Happy Birthdays

Today is both my Mother's and my daughter's birthday!!! I want to wish them both the most wonderful day ever and that God bless them with another year of life filled with love and happiness!

Isabel's birthday party will be this saturday... thankfully giving me a few more days to get her cake going.

My mom is getting a surprise dinner tonight!

So I made her cake... my sister and I decided that we needed something that would match her personality.  LOUD AND VIVACIOUS... so that being said, this is what we decided on....

It is a white cake with strawberry shortcake filling (homemade whipped cream with chopped strawberries)  covered with fondant.  I like the gift box look so that is what we decided on. 

What do you think???

Let me tell you that I can not wait to take a bite of this one!!!

Check in a bit later for pics of the party!

:OP

My first sale!

I've been away for a few weeks now... I just haven't been in the mood to post lately.  I'll try to bring you up to speed, and I'll do my best to keep it short and sweet!


First of all I want to thank Mel at Fishing and Wishing and Debra from Vachcouture for the beautiful beaded bracelet I won!!!   I must admit I received it last week, but like I said I really haven't felt like posting so I didn't!!!  but here is a pc of this beautiful bracelet...  absolutely LOVE it!  Isn't it gorgeous?!

Thank you soooo much!!!!!

Oh, I'd like to point out that Tyler told me that it is beautiful and wants me to wear it everyday. 

My sister had her birthday last week, the big 31.... haa haa haa!   We threw her a little party and made her the cake... it came out awesome!!!

I made a two tier butter cake, one with peach jam and the second with blackberry preserves... soo yummy!

I used fondant and made the tiers look like gift boxes...

The birthday girl... she loved it!

and now I finally get to the title of this post... my friend Darcie emailed me asking if I would make the cake for a mutual friend's bridal shower... ABSOLUTELY!!!

So I took her ideas, made some suggestions, did some research and this is the result...

It's white cake with milk chocolate ganache filling... covered with fondant and gumpaste sunflowers.

I LOVED it... more importantlly, everyone at the party loved it too!!!! 

I'm so happy, I finally made my first cake sale!!!

I've been trying to figure out how to get a cake baking business off the ground, and thanks to Darcie this may be it!  I'm looking into getting a web page, but for now stop by my Facebook page and check out the pics of the other cakes I have made.

AND that's pretty much it... other than the normal everyday activities.  So consider yourself caught up in the excitement that is my life!

:o{)

Happy Birthday Sebastian!!!

I'm a little late... but this past week was a whirlwind of prepartaions and fun! 

Believe it or not... Carlos Sebastian turned 1 on July 29th!!!  I still find it hard to believe that it has been a year since my baby was born!  I can vividly remember that day like it was yesterday... and it makes me a little sappy.  Yes I get the oooh my baby is getting big.... but I'm fighting it back!

So we threw a birthday bash a week ago, mostly because my sister was flying to Colombia this friday and wouldn't be here if we threw the party this past saturday.  But it was great!!!!

I was very excited to make his birthday cake... what with all my vast experience as a cake baker.  So I got the Wilton's Year Book to check out the cute cake ideas and see what I could come up with.  So I picked the most complicated cake I could possibly find and said "What the hell... I know I can do it!!"

Yes, its completely edible.... and I was determined to make it!

So I began, 3 days befor the birthday to create the circus creatures that would decorate the cake.

Here are the "heads" and the other pieces of fondant I would need to make the animals.

Oh, did I mention that I have NO EXPERIENCE WHAT SO EVER working with fondant???  Oh yes, my cake decorating experience is limited to buttercream frosting and roses.

GULP!!!

These are the brownie "bodies" 

Yes, I know I look awful... it was only like 98 degrees for four days straight!!!  Even the AC wasn't cooling the apartment down enough to make it comfortable.

Monkeys and Tigers

The completed product!!!

Isn't it cute?  Yes... I noticed AFTER that I left a HUGE gap in between the two circles on the front of the cake...and of course by this point they were pretty much stuck on the cake so I had to leave them.  Oh well... it is an ORIGINAL.

Then off to the party... and the big reveal!  I was sweating bullets, because I didn't want anyone to say that it looked crappy.  I knew it wasn't horrible, but I was stll worried that it wasn't good enough. 

So breath held, I brought the cake out....

AND

THEY ALL LOVED IT!!!!

The kids all ran over calling the animals they wanted....

The adults asked me what bakery I had bought it from and if it had cost a lot....

The birthday boy couldn't wait to grab the elephants!

I was ecstatic!  I really didn't expect anyone other than the kids to love it... but they did!

I made a butter cake with strawberry jam filling, buttercream frosting and fondant!

I loved the fact that when my cousin asked me what bakery I had gotten the cake from, my mom's friend quickly stated that "SHE MADE THIS HERSELF!!!"

I couldn't stop smiling!

Isn't he cute as a button???  My mother-in-law sent me this outfit and I think he looks like a little doll.

The birthday pavillion...

Sebastian enjoying his fondant elephant...

The birthday boy taking a wack at the pinata!

hee hee hee... He's sooo scrawny!  poor Tyler...

Sneaking a peek at the big gift bag...

He LOVED this dinosaur walker thingy...

Then a dip in the pool...

I love this pic of all my boys!

Surfing on dad's flip flops!

I don't have any more pics because I got lazy and then put the birthday boy to bed.

But all in all it was a fabulous party! 

AND I got a bunch of requests for birthday cakes! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEBAS!!!

:oP

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day!  My day started off great, the kids got up and couldn't wait to give me their presents they had for me.   Sebastian had a bunch of big, wet, drooley kisses and hugs for me... and honestly, what is better than that???  Tyler gave me a daisy seedling he grew in school, in a little plastic pot he decorated himself, and Isabel wrote me a poem about how much she loves me.  Do you want to hear it?  Ok, it goes a like this:

I Love You Mom

I Love

I Love a lot of things, a whole lot of things

like

when you took me to Hampton Beach and with titi and Ache and we all ate at a resturant

AND

when we went and shopped all night

AND

when I first met Beto

and I love him

after the night

BUT I love

I love a lot of things, awhole lot of things

And Mom

I love you too.

By Isabel Deyanira Draleaus
May 10, 2010

awww... isn't it sweet?  I love my girl, it's these moments that erase the bad ones!

On friday my sister called me to tell me that Macy's was having a ridiculously great sale on saturday with a preview on friday, and would I be so kind as to verify that the sale prices were good today... oh, and she just happened to see the Kitchen aid stand mixer 've so badly wanted on sale.  OK I'll go check on the sale prices.  Yes, the sale prices were valid today...AND YES my stand mixer that normally costs $299 was on sale for $179!!!!! Wooo Hooo!!! So I purchased myself a wonderful mother's day gift and brought home my stand mixer to make some bread! 

Isn't it beautious!!!  I have wanted one of these FOREVER!!! OK, maybe not forever... but it sure seemed like it!

So I took it out of the box as soon as I got home, washed it and put it on my tiny kitchen counter.  Then I broke out the cook books... I just needed to make some bread.  I found one for french bread, I had all the ingredents, and got to it.

I got my loaves formed and in the oven...

THEN......

looks good, right? ehhh it could have been better, I didn't measure the salt... I just eyeballed it and they were a little bland.  Oh well, live and learn.

But I made my bread, I ate my bread... and though it was not as delicious as I had invisioned, I liked it.

Enough about the bread... on to the rest of my day.

So my day was filled with sporting events.  Both kids had games, Tyler had soccer and Isabel had a softball game.  So we got up and had blueberry pancakes for breakfast, which were yummilicious.  Then took showers, got clothed and headed out the door to Tyler's soccer game.  Here I would like to note that it has been all of 60-65 degrees out the last four days... WHAT THE HELL!  It was 80-90 degrees a week ago!  Not today.. today was cold, blustery and COLD! 

We went to the soccer field, and I swore I was going to get blown away!  It was just plain ridiculous how windy it was.  But Tyler played his heart out, and tried as hard as he did the white team was GOOD!  He almost scored a couple of times, but they shut him down... he was a tad bit upset, as he HAS to make a goal every game (his goals NOT mine)... but I pointed out the fact that he played his best and that he had done really well despite the fact he didn't score.  This seemed to help a little, not much.  So to console him, we went out for ice cream.

In case you don't believe me that it was blustery... just take a look...

I can't believe how big she is getting!  She just doesn't look 10 years old in this picture to me... *sigh*

Poor Sebastian kept getting his breath taken away by the wind gusts!

After the ice cream, we stopped home so Isabel could grab her equipment and change into her softball uniform, then we headed back out to the Lassie League fields.

The game was great!  The two teams fought hard for the W... but they ended up tied.  11-11!!!  Isabel almost got the winning runs in, but the wind blew the ball foul, the next hit was a base run.. but she was at least able to hit a run in to tie up the game.   I would love to post pics, but I took videos of her hitting instead, and for some reason I can't get them to post... next time.

After we came home and ordered some pizza and ate some grub.  I had the kids jump in the shower, and change for bed while I crashed on the couch.

That's it... that was my mother's day.  Not the most exciting ever, but I spent the entire day with my three angels and that's good enough for me!

I hope everyone had a great mother's day!!!!

:o)

catching up...

The last two weeks have been ridiculously hectic for me... so much so that I haven't wanted to update my blog even when I had the free time!

But, now I'm up to the task... you'll be surprised of how much nothing I've really done but I've been running around like a mad woman!  Go figure...

So, lets start with Saturday

SATURDAY

January 30th was my baby boy's birthday.... Tyler turned 6 on saturday!!!  I can hardly believe it still.  My little man is getting so big and I feel like the time has flown.

So my boy wanted his birthday party at Chuck E Cheese... he loves himself some CEC!! We've had his birthday there for the last 3 years!!!  I always let him pick what he wants to do for his birthday and he ALWAYS pick CEC! 

I don't mind, it lets me actually enjoy the party!  I don't have to cook, to be much of host, to tend to other people's children, try to keep said children entertained, AND the best part... NO CLEAN UP! Wooo Hooo!! That alone sells me every time!

So, after a week of trying to get Tyler to draw up a guest list, I finally got the final list and the invitees all showed!  Nice turn out!  He invited his friends from school, which was great since he insists that he doesn't have any friends... funny because this boy is MORE social than his sister!!! 

By request I made the birthday cake!  I was a little nervous to say the least, but I had taken the level one Wilton's cake decorating class at Michaels in the fall... so I was fairly confident that I could make the cake.  Of course it HAD to be a SPIDERMAN cake... now I was scared!  You really can't b.s. that type of cake, because Spiderman is a little popular!  No goofing there!  But I gave it a shot because Tyler was really excited about me making the cake....

So I got the pan, baked the yummy yellow cake, and began the outlining process....

Ok.. not much to brag about and at this point I was still VERY nervous as to how it was going to look...

Ok, so the webbing was looking good and the red was the right shade!!!

I gotta say... I did a DAMN GOOD JOB!!!  I could hardly believe that I MADE THIS!!!! It was tastey and it actually looked like Spidey!

Tyler LOVED IT!!! and he made me feel like a master baker because he couldn't tell me enough that it was awesome!

He wanted to stare at the cake forever before we left for the party!

So... all in all it was a great day, his friends showed up, they all played great, we had good food, good cake AND one of the mom's asked me if I was a cake baker/decorator by profession!!!

So, here are some pics from the party... no need to put descriptions... I think they are pretty self explanatory!

YES, that is Carlos sneaking into the pic in the back!!!

Yes, we are a bunch of goof balls!

:o)

All in all we had a blast and Tyler LOVED his birthday party!

So that was Saturday...  since it ended up being ridiculously long... I'll leave it at that and post a bit more later...

Apple Butter-Banana Bread Recipe

Apple Butter-Banana Bread Recipe

Ok, Let me just point out that I have bouts of "I need to bake" time, and I found this recipe and it just screamed "PLEASE MAKE ME SO YOU CAN EAT A YUMMILICIOUS BAKED GOODY!"


Has anyone made this??

Do you recommend it??

Do you have a recipe you would recommend??

Let me know with a comment.

;o)

bakery fresh goodness...

This is a short post, but I figure I should post it before I forget to later!

Ok, so I am on this baking kick right now, where I feel the need to bake something every single day!  And since I can't really make a cake a day, well I could but who the hell is gonna eat that much cake!!!  So I decided to bake some bread yesterday, oh me oh my do I love me some fresh baked bread.

I have a recipe for some cheese bread that's fairly easy to make, and I made up a batch (4 loaves), well they lasted all of 5 minutes.  My husband was half way through the first loaf about 10 minutes after I took it out of the oven!  The second one survived only because I made it for someone that paid me for it! 

Don't they look yummy???  This is the second batch of bread I made, the first one was much more aesthetically pleasing, but like usual I forgot to take a picture!!!

So I have been asked if I would bake the bread with ham and cheese in the middle... I'm gonna try it today.  I was paid $5 per loaf, not much, but not bad either if you ask me... I could at least make some yarn money with this deal!

:o)

Cakes, cakes, cakes....

Last night was week 3 of my four week cake decorating class at Michaels. This week I learned how to make drop flowers, shells, shells for borders, shapes that I can put together to make faces, and frosting clowns.  (interesting mix when you read it!)

So I made a butter cake (from scratch) with buttercream frosting (with real butter for the cake) and I went all out and made home made vanilla pudding and added pureed raspberries to it for a filing on the cake!  Whoa baby, whoa baby.... this cake is D E L I C I O U S! 

So in class after practicing the above techniques, I decided to put some drop flowers on the side of the cake...

Apparently when I mixed the color into the frosting, I forgot that the teacher had told us the previous week that dark colors tend to get darker over time.  So when mixing colors, start light and wait, then add more color if you want.  So my "purple" looked almost black by the time I decorated my cake!  Oh well...

and yes, I realize that the cake is slightly slanted... the top was shifting when I iced it last night due to the filling.  I gotta work on that, but who cares!  its was yummy! Nothing a few toothpicks can't fix.

I had some left over batter that I made into cupcakes, and the few that made it to class with me on monday night were my practice canvas for my drop swirl flowers.

Then I figured what the hell... since I went buck wild with the flowers and with no particular flow, why not throw a clown on top?  Besides, the clowns I had made during practice were coming out really cute.  So up went Bozo... and isn't he darling???  Isabel and Tyler particularly liked the clown. 

He looks cute just lounging on top of the cake, next to my funeralesque flowers... or maybe they are halloweeny? 

Here's a shot of the filling... very yummy.  Besides, regardless of how awful my flowers look the cake is to die for!  I guess then the nearly black flowers are appropriate then.... right?

Hmmm... anyways, next week we are finishing working on the icing roses, so I'll have a cake with roses to show off.

Any suggestions on the type of cake I should bake? 

;0)