Happy BERT day!

So here is the last cake for a while....

This was pretty fun. I have found that even though I generally get more stressed out when I have numerous cakes in a row, it becomes easier with each cake and takes less time, because I have extra frosting and can reuse it from cake to cake. Bert was much easier thanks to the extra black fondant from two previous cakes. Phew. He only took about two hours of decorating and one of mixing/baking. The best part was hearing the happy reaction of the birthday girl. She loves Bert. Most of the ideas I looked at included Ernie, but it was fun to have him alone. I think it turned out pretty good, though there were some glitches, like a gap in his neck and one ear being different than the other. Oh, well. The overall look was right. :)Please forgive these awful pictures. My camera was having some major issues.

So I kinda lied. THIS is the last cake...

A week after this cake, it was Donna' birthday. Since she is my greatest cake customer/friend/supporter it just wouldn't be right to not make her a birthday cake. Of course I wasn't able to do anything great or fancy, and I nearly ran out of frosting, but it's the thought that counts, right? And it tasted pretty good. :)

Again, sorry for the awful pics, I don't know what is wrong with my camera, but I hope to fix it.

We also had scrumptious Peach Dessert (recipe compliments of Jessica Rowley) and snobbish ice cream! ;)

My friend, Cassie (the one who took my amazing family pics), ordered this cake for her daughter's second birthday. She had the fun idea of doing a blue and black ladybug instead red. It was such a fun idea. Her invites to the party had a cute blue and black ladybug and her little girl wore blue and black. It was so cute. She is the party master and had the cutest decorations and party favors and such. This cake was pretty easy. I hadn't planned on shaping the body of the cake, but after I saw how the head was so nice and round, I went ahead and tried to shape the body. It went surprisingly well and not too many crumbs. We did a vanilla cake with buttercream icing and chocolate fondant for the black parts. I didn't think ahead far enough to make antennae. I did make some, and they were cute, but they were too heavy and hadn't had time to dry out and harden. She had some black candles that she used, which were perfect since her little girl was two.

Kaylee's cake... and Cade's

Wow, it's been a super long time since I've done any cakes! Actually.... I did make one in January as well. Kaylee just turned seven and wanted only a plain white cake with white frosting and flowers. Super easy! I tried to really fancy it up for her with pink roses and some beads around the bottom. She loved it. I wasn't able to get a picture before we stuck in the, um, "candles." Nothing can ruin a cake faster than not having the right candles. Dang!

This cake was for my cousin's daughter's boy friend. She was throwing him a suprise bowling party so I made a bowling cake. Pretty simple, but hopefully tasty.

Heather's Cake

In September I made a cake for little Heather who turned one. I copied a cake I had made a couple years ago for Ava. Heather really liked it!

Because I had extra batter, I made one extra cake and let Kaylee use the extra icing to decorate her own cake. She's getting pretty good!

June Wedding cake

I was finally able to get pictures of Lindsey's wedding cake off my brother's camera. Her wedding was the end of June and I LOVED making her cake! It was so simple and stress-free.... for the most part. It's always a little nerve-wracking to travel to Idaho from Logan with a cake and then set it up, but it went pretty well. Next time I need to have more icing on hand to fill in the gaps between layers, but all in all it worked. We made three layers of Grandma's chocolate cake and the icing was a rum buttercream recipe I used on my sister's wedding cake. It was so simple because she just wanted it iced "messy." I can do messy! Then the florist put fresh flowers on. They were so gorgeous! It smelled so good! I can't remember if I stuck around long enough to eat some, but I heard it was good. :)

Lots of Cake!!!

After the July wedding cake, I was starting to think my cake days were ending when suddenly there were so many calls for birthday cakes! At first I was thrilled, then I realized that I had overbooked myself and completely forgotten that I was going back to school in the mix! Oops! I had to cut out about five cakes, and I felt horrible! But, my sanity is important, too, though I usually forget about this. Thanks to a husband and friend who keep me on track! Here are the ones I was able to do in between a San Diego wedding and school starting!

This cake was for Brooklyn's first birthday. We used the same cake I made for Simon's first birthday last year. This time around I made the trees ahead of time, so they stood up a little better. They chose white cake with raspberry filling. I got to eat some and it was pretty yum. :) I must say, this is one of my favorite cakes to make, I just love the animal patterns!

This was the cake I came up with for Steve's Hawaii 5-0 birthday party. Donna threw an amazing party, and I got to go and eat some cake! It was grandma's chocolate cake with buttercream filling and frosting. Pretty yummy if I do say so myself!

This cake was for a little boy in my neighborhood who loves Yo Gabba Gabba. I wasn't familiar with the show, but his mom sent me some pics and cake ideas and we combined two of them to create this cake. It's three layers of chocolate and vanilla with buttercream icing and fondant. I was very nervous as I made this trying to get the right intensity on the colors, but I loved the finished product.

This final cake was for my friend's little girl who turned one this year. She bought the Wilton daisy pan and matching mini daisy pan. It was a super fun cake to make and I thought it turned out pretty darn cute! I would LOVE to make this cake again.