcakes topped with little Snoopy's and Woodstock's. These toppers were created out of chocolate.

A "Farming" We Will Go...

This post is going to short and sweet. Why??? I am in a just a little bit of pain. I received this cake request over a month ago and "no problem" was looking forward to designing it. Fast forward to yesterday, when I went to work on it. I went out first in the early morning to shovel the snow off our deck, and only got to the first shovel full, when my back instantly froze in pain due to a pinched nerve. I was literally left motionless because I couldn't move. After what seemed an eternity I finally managed to hobble into the house and get into the pain meds. Great huh??? Suddenly it dawned on me, that I still have to do the cake. UGH!!! In between repeated intervals of laying on the couch for 30 min and 15 min of cake work time, I finally managed to get it done. 

SO... for you cake business wannabees, this is an issue that you have to think about. Yes, designing cakes is a lot of fun and I ABSOLUTELY love my job, BUT there is also the flip side (the not-so-nice part of the business).  In the rare case you get sick, injured or have to spend the evening in the hospital and then come home late at night and STILL have to work on cake, because there is no one else and JUST you (unless you have employees who can do the work for you).... just a ``little`` something to ponder on. 

Anyway, I got the cake done, and was pretty happy with the results despite my situation. The top tier was classic white with Italian Meringue butter cream filling while the bottom tier was chocolate filled with cookies `n cream butter cream. The cake was covered in fondant with fondant accents. The little toy tractor topper was purchased for the little birthday boy to play with. When the mom came to pick up her son's cake she was so happy with it, she proceeded to order 3 more cakes from me. So... A "happy" customer, makes it all worthwhile in the end. 

SMASH Cakes

About a month ago, we were approached by Fort St John local photographer Lana Hamilton, of Lana Hamilton Photography. She explained that she offers her clients "smash cake" photo shoots. She said she was looking for an exclusive cake designer to make all her smash cakes and was wondering if we would be interested in working with her. Excited over the prospect, we eagerly embraced the idea, PLUS, Lana graciously offered to give us a professional photo of our cakes (which we don't get very often!!!). Lana is great to work with, making you feel comfortable and at ease, yet being professional at all times. If you get a chance, make sure you check out her website for all her latest work.

Here are a couple of SMASH cakes we have created for her so far.

"Naughty Cakes" - Yay or Nay?

I get asked quite frequently if I do cakes that would be considered "adult-only" or "naughty". The answer "IT DEPENDS". You see, I will only do certain types of naughty cakes. I WILL NOT do cakes that feature outright nudity or what I deem "disgusting and lewd". You see, I have kids who see my cakes ALL the time and I don't want them exposed to that type of material. Also, it's a matter of my reputation. I have over the years built up a reputation of offering a classy, high-quality product and I don't want to mar that image.

NOW, what I do offer is "suggestively, tasteful" naughty cakes. For example, I will do a bra, corset, bums, etc. you get the idea. But the bottom line, is I decide on the overall design of each and every cake. So, if I get a phone call for a cake showing certain graphic body parts, the answer is "SORRY".

Now that I got that out of the way... I did receive a call last week from a former groom asking me to make a naughty "boob" cake. I suggested a corset cake. I heard later that everyone LOVED the cake and all the "GUYS" were busy taking snapshots and emailing them to their buddies.

The "Patch"

I created this cake this weekend for a lady who was ordering it for a client's birthday. NOW, by looking at the picture, I'm sure you can tell what this client does for a living. For those, who are a bit confused, up here in the North in Fort St. John, life basically revolves around the oil and gas industry, even other industries like farming, forestry and manufacturing, all seem to tie into the oil patch.
Cake flavours were vanilla with Italian Meringue buttercream filling, iced in traditional buttercream and then covered in fondant. I topped off the cake with black fondant to resemble oil. Completing the cake was a chocolate oil derrick with chocolate spewing from the top.

Mud Bogging Jeep

A couple of weeks ago I received a call for a jeep cake from a lady for her boyfriend. She emailed me a picture of a cake and wanted something similar except she wanted lots of mud, rocks and their pet dog.

Sculpted cakes are always a challenge since I receive very few requests for these type of cakes. But, I was up to the challenge, and since I loved going 4x4ing myself, I found this cake lots of fun.

So I built up the hill from vanilla cake filled with raspberry buttercream iced and carved it and then covered it with a blend of green and brown fondant. The jeep was carved from chocolate cake filled with buttercream and then iced and covered with black fondant. All the rocks, jeep accents and the dog were molded from fondant. The mud was pretty easy to do just by spreading on brown royal icing. The jeep wouldn't be complete without mud splatters all over the front and tires. Lastly, cookie crumbs were sprinkled all over to resemble dirt.

Zebra Stripes & Black Diamonds

This past weekend we created these 2 cakes for two lucky ladies. The first cake was created for a little girl turning 7. Her favorite color was pink and even though she was into the whole "girly" thing, she also wanted something modern and trendy. I designed this cake with pink fondant with the bottom tier draped like a dress with zebra stripes. I added black hearts for the top tier, wrapped a bow around it with a "bling" center. Lastly, a touch of lime green was added for contrast. The other cake created this weekend was for a sweet 16 party. The birthday girl chose one of my previous designs. Since I really don't like replicating my past designs "to a T", I changed it up a bit my adding a "Queen of Hearts" topper, some fondant rolled roses and some whimsical fondant cut outs at the base of the cake. The birthday girl chose red velvet with white chocolate cream cheese filling and chocolate cake with cappuccino buttercream filling. The entire cake was iced in Italian Meringue Buttercream and covered in fondant.

Fort St John Annual Ladies Day Out Show

This past weekend I attended the annual Ladies Day Out show in Fort St John. I have attended it for the past 4 years and every year it seems to get better and better with more people coming out to see local business' in the community. I prepared over 400 cake samples and they were all gone by the last hour of the show.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of my booth, because I forgot my camera. On this one occasion my husband was supposed to meet me and help me set up, so he was going to bring my camera. When I got to the venue, he phoned me to tell me that our son was sick with a 24hr flu, so I had to set up on my own. When I got home after the show I took some pictures of a few of the cakes that were on display.

Unlike bridal shows, I do an assortment of display cakes for people to see, because a lot of the people who come to these shows are moms, grandmas and aunts.

Baby Shower cake in pastel colors complete with modeled baby animals.

Now when I go to these shows I always ask my kids for ideas for cakes for boys and girls. My son who is in Taekwando asked me to make a taekwando cake. So I grabbed his uniform and used it for inspiration. Here is his Taekwando shirt complete with belt and tips.

I designed this cake over 3 years ago based on my own wedding dress design. My wedding dress was white cotton eyelet over baby blue satin. I have taken this cake to several trade shows over the years and I was about ready to retire it, but it seems every time the response is overwhelmingly positive. PEOPLE LOVE THIS CAKE! Hmmm, maybe I will keep it around for a while longer.

Sometimes when you come up with a design and you think it is SUPER, yet you get the oddest or more like, LACK of response from people, then you think hmm, maybe the design was so great after all. THEN, on the other hand, you do a design that you think is "way out there" and people love it. This was the story of the KISSING COUPLE design. I thought of this cute idea of putting red lips all over a cake with a heart and silhouette of a couple kissing on top. Neat idea, right? Let me tell you that cake was so frustrating. Working with red icing is totally non-negotiable when it comes to errors. THERE is no room for making a mistake. You screw up and it is very hard to remove that red stain. It was very frustrating and time consuming to stencil all those lips and then brush them to add some texture. I wasn't too sure on the final outcome, but at the show it was ONE of THE most popular cakes at my booth.

Lastly, for all you winter brides out there, I designed this Silver Snowflake wedding cake. The outer layer of each tier was embossed with a snowflake stamp and then I created gumpaste snowflakes which were dusted with silver too.

A Sweet 16 Birthday

I received an email from a client over a month ago requesting a cake for her daughter's upcoming 16th birthday. She wanted something girly yet pink and fashionable. I suggested going with either polka dots or zebra print. We finally settled on the colors of pink and black with the top tier pink with black polka dots and the bottom tier pink with black zebra stripes. I added the bow with a sugarpaste brooch. We also added some whimsical pink sugarpaste roses sprinkled with black disco dust on top surrounding the 16. I also added some edible diamonds for some additional bling.
I received a lovely phone call from the mom a couple of hours after I delivered it. She said she loved the cake and thought it was absolutely beautiful. She also commented she didn't know how she was going to serve it since she felt it was too lovely to cut.

He Shoots! He Scores!

Yes, I know there what you're thinking... "what's going on, you haven't posted anything in eons?" Yes, you are right, I haven't and I have no excuses. Life was so hectic this summer with wedding cakes, plus the normal business of birthdays. This summer was the busiest it has even been. We did more wedding cakes than ever before. So, now that wedding season has died down a bit, I have been just kinda playing a bit lazy and doing the mom/wife thing. Baking for my kids, taking them to their after school functions and spending time with my hubby doing our favorite pastime - "hunting". AND, yes, I am still doing cakes, but wedding season has slowed down so I have had a bit more time to breathe.

Here was recent order we did this past week. I love when I get calls from repeat customers wanting to order again and rave about our cakes. This customer ordered cupcakes and cake for her 3 year old son's birthday. The theme was tractors and hockey. Way to go, Canucks!

Tractor cupcakes were white with strawberry filling iced in traditional buttercream. Hockey stick cupcakes were decorated with fondant hockey sticks and pucks. These were vanilla filled with Boston cream pie filling and iced in traditional buttercream.

These cupcakes featured the hockey jersey of the Vancouver Canucks hockey team. One of my favorite flavours were vanilla with raspberry cheesecake filling iced in traditional buttercream.

For the birthday boy's cake, she chose a design featuring the Vancouver Canuck's logo complete with hockey puck, stick and skates. Cake flavour was red velvet (their favorite) with cream cheese filling, iced in traditional buttercream and covered in fondant.

Been a Bit Busy!

Yes, I know I haven't written anything for a couple of weeks now, BUT as the title says "I have been busy" lately. Now, as with most people, my life just doesn't revolve around cakes (my husband would disagree though). I help run my husband's environmental consulting business, run my business, help raise 2 kids and take care of an acreage. So with the coming of summer weather, comes with the usual yard work. Living on an acreage means for me growing a garden, 3 days mowing lawn, 1 day weed eating and weeding all my flowerbeds and all that other FUN stuff. One day I will write all about my life living on an acreage up here in northern BC, but right now it's 11:40 pm and I'm just kinda tired. So here has been just a few of the cakes we have completed here at JLG's (my short form for Just Like Gram's)...

Created this cute baby shower cake for a baby girl. Design was inspired by a cake created by Wild Cakes. Cradle was created from chocolate and all the other decorations were made from sugarpaste.


Client came to me and asked me to create a cake for her husband`s 39th birthday. Since she couldn't`t decide on a theme we decided to go with a fun and playful design yet including a clock ticking down to 40.

Let's Take a Walk Down Memory Lane

Back in December, I received a phone call from a former groom whose wedding cake I did 2 years ago. He phoned me to say that he was planning a surprise birthday party for his wife and if I could create a cake for her. He said that they loved their wedding cake so much (the bride cried for joy when she saw it) and if I could recreate a smaller version for her birthday. Oh my, I was so touched, plus, I LOVE it when guys phone and order cakes for their sweeties. Happy Birthday Mandy!


This week was my son's 9th birthday. Unlike my daughter who has a passion for creative things and is always asking me to make really "fancy" cakes for her birthday, my son really doesn't care. Much to my horror, he likes to pick out the cakes from the grocery store and says "I like that cake, can I have it?" So, when I asked him this year what he wanted for his birthday cake he said he wanted a picture of the movie character "BLADE" with lots of blood on it. Hmmm, okay not really what I wanted to create, but that's what he asked for so that's what he got.


I am often asked to create wedding display cakes for the bridal and florist shops here in Fort St John. Tasha from The Copper Moon Flowers and Rental asked me to create a "springy" themed pink cake for her store display. So I quickly came up with this design of pink daisies cascading down.

The beginning of another season...

Well, another wedding season is open us, it officially began this weekend. Also, it was Mother's Day too. Here are just a few of the cakes we completed here at Just Like Gram's.

These adorable cupcakes were ordered all the way from Toronto. Darcey emailed me and wanted to do something special for his mom who lives here in Fort St. John, so he ordered some of our Gourmet Filled Cupcakes. Isn't that sweet? Flavours chosen were Icy Mint Blast and Autumn Twist.

This humorous moustache cake was requested by a client for her father-in-law's 65th birthday.

The wedding season started off this year with this simple 2 tier cake adorned with white and gold ribbon.

Carnival Cake

I created this cute carnival cake for a little boy's first birthday this weekend. I had a lot of fun creating the clown from sugarpaste.