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