Leopard Print....FUN

Leopard Print is FUN!

This was a fun, funky 20th birthday cake I made for a dear friend's daughter who turned the big 2-0 on Monday.  The birthday girl is a beyond talented photographer.  She did a beautiful engagement session for the hubs and I.  You should check her out should you need professional photos.

Taylor Bartram Photography

The leopard print is all hand painted with just a little touch of gold luster for a little dimension.  The topper, flowers and ribbon and bow are all handmade from fondant.  I loved the final look of this design with the added pops of color with the flowers.  I also did a couple dozen cupcakes with leopard print in teal, pink and purple.  Fun design for a great gal!

Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend!

Flour Girl

Mmmmmmm....Chocolate

Last week I made a decadent chocolate cake for a very sweet family celebrating a birthday with an out of town family member.  This cake was her birthday surprise! 

Speaking of surprise....Surprisingly enough, chocolate cake isn't as popular as one would think.  I honestly thought that chocolate was a universally loved flavor.  Turns out, maybe not so much.  Vanilla or white cake is by far preferred, and red velvet is certainly a neck and neck second to that.  Chocolate probably ends up being about 4th or even 5th, falling behind Lemon and sometimes even Hummingbird. 

I love chocolate cake but to be perfectly honest....I love a "naked" chocolate fudge cake.  I think it is perfect just the way it is, no filling, no frosting, no...nothing at all.  Hand me a bare chocolate cupcake, and I am good to go.  Also, I really look forward to baking chocolate cakes because the smell as it is in the oven is so distinct, warm and rich.  

And if I am really being honest, I am personally not so much of a cake person.  *GASP!?!?!*  I know......but it is true.  Hi, my name is Trisha.....and I love ice cream.  Yeah, I said it....I am an ice cream person.  I could eat ice cream every day.  I make cakes, I love cakes....but I don't really prefer to eat cake.   Wow...yeah....I put that out there....
AND, if I am really telling the whole truth....I am infamous in this house of offering the hubby fresh fruit as an exciting dessert option.  Yep....I am that person. 

"Hey Babe....do we have anything sweet?  I feel like dessert." 
"Yeah!  We have watermelon....pineapple too!"

Yep....that's me.  Disgraceful, I know.

Anyway, I digress...

This cake was chocolate fudge with chocolate mousse and chocolate buttercream.  Can anyone say "Rich"?  I love chocolate mousse so much, I can eat it straight from the mixing bowl...not that I actually do that....not me.  However I will not deny making great "use" of the leftovers, dipping fresh summer strawberries into the fluffy rich chocolate mousse the rest of the weekend.

I had no specific instructions on color or design for this cake.  The only request was flowers.  So, instead of doing a few large flowers, I went with tons of little flowers.  In the end, this cake just may be one of my new favorites.  I say that a lot, but......I have a lot of favorite things.  Favorite foods, favorite places, and of course favorite people, just to name a few!

Thanks for checking on me. 

-P.S. Happy birthday to my Dad!  He happens to also be a chocolate person, German chocolate to be exact.  That's his fave.... But truth be told...I think he is also an ice cream person.  Love you Daddy!

Flour Girl

Non-Traditional Wedding Cakes....Awesome

So, I thought I'd pull out a wedding cake photo for a wedding last month to share.  I love it when the personality of either the person, or the event shines through the design choice for the cake.  This happens all the time for birthdays, graduations, retirement, and even Mother's and Father's Days.  When it comes to weddings, I rarely get the opportunity to stray from the traditional round, white tiered cakes with simple, understated designs.

Don't get me wrong, I actually really enjoy those cakes.  I find that they fit my personal design style most closely.  I love a great clean cake with focal point details like an over sized flower on a smooth, sleek cake, or tone on tone design elements that create texture and subtle visual interest.  I love a good frilly, frou-frou design just as much as the next gal, as overly described here and here.  But, at the same time I believe it all has it's place, and it's....moderation if you will.  You can certainly over do it in any given design.

So, when I was handed a drawing of of a four tier wedding cake for a large wedding that captured visual symbolism of the cultures of both the bride and groom I was so excited!  Not only did they know exactly what they wanted and all I had to do was execute, but that it was truly an original, custom cake!

This monster had to easily weigh at least 75 pounds.  It served about 240 generous 6 inch tall slices.  I made each tier an extended tier at 6 inches tall to help highlight the diagonal placement of each tier's design.

I loved the thought behind this cake which was designed by the bride's cousin (one of my favorite people actually).  The Bride was Samoan, and the Groom was Hawaiian.  To represent the two cultures and honor the two families, we included a traditional Siapo or Tapa pattern which is very prevalent and symbolic of the Samoan culture, and plumeria which are commonly used to make leis in the Hawaiian culture, all on an ivory fondant cake.  The wedding decor color scheme included black, electric blue and yellow, which are all represented on the cake.

I always love plumeria.  They are fairly simple flowers in that there are only 5 petals, not much frill to each petal, and no center...but I LOVE plumeria.  I think that has to do with the association with Hawaii at least in part.  So beautiful.

I was absolutely in love with the Siapo pattern.  I loved the striking contrast between the soft ivory and the bold black.

This was an honor to create for the happy couple, and the setting could not have been more beautiful.  Admiral Kidd Event Center in Point Loma, CA has been rated the best wedding venue for the quintessential San Diego wedding experience with breathtaking views of the bay and the San Diego skyline.  Amazing.

Thanks for checking in with me.  Enjoy your weekend, I will be back with more cakes to share with you next week!

Flour Girl

My Little Princess

Is it me or is the Princess craze much more prevalent now than say...20 years ago.  I really don't remember the Princess thing being so popular when I was a kid.  Maybe I'm wrong. 

I assume that has much to do with the tremendous marketing and merchandising by Disney over the last couple decades.  Disney Princesses are EVERYWHERE!  I remember my thing was Strawberry Shortcake...  I loved her.  Ask my sister...she would be more than happy to explicitly  make fun of  describe my love of that sweet little, strawberry scented red head and her strawberry house.  My love for her may or may not have been slightly displaced by my obsession with strawberries.  What is that all about?  I have literally had a strawberry cake, strawberry shortcake, or some other strawberry dessert every birthday...seriously, every birthday.

My first birthday (before there were smash cakes!)

Well, as it does fairly often, the Princess theme arose for a 6th birthday celebration this past weekend.  I was shooting for a tutu look and was using the ruffle on the cookies to mirror this idea.  The request was for mainly light pink, with a second shade of pink, and a girlie-girl Princess feel all the way.  They wanted to go with a small 3 tier, so we decided on an 8", 6", 4" mini tiered cake.  So, this is what I came up with:

(why does pink and purple always look distorted when photographed??? grrr)

This was not my first ride on the princess train...

This was a cake created for an actual Princes....err, Queen I suppose.  This cake was created for an event for Miss Baja California.  This was actually one of my first large cakes.  Though I was very proud of it at the time, I truly see how far I have come since then.

This was a super cute cupcake tower created for a little girl named Quincy who is nicknamed Queen-Cee.  How adorable is that?  So, quite fittingly, little tiara clad "Q"s were included in the design.

This one was for a princess tea party themed birthday complete with tea and hot pink tutus for all the princess guests!  How over the top cute is that?!?  The tiara and teacup cookies were favors for the guests.

So, each time the Princess theme rears it's head, it is a challenge to create something new, something different...a new spin on a common theme.  I hope I accomplished that this go 'round and the little Birthday Princess was happy with her Princess sweets.

Thanks for stopping by.

Flour Girl

Cupcakes for a Girl's Girl

Last week I was so happy to make some very girlie-girl cupcakes that were for a surprise birthday party.  I have to admit that I am not always so certain about cupcake designs.  I truly feel that they are an entirely different skill set than cakes.  I think I have done well with the designs that I have done in the past, but I feel that I excel most with cake design.  I think it is the small scale that gets me every time.  I think I have ogre hands for miniature modeling....errrr, maybe I just have an ogre hand complex.

So, back to these cupcakes.  This was funny because the birthday girl's friend contacted me on the birthday girl's husband's behalf to work on some cupcake ideas for her surprise party.  He had a very vague idea of what he wanted and the only real direction I received was that she loves pink and purple, and that she loves glam, so they need to be fabulous. 

Hmmmmmm, what was I to do?  At first I was stumped.  I really didn't want to do run of the mill toppers that you see all over the internet, I didn't want them to be too cutsy.....

Then I received a text from the birthday girl herself asking if I would be able to make a birthday cake....She was wanting to request her own birthday cake.

OMG...how do I respond?  Does she know?  Is the cat out of the bag?  So, I try to play it cool and simply say "sure, let me know what you are thinking" 

Haha, this started a whole thing on the back end.  We wanted to draw out what she wanted, specifically, then I was to back out so she thought there'd be no special birthday cake after all, to be surprised with exactly what she requested.

Well... this never happened.  As the day drew closer, I had nothing to go on.  With just a couple days lead time to allow drying, this is what I came up with per the few details I was given to work with.

 Chanel Clutch

 Chanel Tote

 Lipstick and Nail Polish

Flowers and sprinkles, and also pink and purple bows (pictured somewhere up above).

I used gold foil cupcake wrappers and gold dragees to glam it up a bit.  I would say I am more of a silver person, but I totally loved this look in person.



Well, the birthday girl was surprised! 

Mission accomplished.

Thanks for stopping by,

Flour Girl

Call of Duty.....Really???

Can we talk for a sec......

Serious, what's with Call of Duty?  I get that it is a shoot 'em up, action game, that aparently is highly addictive....I get it, but seriously?  What's all the roucous?

How is it possible that a little, unassuming, last minute cake I made last year has become this totally snowballing theme for me?  I get emails....random emails....phone calls from people and cake designers located all over the country.  Really?  "Can you ship it to me?  I live in New York City(or Massachusets, or Canada, etc, you get the picture)".  Cake designers calling "Can you let me know how much you charged for this cake?  I gave a quote and the client was outraged at the price!"

I received a request not long after I created that first cake to use the image of my cake on a blog with credit to me, no link, just credit.  Other than that, I never really thought much of it.

At the time, I really didn't have many ideas for this theme.  I did a bit of research on Flickr and Google Images for some inspiration from other cakes for this and similar themes like military, army, etc.  There was not too much out there to draw from besides scene type themes...ya know like battle scenes or like a tank  or Humvee.  Things along those lines. 

So, this is what I came up with having limited time, and limited knowledge of the game...at least first hand knowledge being that I have never seen it in person.

This is that cake that started it all (horrible photo, everything about this cake was last minute!):

Yeah, I thought the best part of this design was the tag at the bottom with Call of Duty with the age of the recipient and the "Birthday Ops" to tie it all together with my corny, cheeky idea.  Also the name of the birthday boy in the scope was the other bit of my original design.  I try to be clever, sometimes it pans out others....well, you know how that goes.

Then several months later the Black Ops edition of Call of Duty was released and I created another Call of Duty cake for a Call of Duty fanatic who waited outside Best Buy for the release at midnight.  Wow, Don't know if I like anything enough to do that.  This cake included an XBox and controller in the concept.  That one was an even smaller cake, and still I really didn't think much of it.  Here is that one(again...horrible picture, I know...):

And finally, I did a larger Black Ops cake for a 10th birthday that was a two tier all buttercream cake which was this:

I have to say, I think this one was my favorite.

So, with all of this interest in my Call of Duty cakes which seemed altogether random; I was curious to see what other designs were out there since I had last checked nearly one year ago.  I wanted to know how and why I was getting all of these calls and emails. 

So, I did a Google Images search for "Call of Duty Cake" just to see what popped up.  Sure enough, not only were two of my photos on the first and third page of images, I also saw many copycat designs...like exact replicas.  I was wow'd...awe'd...I could not believe it!  I clicked on the images to find the sources because I was curious who these cake designers were.  Of course, no sourcing back to me, no design credit, nada.....

Oh well.  I know I personally always give credit where credit is due.  ALWAYS.  The best I got in these circumstances was "This design was brought to me by a client by some other cake designer online."  and "I saw a similar design from somewhere online".

WHATEV....I know who.....I know where....and now so do you!

Thanks for checking in!

Flour Girl

Buttercream Ruffles for Your Friday

Well hello there....

Thanks for being here.  I'm so glad you stopped by, and I think you will be too.

As promised, I have a great new Ruffle cake to share with you.  I have to say that this cake may be my new favorite.  I know I am fickle, and I probably change my mind too often, but this week...this is my all time favorite cake.

Why?  Well for a couple of reasons....

First off, the color combo was fab.  My favorite shades of my favorite hues.....
Lavender, Ivory and plum-ish, wine-ish, burgundy....ish???
LOVE

Plus, the style just happens to coincide with my own personal style preference.  This doesn't happen all that often, so when it does....I die over it.  I love it when that happens.  Also. if you keep up with my projects, you may notice that I prefer to use fondant.  I just like the finish, I love that you can heavily color it without worrying about affecting the taste or dying the teeth of those who eat it.  I love the versatility you have with texture that buttercream just can't always allow.  But, this is the ultimate exception.  I love that this design had a smooth crisp finish on the upper two tiers and the texture and lightness of the ruffles at the bottom.  With a focal point being a single large sugar bloom...this is right up my alley. 
LOVE

Lastly, you just about always win me over with ruffles.  Ruffles of any kind.  As established previously here....they are my fave.
LOVE

So, here are a couple shots of my absolute all time favorite cake. (at least for the time being ;-D )

Isn't she pretty????  I love her.....

There's that sugar flower.  The color of the flower was intended to match the tablecloths used.  I was a little nervous about the final color because I had seen the swatch for the tablecloths just once and was coloring by memory.  I think it panned out just fine.  This cake was for a large engagement party of 220 guests.  WOW!  I can't wait to see what the wedding will be like! 

The decor as well as the cake was inspired by the bride-to-be's party dress.  We decided to have a gold center to the sugar flower to incorporate some gold accent in a subtle way because the bodice of her dress had gold beading.  Her dress was iridescent lavender with pick-ups in the skirt.  Since they wanted to stick with an all buttercream cake, we went with ruffles to emulate the pickups on the cake.  This is a three tier cake serving 100 and we did the remaining servings in kitchen cakes.  These are smart cookies!  A huge money saver without losing any of the presentation. 

I love this cake, and I hope you do too!

Flour Girl

Giftbox Cakes

Hope everyone enjoyed what ended up being a very WARM and sunny fourth of July.  The weather was perfect for outdoor activities this year and it ended up being a nice breather from the day-to-day for me, that's for sure.  So, today I am showing you a giftbox cake I did this weekend.  Surprisingly, I don't get many opportunities to make these cakes though I think they are very cute and super festive while fitting virtually any type of celebration.

I love tiered giftbox cakes, mini giftbox cakes, and full size single tier giftbox cakes.  They are all great and really do convey a celebration from birthdays to weddings....to Christmas even!

Well, this particular occasion called for the popular Tiffany giftbox cake with the signature Tiffany blue box and white ribbon and bow.  I decided to add the Tiffany & Co logo on the lid to boot.

This cake was Red Velvet with Dulce de Leche buttercream.  YUM!  I can eat dulce de leche by the spoonfuls...that's a little embarrassing....

Thanks for stopping by!

Ode to Ruffle Cakes...

Oh ruffle cakes….how I love thee….

Ruffle cakes are everywhere lately….I do mean EVERYWHERE.  But I don’t care.  I love them each and every time I see them.  They "fancy-up" a regular old buttercream cake in a jiffy.  So pretty, so frilly…so girlie!

I am so looking forward to creating another buttercream ruffle cake this weekend for an engagement party.  So, to get into the spirit of all things ruffle, here are a few of the ruffle cakes I have created in the last year or so…

Tiered Cakes

Mini Cakes

BIG Cakes



And down right Girlie-Girl cakes!

LOVE them.  They are my FAVE!  Stay tuned for another one coming your way next week!

Enjoy your holiday weekend people....

Flour Girl