Cakes, cakes & more cakes

Everywhere, cakes! It was a mere 6 months ago that I was asked by someone outside of the family if I would do a cake for a birthday party. Me? Really? You see, for the longest time I thought the cake-decorating gene simply skipped over me. It would take 2 hands, a foot, and maybe a couple toes to count the women in my family who have this particular talent. Not only that, but women who marry into the family have been known to have the skill as well. But me? My first cake, so carefully planned out for my daughter's first birthday almost 6 years ago was, to put it kindly, a complete disaster. I cried, and the next year saved myself the grief by ordering an ice cream cake. Year 3 came around, and I gingerly stuck my toes back in, and with the help of my brother, was able to produce something reasonably cute and definitely tasty. By the time her 4th birthday came around, I felt confident enough to attempt a cake all by myself, after spotting a fairly easy Candyland design in a Tastefully Simple magazine. I figured, how hard could it be to make a sheet cake and cover it with candy?



The ease with which I was able to make this cake gave me the confidence I needed to venture forth for birthdays #5 and 6, plus birthdays #1 and 2 for her little sister.

Then, last November, after having attended a couple birthday parties at our house, our neighbor asked if I would make a dinosaur cake for their son. Talk about nerve-wracking!!!! I mean, it's one thing to make a cake for your own child, but the thought of making one that people I didn't know were going to see was soooooo anxiety inducing.

After some research on my favorite photo site-Flickr, I settled on a design that i could do using buttercream (you'll find I am very anti-fondant. I have issues. lol)

This is not my original design, but it gave me a good chance to work with shaped cakes, and different mediums, mainly melting chocolate (for the scales and dots). I also was able to experiment with using rice-krispie treat for the trickier shapes (head and tail).

It seems once that cake hit the table, things just took off from there! I've done close to 10 cakes this year in my spare time, with 5 of those being in the past 5 weeks. Phew! Managing that around a full time job, 2 young children, a house, a husband, 2 cats and a rabbit is not easy! But at the end of the day, I simply love this hobby. I'm also grateful that the seemingly dormant gene has decided to come to the forefront, and I look forward to growing in this arena, and one day maybe my dream of owning my own bakery will be a reality!


Winter themed cake made with rice-krispie snowman (probably wouldn't go that route again!) and frosted sugar cookies.

Another borrowed idea that I expanded on to accommodate a larger party.
Simple cake made for a friend whose birthday falls right before Valentine's Day.