Blog for the cakes that have no blog!

Now I'm not saying that these cakes don't deserve their own showcase, because they do!  But I am saying that I have completely ran out of time for the moment and will have to come back and fill in the stories separately....for now, this will do!

First of all, I've had the pleasure for almost a year of baking cakes for a company called MarketStar.  Not only do they want a cake a month for birthday purposes, but they like themed cakes!  Here are a few of the cakes that I've made for them: 

I loved how these pumpkins turned out, they looked so real!

Close up of the Pumpkins!

December cake....brrr!  Still, three adorable snowmen all bundled up.  It actually did snow the day I delivered that cake!  Driving with cake in the backseat is nerve-wracking enough, but add cake to the equation?  Crazy idea!

Now I really loved this cake...I thought it turned out so whimsical and sweet!  And all of the hearts and pink makes it look like Dana and Heath are married, but in reality, they're not....whoops!

Love is in the air!

And then before we knew it, March was here!

You can kind of see it in this picture, but I had some fun with sugar confetti....

Stay tuned to know what the next cake for MarketStar will be like...I love baking for them!  They like half the cake to be chocolate, and half almond flavored.  And some lucky folks get a mix in the middle...Delicious! 

This cake was an anniversary cake for friends of friends, and while the top was pretty plain, I fell in love with the paisley-ish pattern that was around the base!

Then congratulations cakes for two dear sweet girls who got into VET SCHOOL!  And do you know how hard that is to get into?  Way to go ladies!!

I apologize for the sideways image.  Turn your head....its beyond me to flip this around for some reason...

Bachelorette is a really long word.  I tried for literally an hour to get this to go straight across this cake...red velvet, the bride's choice!

Now this cake is especially special!  Dustin is married to a good friend of mine from Elon, Lindsay.  Lindsay and I were NC Teaching Fellows together AND spent a whole semester frolicking around London together.  For Dustin's big day, she planned a surprise party for a UNC-Chapel Hill fan during ACC Tournament!  She 'got him good' and he had no idea about the party!

As a tried-and-true NC State fan, I couldn't stomach the sight of that Chapel Hill logo on my gorgeous cake (and it is gorgeous, isn't it?).  So instead, I did his new number...the big 3-0, on the basketball in Carolina Blue!

And as a side note, the chocolate buttercream on this one was melt-in-your-mouth good.  The chocolate gnache topping wasn't half bad either!

This cake was for a friend who was turning 40!  As she is known as "Eva the Diva," we figured leopard print was the way to go.  And turns out, she had a dress for her party to match!

This cake was for a big church choir party in Durham.  It was SO heavy, and had chocolate and vanilla layers!

So you're officially caught up, for the moment!  More stories and cakes to come, I promise....and I will follow up on all of these, but I wanted to get the pictures out here while I had the chance.  I love looking back over the last few months and seeing all of these cakes...I should buy stock in powdered sugar.  For real!

~Beth 

Showering Baby Showers!

Spring must be in the air, because its baby shower season!  Just this month I've made cakes for 2 baby showers, and I  have to say, they get cuter every time I look at them!  Themes thus far this year have included a pond/animal/turtle theme and a nautical sailing theme, and both cakes were such fun to put together. 

For the turtle/animal/pond themed cake, the mother-to-be really wanted some fondant 3-D turtles to grace the top of the cake.  When I googled a picture of a turtle cake, all I came up with were Ninja Turtle cakes, and as awesome as I think Leonardo is (I mean sword beats nunchucks ANY day of the week) I didn't think that was what Mom-to-be had in mind.  So, this is what I came up with, after the help of a couple of further online searches...

Unfortunately I don't have any more pictures of this one, in the crazy of that weekend I completely forgot to do THE most important thing...photo document the cake!

Still, it is reported that Mom-to-be loved the cake, and the turtles were a big hit.  I thought they were stinking adorable. 

Next, Nautical themed cake!  Mom-to-be for this shower is a friend of my friend Mary Beth, and it is rumored that she's not even a huge fan of cake.  Gasp!  In order to go for a lighter than air cake feel, we did a really fluffy, soft vanilla cake with lemon curd custard filling and vanilla buttercream...YUM.  I love this filling, you really can eat it with a spoon.  Dangerous!

On the top, I made a fondant boat....named after its soon-to-be captain, Grayson!  I wanted to call it the S.S. Grayson, but I ran out of room on my boat.  Hindsight, 20/20. 

Even the sails are furled!  Bring me that horizon....

Is this not the cutest sailboat you've ever seen?  I made a bunch of anchors, portholes, fish, and birds, but once I put the boat on the cake I fell completely in love with it, just as it was.   Everything else would have cluttered it up, whereas this cake is just a boy and his boat, out in the open sea.  Here's hoping for smooth seas and favorable winds for Grayson's maiden voyage!

And...legend has it that Mom-to-be loved the cake!  Mission accomplished.  Bring on more baby showers!

Bon Voyage,
Beth

The Hulk!

So even though I haven't posted any pictures recently, its definitely not as if I haven't been baking!  Between grad school, cake, and well...life, I haven't had time to post anything!  And while most of these cakes can be posted without a huge story, I just couldn't pass this one up. 

I got a call from a coworker a few weeks ago, frantically asking for someone, anyone who could make a cake with the Incredible Hulk on it.  The cake was for Kaden, and he had specifically asked for an Incredible Hulk cake...and what the birthday boy wants, the birthday boy gets!

I said of course, I can do the Incredible Hulk! No big thing.  Easy as pie.  Well, I may have overestimated my hulking abilities.  Every picture I pulled up online of Mr. Hulk looked scary.  And difficult.  And really, well, angry and green.  Eek. 

I frosted the cake easily, and then experimented with some airbrush colors for a faded purple and green look, then tackled the Hulk. In the time it took me to mix, bake, cool, and frost the cake to my liking, I had barely even made any progress on the hulking beast. He kept looking friendly! I couldn't get him to look angry at the bad guys, whoever they are. It took me about 3hrs, and finally, I was pleased with the product.

This is about as manly and angry as my cakes can get, I think....

Little known fact.  The airbrush color goes everywhere...I lifted up the cake plate and had a scalloped circle of clean counter, and a ton of purple counter!  Whoops....

All said and done, I think the Hulk was quite handsome. And maybe a little friendlier than usual, but who said that was a bad thing? Kaden loved it, and that's all that matters!

6 year olds have to have big boy cakes!

Kaden and his cake!

6-year-olds and a cake covered in buttercream...trouble!

So then what does the cake decorator get to do after 5 hours spent on an awesome birthday cake for a very deserving little boy??

Clean the kitchen!

Happy Birthday Kaden!  And next year, lets go for something a little less....green :) 

~Beth

Just another regular weekend...

This past weekend was kind of a exciting weekend for me!  I've been training for the Disney World Half Marathon for a few months now, and that was this past Saturday, January 8th, 2011.  In Orlando, FL (obviously).  On top of the travel and training and race, we also decided to spend a little quality time at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (I mean, why else go to Orlando?) AND I made a cake for Margret (Max's mom!) who is expecting again!  Just a little busy weekend here, nothing special, you know. 

I've had the privilege of baking a couple of times for Margret and her family, for Max's 1st and 2nd birthdays, and now they've got a little girl on the way!  The cake was for a baby shower for Margret and new baby, and they weren't going for a typical baby shower theme.  Instead, they wanted something with a garden scheme...ladybugs, bumble bees, and green!  This is what I came up with....

So cute, right?  I thought the little lady bugs were absolutely adorable!  I added a picket fence for a few 'happy' vines and flowers for the bugs, and there you have it...one garden themed baby shower cake! 

Since we couldn't decide whether or not to have chocolate or vanilla, the cake inside had a layer of each, although you obviously can't tell that now, haha. 

So I finished the cake super late Wednesday night, delivered the cake at work on Thursday morning, went to work until the early afternoon, and then jetted to Orlando Thursday night!  Whew!  Cake delivery, check.  Travel to Florida, check. 

Not only did we have the best weekend lined up, but I had the best people to share it with!  Katie Allen, Patty Carpenter, Danielle Seale, Susanna Hearn, and Nancy Hearn!  We all arrived from our prospective locations (Raleigh, Charleston, Anderson, Germany...) Thursday night to check in at the hotel, eat really late appetizers at TGI Fridays, and get groceries/food for the weekend.  We were really excited, because Friday morning...Wizarding World of Harry Potter!

Everyone in the car, ready to go!

We've been kind of waiting for this for a while.  Maybe ever since it opened, but who is counting!  We had such a great time soaking in the sights.  It was just like stepping onto the movie set!  All of the crooked chimneys and snow capped roofs of Hogsmeade were just as I imagined them, right down to the sweets in Honeydukes, the crying mandrakes in the Herbology shop, and winking Gilderoy Lockhart from copies of "Magical Me."  They did such a good job making this park!

Susie and I, with the Hogwarts Express!

Yumm.....the foam kept growing as you drank.  Magic?  I'd say so!

Can I go to school here please? 

We drank butterbeer, which tasted like a delicious mix of butterscotch, caramel, and cream soda, toured the Hogwarts Castle, bought wants at Olivander's, and ate chocolate frogs at Honeydukes.  It was kind of unbelievable!  Definitely worth a trip, if you've never gone!

SO excited.....

Expelliarmus!

In front of the Three Broomsticks!

Chocolate frog, anyone? 

After the amazement of Harry Potter World, armed with our wands, we headed to the Expo at Disney's Wide World of Sports to pick up our registration information, bibs, and shirts.  That place was huge and full of runners who all looked ridiculously qualified to run....or more qualified than me, anyway!  We left soon after arriving and browsing the booths, because Harry just tired us out, and we wanted a nice rest before the big race!  After some delicious seafood at Landry's (thanks for the suggestion, Cate!) we all called it a night!

2:30am:  Wake up and eat breakfast
3:00am:  Get dressed with tons of clothes (so cold that early in the morning!)
3:30am:  Leave for Epcot center (10 miles away)
4:45am:  Arrive at Epcot with 28,000 other people to run the Disney World Half Marathon!
5:00-6:15am:  Wait for our corral to start!  With every corral, they shot of fireworks and flames as Mickey and Minne (in track suits, of course) waved us along our way! 
6:20am:  Corral G, go! 

Mickey and Minnie!  Snazzy track suits...

28,000 people running into and through Disney World was a sight to behold, especially from the back of the line, haha.  We realized very quickly that getting our 'best time' wasn't our goal for today, because just finishing at all would be a personal best for all of us!  We also didn't want to just let all of the sights we were passing pass us by without stopping to take a few (or 50) pictures! 

Officially no longer cold...

We also realized, very quickly, that it was no longer freezing.  In all of my underarmor, I got super hot super fast!  A quick pull over by a hot air balloon of Epcot and wardrobe change helped tremendously.  Patty and Katie were amazing, I got so hot so fast that I felt pretty rotten.  Really rotten, actually.  Patty and Katie wouldn't leave me behind, and before too long I was feeling much better! 

At the entrance of the park!

Patty, running down main street! 

Sweaty Beth in front of Cinderella's castle...I saw a T-shirt during the race that said "Princesses don't sweat, they sparkle!"  I'm sure this applied to Cinderella, but not me!

The first 5 miles passed so quickly!  Before I knew it, we were at the gate at Disney World!  Buzz Lightyear greeted us a little after mile 5...and by mile 6, we were running down main street Disney (still decorated for Christmas) and through Cinderella's castle!  We met several other characters along the way. 

Peter Pan and Wendy! 

Folks from the Princess and the Frog

Captain Jack Sparrow and the Black Pearl!  "Whew, you're soaked, has someone thrown you overboard?"  Very funny, Captain Jack. 

Mary Poppins, Burt, and Penguin!

The time in the park went by so fast...and we lost a lot of time stopping to take so many pictures, but it was worth it!  Its all in the journey, not the destination...

Slightly less excited and energetic at this point...

Almost there....

Finally, mile 13 was upon us!  We ran around the Epcot Ball (what IS that thing supposed to be?) and in a mere 10th of a mile were at the finish!  I still can't believe that we did this...it blows my mind.  Only a few months ago, I couldn't run a mile.  But look what we did! 

Look at us, ya'll!  Of course Susie and Danielle finished too, just a lot faster, haha. 

All along the race, we were surrounded by people running for a cause.  We were running for one too.  The race was sponsored by the Leukemia Lymphoma Society, and through the race over $4 million was raised to fund cancer research.  Everyone knows someone who has been affected with this caner.  Katie's sister is battling this cancer right now, my Aunt Laura has beat this cancer, and our dear sister and friend Elizabeth White lost her battle to cancer last November.  Susie and I were running for Elizabeth, and I thought of her every mile.  Even though it was tough, and every muscle screams, I was just so thankful for the ability and blessing of putting one foot in front of the other.  I know she would have loved to go to Hogwarts with us, and while she would have thought us crazy to run a half marathon for her, she would have loved running through Disney World.  This was for you, dear! 

So in summary....Garden themed cake, check.  Travel to Orlando, check.  Buy a wand at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, check.  Run a Half Marathon, check.  Make memories with some wonderful women that I'll never forget......check!

So ladies, which race is next?

~Beth