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Gray Barn Baking

~ Youngstown Cupcakes, Cakes, and All Things Yummy!

Gray Barn Baking

Category Archives: General Information

Sweet 16 Travel Cake

27 Tuesday Feb 2018

Posted by Laurie in General Information

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This was such a fun birthday cake to do for a darling, smart, inquisitive girl who enjoys traveling and documenting everything with her camera.  I can hardly believe she’s Sweet 16 already!

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The cake is an 8″ chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling, smooth iced with vanilla buttercream.  All of the details are made from homemade fondant.

The name plaque is cut out of fondant with an Ohio-shaped cutter and painted with metallic gold paint.  The Eiffel Tower is piped with black buttercream onto a fondant plaque.

 

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I wanted to give the feeling of travel all the way around the cake to highlight her adventuresome spirit.

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Her camera also plays a big part in her life, so it had to be on there…

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This was such a fun cake to do, I’m so glad I got to create it for you, Quinn.

Happy Birthday, girlfriend!

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Corona Ice Bucket Cake

13 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by Laurie in General Information

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For all the Corona fans out there, this one’s for you!

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Loved making this one…It was sort of a last-minute order, but I couldn’t resist doing it for a sweet mom who wanted to give her son a special surprise on his 21st birthday.

Note: The Corona is real, all the rest is cake or sugar…And no Coronas were hurt in the making of this cake, the birthday boy got to drink it –eventually :0)

It started as a 3 layer 7″ vanilla cake that I carved into a bucket shape and  rough-iced with buttercream.  I then cut a hole out of the middle to accommodate the Corona bottle. That was the tricky part…making the hole big enough for the bottle while leaving enough cake to maintain the structure (and to eat, or course!).

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After letting it set up in the fridge for a few minutes, I covered the entire thing in Continue reading →

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Teacher Appreciation Cupcake Cake

23 Saturday Jul 2016

Posted by Laurie in General Information

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It’s been awhile since I made this cupcake cake for my son’s 5th grade teacher…Things have been a blur since school let out over a month ago. But this one was special, so I thought I’d share it…

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To give a little background here, this class began their 5th grade year with a bit of a reputation. There are 15 strong-willed, rambunctious, inquisitive, competitive boys (mine being one of them) and only 7 girls in the class. Previous teachers had gotten worn down and exhausted by mid-year — they are definitely a handful (I want to be clear, we’ve loved each and everyone of their teachers).
Then came Mrs. Hammerton. She was tough but fun. Strict but silly. Demanding but compassionate. She expected a lot from every single one of her “Angels.” She got results and and inspired them everyday.

And they loved her for it.

On the day before school let out, we surprised her with this cake, ice cream, and an angel bracelet and poem. We wanted her to always remember her “Little Angels.” We also had enough donations from parents to get her a really nice gift card!

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For ease of serving, it’s a cupcake cake made from 24 chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, iced all together to look like a cake. I wanted it to look like a piece of lined paper with doodles and the simply drawn image of an angel. The angel is actually an icing transfer made by piping layers of icing onto waxed paper in the shape of an angel (the elements nearest you go down first, layering until it’s all filled in). After freezing for a few minutes, the waxed paper can be peeled away and the image carefully laid onto the cake.

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Congrats for making it through 5th grade, kids, and thanks so much to Mrs. Hammerton for being an inspiration and Guiding Angel to all of us!

We love you, Mrs. Hammerton!!

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Disney Frozen Cake, Cupcakes, and Cookies!

11 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by Laurie in General Information

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I’ve had the opportunity to create a number of Disney Frozen-themed treats this past year.

This one I made for Maria’s 7th birthday a few months ago…

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It’s a 2-tier 6″/8″ cake made from chocolate and vanilla layers and serves about 35 people.  It’s iced with vanilla buttercream and the snowflakes, letters, and number are cut from homemade marshmallow fondant.  The Frozen edible image I ordered online and cut to fit the bottom tier.

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The cupcakes are vanilla and chocolate with a blue buttercream swirl, purple edible crystals, and a fondant snowflake.

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I also did these personalized cookies earlier this spring for another Frozen celebration…

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I packaged them up for Sophia, the birthday girl, to hand out at school as a special treat!

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Hope you had great birthdays, Maria and Sophia!  I sure had fun making your treats!

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TMNT Cake

08 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Laurie in Cakes, General Information

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birthday cake, homemade marshmallow fondant, peanut butter mousse filling, TMNT cake, Vanilla-bean cake, vanilla-bean frosting

This cake I did for a dear friend a couple of weeks ago for her brother’s 30th birthday. Yes, I did say “30.” My husband saw the  cake and thought I’d made a mistake…”isn’t it supposed to be 3?'”  Nope. Davy was turning 30…And his sweet sis decided to surprise him with a blast from his past: the beloved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

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The cake is a 10-inch 2-layer vanilla bean cake with peanut butter mousse filling and frosted with creamy vanilla-bean butter cream.  I used a large star tip to do the ombre green “puffs” around the outside of the cake, which I thought gave it a kind of “reptilian” feel.

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The TMNT topper is made from homemade marshmallow fondant.  The manhole cover was made by covering a 5″ cardboard round with fondant and pressing on the brick imprints.  The TMNT logo I hand-cut from green and black fondant. The figures are also supported on a cardboard round in order for the topper to be lifted off in one piece before serving.  The hardest part was getting the somewhat heavy manhole cover to stand up and survive transport without ripping out of the cake. This took some engineering and lots of trial and error, but I think it was successful in the end.  It was a fun cake to make for a good friend!  Hope you had a great birthday, Davy!!

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About Me

Life is crazy and I love to bake. I'm a wife, mother of 3 nutty kids, and an admitted sugar-holic. Ten years ago I left my job as a senior consulting engineer in Salt Lake City, UT, to get out of the rat race and raise kids. We up and moved to a quiet, small town in NE Ohio to be near family and bought a 180-yr-old historic home, always a dream of mine. Along the way, I discovered my joy of baking, which allows both my engineering side and my oft-suppressed creative side to emerge. It began with the desire to bake birthday cakes for my kids (I hated to buy them) and has blossomed into a cupcake-baking business for a local bakery. Over the years, many people have asked if I take orders. So, here they are. Check out the site, we'll be adding new cupcake flavors weekly as well as the occasional cake. And in case you're wondering about the name, it's an homage to the big, old gray barn in my back yard. What a bonus, it came with the house! Put on a smile and BAKE!

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