Ella Kate's Mod Monkey Cake (click on photos to enlarge).

Happy birthday Ella Kate! This sweet little girl, barely 3 years old, is such a smarty! I was honored to be able to make her cake. Her mom gave me a party plate to go by and pretty much let me do my thing. Triple layers of chocolate with vanilla buttercream (at their request). I copied the monkey party hats from someone's site who worked with clay.  The cake itself was easy to design... just grab a shade of blue and yellow and make some polka dots!  To date, this was by far the best time I've ever had making a cake.  I'd like to send a special shout out to my wonderful husband for coming up with the idea to have one of the monkey's eating a peeled banana.  I went a step further painted them with brown food color to age them up.  This cake was F.U.N.!

Triple Chocolate Cake (click on photo to enlarge).

I made this for my daughter's 12th birthday. She didn't want one of my "fancy" cakes (as she put it), she just wanted a plain ol' chocolate layer cake. I grabbed this design from a Wilton book (I think).  It was originally the décor for a wedding cheesecake.  I baked the chocolate cake in triple layers, then filled it and iced them with heavy cream-infused whipped chocolate butter cream.  For the design on top, I melted dark milk chocolate into a jelly roll pan, then cooled it and carved it into triangles. Then I scrolled the filigree design onto each triangle in warm piped tempered chocolate with a number 3 tip.  I'd never played in tempered chocolate before... it's a tough medium. It took several hours just to make the top scrolled pieces, but I learned a lot and she's worth it. <3

Minda's Tropical Hula Cake (click on photo to enlarge).

I was given the charge a couple days ago to make a tropical themed cake for young Minda, who was turning 14 and who was having a "Hawaiin luau" type bash.  No other real direction was given, which was really fun and liberating, but also, kinda' scary.  I had no idea what she wanted on it; a beach scene? a hula girl? a pig roasting on a spit? pineapples? palm trees? a totem pole? a tiki torch? flip flops?  a beach ball? The options were endless and I was sort of in overload about it.  I had no idea what I wanted to do and worse, didn't even know what colors I wanted to use.  Luckily for me, my very sweet, talented, clever little daughter (who, and this is completely pointless, happens to share Minda's birthday) helped me finalize my decision. Together we picked out the colors and worked out a design - something bright and somewhat simplistic, with just a few palms and enough flowers to hopefully look a bit like a lei going around the top.  We didn't want this cake to be too busy, because with the bright colors, we were scared it might look like your crazy Uncle's beach shirt.  Happy birthday Minda! 

Corporate 10th Anniversary Cake (click on photo to enlarge).

This cake was another set of "firsts" for me - this was my first time to ever be asked to make a cake for a corporate function, it was my first time to ever make a fondant bow (awkward!), and it was my first time to ever work with black fondant (extremely temperamental stuff).  The cake was for an educational consulting company that just celebrated its 10th year in the business of helping children.  White wedding cake with Madagascar vanilla butter cream filling and icing.  I made a hot mess of this dang fondant bow.  It looked so much easier than it really was.  Hopefully someone will want another one soon, because Lord knows I need some practice mastering this technique!  Top half of cake was covered in black fondant to give a chalkboard appearance, and then was piped in butter cream.  This was a huge cake and weighed nearly 40 pounds!  I'm so happy to be part of JBHM Education Group - may they have many, many more birthday celebrations!

Elephant Baby Shower Cake (click photos to enlarge).

This was my very first baby shower cake, gah!  It was also my first two-tiered cake that was to be completely covered and decorated in fondant.  White almond sour cream cake with vanilla bean butter cream filling and icing on the bottom tier and triple chocolate fudge with whipped chocolate butter cream filling and icing on the top tier.  All accents are hand molded or hand-cut fondant.  Thanks to my hero, Lorraine McKay, for the free online elephant tutorial!  I had no clue what I was doing, but thanks to her generosity and that of many others like her within the caking community, I had plenty of help.  I can only hope I learn enough one day to pay it forward.