New Year's Eve Cake

This picture was taken with my phone (I lost my camera...I found it in my purse :)

50th Birthday Cake

I made this cake for my husband's uncle's 50th birthday. This was the cake from hell I talked about earlier. Evidently he had to spin the spinner instead of blowing out a candle and it landed on "Walking Farts" which is a huge joke in my husband's family. They're evidently very gassy people.

Took this one with my phone too.

34th Birthday cake

I just finished making a 34th birthday cake for a woman. She didn't know what she wanted it to look like but told me her favorite color is green and she didn't care what it tasted like. I made her my favorite...french vanilla cake with cream cheese and raspberry filling.



Hope she likes it!

Ever have one of those days?

It all started Christmas Eve. I made a lovely cake for Oma's Christmas Eve bash and it was a huge hit. My husband's aunt loved it so much that she wanted me to make her husband's 50th birthday cake for that Sunday. We decided on a funny cake with a wheel and spinner on top. The sections of the wheel had things that happen when you get old. It had things like "Dentures", "Memory Loss", "Adult Diapers", "Walking Farts" (inside joke).



So here it was, Saturday...I baked the cakes and made the parts of the wheel and went to a friend's house to watch the UFC fights.



I woke up early Sunday morning to finish the cake. I didn't have much to do. I made the filling and put the two cakes together. I leveled them, then made the buttercream. I crumb coated the cake and put it in the fridge. I relaxed for about an hour and took it back out to put on the thicker coat of buttercream. I make a crusting buttercream because of the humidity here so you have to add some light corn syrup to it to be able to spread it on the cake. So, I added the light corn syrup to it until it was silky & smooth. I started to put it on the cake and, not only did the crumb coat come right off, it was tearing off the cake with it!! I was freaking out so I just put the buttercream on super thick and put it back in the fridge. I let it sit for about an hour, took it out, put a thinner coat of buttercream on to even it out and put it back in the fridge. The first crisis is averted. I decided to go ahead and dye the fondant black while the cake was chilling. First, I ran out of black gel color while the fondant was still gray. So, I had to run to Walmart to get more. One of the joys of living in Hillbilly Hell is that Walmart is about 30 minutes away. ARRGH! So, an hour later, I'm back home, black gel color in hand, ready to get at it. I start to knead the fondant and what did it do? It crumbled in my hands. I was determined to make the cake black since all the parts of the wheel on top were different colors. I tried rolling it out in long rolls and wrapping it around the cake...that didn't work. I tried making squares and "tiling" the sides of the cake. Half way through, I decided it looked like crap and I would never send a cake out looking like that. So I had to take all the squares off the cake and re-apply the buttercream. Luckily I had some extra white fondant and made some gray. I covered the cake with the gray. The only problem was that I rolled one end too long and the other end too short. I tried to pick it up and move it over but the buttercream was fresh and had a firm grip on the fondant. So, I just bit the bullet and started smoothing it out. Well...I had already moved the cake to the cake board to put the squares on it and I didn't move it back to the cake table to put the gray fondant on. So when I started smoothing it out, the cake ended up with crinkles all along the bottom. So, I put the spatula under the cake and carefully lifted it to the cake table. In the middle of this process, my daughter decided it would be fun to grab my leg, cake mid-air, and scare the crap out of me. When she did, my thumb went through the side of the cake, right through the fondant. I get the fondant smoothed out, the wheel put together, the stripe around the bottom and it was off. 2 HOURS LATE for a surprise party. My husband took my daughter and delivered the cake for me. I stayed home and got drunk in the backyard with the dog. I went to bed at 5:30.

Some cakes...

Here's Olivia's first birthday cake and my first experience with fondant. I've learned a lot since then and every cake I make is better than the last. (Plus it's a lot of fun!)

And Olivia enjoying her cake:

And some cakes (in sequential order):

For an office party (the bottom is french vanilla with cream cheese filling and the top layer is chocolate cake with peanut butter filling)

For a friend's family Christmas party (the layers hae the same flavors as the cake above):

Another Christmas party cake (french vanilla with blackberry preserves and cream cheese filling):

And here's for Oma's Christmas Eve bash-o-rama (french vanilla with cream cheese filling - my fav):

First Post

Here's my first post.

My name's Nikki, I'm 25, married and have a gorgeous 1 year old daughter named Olivia. Olivia was born my junior year of college (I was an art student) and I never got to finish. So, I'm a stay-at-home mom but I have a lot of hobbies, most of which include art in some way. My newest hobby is cake decorating and that will occupy the majority of my posts. I've decided to call my cake "business" "Cakes & Crumbs". I started with my daughter's cake on Dec. 16 and I've made 5 cakes since then.

I've always enjoyed making people happy. There's something special about making someone dinner and when I learned how to cook, that became my favorite way to make someone smile. But, there's something a lot different about giving someone something sweet - it makes the recipient smile a little bigger. Besides, when I make a cake for someone, I get to be a part of a happy event and that makes me smile.

So...stay tuned for more sweet treats...