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.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here at Just Like Gram's we were busy creating all sorts of creations. This past weekend we received orders for 2 birthday cakes for 2 special people who happened to have their birthdays on Valentine's Day. The first cake was a created for a client who loved sail boating. So we created this nautical theme cake complete with anchor, sand and seashells.

Last week we received a phone call from a sweet gentleman who wanted to order a special birthday cake for his wife. He wanted to include her favorite color "purple" but coincide with Valentine's Day! He chose tuxedo cake filled with raspberry cheesecake filling iced in Italian Meringue buttercream and then covered in purple fondant.

Valentine Cupcake flavour this week: Chocolate Cupcakes with Pink Buttercream topped with a heart shaped chocolate brownies drizzled in chocolate.

This peach pie was a special request of my husband. He LOVES peach struesel pie and when I asked him if he wanted anything special for Valentine's Day, this is what he ordered. The only difference was that he ordered 2 pies, not 1. You see at Christmas he wanted peach pie for his birthday, but our 9 year old son got into it and by the time he was through eating it, my poor husband ended up only getting 1 piece of his birthday pie. SO, this time, he wanted to be prepared and asked for 2 pies.

Recent Cakes

Here are some recent cakes created here at Just Like Gram's.

When I attended the Ladies Day Out show here in Fort St John, I had a draw for a FREE cake. Gail was our lucky winner. She chose a simple vanilla cake with Italian Meringue Buttercream featuring a shoe and purse theme for her daughter's birthday. Her daughter's favorite colors were pink, black and green.

Cupcakes with funky retro flowers were the choice for a young girl's 9th birthday. Cupcakes were chocolate with chocolate buttercream and vanilla with orange creamsicle buttercream. I loved making these and thought they looked so funky.

This last cake was created for a very special person, my daughter Elizabeth. She celebrated her 6th birthday this weekend. She chose a picture of a cake she wanted from a cake magazine and I added a purple brooch, purple ribbon and flowers. I even topped the cake with a purple chocolate crown. The cake was tuxedo flavour with chocolate truffle filling, and Italian Meringue buttercream. Happy Birthday Missie!

Whimsical Princess

I had the pleasure of designing and creating this whimsical and tilted Princess-style birthday cake for a friend's little girl. She absolutely loves the color purple. Adorned with a flowing fondant dress, pale pink rose buds, ruffles and a chocolate crown, the perfect cake for a little "princess". Happy Birthday Sarah!

Shades of Purple

This weekend was the weekend for the color "Purple". I created these cupcakes for Chantel whose wedding colors were green and purple. All the daisies were created from purple gumpaste and then were dusted with additional purple petal dust. Chantel chose classic white and red velvet flavoured cupakes with green traditional buttercream for her guests.

The other purple wedding I did this weekend was this cupcake tower for Sarah. Sarah didn't want fondant on her cake rather going with the traditional buttercream. On each cupcake, I created a small gumpaste flower dusted with purple dust. Sarah also wanted a light scattering of small flowers on the top cake that was to be shared among her bridal party.

The last "purple" cake I created this weekend was a volleyball graduation cake for a young lady who just graduated from high school. The love of purple must run in this family because I did her sister's graduation cake last year which was a purple purse. I really enjoyed making this cake.