It's Fireman Sam to the rescue!!

The birthday boy was turning 4 and he loves the UK cartoon Fireman Sam. His mom told me the theme of the party and told me I could do whatever I wanted with this theme. This is what I came up with. All of the decorations are fondant except the ladder which is hand piped white chocolate.

Fireman Sam!

The kids even got some time in the firetruck and the awesome firemen hooked the hoses up for the kids to spray down cones. How fun!

Happy Birthday Tracy!!

This was an example of disaster gone right! I had removed the chocolate frosted cake from the refrigerator to pipe a paisley design on it in white chocolate. As soon as the chocolate hit the cake, it completely seized up! I ended up piping a maze-like design with none of the chocolate overlapping. It still needed something, so I just drizzled the chocolate all over the cake to give it a little more dimension. The cake was hers alone, so I make cupcakes to serve the guests.

I piped the little rosettes around the base to give it a more finished look.


The famous chocolate espresso cupcakes with fudgy espresso frosting and white chocolate/coconut curls


She really liked it. Her fiance told her not to eat it, they could save it for their wedding cake :)

It's a boy!


This was the first cake I did for someone I didn't know very well. It was very nerve racking, but I'm pretty pleased with the results. She didn't want the cake covered in fondant, so the outside is smoothed buttercream. The rattle, bow and polka dots are all fondant.



The photo's not fabulous, but here's the finished cake.

Ahoy Mateys!

My son has had a pirate obsession for years. This was from his 4th birthday party. It was my first shaped cake. I found a template online regarding how to cut and stack and I used his toy pirate ship as a guide. I just took it out of the fridge here, so the buttercream is sweating a bit. I just used a paper towel to carefully dab the drops away.

I set up two activity tables for the kids to start on while the other children were arriving. There were pirate puzzles and design your own pirate flags. I used thick muslin fabric and hot glued them to long cake dowels to make the flags.


In the pirate ship there are rolled up handmade treasure maps. First mate Madeleine and I came out to the park a few weeks ahead to map out the park and to decide what their treasure hunt route would be. If I can find where I put the extra treasure map I saved and put in that special place I would never forget, I'll post a picture of it, they turned out really great...



First mate Madeleine leading the boys to their booty!


What do we find here??


A treasure chest (that clearly I should have spent more time on, but what with those darned treasure maps and all, somethings had to be put off 'till last minute)

In the chest, the kids each found a burlap sack holding a bandana, an eye patch, Hershey's "treasures", gold coins, colored beads and skull and crossbone pencils.


Getting into their pirate gear.


Arrrrrrrrrrrg!

Is it cake time yet??

I
The cannons are on fire, quick, blow 'em out!


Happy Birthday!!

A Fairy Princess!


A friend's daughter was turning 2 and she is an absolute girlie-girl. She can rock a high heel better than me! Being the princess she is, of course she needed her own cake! And being a girlie-girl, she wanted it all chocolate! The frosting is cream cheese, so it doesn't smooth out like a buttercream does.


Pink, sparkly cupcakes for her loyal subjects.

The princess herself! She wouldn't let anyone else near that cake and she refused to open her presents if it meant moving away from the cake. What a compliment!

We Scream for Ice Cream!


Sometimes it's fun to find alternatives to cake for birthday parties. For my daughter's 8th birthday with her friends (we do a family party separately-see the petit four disaster below) she wanted to have ice cream sundaes instead of more cake. The girls each picked out a topping or two and I layed it all out on the table for them to assemble....

This is what it looked like after it was all pretty on the table :)

Fondant fun!

I co-hosted a shower for my friend Stephanie's first baby a few years ago. This was my first time ever working with fondant. I had such a great time, even though these cakes took many, many hours to complete... I was pretty happy with the results and almost cried when it was time to cut the cake and the fondant was just peeled off and tossed in the trash!