Happy 1st Birthday Alyssa

In August of this year my niece turned 1, and as seems to be the tradition with my Sister she asked me to make up the kid's cakes which of course I'm always thrilled to do! She asked for Vanilla cake with Strawberry filling, I thought that it would be no problem to find a fantastic recipe for Strawberry filling--geez little did I know how difficult it would turn out to be! My first stop was a fantastic website I've found dedicated to cakes, decorating them, recipes for them, tips and suggestions from other bakers. I found no recipe for Strawberry filling, not even Raspberry. I figured if I could find a Raspberry or other "berry" filling I'd just swap it out; nope! So I checked other places online, checked the library--nothing!

After many years of watching me make cakes & sweets up for people Ryan has seen me up until all hours of the night covered in icing or flour kicking myself in the butt for not starting this project sooner and saving myself the panic. He delicately suggested that since the cake was "due" on Sunday how about if I started it on Thursday? That way I could bake it Thursday & decorate it on Friday and still have 1 more day in case a catastrophe happens. Which I thought was a great idea & I'm sure I looked at him like he'd just discovered the wheel or something! I took his suggestion to heart and sure enough it turns out I needed it!

When I imagined doing this cake for Alyssa I wanted to try Fondant. The Italian men on Cake Boss make it look so easy, I thought I'd give it a try. I'm not a complete novice in the kitchen, I do know how to decorate cakes, not to the extent that Buddy Valastro does, but I figured that with some research & some time on my hands I might just figure it out. I got all the stuff, read all kinds of tips & instructions and excitedly got to work. Sadly it didn't work out. I was disappointed but OK with doing up a Buttercream icing. I had also wanted to make up some Building Blocks to decorate the top of the cake, I was going to cover them in Fondant as well, they didn't make it either.

Our 2 boys have also watched me make up cakes & sweets for people and our oldest is very curious about the whole process. He asked me if he could help me, I decided to make up a little cake just for Alyssa to have & eat all on her own and Keegan could help me with that one. Well of course whatever the big brother wants to do the little brother does as well! And when Alyssa's cake was all done they were very proudly telling everyone that they made & decorated this cake just for Alyssa!

So the end result of the cake turned out to be great, I think! It finished off being a Vanilla cake with Strawberry flavored Buttercream icing in the middle, covered in white icing with lots of pretty pink flowers decorating the sides & the top of the cake. It wasn't exactly what I had pictured her cake to be, but I think it looks pretty good!

Fisherman Cake

I was asked to make a 3rd birthday cake for a young man who loves fishing as much as his Dad, almost immediately I pictured this cake. I was hoping and praying that I would be able to pull it off! I've become a big fan of "Cake Boss" on TLC and I figured if those crazy Italian men could do it why not me??

I got the cake made up and I was so excited about it, it turned out just as I wanted it to! Then when I had it done, I hoped Dane would be OK that the man in the boat was a bit older than he is, but I figured it would be OK because at the end of the day.....it's a fisherman cake!!

Happy Birthday Dane!!

Meta Centre

In September I was lucky to begin working for a fantastic company. They are an organization that supports young & mature adults with Developmental Handicaps. This is the field that I went to College for a few years ago, and since moving back into the Region of Durham I have not been able to find a job. I was working as a school bus driver for a large company, and it was a great job that suited me well for the place I was in at the time.

A good friend of mine that I had lost touch with since graduating college and had recently regained contact with, thanks to Facebook, had told me that her employer was hiring. So I put my name in and the rest they say, is history.

The company I work for is called "meta centre". We have some openings for young adults who have or will be graduating from High School, and would like to continue their skill development or perhaps find employment in the community. Anyway, we recently held an Open House to let the schools in the area know where we are, and what we offer. Since my Supervisor knew of my passion for all things "sweet" she asked me to bake a cake for the party. We felt it would be best to keep it simple for the event, to avoid any allergy conflicts. The one thing we didn't consider was anyone who was a Diabetic, but they were great sports about it and just didn't eat too much of the icing! The cake was a simple white cake with white buttercream icing both in the middle and on the top. I wrote our name and logo in our colours on the cake as well. It got rave reviews, from our staff, visitors, and clients. I look forward to making many more in the future!

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies!

I saw some lovely women on a cooking show a few weeks ago and they inspired me! They make up cookies in all shapes and sizes, with lots of extra touches which make each cookie unique and special to the buyer.

My nephew's Birthday party was coming up soon so I asked my sister if I could make up some cookies for the loot bags, which she very quickly said yes to! I was so excited I rushed off to the store and got all the stuff I needed and got busy. I had so much fun making them up, each cookie was something new I could decorate it to whatever style I wanted. I used nice bright colours for the icing and got some adorable sprinkles and decorations to make them special.

Just before Easter my friend asked me if I could make her up some Easter cookies for her to give away to her family. I got out my pastel icing colours and set down to work. I wrapped each cookie in a clear plastic Easter themed bag and they were perfect.

My Best friend asked me to make up her Birthday cake this year. She has the pleasure of sharing her birthday with her youngest daughter, they also share a love of all things Disney! So there really was no other cake that could possibly be made for the two of them, but Tinkerbell! She asked for a Banana Cake, since that was their favorite. I had made plenty of Banana Breads over the years, but I have never made up a Banana Cake. I got out my recipe books, went to the Library and searched the net and found a good recipe that I wanted to use. Since I had never made the recipe before I made it up into Cupcakes, which were fantastic, so I knew it would work out wonderfully as a cake.

I went to my local store and picked out the cake pan I'd need and got started. Once I got ready to ice it, I have to admit that I was nervous about it. Her eyes are such a huge part of the cake, and I wanted to get it just right-and perfect. I think I got it just right judging by the expression on the Birthday Girls face when they saw it!

My Nephew's Baptism Cake

I recently had the honour of making my newest Nephew's Baptism cake. My sister-in-law asked me to make it Chocolate with Orange Buttercream filling. It was delicious!! This is the second Baptism cake I've had the honour of making, and I look forward to many, many more.

Little Sweets

As I've said before I am so lucky to have an extended family that is large. My Mom is one of 5 and over the years my cousins and I have spent many, many good times together. My maternal Grandma has 5 children, 19 grandchildren (including their spouces), and 9 great-great grandchildren with one more on the way! Needless to say we're a big, loud, happy, funny, family. When my cousins and I were smaller it was much easier to get together for anything, now that most of us are married and soon all of us will be there are so many more schedules to consider. What we do each year in the summer is all collect at my Uncle's house, and have our own Reunion. We spend most of the day swimming in his pool, eating, drinking and having a fantastic time catching up on each other's news. Since there are so many of us we all contribute to the family dinner, and each year we take turns on what we bring....this year it was my turn for sweet stuff! So I grabbed the opportunity to make up a bunch of squares so I could take pictures of them to show you. In the picture above there are from top to bottom; Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, Chocolate Confetti, Toffee Peanut Squares, and Chocolate Crinkle Cookies again.

In this picture there are from top to bottom; Lemon Squares and Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownies.

All the squares were such a big hit that I didn't bring many home with me!! One of my cousins has a peanut allergy so that is why I placed some of the squares on one tray and some more on another to ensure that he could at least have some dessert.