Daffodil Bouquet

For my final project we had to use almost every element of design that we had learned. The final just so happened to be in the beginning of spring. I love spring, it is so refreshing to me. Signifies new life, fresh starts, just all around a happy time and to me daffodils are one of the ultimate happy flowers. To continue on with the fresh look I made a lemon cake with raspberry filling, my favorite combination. I went with a basic cream colored butter cream frosting on the outside with little dots through out. Around the edge of the cake I alternated daffodils and pink primrose inspired flowers made of royal frosting to give it the 'pop out look'. On the top of the cake I put a cluster of primroses, primrose inspired and a daffodil with leaves surrounding. Purple beaded border along the bottom gives it an extra color to finish it off. The cake was a hit at my office, it was gone by 11:00, I think that is a hit!

A Spot of Tea

In March of 2011 my parents had the wonderful opportunity to go to England for a week and a half. Which left me alone in the house, bored. Yes bored, I was not allowed to go adults only but whatever I drowned myself in my cake decorating. I decided to make this cake fit for afternoon tea with the Queen of England herself or the future bride of Prince William. Lillies are my favorite flower of all time so I gave myself a new challenge of perfecting the sugar lily flower. This time I made a spice cake with butterscotch pudding in between the two layers. I had also never decorated a square shaped cake either and gave myself another challenge in this cake. The frosting is not chocolate however this time I just colored it to look like chocolate. Since the inside of the lillies are a purple/mauve color I added that color to the edges of the cake to give it that royal scroll look.

Roller Derby Queen's Birthday

My girlfriend, Dani, is in her local roller derby and like me loves anything from the 80's. Dani asked me for her birthday present to be one my cake creations. I of course said yes and she loves chocolate frosting and yellow cake which gave me the opportunity to actually perfect black frosting. I was very proud of my success of this cake, granted I was up til 2:00 am making it and everyone who had a piece had very black teeth, but it was all worth it in the end. With black as my base I decided to give the cake some vibrant colors, something you would see in an 80's teen movie. I went with hot pink, turquoise and orange. Creating the roller skate on top was probably one of the most challenging things I have ever given myself because I do not consider myself to be an artist. Pink is every girls, well mostly every girl's, favorite color so I made the roller skate pink. Stars accent the border of the cake to give the star for the day, Danie, feel even more special. Vertical stripes around the edge give it that extra touch. Dani's face was priceless when she saw her Roller Derby Queen Birthday cake.

In a galaxy far far away...

I love to get a little creative sometimes and get away from the norm of flowers on cakes. My family loves Star Wars, especially my younger sister Courtney. Love is probably and understatement to describe her fascination with Star Wars, makes buying Christmas and birthday presents very easy. To challenge myself a little bit here I decided to make chocolate frosting into the dark sky. My first attempt at making black frosting was not as bad as I imagined it could have been. The next challenge in this cake was to make the actual Star Wars logo which as you can see and hopefully already know all of the block lettering is connected. I will not tell you my trick as to how I managed this but I was very happy with the turn out. To add the finishing touches I put a star border around the top and bottom of the cake. The inside was a yellow cake made from scratch of course. I do not believe in box cake mixes.

Getting Started

For my birthday last year my dad and mom gave me cake decorating lessons. I was excited! Ever since I was just a toddler I have been baking, I cracked my first egg when I was 3 years old. The older I have gotten the more challenging recipes have been my friend. Baking is my stress reliever, I lose myself in the world of flower, sugar and eggs. It all started with my great Grandma Brooks, my dad's maternal grandmother. She was an amazing baker and loved doing it. My dad told me of times when he was younger being in the kitchen with her and learning all of her tricks. My mom learned from my Grandma Preece who knows a thing or two about the kitchen, especially in the dinner rolls department. Growing up with the parents I have, I learned to fall in love with being the kitchen and making all sorts of items from scratch. Everything was homemade in my family growing up. Everything from chocolate chip cookies and frosting to pizza and of course rolls. Now it's my turn to continue on the tradition of baking and the love of being in the kitchen to my future family. My fiance Kevin loves that I have this passion for good food and sweets and has convinced me to start this blog in hopes to have my own bakery at some point.