Go Seahawks!

Yeah, yeah... I know what you're thinking... "Aren't you a Packers fan?!"  The answer is YES!  

When the Packers and the Seahawks play, of course I will cheer for my team in green and yellow, donning my cheesehead.  But, with that being said, I am from Washington.  My parents are Huskies.  I have several family members who still live in Seattle.  And thus, by association, my "second favorite" team is the Seahawks.

Yesterday, in honor of their presence in the Super Bowl, I made some cupcakes for good luck.  These are yellow cupcakes with chocolate ganache filling and buttercream frosting.  

It had been months since I've baked, with my last project being in June.  It felt so great to be in the kitchen.  I struggled a bit to remember my recipes off the top of my head, but after a 3 hour process, I felt like these met my two requirements: tasty and pretty.  :)

I hope everyone else enjoyed them!

I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and bake some more.  If you need cupcakes or a designer cake, please let me know.  I love doing this!

Jimmy's Graduation!

Jimmy graduated! I made him a CSUF themed grad cake complete with mortarboard!  The cake was funfetti for the bottom tier and german chocolate for the top tier.  This was much more challenging than I initially anticipated... but so much fun to make a cake again!! Congrats, Jimmy!!

Aiden's 2nd Birthday!

Hi there!

It has been months since I have made a cake!  (Cupcakes excluded)  It felt so good to have some quality time to relax and be creative.

My friends Ryan and Theresa have an adorable little boy, Aiden, who is celebrating his 2nd birthday!  Aiden is obsessed with the movie "Cars"... rightfully so!  Thus, Ryan and Theresa asked me to make a Lightning McQueen cake.  I have to say - this was one of the most challenging and fun cakes I have ever made!  I also made some cupcakes to supplement, as even though the cake has a LOT of cake, it's awkwardly shaped - so we might need some extras!

Here are some photos:

Thanks so much for checking out my blog!
Aly

Nadine's Baby Shower!

My best friend since Kindergarten is having a baby girl!  I made three different kinds of cupcakes for her:
Chocolate chip with dark chocolate ganache filling
Red velvet with cream cheese filling
Chocolate with strawberry filling

All with buttercream frosting...

So happy for her!!  :)

The Hungry Caterpillar!

I had the opportunity to make cupcakes and a cake for a 1st birthday.  The theme was The Hungry Caterpillar (a very popular children's book of which I am not familiar). 

The cake was a yellow cake with vanilla filling and frosting.  The cupcakes were chocolate and vanilla with buttercream frosting. 

This was very fun to make!  :)

May Birthday!

My co-worker's son is celebrating his birthday this weekend.  I was asked to make cupcakes for his Dodgers Little League team, as well as a rock'n'roll themed birthday cake.

The cake and the cupcakes were both yellow cake with buttercream frosting.  I altered my buttercream for the cake so that it would spread more smoothly.  As you can tell, I hardly ever decorate cakes with just frosting... not using fondant is definitely out of my comfort zone.  But, this was definitely a fun cake to make!  Here are some pictures:

Thanks for looking!
Aly

Some More Photos from the April Cakes!

April Birthday Cakes!

I was insanely busy this week with two birthday cakes - in addition to my crazy day job schedule!

The first cake was for my "niece" Taylor - who turned 3 yesterday!  It was a tea party themed birthday party, so the cake was modeled after a mad hatter design.  The cake flavors were standard chocolate and yellow with vanilla and chocolate frosting respectively.  Here are a couple photos:

The other cake was for a co-worker's son who was turning 4... He loves sock monkeys and the color green, so I made an un-traditional sock monkey cake.  The cake flavor was funfetti with vanilla frosting.  Here are a couple photos:

These cakes were sooooo much fun to make!  :)  I hope they were tasty!

Thanks for reading!
Aly

VW-themed birthday!

One of my friends from college wanted a cake for her boyfriend's birthday which was on St. Patrick's Day.  He loves VW bugs, but because making a car is too challenging, I opted for making a VW logo with some "fenders."

I hadn't made a cake in over three months, so this was tons of fun!  I got to create a new recipe and be creative.  The cake itself was an orange cake with vanilla filling (like a 50/50 bar).  I made the orange cake from scratch.  Not sure how the cake turned out, but the batter was delicious!

Here are a couple photos:

Next month, I will be doing a fun mad hatter themed cake for my sweet "niece," Taylor.  Stay tuned!
Aly

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