Everything Cupcake!

Everyone's guilty pleasure seems to be cupcakes right now. And why not? They're cute, they're full of yummy deliciousness, and they're small enough that we don't feel too guilty about spoiling ourselves. For me this translates into constant challenges to come up with unique flavors (and yes, I CAN make chocolate/bacon/cayenne pepper cupcakes that are to die for!) For my kids and my friends at work it translates into lots of taste testing! Some of my favorite flavors have been white chocolate peppermint cupcakes with cream-cheese peppermint frosting and white cupcakes with lemon filling and cream cheese frosting. I also make some peanut butter cupcakes dipped in dark chocolate ganache and topped with peanut butter cream cheese frosting...possibly even more 'to die for' than the choco-bacon cupcakes! That recipe is thanks to my oldest sister, Viriginia....baking is an exact science, and writing a recipe almost takes a chemistry degree....and she should definitely have a chem degree for as good as she is at throwing ingredients together and turning it into something that is super de-lish. If you have an idea for an interesting flavor combination that you'd like to see wrapped up in a tasty little cupcake package for your next birthday party/business event/snow day then hit me up at lainagrace2@hotmail.com....I'm sure we can work something out!

Birthday Bugs!

Twice within a month I made these two cakes for different birthday girls. The sheet cake, in each case, was traditional buttercream frosting with grass piped on the bottom half and the sun and clouds piped in the sky. On the first cake I did, I piped the caterpillars out of different colored frosting - on this one, I chose brightly colored jelly beans to make them out of. I'm really thinking I like them better this way.

Not having a miniature ball pan, I improvised when making the lady bug 'smash' cake for the birthday girls. I baked them in a glass mixing bowl, frosted them and put them on the board surrounded by buttercream grass. The heads were made from black buttercream fondant on each cake - as was the stripe down the center of the back. On one cake I piped frosting spots, on another I cut circles from the black fondant...I'll definitely stick to this method in the future because it makes the cake look more 'finished,' I think.

I'm really hoping that these are just the first of numerous first birthday cakes that I'll get to make - it's a lot of fun to be such a big part of a baby's milestone first birthday.

My First Wedding Cake!

It's a day that will strike fear and immense excitement into the heart of any home baker: the first wedding cake order. Luckily for me, this one was relatively simple. The roses were hand made from gum paste. Not the best I've seen, but I thought they turned out pretty well considering it was my first attempt at sugar flowers. The cake was a basic white wedding cake with swiss buttercream filling and crumbcoat and marshmallow fondant. On the night before it was due, my friend Shasta came over to help in the kitchen - she's definitely the best sous chef a girl could ask for! Everything went great and by 11:30 that night I was ready to put fondant on the tiers. And that's when the trouble started. For some reason it just didn't want to work out for me. After mixing, kneading, and rolling it out (not once but twice) just to have it stick to my work surface and tear to shreds when I tried to put it on the cake, we decided to call it a night. She went home around 1:30 AM and I went to bed by 2. The next morning I was up by 6 to make a quick trip to the store and then get back home to get it finished. By 10 I had made two fresh batches of fondant and had covered and stacked all three tiers. i took a break to take the kids to my mom's house and then made it home and had the cake totally finished and ready for pick up by 2:00 PM. I'd say in the week before the cake was due I probably spent 30 hours on it. That's no small task when I work 40 hours a week at a full time 'day job.' I think the lesson that I learned from this cake is that I need a fondant sheeter. Oh - and a commercial kitchen would be nice too...maybe one of these days. Oh - and the other lesson I learned was a delicious accident, and here's the recipe for what Shasta named a PattyCakes Peach Cooler: 1 bottle dry white wine, about 1/2 cup peach schnapps, 1/2 to 1 cup simple syrup - to taste. This drink proves that necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention since the only cold beverage I had in my house that night was a bottle of white wine I'd been saving for a chicken recipe (which I still have yet to make!)

The coolest thing about this cake? It was for a nearly 80 year old couple who were married on New Year's Day. I feel really honored to have been a part of their day, and I'm really hoping that it's the first of many wedding cakes that I'll have the honor of making.

Yay For Babies!

Have you ever met one of those people who is happiest when serving God by serving other people? You know who I'm talking about...Sunday school teachers, pastors, school nurses, counselors....unpaid coaches. Oh, you've never thought of it that way? You've obviously never met Britany Schmidt. Britany has coached Elaina's volleyball teams through the Boys and Girls Club, and Southside Youth Center, for three or four seasons now. She has put up with complete and total disrespect, arrogance, arguments and just plain meanness from girls and parents all of this time, and with a smile on her face. She didn't do all of this because she didn't want to let her daughter down or have her end up coached by someone else who may not teach her everything she needed to know....her daughter was only 3 when Elaina played her first season for the Lady Spikers. Britany has a true spirit of servitude and has spent her time away from her own family, and no telling how much of her own money, coaching these girls because she loves them. This past season, her sister Malerie Brady helped coach. These are two of the most amazing women I've ever met - you'd all be lucky to know them.

So now that the introductions are over - here's the story behind the cake: In the middle of the spring 2010 volleyball season, Britany found out that, to her surprise, she was expecting baby #2. At the end of the summer season, I got the priviledge of being part of Britany's announcement to her team that she was having another girl! The zebra striped onesie cake was designed to look like a Lady Spikers jersey, but with 'Baby Spiker' written across the volleyball. When the cake was cut, the restaurant was filled with squeals and giggles from excited volleyball players at the sight of the pink cake - letting them know that baby #2 would be a baby sister for now 5 year old Aniston.

Malerie had gone to work planning the shower almost as soon as Britany new she was pregnant and, once again, I had the great thrill and priviledge of making the cake for this too. Yay! I love a good baby shower - and Britany's was definitely THE BEST! Malerie and their Aunt Gillis worked so hard making this the baby shower of the century that shower hostesses everywhere should really be taking lessons from them. The cake was the biggest I had ever made - and it shouldn't have taken as long as it did, but I was making it during the Yankees/Rangers ALCS playoff series so I spent a lot of time in front of the TV yelling to the Yankees that I had seen Little League teams play better baseball than what they were playing. Despite the MLB upset, the cake came together remarkably easily. So easily that I just knew that something was bound to go wrong. Then shower day met us with cold and rainy weather and I knew that I was right. The minute we got in the truck to deliver the cake the weather took it's toll and the buttercream started cracking and 'weeping.' Luckily, by the time I had it fully assembled and added the ribbons and the floral cake topper, you couldn't really tell that I was having technical difficulties with it. It looked exactly the way I wanted to, and everyone was thrilled with it...it was so great to be a part of the baby shower for someone who means so much to us, and has done so much for Elaina - and countless other girls.

Baby Landrie Kay made her arrival this week - December 20th at 11:23 AM. Elaina and I can't wait to go meet her - and I can't wait to make her first birthday cake! It's been so cool for me to be involved in her life - even before she took her first breath. What an honor!

Back in Business

I'm baaaaack! Did you miss me? Did you even notice I was gone? Come on now, be honest - I can take it! :) So, after my first bad business experience I took a little hiatus from the cake business. There are no pictures of that disaster here because there was no cake. I learned that, while you can do business with most friends, you shouldn't do business with all friends. Long story short, things were said, feelings were hurt, things were misinterpreted and more feelings were hurt and I decided I'd rather have someone made at me over a cake I didn't make than one I did make. With that being said...true friendship CAN get past any obstacle - it just takes a little time.

So, after I had said I was done with cakes and had no passion for it anymore, I was approached to make the xbox 360 cake pictured here. I originally said no. I didn't want to even attempt to do it and I had no desire to try. Then, Christy, the friend who wanted the cake (see... I TOLD you sometimes it's OK to do business with friends!) told me that the other area baker who she had contacted wanted $175 for the cake. REALLY?? You can buy and actual xbox 360 for $199, so why would anyone want to pay nearly that much for a cake replica of one?? So, despite she needed the cake in the middle of MLB play-off season, I sucked it up and told her I'd make her cake...taking a break every time my man, Derek Jeter, came up to bat in the ALCS games against the Texas Rangers. Basically I can't really even guess at how long the cake took me to make because I'm pretty sure I stopped working on it completely for 7 full innings of a game. What can I say, I love my Yankees! Lesson learned here is that you can DVR the game and watch it after the work is done... as long as you stay off of FaceBook until you've had a chance to watch what you want to see!

I won't say that my lost passion came back with this cake, but it did start to wake up some. The look on the birthday boy's face was, once again, all I needed to see in order to be glad that I had made the cake, and thankful for the opportunity. Passion waking up and coming back to life is a good thing, because it turns out that I would need it for the next cake that I made... stay tuned for more updates, but in the mean time, happy baking!

Derek Jeter, Please Forgive Me......

....I'm STILL your biggest fan!

Against every New York Yankee loving bone in my body, I signed on for making two different RedSox cakes within a few weeks of each other. The jersey cake I could forgive myself for....it was for a little league baseball team's party. The Burleson RedSox got to celebrate the end of their awesome season by cutting into a jersey-shaped cake covered with all of the players' names and jersey numbers. My friend, Jennifer, said it was a HUGE hit. Surely Derek Jeter can forgive this one too, since it WAS for the kids, right??

The logo cake, however, was 100%, completely and undeniably made 'in honor' of the Boston RedSox. My friend Viv asked me to make it for a friend's birthday and, since I do love a challenge, I agreed. It was a fun cake to make but my heart just isnt' in the RedSox without Johnny Damon there. Either way, as long as my customers are happy, I'm happy...even if it means making RedSox cakes for them!

So What's Next?

Every once in a while I get to the point where I think to myself, "Is this really what I want to do for the rest of my life? Do I really want to take something that I love doing and make it my livelihood? Is the stress of my next paycheck worth it? Do I really want to depend on people liking my cakes enough to make it my 'job,' and risk losing my passion for baking and decorating?"

That's where I'm at today, for some reason. I love making cakes. I love delivering a spectacular cake to a birthday party and seeing the excitement on the birthday boy or girl's face when they see their one-of-a-kind, made specifically for them cake. Nothing compares to the feeling I get from that. BUT.....is it all worth it?

When I'm working on a big cake order it's tough on my family. Luckily the kids think it's cool that their mom can make unique cakes, and they like to watch me work. And, more luck involved here, Ricky understands that I love what I do, is proud of my skills and abilities (to the point of showing off pictures of my cakes to complete strangers) even though they are still very limited, and is willing to help me out with cake construction and delivery when I need him to.

The problem is that, when I have a really big cake order to fill, it's almost like I'm not even here for my family. The kitchen is closed and the kids have to learn to love eating take-out (usually not a problem with most kids, though) and they can't be free to be themselves because I'm afraid that a major race through the house or an intense game of hide and seek will cause a cake disaster. The house isn't comfortable when I'm working. It's not uncommon to see the stove-top, kitchen counters, dining room table and chairs and, occasionally, the living room furniture covered with ingredients and cake decorating supplies. Is that fair to my family? Or is it selfish of me to expect them to deal with the discomfort and inconvenience, sometimes for a week at a time, so that I can make a very small profit on several hours worth of labor? My alternative to inconveniencing my family - and losing precious time with them - is to wait until after the kids have gone to bed before I start working. I work a full time day job, though, and it's hard on me to work until midnight or later, and then start my day over again at 5:30 the next morning.

So now here it is, July 10th, and I have a busy two weeks ahead of me with unique cake orders to fill, and at least one very large and difficult cake to make at the end of August, and I feel like I've lost my motivation. Is it possible to do what I love and still be the wife and mommy that I need to be? That seems to be the question of the day. Today I'm just not feeling it.....but I know that the next time I deliver a cake and hear 'That is the most amazing cake I have ever seen,' it's just going to rekindle the passion that I have for making cakes and it will take months for me to reign it in again. How many things am I willing to miss because a cake needs to be delivered?

I hate feeling this way. Why can't I just have my cake, and eat it too?