Photography Themed Grad Cake

14 Thursday Jun 2018

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graduation cake, graduation cap, graduation cookies

It’s graduation season and here is one of my favorites done for a young girl graduating from high school and pursuing an education in graphic arts…

Her mother wanted a simple grad hat with a shout out to photography, Alyssa’s passion.

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It’s an 8-inch confetti cake, filled and frosted with vanilla buttercream, The base of the mortar board and the camera are rice cereal treats covered with black fondant. The flat top of the cap is a piece of cardboard covered with fondant to give it support. All of the other details were made using homemade marshmallow fondant.

She also had graduation caps and diploma cookies with her colors, coral and gold, for the event.

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Congrats on your graduation, Alyssa!

I really enjoyed doing your sweet treats!

Disney “Cars” 2nd Birthday

02 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by Laurie in Cakes, Cookies

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Disney Cars cake and cookies; chocolate cake

Ok, it’s been FOREVER since I posted and I’m SO backed up with cool cakes to share with y’all!! I’ve done dozens of them in the past few months and I don’t even know where to start.

I was really happy with the way this Disney “Cars”-themed birthday cake and cookies for Ashton turned out last month…2-yr old Ashton is SUPER adorable and his mom Ali is the BEST! She’s turned me on to so many of her friends and they are all great. I’m always thrilled to create cakes/cookies for Ali and her friends. (See “Fun Fact” below :0)

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For the party, she wanted mostly cookies to serve to the kiddos with a small Lightening McQueen cake.

The cake is an 8″ chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream tinted bright “McQueen” red and smooth-iced. The details on the cake are made from homemade marshmallow fondant (sorry about the focus in this pic, wanted to show the eyes but it’s a bit fuzzy :0/).

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These cookies were so fun to do….we decided on a mix of really detailed McQueen/Mater designs with more simple “filler” cookies with the same theme/color palette.

This option is much more affordable when you need cookies for a large crowd! I incorporated Ashton’s age and name onto about half of them, and the rest are simply iced and sprinkled with sanding sugar.

Fun Fact: I did Ali’s baby reveal party over 2 years ago (see pics) and knew she was having Ashton before she did!!

Hope you had a super fun 2nd birthday party, Ashton!!

It was a blast making your goodies!!

Ice Cream & Sprinkles Birthday Party!

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by Laurie in Cakes, Cookies, Cupcakes

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drip cake, homemade marshmallow fondant, ice cream cone cake pops, Pink Velvet Cake, tiered cake, Vanilla-bean cake

Ok, this theme for a little girl’s birthday party is just TOO CUTE!

The client called and asked if I would help her with an ice-cream-and-sprinkles-themed 3rd birthday party for her adorable daughter, Mackenzie. She needed coordinating cake, cake pops, cupcakes, and cookies to serve about 70 people (whew!).

Her color scheme included mint green and light pink, so I took those colors and got to work.

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The treats for the 70-or-so guests included this tiered cake (8″ pink velvet and 10″ vanilla bean)….

cake pops made with mini ice cream cones (so adorable!)….

cupcakes baked in cones with creamy swirls of multi-colored buttercream….

and cookies.

The tiered drip cake was so fun to do…and so popular right now! The melting ice cream cone topper is simply a huge cake pop made in a sugar cone. I filled the cone with cake and drizzled it with pink melting chocolate. I also inserted a cake pop stick to ensure it would sit securely on the cake.

The pink drip is white chocolate ganache with pink gel color, smoothed over the top and dripped down the sides of the cake. And, of course, sprinkles (actually sequins)….LOTS of sprinkles!

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I covered the bottom of the top tier with MORE sprinkles and a ruffly buttercream border. The #3 on top and name plate on the side are cut from homemade marshmallow fondant.

The cupcakes and cake pops are made from the same cake flavors as the cake. Cupcakes are baked in regular-sized cake cones, which is always a little more difficult than it seems as they take so long to bake (about 2x the batter as a normal cupcake) and the cone has a tendency to absorb the moisture of the cupcake after it bakes and gets a little soft. But cover them with a healthy swirl of silky buttercream, and all is good…

Instead of a stick, the cake pops are made in mini-cones and then dipped in white chocolate melts tinted mint green and pale pink–so cute! These we’re actually much easier than a normal cake pop as the drips down the sides added to the melting ice cream cone look :0).

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This was such a fun themed party, and the party set-up at the client’s house was fabulous (wish I had a good picture, but they all turned out too dark).

Hope you had a great 3rd birthday, Mackenzie! I loved making your treats!!

Poland Bulldogs Baseball Cake

14 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by Laurie in Cakes, Cookies

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baseball cake, baseball cookies, chocolate mousse, double chocolate cake, homemade marshmallow fondant, hummingbird cake

Loved making this custom Poland Bulldogs cake for my favorite little Bulldog baseball player, Aiden!

His mother has ordered almost a dozen cakes from me over the years (here’s the last one I did for her older son), each one more fun than the last to create, and this one was no exception!

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This 2-tiered, 6″-8″ cake is chocolate filled with chocolate mousse on the bottom (with chopped Hershey bars mixed into the mousse…YUM!) and hummingbird cake on the top. Both tiers are covered with homemade marshmallow fondant.

The bulldog is hand-cut from fondant using my Kopy Kake projector (love that thing!). Using a layering technique I learned about in a Craftsy class by Corrie’s Cakes, I was able to make the 2-D image look more 3-D.

Love this technique as it makes the image really POP out from the cake…putting it together is almost like creating a puzzle. Once I figured out the layering, details were drawn on using a food-safe marker and the pieces were “glued” together with watered down piping gel.

All of the other details and lettering are cut using cutters from fondant.

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I also made a few baseball cookies to go along with the cake…

Happy Birthday, Aiden….hope you had a great one!!

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Graduation Cake and Cookie Ideas

25 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by Laurie in Cakes, Cookies

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Tags

graduation cake, graduation cookies

It’s almost graduation season, so start planning those parties! I really can’t believe how huge graduation parties are here in Ohio…much bigger than celebrations where I grew up.

These are some examples of half-sheet cakes that are a good party-size and can serve a bunch when made with 2 layers.

These 2 graduation cakes I did for a Poland Seminary High School graduate last year who was going to Ohio State in the fall.

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This Cardinal Mooney cake I did a few years ago (before I discovered how cutting letters out of fondant is much cleaner … and straighter :)). The graduate was going to the University of Dayton…

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These are full sheet cakes, which I don’t make often as they are difficult to manage in my regular-sized fridge. I love this black and yellow theme with swirls and stars. It really says “Let’s CELEBRATE…you’ve done it!!”

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