Baby Cakes!

This past September I had the honor of making birthday cakes for the world famous Salvateenies Triplets first birthday. This was just one and half weeks after returning from my honeymoon and of having thought of nothing but weddings and honeymoons for the past three months straight. But I was up for the challenge! I couldn't think of a better way to get back into the swing of "normal" life.
Mom and Dad requested a zoo animal theme.. which means Mom told me exactly which animal to make for each kid since I was lacking any creative brain power. Caroline was to be "Caro-lion," Max was to be "Monkey Max" and Daniel would be "Croco-Daniel. " I got to pick the flavors, with approval of course. Caro-lion: white cake with fresh strawberries and vanilla frosting. Monkey Max: white cake with banana pudding filling and vanilla frosting. Croco-Daniel: chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. YUM.
I started preparing for the cake making a couple of days in advance so it wouldn't be a mad rush to finish (as if preparation ever prevents that). Unfortunately, I was feeling a little crampy and tired the night before so I had a hard time getting stuff done, but I powered through expecting that it would only get worse the following morning.
As I mentioned, I had just gotten back from my honeymoon, which was actually the official "start trying" time for Brad and I. In the morning, I could feel my monthly visitor coming on strong but took a test anyway just to be sure.... and... not so much. I thought I was hallucinating when I saw the faintest, lighter than pink pink line appear, so I threw it out and told Brad it we weren't pregnant, then got back to work. A few minutes later, he said, "Babe, we do pee tests all the time at work for the kids. The results don't show up right away. It's right about now that the line will start to change if the kid is positive for drugs. I'm going to go check it." So the incredible man that I married went through the bathroom garbage can (gross!) and found the stick with a slightly more pink line indicating that we might just really be pregnant, but it was extremely faint and I decided it was possible we were now both hallucinating. We were cautiously excited. I still had so much work to do, and Brad had to get to bed in time to wake up for his next graveyard shift. I baked, frosted, fondanted, and packaged the cakes then drove them up to SF to celebrate with the precious 1 year old triplets. In the chaos, I only got a couple of pictures (thanks Brad!)

Monkey Max

Caro-lion

Poor Daniel was the last cake to be finished and I wasn't able to get a picture. More pictures of the entire event, including a few of the cakes being destroyed and me being exhausted on a glider chair, can be found here, on the Salvateenie's official blog. Lessons learned: fondant is not my forte, one year olds could care less about filling and frosting and perfection, and if I ever do cakes for a living, I have to research the best way to transport them. Max's monkey lost an ear and Daniel's crocodile sank slightly into his chocolate lagoon.

The party was fun but I was ready for bed by 3pm. Being the psychotic I am, however, I stopped at Walgreen's on the way home and picked up three more tests to use in the morning... they were all different brands, of course. The next morning, I took all three tests a just before Brad got home, and hid them from myself so I wouldn't freak out. 5 minutes later I looked at them, and 5 minutes after that, Brad got home saying, "WELL?!?!?!" I directed him to the kitchen where he found all three tests showing absolutely, no doubt about it POSITIVE results for pregnancy! We were both in shock, excited, then in shock, then excited.. and so forth, for the rest of the morning until poor Brad had to go to bed again for work. We're now about 5 months and 3 weeks along and still going between shock and excitement, though excitement is now winning because my motherly intuition was right, and we're having a baby boy. Brad thinks it will all be cars, trucks, gadgets and flashlights, but I'm going to sneak in some baking time with mommy when he isn't looking :)

Married Woman!

My last post was not baking related at all.. Oops. Brad just really wanted me to post a blog from our honeymoon and I didn't feel like creating a whole new blog for one post. It got me thinking though.. I never posted anything about how the wedding cake/cupcake baking went!

I had originally planned to make a traditional wedding cake. Lauryn came out and we practiced it, and everything went well, except it wasn't perfect. I then did another run of the largest tier on my own and felt better.. But something wasn't quite right and I couldn't figure out what it was. My frosting technique isn't great and I can't get really smooth edges.. At that point I was close, but not where I wanted to be. The height was also an issue on such a huge cake, so I guess my measurements were off ( I'm not trained in traditional baking so I don't have the whole baking ratio thing down). I knew I could do it, but I wasn't feeling like it was the right time to experiment or stress myself out being a perfectionist. And all spring and summer long I was baking cupcakes for people and coming up with some very pretty and tasty stuff. I then realized it was time to rethink my strategy. The cake was doable, but transporting and stacking on the wedding day was no doubt going to be an issue. I love my cupcakes and they're much easier to move around and put out on a tiered display, so I thought I'd attempt a cupcake wedding cake. I mentioned my idea to Brad and he was very hesitant.. He turned into a groom stuck on what's traditional and told me I had to clear it with both our moms before doing it. They were both on my team so the plan was set in motion!

As the wedding got even closer and my plate was getting fuller, I decided I needed to make this whole bake-my-own-cake plan even simpler. So with my business tax id I signed up for an account with a wholesale cake decorations company and ordered flowers for my cupcakes, cake, and display. I also ordered a really nice cupcake tower to set all my beauties upon. Everything was going so well!

I was nervous, but it seemed like everyone else was more nervous than me about my plan. Except Lauryn. She was my rock and not only that, very excited to come out and bake. I had everything planned out beautifully so when she arrived, we would bake and be happy. And that's exactly what happened! Lauryn arrived and almost immediately put an apron on and got started with the lemons (poor Lala, always stuck with the lemons, even Brad said, "wow, Lauryn, it seems like every time you are here, you are zesting lemons!"). So we all jokingly named her the Lemon Curdmudgeon. We made about 80 chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling and swiss meringue raspberry buttercream, and about 80 lemon cupcakes with lemon curd filling and vanilla frosting. Somehow everything got done in a timely fashion and we were happy with the results. I was in charge of the 6" cake which was just my chocolate cake with Brad's favorite canned frosting, which we would cut into at the wedding and serve to each other. I used a vanilla homemade frosting on the outside to match the cupcakes and spent a little bit of freak out time trying to make it look smooth, but eventually gave up and decided I was happy with the work Lauryn and I did and realized it really couldn't have gone any better. I had the perfect partner and perfect outcome for my "crazy" make-my-own-wedding-'cake' plan.

The Aftermath (please note, Fiona was not in the mix until the very end when we were wrapping things up/cleaning up- I really need to find a commercial kitchen to bake in though!!).


Of course the day came and went with a total blur, but I had a couple of favorite parts which include the cupcakes/cake:

1) Brad was very sad to learn in the beginning that I wanted to put two pretty glass birds on top of the cake instead of people/figures. As I mentioned, he was suddenly a traditionalist and couldn't deal with anything "outside" the box. I felt he deserved his wish after he gave in on the cupcakes, so I snuck around and found a little figurine that I could settle on. Only his mom was in on the secret. The morning of the wedding when Lauryn and I set up the cupcakes, we covered up the whole display with a box and sheet contraption to protect it from the fog (don't get me started) and so that when Brad arrived, he could uncover everything for the big reveal. We instructed the coordinator to allow Brad to uncover the display and stressed the importance, but apparently when Brad's mom told him to do so, the coordinator became a psycho and said Brad was too busy (this woman was great in the beginning but really got on my nerves the day of- Joanne from Chateau La Joye). So Joanne uncovered it, apparently adjusted the display to her liking (HOW COULD SHE, ugh) and eventually Brad went down to see it. I'm told he was impressed but suddenly became irate when he saw figurines on top of the cake instead of birds, "where are the birds!!! she wanted birds, who did this?!" And his mom had to explain that it was my surprise to him. During the ceremony, he whispered to me that he loved the people on the cake and that I was really sweet to do that for him. It was a perfect moment.





2) The cake cutting was a lot of fun. Brad almost didn't believe I put canned frosting in the middle but when he tasted it, he was overjoyed. Right after cake cutting we had to do the bouquet and garter toss, and Brad still had his plate with him. Joanne took his plate while he took off my garter, and when he started to bend down, all I hear is, "You're eating my cake!!!" And then Joanne says, "it's really good!" She was seriously eating the cake she was supposed to be holding for him. He laughed, but I know Brad. 1) he was upset that someone was eating HIS cake that was made special for him, 2) he does not share food with anyone but me (germaphobe). Did I mention Joanne is crazy??? Fortunately the rest of the cake was salvaged and while he didn't get anymore at the wedding, he did have some after the honeymoon.



I have baked a ton since the wedding and honeymoon but I can't remember all of it. While I wrote this post I made an apple pie and plan to eat it soon. Tis the season!!

Until next time!!

**All Photos courtesy of Ken Buck Photography**

Aloha! By Popular Demand...

So I didn't plan on doing this but we had quite a few people ask.. and then Brad insisted... that I do a blog from Kauai while we're on our honeymoon.



First of all.. I'm still having a hard time realizing that the wedding actually happened! It wasn't actually that the whole thing breezed by.. though most of it did, the chaos came in waves. I definitely had a few opportunities to sit back and take it all in, but there were moments that I wouldn't be able to retell accurately if my life depended on it. Brad says he felt like the most popular kid in school and his arms literally hurt from hugging/greeting/taking photos with so many folks. He cracks me up!!!! All in all we had a wonderful time and we're so pleased with how it all came together. Our photographer already put up a sneak peek slideshow if you're interested in seeing a lot of photos of me and Brad.. ha. All photos will be available soon.



http://www.kenbuckphotography.com/data/slideshow/83/Colleen.Brad/index.html




And now we're in BEAUTIFUL Kauai!!!! It is amazing here. We stepped off the plane and the first thing I noticed was the incredibly sweet smell in the air. I wish I could bottle it up and sell it. The first thing we did upon arriving was get lost on our way to our "treehouse"- which is basically a condo in the middle of nowhere.. or the hills of Kalaheo if you happen to know where that is. We were given the address but no hint that the mailbox we were looking for didn't exist. It was pitch black, the locusts were screaming, and Brad and I were imagining what life would be like without our kidneys as we went down the wrong driveway and found what we imagined were slaughterhouses, but were probably just sheds. We called our host Neil and he met up with us after he let loose a few frustrated fucks! and other four letter words. It was funny because he is Australian.. it would have been scary if he was from anywhere else, we're sure.

Neil is a character and can't stop talking and cursing. He brought us to our honeymoon abode and we were so thrilled at how awesome it was. Neil thought it would be a good time to talk about how bad the economy is and then told Brad about cockroaches and killer centipedes. Oh Neil, why!! Surely he didn't know about Brad's insane cockroachophobia. Ha! Brad put on a brave face and mentioned how neat it would be to have a couple of beers. Suddenly Neil pulled three Coronas out of god knows where and we were sipping on beer and talking about even more ridiculous topics such as how he isn't making any money yet on his investment aka the very treehouse we were staying in. I don't know how we escaped his grasp but eventually he was gone and Brad and I were almost in tears laughing about how funny the whole thing was.

The next morning we took an amazing doors-off helicopter tour of Kauai. It was absolutely breathtaking and the perfect first thing for us to do because it gave me ideas for what we would do for the rest of our trip. There were so many good shots but I'm only going to leave you with a few due to the time it takes to upload them!

The following day, we did the most intense and crazy thing either of us has ever done.. and brace yourself for this because you will probably laugh at first: a raft ride along the Na Pali coast. Yes. Now you must know that it was more like a raft/speed boat combo and all passengers sat along the edge of the boat while it sped for an hour and a half up the coast to get us to the beautiful views and photo ops. It was really fun in the beginning- we stopped and photographed spinner dolphins and sea turtles, learned about some history, took a walk through an ancient-ish village (not a lot of ruins as it's on the coast, so they re-created a lot). Super fun! The highlight was speeding through an arch along the coast and doing an ocean donut (if that exists) within an open ceiling cave. It's the stuff I always dreamed of when thinking about my honeymoon as a little girl- yes, I thought about my honeymoon more so than the wedding, even at a young age ;)

The "Screen Saver" Shot:

Open Ceiling Cave:

After that, we went snorkeling.. which is what I was looking forward to the most. Unfortunately, after I jumped into the water, I remembered my fear of the ocean and nearly panicked completely. I only stopped when I realized that Brad was struggling with his snorkel. He kept trying to scuba dive with his snorkel and of course breathed in air. Then he had to pee and refused to do it until he could "stand on something." In Brad talk, that meant he needed his feet to touch the sand in order to pee.. so he began to swim to shore, which looked deceivingly close because we had a 2,000 foot cliff towering over the beach. I forced him to stop when we swam for 10 minutes and were still nowhere near the beach. He finally did his business and then we swam like Phelps back to the boat so we didn't end up being stranded. We had a long haul back to the harbor so we braced ourselves on the boat and held on for dear life as we sped at what felt like lightening speed over the ocean waves, dodging sea turtles and huge swells. Brad's knuckles and hands were bleeding from holding on so tight and I had to stop looking forward because our final destination was never anywhere in sight. It was like being on the Grizzly or Giant Dipper for 90 minutes straight... with no seat belt. OUCH!!!!! Still, we both agree it was the most amazing thing we've done on this trip so far and the beauty of it all made it worth it.

We weren't too tired for a trip up to the North Coast where we stopped for dinner and shopping then a photo op at Hanalei Bay during sunset. Brad was really eager to get this photo and scouted out a couple to perform the task. I almost had an anxiety attack watching him approach a young couple strolling along the beach, because I thought for sure he was interrupting a potential proposal. Fortunately for us.. that wasn't happening. But it reminded me to watch for proposals!! Good grief I wouldn't want to be responsible for ruining that moment for anybody!!

We woke up in MAJOR pain this morning but fought through it for our ATV tour through Kipu Ranch. Brad was excited to drive an ATV and I was excited to do a rope swing and swim under a real waterfall, so we booked the waterfall tour! We started out clean:

And ended up looking like this:

Fortunately, there was a waterfall to clean off under at the end. Brad and I held hands and jumped in... from a rock on the surface of the pond :)





So it has been an amazing time so far.. and we're just getting started. I had to give up on the whole "relaxing in Kauai" idea I had when booking this trip.. there are a lot of opportunities but we've been running around like Kauai chickens doing everything dangerous that we possibly can. I even had tried to remedy this with a Mai Tai and instead of feeling amazing, I passed out. Ha! We love it though and are so excited for more. What a wonderful way to start married life!!


That's it for now!

extreme cancellations

two of my four orders this week had to cancel. one is rescheduled for next week, but the other is cancelled due to.. flooding of the missouri river! crazy! my client's parents live near the missouri river and are being evacuated so she's flying out to help. the poor midwest is just taking a beating lately! if cupcakes could save homes i'd have sent her off with her order. :(

Gradumication

My last two orders have been for graduations. It's been fun making tiny diplomas for the tops of my cupcakes! Here are a few photos from the 120+ cupcakes I've made:

It's My Party Cupcake: confetti cake with vanilla buttercream and my favorite sprinkles:

My "signature cupcake": Chocolate cake, raspberry filling, chocolate dipped raspberry on top. Chech out those cutey diplomas!

The are my Lemon Blast cupcakes: lemon cake with lemon curd filling and these have lemon cream cheese frosting w/ a lemon jelly belly on top

I made this for Cinco de Mayo and they were a huge hit, so now they're on the menu and being ordered, I call them the Chocolate Doodle: chocolate cake w/vanilla swiss meringue buttercream sprinkled with cinnamon and cocoa and a milk chocolate chip

Here is the Lemon Blast with diplomas and instead of lemon cream cheese frosting, they have a vanilla swiss meringue buttercream

This coming week I have four orders.. a graduation cake, minis for a tech event, minis for a bridal shower, and regulars for a summer bbq. I don't know how I'm going to do it but it will happen! I'm pretty sure this weekend will be dedicated to figuring out what the problem is with my vanilla cake, it peels from the wrapper. I've tried a few tricks and they seem to work, but the problem inevitably comes back. I'm also freaking out just a bit because I can no longer taste my own cupcakes.. I mean, I can taste them, but I'm starting to lose my grip on whether or not they're good, if the lemony ones are lemony enough, etc. I hope I don't lose it entirely! That would be awful.

Happy Memorial Day weekend everybody!

Fondant Covered Cake List

I had an order for a 3 tiered fondant covered red velvet cake that feeds 60 this weekend... decorated in the theme of Dr. Seuss. There were a lot of firsts for me:

-First time a friend of a sister's friend reached out to me for a cake (this was basically a stranger)
-First time I made a cake this big and covered it entirely in fondant
-First time I almost had a full blown panic attach in the middle of a cakespedition
-First time I forgot to eat dinner during a cakespedition

This could potentially be the longest blog ever, so I am just doing another list to explain how it all went down:

-12" square cakes came out BROWN. Not red. Curse you wilton no taste red food color
-Second batch of buttercream came out salty. Curse you trader joe's for having oddly colored butter packaging, I wanted unsalted, not salted butter!
-Started in on the round cakes at 5pm, wondered why I suddenly felt faint and starved, and it happened to be 9:30pm... ALREADY
-Brad came home while I was up to my ears in fondant.. which was stretching, cracking.. basically doing all the things nobody wants it to do (rebel) and I felt the beginnings of a panic attack but I stuffed them down (conveniently as Brad brought out the video camera)
-Design was ill fated, switched things up at the last minute and ended up with two cakes instead of one
-This was to everybody's benefit, as Green Eggs and Ham made an appearance, and it was amazing!
-Got lost looking for San Bruno park, despite it being two blocks from where my Grandma used to live
-Forgot my camera at home, so Molly kindly came with hers to take pictures of the assembled cake
-Everybody loved it!

I am not doing another one of these before the wedding.. it literally took over an entire week and I just have too much to do (like working out so I don't feel like a slob in my dress, and finding shoes that don't make me taller than Brad).

Iron Cupcake.. passing the torch

Ha just reading the blog title makes me laugh. It is mostly a joke. Mostly. ;)

I went to Iron Cupcake this past week after failing to place the month before. Last month, the theme was breakfast, and I did a coffee and donuts cupcake. It was a vanilla cake dipped in butter, then cinnamon sugar, topped with a coffee buttercream and an all cake "donut" dipped in chocolate glaze with pretty colored sprinkles on top (not a real donut.. this is a cupcake competition, after all). I was one of 5 people with the EXACT SAME IDEA. Hahaha. I had no chance, though I firmly believe mine tasted the best out of the five (it certainly didn't look the best though). I was kind of sad but surprised at how much I didn't care and how fun it was to just hang out and try cupcakes. A lot of them were god awful, and I'm not naming any names.. except to say a couple of those awfuls won. I think they had fan clubs in tow.

My Grapefruit Lemon Cupcakes

So this month was the citrus challenge and I was just excited to go and kick back again. I made a grapefruit cupcake with lemon curd filling, grapefruit frosting, rimmed with coconut and topped with alternating pink and yellow giant sprinkles. The cake wasn't very grapefruity but it did taste citrusy. The rest was bomb, but I had a feeling it wasn't quite stand-out enough for Iron Cupcake. Those hipsters want off the wall flavors (think vanilla-bacon cake with tangerine frosting and jalapeno jelly filling). I can't go for that. No can do.

I really like this new top, and I look skinny with all those cupcakes, bonus.

At the competition, there was one clear winner in my mind, and she happened to be sitting at our table. She made a key lime pie cupcake that was just fantastic, complete with a graham cracker crust. And it was actually a cupcake version of key lime pie, no cheating at all. It was her first time baking in the competition and she did an amazing job. I liked it so much I voted for her, which I never do. Ha! Mom even voted for her and kept saying she was going to win 1st (gee, thanks mom! ;) )Winner announcement time came around and I fully expected not to place, but I did! 2nd! And Ms. Key Lime Pie took first, which was so well deserved and adorable. She wasn't a smug brat like I was when I won! :D tee hee.

Mine is top left. #1 Key Lime Pie is center row far right.. you can NEVER guess the winners just by looking at them:

Next month the theme is movies, and so far my favorite Willful suggestion is: Sucker Punch cupcake: a hawaiian punch cupcake with a dum dum sticking out. HILARIOUS!