Nate's Firetruck Cake

Since I started posting pictures of my cakes and other treats on my facebook page, I've gotten a few requests from friends that I haven't seen in a while, which is so fun. This one came from Alissa, a wonderful now-mom-of-two who I totally looked up to at summer camp every year when I was a kid. She was the super mature Junior Counselor when I was an impressionable young camper, and I just thought Alissa was the coolest. We haven't seen each other much in the intervening years, but we've kept in touch via facebook and I was so happy when she asked me to do a cake for her son Nate's 2nd birthday. Kids' cakes are always so fun to do.

Nate is a big fan of trucks. Dump trucks, garbage trucks, fire trucks, you name it, if it has a bunch of wheels and is kinda big and noisy, he loves it. Alissa gave me free reign to decide what kind of truck to feature, and since I am a fan myself of firetrucks (well...maybe I'm more interested in the firemen, but their trucks are cool too), I decided to go with that. I found a few great inspirational pictures on the internet, Alissa and I decided on one to base the cake on, and here is the result!! It was one of the funnest cakes I've worked on so far. The skills I learned playing with FIMO clay as a kid came in handy for making the fireman, hydrant and the truck. So fun. I delivered the cake this morning and Nate loved it!! He kept pointing at the cake and saying "Firetruck!" and "Look, the man!" I was thrilled with his reaction. Here are some more pictures...

Here's a good view of the whole thing. I liked using a big cake board to set the scene.

This cutie-patootie fireman is squelching those flames!

Look at this stud. Maybe I should have made him wink.

Fire hydrant. Can't fight a fire without one!


The firetruck= the star of the show!


Side view


And don't forget about the ladder!

All in all I think this is one of my best cakes ever, and it was also one of the most fun to make. Thanks, Alissa, for the project, and Happy Birthday, Nate!!

Rugby Groom's Cake

I love the idea of a Groom's cake. We girls love weddings so much and often end up creating the day of our dreams without letting the groom pick too many of the details, so the idea of surprising our men with a special, manly cake of their very own is a trend that I'm glad is picking up steam in this part of the country. Groom's cakes have long been popular in Europe and the American South, so why not L.A?

I was thrilled to get a request from Alexis, a friend of mine from high school, to do a groom's cake for her soon-to-be-hubby Mitchell. They were using their venue caterers to do the main wedding cake, and they had decided on a vanilla cake in hopes of pleasing the most guests. Mitchell loooooves chocolate (smart man), so he was feeling a bit disappointed about his only dessert option at the wedding. His loving bride decided that she wanted her hubby to have the chocolate his heart so desired, so she asked me if I could do a super chocolatey cake for him. In terms of design, he's a huge fan of rugby and specifically New Zealand's team, the All Blacks, so she wanted to honor that in his cake. I ended up making a dark chocolate cake with a chocolate chocolate chip filling, covered in fondant and decorated with a team rugby ball, a rugby goal post and the team logo, a white feather.

Mitchell loved the cake!! I can't wait to see the professional pictures their photographer took since I had to take mine at night and it just didn't do the cake justice. But for now, at least you can get a sneak peak!

Brothers & Sisters Viewing Party

You might remember from this post or from my weeks (ok, maybe months) of shameless self promotion on facebook that my cupcakes were going to be making their big debut on ABC's Brothers & Sisters. Well, they did! I thought the only appropriate way to celebrate was to view the show with some good friends and good cupcakes. So I hosted a viewing party and used it as a chance to experiment with some new cupcake flavors.


These two actually aren't new. One is chocolate cake with vanilla frosting an the other is chocolate cake with raspberry filling and chocolate swirl frosting. It's a take on that chocolate raspberry cake I made a few months ago. Yum!


Then this one is a pink lemonade cupcake. It's a lemon cake with frosting that has both lemon juice and blood orange juice in it (that's what made it pink!). This one was pretty tasty. I love blood oranges.


This one was a special request from my friend, Rosie. It's a maple Bacon cupcake with turbinado sugar and sea salt on top. If you like bacon, you would love this one. It also makes it totally justifiable to eat a cupcake for breakfast, which is a win in my book ;)

This one is my favorite. It's a chocolate cupcake with coconut buttercream filling, dipped in chocolate ganache and topped with sugary coconut flakes. YUMMO!!! This one is to die for if I do say so myself.

If anyone would like to try any of these let me know!

And if you haven't seen the episode and would like to watch Sally Field carry my cupcakes across the screen, here is the link to the episode on Hulu!

http://www.hulu.com/watch/221383/brothers-and-sisters-home-is-where-the-fort-is