Scissors Cake

Last week I was approached by Chelsey, the owner of our local bridal store, The Glass Slipper, to design a cake for her. She wanted to present a cake and cupcakes to the girls of the local high school hair dressing program. The girls had helped out at the bridal shows by doing all the hair styling for the fashion show.

Chelsey wanted the colors to be black and pink with a pair of scissors on top of the cake. I really enjoyed designing the cake and loved the colors she chose. It looks whimisical, yet trendy. The top cake is vanilla filled with Raspberry Italian Meringue Buttercream, iced in Italian Meringue Buttercream and covered in fondant. The cupcakes were both vanilla and chocolate iced in Italian Meringue Buttercream and then covered in fondant. Scissors were gumpaste and dusted with silver luster dust.

Black Wedding Cake

Last fall, Ashley came to see me about making her wedding cake for this past weekend. She emailed me a picture of a cake she liked, saying her colors included black. She seemed quite settled on her cake, that is, UNTIL, she walked into my studio. She took one look at one of my display cakes for an upcoming bridal show and decided right there and then that she wanted an all black wedding cake. Over the past couple of months, I happened to see Ashley at the bridal shows and she was very excited at the thought of having an all black wedding cake. So was I. I absolutely love doing cakes that are out of the ordinary. I'm sure she had the only BLACK wedding cake in Fort St. John.

She chose alternating tiers of chocolate and classic white cake with homemade raspberry filling (picked from my very own raspberry bushes in my garden) mixed with raspberry liquor, iced in traditional buttercream and covered in fondant. Cake is airbrushed black with silver scroll work and sugar diamonds. The crown is made from a mixture of fondant and gumpaste with clear beads. Ashley chose to have her initials with her fiancee on the crown.

Congratulations Ashley! I wish you all the best.

Easter Special!

Now that Valentine's is past us, it's time to focus on the next holiday Easter. Sometimes, I think I'm going a bit too fast, but when I walked into the stores the day after Valentine's all the Easter stuff was out and on the shelves.

This month we are offering an Easter basket full of goodies. I thought about going away from the tradtional chocolate bunnies and Easter eggs and focus on some good old-fashioned baking. So, each basket will contain a loaf of freshly baked Easter Lemon Bread, Hot Cross Buns and a dozen hand-decorated sugar cookies.

We are also offering Easter cupcakes and Decorated Egg-shaped Brownies too. Check out our website for current pricing.

Recent Cakes

I have been soooo busy lately. Funny, usually during the non-wedding season, most cake designers use the slow period to catch up on stuff, like inventory, cleaning, learning new techniques and such, BUT, I have been so busy I haven't had the chance to do this. Right now, I am cooking dinner, so while it cooks, I thought I would write a bit about what I have been up to.

First, wedding season started early this year with a wedding on Valentine's Day. This particular cake was for Krystal and Danny. Her colors were gold and ivory, so we came up with this design based on one of Peggy Porschen's designs. I absolutely LOVE her work. Cake was covered in fondant with scrollwork painted in gold luster dust with gumpaste flowers.

I was approached by one of my regular clients, Diane who asked me to design her son's birthday cake. He loved bowling and requested an orange creamsicle flavored cake. Little did Diane know, but I was also asked to design her birthday cake at the same time by a close friend. Diane loves to shop at IKEA (who doesn't???), so I came up with an IKEA shopping bag cake for her. Happy Birthday Diane!!!

Another birthday cake I did for a little boy who turned 1. I guess he loved Curious George, because his mom requested a cake with a modeled monkey sitting on some building blocks surrounded by palm trees and bananas.

A Busy January

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. January has been a busy month with the usual cake and cookie orders. I also attended 2 bridal fairs within a two week span. Both bridal fairs in Dawson Creek and Fort St. John were well attended by lots of brides from all over the Peace River region. I also got to meet lots of new vendors and see all the new and latest wedding fashions. I want to thank all the brides who visited my booth. I really enjoyed meeting you and getting the chance to talk all about your upcoming wedding plans. If you are getting married and would like to book a consultation, feel free to email me at justlikegrams@xplornet.com.

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.