Wordless Wednesday- Mamia's Birthday surprise....

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMIA!!!!

All in all... the cake was a hit (and delicious as well!)

Love you Mamia!!!  I hope you enjoyed your party and that God blesses you with many, many more years filled with love, happiness and family!

:oP

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

I Need some help....

I posted this the other day, but for those of you that did not read the post I'll refresh your memories!  I am trying to start my own cake baking business.  I love to bake and try new recipes, and I'm actually pretty good at cake decorating.  but mostly I want to do something I can do from  home.  I've been looking for jobs in my field, but right now they don't pay much and I would end up working strictly to pay for daycare.  Ummmm not really my idea of making the best use of my money!

My friend had me make a bridal shower cake for a mutual friend, and apparently it went over really well.  I have some business cards, but I want to be able to get my cakes "out there".  I have an album on Facebook that I have made public so all can see, but unless you know I make cakes I can't imagine you would have a need to see my pics... 

I would like to make a website, but I haven't the slightest idea where to begin!

So my question to you is.... do you have any suggestions??? 

Post your comments and tell me what you think I can do to spread the word!  I appreciate any and all ideas!

: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{)

hearts, strawberries and buttercream

I originally was planning on just posting these pics yesterday for Wordless Wednesday... but I left my camera at my dad's and that idea went right out the window.  So I'll have to come up with a witty narrative to go along with them.

My dad's wife decided that she wanted to throw my dad a surprise birthday party on saturday because his birthday is on the 16th and on a tuesday (who does that??).  So she enlisted my "help" because since I'm home all day and she doesn't drive we make a great pair.  Ok, I like to do party planning stuff... and for some unknown reason I volunteered to make the birthday cake.  I think since I was fresh on the heels of a successful spiderman cake, I was feeling very confident. 

WHAT???  I'm making the birthday cake? two tiered (which I had never done before), filled with strawberry jam, in heart shapes, and oh you want fresh berries on it too... Ok.  I can do that.   WHAT, WHAT, WHAT???  I think I was sniffing too much glue or something  (I DO NOT SNIFF GLUE!!! Its just a saying), but since I had already volunteered I had to go all or nothing.

So I bought the heart shaped cake pans, and pulled a receipe for butter cake with a touch of almond flavoring- which is yummilicious!, and decided screw it... I'll make it and if it comes out inedible or ugly, there's always the Dutch Kitchen down the street and we can pick up a cake on saturday morning.

Oh, and did I mention that I also volunteered to make the food!  Now apparently I'm a catering service as well.  I must have been hitting the glue jar hard that day!   Any hoo... I decided on making chicken breasts stuffed with spinach, mozzarella and ricotta cheese with tomatoe sauce and shredded cheese, as well as a coleslaw that is to die for!

So, I began with the cake on friday night... I made my batter, greased my pans, and filled them with batter and popped them into the oven.  Then about 40 minutes later my house was filled with that wonderful aroma of fresh baked cake.

So I first cut off the pouffy middle piece so that my cake would sit flat, and let the cake cool in the pan.

Then I popped the cake out of the pan and let it cool on a wire rack.

Now came the fun part... since I have never made a two-tiered cake, I read a bit online at the Wilton's website and figured, its easy enough, I can do it.  So I put the tiers on, and frosted the cakes... not the BEST frosting job, but could be worse.

 

Then I decided on this rope frosting border around the bottoms of the cakes, to add some pizzaz.

Then I added the strawberries around the border of the cakes to add color and outline the heart shapes.

Looking good...

I want to eat it everytime I look at it!!!

Taa - Daaaaaaahhh!!!! The finished cake!

Soooooo...... what do you think???

Let me tell you that it tastes as good as it looks.  I used strawberry jam to fill the middle of both tiers.  I looked at it and could hardly believe that I, ME... had made this cake!

Now, being my own worse critic, this is pretty good props.  BUT I still had to see what everyone else thought.  I always worry that others will not like my cooking or baking.

WELL, let me tell you... my dad saw the cake and asked me why I had bought a cake for his birthday when he knows I could have made it myself!?  What? Really?  I was sooo happy.  I couldn't believe he actually thought that I had bought him the cake!  Well... everyone was impressed with the cake and they couldn't say enough about how yummy it was.

Then when everyone ate, they raved about the stuffed chicken breasts and coleslaw!  I was so happy and proud of myself.  And yes, I am tooting my own horn... this is MY blog after all...and if I can't brag a little here then WHERE is one expected to be able to brag????  ;o)

So, we had a great time, my dad was surprised, and everyone ate and loved the food, and we celebrated my dad's birthday as well as Valentine's Day.  All in all it was fun.

Oh and we also celebrated my cousin's birthday which conveniently is shared with my dad's!!!

This was supposed to be a pic of just me, Carlos Sebastian and my dad... when the camera flashed ALL these jokers were in the picture!  That would be my cousin Juancho, my sister Mitzi (right behind me), my cousin Ferno, birthday boy Rob, my aunt Carmen, and my dad looking like he's had one to many glasses of champagne!

This one I'm putting here because I love this pic... aren't they handsome???

Ok, so I tried to get this picture about 5 times!  In each one, either Sebastian or Tyler weren't looking!  So this is as good as it gets!

Oh, and this is Sebastian sitting up alone for the first time!  He can now sit alone for upwards of a half hour! My baby is getting sooo big!

Ok... so other than that... this week has been occupied with Tyler having the stomach bug since SUNDAY!!!  Yes he is on day 5 of this stupid virus, and just when I think he is feeling better he gets sick again!  Like last night... ALL over the bathroom!  Now let me tell you if there are things in life that I do not like the top two are 1. cleaning up vomit and 2. cleaning the bathroom.  Can you tell me what I did wrong to deserve to have to clean a pukey bathroom last night????  But after cleaning up the bathroom and cleaning up Tyler, he went to bed, and is once again claiming to be feeling well.  I'm not buying it today!  I have him on a strick toast, chicken soup and flat coca cola diet!  We are getting rid of this stomach flu TODAY!

So that's everything.  Now I'm off to tend to my sleepy Sebastian that is about seconds from falling asleep in his jumpy! 

;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...

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)

yummmylicious....

So I took my second cake decorating class on Monday, and I needed to make a cake to take to class and practice decorating with.  I decided I wanted to make a Red Velvet cake, like the one I made for Carlos for his birthday last year.  So off to my kitchen I went and started pulling out the ingredients, all of which miraculously I had on hand... including the Buttermilk!!!  Who actually has buttermilk on hand?  Well I gets to mixing and sifting and adding and creaming, when its time to add the most important ingredient... the red food coloring!  Well guess who has NONE!  Yup, I had used all of it when I made the last cake... dummy!  So I thought, lets make a BLUE red velvet cake... that would be cute, right? 

I like this shade of blue, but maybe just a bit more so its smurf blue....

CRAP!!! This is not blue anymore... its greenish.... hmmm not to appetizing.

Well, just for future reference, and please write this down somewhere.... there is not enough blue food coloring to make this cake look blue!  It will end up looking like a moldy, mossy (Isabel's words ot mine), chocolate cake.

It looks like its moldy!  Oh well... I'm frosting it, so who cares!!!  So off to class I went and I frosted my cake, too bad my frosting was a bit tooo soft and it sort of worked its way off the cake, but its my first time and the shortening was "pre-creamed" so my frosting was so far off consistency wise. 

But I practiced my stars, and filling stars, my outlining, star shaped lines and zigzagging lines.  I also practice writing... I'm actually really good at it without too much practice.

So here is my piece de resistance....

Not too bad!  I know my border is a biiittt off on the bottom, but I refused to turn the cake while doing this... note to self, rotate the cake when piping borders!

up close shot of the heart and stars, showing off my filing talent!

Not too shabby if I do say so myself!  and my biggest fans LOVED it!!! The kids both ate cake as a snack last night, and Isabel took some to school today.  Where she vehemently defended the fact that even though it is green it in fact is a RED VELVET CAKE!!! Love my girl!

So I'll post next week pics of our next project, cupcakes with some flowers! 


;0)