Oh Baby Showers!

Hi Ya'll!
I have been doing a lot of caking lately so I have been busy but I have noticed that my baby shower orders typically come in clusters. I'll get a few scattered here and there and BAM! I'll client 3 or 4 clients asking about baby shower cakes in the same week. So I thought it would be fitting to do a post dedicated to baby shower cakes:)

First up we have the baby shower cake I just delivered this past weekend to the Springettsbury Township Park in Springettsbury, PA. It a really nice park and lots open space, so if you are an outdoor person and have a shower coming up I would recommend that location.

This cake really didn't have a theme, my client K saw a cake online and sent me the photo to replicate it. So you know how I feel about doing someone's else exact same cake so I put my whole little twist on it. The baby booties were different in that mind where hand made and not from a mold. I also made my gift box part of the cake a little different as well. The cake flavor was vanilla with vanilla buttercream.

The next baby shower cake I did a couple of months but since my photos were bad (need to get a better camera) I never posted them. My client actually sent me some photos yesterday when her sister in law wanted to place an order for guess what?? A baby shower cake for her niece:) So here are the pictures she sent me. The cake was an 11x15 sheet cake with an 8 inch square on top. For the life of me I can't remember what the flavors were but the theme was "Eat your Peas & Carrots" so I made the 8 inch square look like a garden with a hand molded baby (my babies look so much better now than this one) and some hand molded vegetables. The "dirt" was crushed oreo cookies.The cake was delivered to Shank's Mare in Wrightsville, PA. It is a store located on the bank of the Susquehanna River that specializes in outdoor equipment rentals and tours of the area. They also have a meeting facility upstairs that they rent out for events like baby showers!

The last baby shower cake was for a client D, I did about 2 weeks ago and was delivered locally to a bed n breakfast here in York City. The name of the bed and breakfast is Grace Manor B & B on West Market Street in York, PA. The inn so is cozy and has all of the detailing and sophistication of an earlier era. The cake in the shape of a lady's church hat in various shades of brown and beige with ruffle flowers and sugar beads. D also order cupcakes as well to go with the main cake which were decorated with little babies wearing hats.

So that is what I have been up to lately..more to come:)

Peace & Blessings
Kima

Hubby's 30th Birthday!

Soo I have officially slacked off again with my blog! Great thing is have been busy, bad thing my blog has suffered. So I am going to work backwards starting today to get caught up yet again. Since today is my husband's 30th birthday I decided to talk about his cake and go back from there. So I have a huge wedding and baby shower this weekend so I couldn't give my hubby another party like last year so I decided to keep it simple and make a cake and surprise him at his job.

So I asked him what flavor and theme he wanted.. of course he said Amaretto (which has been his favorite flavor since he tried it) but he surprised me with the theme..Superman. I say, "Superman? Really??" and he says, "yes Superman!". So Superman it is.. I made a mini 2 tier cake (5 and 7 inch rounds) covered in blue fondant. The one thing I did differently was I made Swiss Meringue Buttercream for the first time.. and boy let me tell you..it is sooo freaking DELICIOUS!!! No lie! All family cakes will be made with this buttercream from now on and I will offer it to my clients now. It takes some work to make, but it is soo worth it. It has silky smooth texture and its not overly sweet..it just melts in your mouth. And I don't even like buttercream so that is saying something!

Back to the cake..so I made some stars, hand molded 30 and a the superman logo to on the cake. Nice and simple the way my hubby is:) He loved it so I am happy. Now off to make cookies, cake pops, and etc.. for this wedding.

Peace & Blessings
Kima

XBOX360 Cake

Good Evening Ya'll
   I don't know how I let so much time passed before I put up another post! I just happened to look at the last date and realize OMG it has been almost 2 weeks! So I am now back with new post:) So obviously from the title that the post about an XBOX360 cake that I did about 2/3 weeks ago for a local client. She ordered the cake for her son's birthday. She said he loves XBOX and that he specifically likes the black one (not the white one:( I think that one looks better lol). So of course I told her no problem. About a year ago I did a PS3 cake (with the help of the hubby), so I knew if I can do a PS3 then I knew I could do the XBOX360. She also asked for the controller but it wasn't a very important part of the cake so I decided to work more on the XBOX part of the cake than the controller. Next time if I get an order for a bigger one, I will definitely had more detail but the key to being a cake decorator is to not spend sooo much time on a design that you don't make money from it. Meaning since this was a smaller order I can't spend the same amount of time on it that I would for a bigger order (more expensive order). The key is to price accordingly to how many hours you think it would take to decorate that particular order plus the ingredients/supplies needed to make the cake. If I had my way I would work longer on all of my cakes, but then I wouldn't make any money lol. So yeah below are some pictures I took before the hubby delivered the cake.

White Chocolate cake with Vanilla Buttercream filling. 

Peace & Blessings
Kima

Owl Themed 1st Birthday Cake

Good Afternoon Ya'll!

It seems that every where you look owl are popping up and in the cake world (or cake land as the hubby says I existent in) it is even more prominent. So I was not surprised when my client A contacted me to do a owl themed first birthday party for her daughter Mia. We talked extensively about her order to make sure everything was perfect. I am used to that when it comes to first birthdays and weddings. She already had a picture of the cake she wanted, so once I took a look at it I knew I could do this cake with no problems. Now most of the time I don't like to replicate someone's work but when the client want that specific design you just have to suck it up and do it. In this case the design was close to something I would have done anyway so I didn't mind to much.

So we decided on a 2 tier cake, a smash cake for Mia (which are free for first birthdays) and a dozen cupcakes.

 The top tier was red velvet with cream cheese buttercream and the bottom tier was 1/2 chocolate and 1/2 vanilla with white chocolate buttercream. The owl was made from chocolate fondant as well as the tree, the little mice and squirrel. The balloon is fondant a bit of tylose added to it to stiffen it up to get the balloon shape. The cake was covered in more yummy chocolate fondant. 

Mia's Smash Cake- All of the first birthday smash cakes are about this size and are decorated to match the main cake. Her cake was 1/2 chocolate and 1/2 vanilla and covered in chocolate fondant. 

The matching cupcakes were so simple, but so cute. The flavor was Oreo Overload with a vanilla buttercream to provide a blank canvas for the fondant buttons I made that were on the cakes as well. 

 My client A loved the cakes and cupcakes so that makes me happy. I wouldn't mind doing this theme again but in another color scheme maybe something for a little boy.

Peace & Blessings
Kima

Carrot Cake Recipe (Yes its diary free too:)

Good Afternoon Ya'll!

I know two blog posts in one day...cupcakes must be flying through the air! But alast no.. I have just finally been able to get my thought together this week (and I baked up all of my orders yesterday) so now I have some time to blog and since my posts have backed up I thought I would you guys 2 in one day as a way to catch up. 

Now I am not a fan of carrot cake..GASP! I know.. but those who know me know I don't really eat much cake these days. After baking and decorating for 3 years now cake doesn't look the same to me any more... I love it don't get me wrong but I just can't eat it unless I am trying out a new recipe. What prompted me to search for a really good from scratch carrot cake recipe is my mother in law. She loves carrot cake so a while back I was on the hunt for a really great recipe that she would enjoy being that its always a nice thing to impress the mother in law (beside she cooks wayyyyy better than I do, so cooking for her was out lol).

 Now this recipe I am going to give out will be one a very few recipes.. as you know.. us bakers they are our trade secrets. So to stay in business we keep them close to the vest, but I don't mind giving one out every now and then to my readers:) This recipe is also great for someone who is on a diary free diet because there is no diary in this recipe at all! Eggs aren't really considered diary so because they aren't made with milk (or the casein protein which alot of people are allergic too). The recipe calls for grated carrots, I cheated and use my food processor which I would recommend for those of you who have one. This recipe makes a great moist carrot cake from scratch  (cause I'm all about the scratch baby). 

Kima's Karrot Kake Recipe

1 cup nuts (pecans or walnuts) those of you who allergic to nuts can leave them out 

2 1/2 cups of finely grated raw carrots 

2 cups of all purpose flour (no cake flour here)

1 teaspoon of baking soda 

1 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon 

1/8 teaspoon of ginger

1/2 of nutmeg 

4 large eggs

1 1/2 cups of white granulated sugar 

1 cup of vegetable oil (or you can use canola  or safflower)

2 teaspoons of real vanilla extract (not the fake stuff, the real stuff like Madagascar vanilla)

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray two 8 inch round cake pans (or butter and flour) and line the bottoms of the pans with a circle of parchment paper.   

Toast the pecans or walnuts for about 8 minutes or until lightly browned and fragrant. Let cool and then chop coarsely. 

Peel and finely grate the carrots. 

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.

In bowl of electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the eggs until well combined.

Gradually add the sugar and beat until the batter is thick and light colored.

 Add the oil in a steady stream and then beat in the vanilla extract. 

Add the flour mixture and beat just until incorporated. 

With a large rubber spatula fold in the grated carrots and chopped nuts. 

Evenly divide the batter between the two prepared pans and bake 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  

Remove from oven and let cool.

 After about 5 minutes flip pans over onto a wire rack or pan flat pan (like a cookie sheet) if you don't have one to finish cooling. 

Level the tops, fill, frost and enjoy!

Here is a picture of a cake I did last week that was made with this recipe and a diary free vanilla buttercream filling. 

 

So that's it folks. I hope you enjoy the recipe:) Next post I will be sharing with you  Neapolitan Rice Krispy  Treats I came across on the web. They are soo cute and will work with any party you are planning. 

Peace & Blessings

Kima

The Preakness Winners Barn Party Cake

Hi Ya'll!

I am doing a quick post on the Preakness cake I did about 2 weeks ago for the winners of the Preakness held at Pimlico Race Track in Baltimore, Maryland. This cake was the biggest cake to date that I have ever done! It ended up serving about 300 people!!! And boy was this cake heavy!!! I can't tell you how much it weighed once it was completed but the hubby and I had a heck of time loading it into the van. It almost didn't fit out the front door of our house! We had to tilt it slightly sideways to get it to fit. At least I know what are the max dimensions I can fit through the door:)

I know some of you are thinking how did little ole me land such a big job..well it definitely goes back to making sure you please your clients. A client of mine, P, who I did her wedding cake last year, works for the Maryland Jockey Club (the organization that runs the Preakness). So she approached me back in the beginning of April and asked me if I would be interested in doing the Winners cake. She went on to say how she loved her wedding cake so much and how everyone raved about it that when she needed someone to do the Winners cake she thought of me first:) Of course I was very pleased that she thought of me instead of one of the local bakeries in Baltimore. So we talked over next couple of weeks about design and flavor. I had to send her some sketches and once she approved we were off to the races (lol)! She wanted a plain design with vanilla cake and vanilla buttercream in order to make sure everyone ate it. The final design changed slightly from the original but in the end she loved it and said all of her co-workers liked it and they will be using me from now on for the Winners cake! Such an exciting thing for my  business, we now have our first official corporate client:)

As you can see I did a lot of air brushing for this cake. I also made chocolate horse shoes that decorated the cake as well as fondant Black Eyed Susans.I had to include all 11 horses that were racing so those are the names scattered around the middle cake. The design is a lot plainer than what I normally do but she wanted to keep it simple for the first year and I am glad she did! The middle cake is a double stacked 12x18 airbrushed in brown. The 2 side cakes are 14, 10 and 8 inch rounds airbrushed in yellow. The signs on the top were made from fondant and had the Preakness 2012 logo on them. Each tier is wrapped in black ribbon.

My next post will be my carrot cake recipe and more information on my allergy free line:)

Peace & Blessings
Kima

I'm Back!!!!!

Good Evening Ya'll!


I know I have been gone for a little while now.. its not my fault! I have really busy these last couple of weeks as well as having some MAJOR computer issues (my laptop crashed). So now I am forced to use the hubby's desktop until I can get another computer. So I just wanted to let you all know what is going on and tomorrow I will be back in action with a brand new post! I have lots of cake pictures for you all and even one my cherished recipes gasp! Yes its true. I will posting my carrot cake recipe which is great for cupcakes too:)

Peace & Blessings
Kima