Charity's Baby Shower!

Yesterday was a baby shower for my great friend, Charity.  She's quite the baker herself, so I wanted to make this cake as perfect as possible!  She's having a baby girl, and the cake was themed around the invitation I received with a pink baby carriage with fun colors/designs on gifts in the carriage.

The cake flavors were lemon with lemon cream filling, red velvet with cream cheese filling, and yellow with vanilla buttercream filling.

Here are a couple photos:

I've been baking like a mad woman for the holidays.  I've made two batches of seven layer bars, a batch of fudge, sugar cookies - frosted of course.... more to come!

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!
Aly

Mocktail Baby Shower!

My friend Kimberly asked me to make some goodies for a baby shower she is hosting - with the theme of "mocktails."  Specifically, she requested my cheesecake shots with fruit and my cupcakes with dark chocolate ganache filling and buttercream frosting (in turquoise and yellow).

So, I made cheesecake shots with martini blueberries and drink umbrellas with raspberries.  This was such a fun project!  :) 

Here are some photos:

I'm looking forward to lots of fun baking this holiday season!

Thanks for reading!
Aly

October cakes

One of my best friends, Rachel, celebrated her birthday on October 8.  A week prior, she had showed me a photo of a cake she loved and said I would love to have this... so I made it!  It was really simple, just 2 8" chocolate cakes with chocolate fudge frosting, a ton of Kitkats, and a giant bag of M & Ms.  The product is below:

I made a 1 year anniversary cake this week as well.  The decorative part was challenging, but was not as difficult as the flavor!  The cake flavor was a tiramisu cake, requiring all sorts of special, delicious ingredients that I'm not accustomed to using.  However, I tasted the filling... and it was pretty yummy.  I hope the whole cake was delicious.  Here are some photos:

(Those are real roses... I haven't mastered the fondant rose yet... soon, though!)


Thanks for reading,
Aly

Under the Sea!

Kyle's friend from swimming is having a baby and I was asked to do the cake for her baby shower.  The theme was baby sea animals.  I was so excited to make this cake... my favorite animal is the sea turtle, love Finding Nemo and The Little Mermaid, and am a swimmer myself!

The cake was relatively small so I didn't go too overboard on the decorating because I didn't want it to be overwhelming.  I really want to make a 3-D sea turtle as the cake topper.  I also included a tropical fish (should have been decorated as a clown fish but wanted to add another color), an angel fish with bubbles, and an octopus.  (Unfortunately, my octopus only has 6 legs, so we will pretend you just can't "see" the other two...)

The flavors are yellow cake with buttercream frosting and red velvet with milk chocolate buttercream frosting.

After sticking my finger into it this morning - oops lol - I managed to sort of fix the waves at the bottom. 
This cake was such a blast to make!

Here are some photos:

Happy bubbles!  :)
Aly

Orangewood Children's Foundation donation

We attended the 3rd annual Eric Pepys Memorial Golf Tournament, in memory of our good friend, Eric.  The Pepys family is now our extended family and we feel so blessed to get to spend time with them!

I donated my services to make a cake for an event as a silent auction item at the tournament.  The woman who won the bid needed my services this week for her husband's 50th birthday.  She requested something I had never made before - custard filling!  After the first batch was a total failure, the second time around the custard was delicious!  The cake was two tiers of chocolate with custard filling and one yellow tier with lemon filling.

She was going to be using cream tablecloths, etc. so I thought a theme of cream and brown would be classy and manly.  Here are a couple photos of the final product!

I have some more fun cakes to make in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!

Thanks for viewing,
Aly

Birthday and an Open House!

This week my Aunt Margaret, Uncle Larry, cousin Kari Lynn, and my cousin's friend, Sarah, came to visit and go to Disneyland.  Maggie's birthday was on Tuesday and we got to celebrate it with her!  She is chocoholic, so the cake was chocolate with dark chocolate fudge on the top tier and milk chocolate fudge on the bottom tier.

I had some fun "family joke" ideas, but decided to do something more sentimental.  We have this great picture of my Aunt in my grandma's rose bushes when she was helping to prune them.  (My grandma has 100+ rose bushes).  I thought it would be fun to make a garden cake for her, but a cartoon version.

Here are some photos:

Also, this week my friend Kimberly hosted an Open House.  She is sells "Stampin Up" products and hosts a stamp club.  They make adorable invitations and stationary.  She also had a friend sending Lia Sophia jewelry - what a beautiful line! 

I brought some of my sweet treats for free samples and also had some cupcakes and larger cookies to sell.  I had chocolate chip, oatmeal chocolate chip, butterscotch chocolate chip, and white chocolate butterscotch cookies.  I also had yellow cupcakes with lemon filling and buttercream frosting and chocolate chip cupcakes with dark chocolate ganache filling and buttercream frosting.

One of our friends, Devin, took some photos of my cupcakes.  Here is a link to his blog:
http://www.devinworkman.com/blog/product-photography/everything-nice-and-sweet/

He is an incredible photographer!  Thanks, Devin!

Have a wonderful weekend,
Aly

Update!

Hi there!

It has been a while since I've posted.  I have been busily baking, but not just cupcakes.  I have made quite a few batches of the ever-popular chocolate chip cookies.  However, I did make some cupcakes for a celebration for my friend Courtney.  These were my chocolate chip cupcakes, with dark chocolate ganache filling and butter cream frosting.

Kyle and I also attended a BBQ yesterday at the Brown's house.  I made a really delicious and simple little treat.  Ralph's has been selling mini pie crusts (tart shells).  I just put a little slice of banana in it and filled it with my dark chocolate ganache frosting.  YUM!  I highly recommend these.  For a more simple recipe, you could take really any kind of fruit and fill it with whip cream or canned frosting. 

In other news, I will be bringing my treats to an Open House in Placentia on Thursday, September 15th.  If you are interested in stopping by for some delicious treats, to check out some beautiful jewelry, or to look at some fun ideas for invitations and stationary, let me know and I can provide additional information!

Thanks for viewing!
Aly

Cupcakes Galore!

The last two weeks - I have been baking like a mad woman.  I'm looking forward to a reprieve for a couple of weeks!

First, I put in my two weeks at Ontario and wanted to make sure that I tried to give everyone a cupcake before I left.  I made two batches of cupcakes - the orange frosting is a chocolate cupcake with caramel filling and buttercream frosting and the brown frosting is a chocolate cupcake with a peanut butter cup as the base and has peanut butter frosting.  (I also made my famous chocolate chip cookies which are not pictured).  The cupcakes were really fun to make and it seemed like people enjoyed them!

I also made some cute "jungle" themed cupcakes - mini and regular ones.  I made a larger cupcake for the birthday girl and frosted it with buttercream and used fondant accents.  In transport, the larger cupcake got a little lop-sided, but I think it will survive.  (I forgot to take pictures of the mini cupcakes).

Finally - I was tasked with a surprise 50th birthday party order - so here are some girly (but includes black) cupcakes... :)  These were chocolate chip cupcakes with dark chocolate ganache filling.

Anyway, my official last day at Ontario was Wednesday, July 27th.  It was very sad to leave all my friends - but I am headed to a great opportunity at the County of Orange!  Day 1 on Friday at the County was really awesome and I am looking forward to doing more policy analysis work!

Take care and happy baking,
Aly

Quinton's First Birthday!

My sweet nephew, Quinton, turned 1 on Saturday!  I can't believe he's already a year old... He is so incredibly smart, silly, and cute!

My sister-in-law gave me a Martha Stewart Living magazine which had a recipe for Firework cookies.  These are sugar cookies with royal icing frosting.  It requires the color-flow process to make the design.  They started out very difficult - but in the end, it was a fun process!

Here are some photos:

It only made 30 cookies so I made a batch of my famous chocolate chip cookies - they were a big hit! 
These are really delicious - they are nice and puffy, ultra-chocolatey, but not super sweet.

Last but not least, I made Quinton a giant cupcake to destroy!  It was fun to make and kind of looks like the Captain America shield! 

The final product!  The dessert table!  :)

Happy birthday, sweet Quinton!  Love you!
Aunt Aly

Star Wars!

This cake is a marble cake with vanilla fudge filling and frosting.  I had a request for a lightsaber cake - but to feed twenty kids!  So, after deliberation, it ended up being a square cake with the Star Wars logo and a lightsaber.

Fun to make - looks like fun to eat!

Reese's Birthday and Flavor Update!

Our good friends, Max and Charity, are hosting a birthday party for their 5 year old daughter, Reese, tomorrow.  Reese and I are good "pals" - I have taught her swim lessons, babysat for her, and we spend a lot of time together with our families.  :)

Charity is quite the baker and an excellent decorator and is going to be making some amazing treats for tomorrow - but I REALLY wanted to make Reese a special birthday cake.  This is just a fun, funky cake incorporating her favorite colors and my favorite colors!  :)  Happy birthday to my sweet little friend... :)  Love you, Reese!

The cake is a yellow cake with funfetti - pink, orange, blue, and green - with vanilla frosting... yum! 

Here are some photos:

I also have a new cake flavor - cookies and cream!  It is really yummy!  I am going to do another trial run which will be a dark chocolate cake with an oreo cookie crust and cream cheese filling.  The frosting is a cookies and cream buttercream frosting... YUM!

This weekend I will also be making an ultra special dessert for Father's Day... something fun and unique!  Be on the look-out - I hope it's successful!
Thanks!
Aly

It's a jungle out there!

This week I have been working on a baby shower cake for another jungle themed baby shower.  I modeled this cake after the one Lindsay and I had made last year for my sister-in-law - but this time I did it all by myself!  :)  And wow, this cake took forever - about 10 hours in total from baking to decorating.

The bottom tier is a lemon cake with vanilla filling and buttercream frosting.  The top tier is a red velvet cake with cream cheese filling and frosting. 

I used a zebra print design for the bottom and a giraffe print design for the top, both with green leaves and colorful flowers to make it "pop".  Then, I handmade from gumpaste and fondant a giraffe, an elephant, and a tree.  This was my first solo attempt at 3-D characters, and while they are not "amazing", they turned out decent.

Here is a photo:

 
I really enjoyed making this cake - I think I have officially found the love for cake making again!   It has been a while since I made a cake like this using fondant - and I just LOVE all the different and fun things you can do with fondant!

I hope the customer is satisfied... Out of all my cakes so far, I am most proud of this one!

Thanks for reading,
Aly

Cupcake Weekend

This weekend I had two big projects - an engagement party and a baby shower!

For the engagement party, I was asked to make 60 mini cupcakes with my chocolate chip cupcake recipe.  These were fun to make - they are chocolate chip cupcakes filled with dark chocolate ganache and buttercream frosting.  I put little pearls on top to make them classy... :)

The baby shower was regular size cupcakes.  20 were red velvet with cream cheese filling, 20 were lemon with lemon filling, and 20 were chocolate chip with dark chocolate ganache filling.  All have buttercream frosting.  I handmade 60 sports balls for decorations out of fondant.  :)

Here are some photos:

I think these all turned out cute... I hope everyone enjoys them!

So - in sum, I made 120 cupcakes this weekend... I went through a dozen eggs, 5 lbs of powdered sugar, over 1 lb of butter, and much much more... I finished them this morning with plenty of time for delivery!  PHEW! 

Thanks for looking!
Aly

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes - round 2!

I have some orders for some chocolate chip cupcakes so I wanted to make them again just to make sure my recipe was good... :)

I made some mini cupcakes and some regular size ones. 

These cupcakes are a yellow cake batter with mini chocolate chips, dark chocolate ganache filling, and buttercream frosting.  I ran out of buttercream frosting so I did some of the cupcakes with ganache frosting!  YUM!  :)

I picked up a new piping tip and am really happy with how pretty the cupcakes are turning out now!

Easter cake

It has been a while since I actually made a cake - instead of cupcakes!  I really attempted to make this cake for Easter look like an Easter basket - but I was struggling big time with the frosting.  Anyways - it turned out OK - just not what I was expecting.

This was a fudge marble cake with chocolate mousse filling and buttercream frosting.  Here are a couple photos:

Stay tuned for some mini cupcakes and a baby shower cake in the next couple of weeks!

Thanks for looking,
Aly

Taylor's 2nd Birthday!

Our friends, Aaron & Sharilyn, are having a birthday party for their daughter Taylor who turned 2 on April 14th.  (I can't believe she is already two!!!!) 

I went over today to help Sharilyn make cupcakes - the theme is butterflies.  She baked chocolate and lemon cupcakes.  We made the fondant butterflies and I made the frosting and decorated.  It was a fun and easy project! 

Here are some photos - I think they turned out reallllllly cute!  :)

Happy Birthday, Taylor!
Love,
Aly