Oh The Places You'll Go!

It's graduation season! It's always very exciting to move on to bigger and better things. My little niece is starting kindergarten in the fall, so she had her daycare graduation last week. This has to be the cutest grad I have ever attended! It was complete with little ones stumbling across stage, amazing performances, teeny graduation hats, and a proud parents paparazzi crowding around the stage with a million cameras. It was all quite the sight!

As a little present to my niece, I made her a graduation cake. I based it on the Dr. Seuss book, Oh The Places You'll Go! I've been dying to make any Dr. Seuss themed cake, and this book is just so terrific, and a classic for graduations. 

Sporty Cake

A very confused mother approached me a few weeks ago, with no clue as to what kind of birthday cake to get for her 18-year-old son. After much brainstorming and many rejected suggestions, I was at a loss for the first time! I asked about everything from hobbies to color schemes, and got nada. Guys are always tougher, I guess... I finally found out that he's actually quite the sporty guy and plays both basketball and soccer. Birthday boy's brother came up with this design, and thank goodness for him, it all worked out in the end!

Good Things Come in Little Packages

I'm always decorating large(r) cakes, so mini cupcakes, cake pops and macarons are a welcome treat! I was given the invite to a baby shower, and asked to make a set of matching goodies. I was so very excited to see Tiffany blue paired with gray chevron. There was a ton of fun stuff to draw from these invites!

For the cupcakes, I made little fondant toppers, copying the onesies and the chevron. Macarons are cute enough as they are, but oh so much cuter with the added touch of some hand-painted chevron and polkadots! Finally, for the cake pops, since there was already so much going on with the rest of treats, I kept them relatively simple, with some adorable mini neckties. 

Kaketonite

Yes, that's my pathetic attempt at coming up with a clever name for this blog. It's my kryptonite... 

I hope you had wonderful holidays, lovelies! I'm incredibly behind on my blog posts from the past month. So many cakes, so many parties, so little time! A friend of ours celebrated his birthday right smack in the middle of it all, and I was asked to make him a superman cake. Since I had just made another superman cake a few weeks ago, I decided to take a completely different route with this one. I love comic books, and admire the art quite a bit. So, for this cake, I thought I'd try my hand at replicating comic-style artwork.

Seeing as there's really no way to trace on fondant, I had to completely freehand it, which caused me quite a bit of stress. I printed myself out an image to base the drawing on, and went at it with my food colours. 

I also airbrushed the cake to add to that comic book effect.

 The nerd in me loves this cake!

Red, White and Black

Last week, I had the chance to make one of the classiest first birthday cakes! It was an Olivia the Pig themed birthday, complete with black and white damask, and polkadots. The entire party's decor was stunning! They had banners, food labels, little tags and toothpick "flags" that they put into my mini cupcakes. An absolutely beautiful setup! 

They were kind enough to share some pictures from their party, and in there, they had a stream of ten or so pictures of the birthday girl eating her cake... and then a picture of what happened when they took her plate away. It made my heart melt! It's moments like this that make me love what I do. I just had to share these oh-so-adorable shots! 

The cake was red velvet with cream cheese frosting. The little one has wonderful taste! 

It's a Bird! It's a Plane!

... No! It's Superman! 

It was a family friend's birthday this weekend, and my parents asked me to make him a cake. He's nicknamed superman among his friends, so they thought it'd make a fitting theme for the party and the cake. I stuck with simple blue and red tiers, some kryptonite, topped with a brown superman.

I've never masked a cake in ganache before, but after seeing just how much smoother cakes are when using ganache instead of buttercream, I gave it a go! I'm sold! No air bubbles, super straight lines, and oh-so-decadent to boot!

Yummy Minnie

I don't usually make cakes that aren't covered in fondant. Fondant is smooth, clean, and creates the perfect blank canvas. So when a repeat customer asked me to make a buttercream cake for her daughter's first birthday, I reluctantly agreed, explaining to her that I'd still use a bit of fondant to recreate the decor and topper she asked for. I probably could have made it entirely out of buttercream, but the OCD in me would have hated the imperfections! I worked extra hard on making the buttercream as flawless as possible, and topped it off with a 2D gumpaste figurine of Minnie's head.

I have to admit, the buttercream makes this cake look extra yummy! Doesn't it just want to make you stick your finger in it for a little taste!? :P

Fit For a Fashionista

This set of wedding cakes kept me up at night weeks before the deadline. I was constantly reminded of this giant project I had taken on. I was eat/sleep/dreaming of this cake. It's really not that big of a project, but let me tell you a bit about my week. This wedding was on the same day as another wedding I was making a cake for. I work a full time job, had a trade show for that job the week before, and I have another part time position on the weekends. My life right now is as crazy as it's ever been, and I couldn't be happier! If that means cows in the morning, and cakes in the evening, all the better!

I did need help with this wedding cake, and lots of it! My best friend spent both Thursday night, and Friday night with me, staying up into the wee hours of the morning. With lots of caffeine, while blasting the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, and Disney songs, we somehow got it all done! I owe her big time!

These cakes were for a couple of amazing clients! The bride is a fashion blogger, and had some grand ideas for her special day. They came in for a tasting a couple of months before the wedding, and were an absolute pleasure to work with! They chose to do three different cakes, and were so open to trying out whatever designs I had in mind. They did give me quite a bit of inspiration to work with, it was so perfect!

Interested in seeing what other wedding cake ideas I have in mind? Come see me at Montreal's first annual cake show at the end of this month, where I'll show you what I think the wedding cake of 2013 will look like! There's also a cupcake event, it's going to be so much fun! Hope to see you there!

A glimpse at the beautiful venue!

A Pretty Cake for a Pretty Lady

It was my sister-in-law's birthday last week, which meant it was time to whip up something special! After much humming and hawing, I decided to make something that included her most recent shoe purchase -- a pair of gorgeous Valentinos. Since a sugar shoe figurine was something I had done one too many times already, I thought I'd make a cake with elements from the shoe rather than the shoe itself. These are her hot hot beauties,

and here's how I replicated it on the sides of her cake. I used some hand-cut fondant, with the edges piped in royal icing.

My sister-in-law also recently got some very sexy business cards. So, I decided to use the pattern from them for the top tier of the cake. 

Business card: 

 My cake interpretation:

Et voila! A pretty cake for a pretty lady!