Sunday, May 30, 2010

Shopping Bag Cake!

In Montreal, every girl knows that one of the best places to shop is Holt Renfrew! From makeup and handbags to jewellery and clothes, Holt's is known as the high-end retailer!

Since it's such a landmark for every shopaholic, I knew it wouldn't be long until I would make a Holt Renfrew shopping bag cake, and here it is!







The cake was for a 30th birthday celebration! The birthday girl also recently had a baby so I added a silver Tiffany baby spoon (since Holt's is home to Tiffany's!) falling out of the bag.

Holt Renfrew, Tiffany & Co. and pearls - the perfect combination for a shopaholic's ideal cake!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Doctor Cake!

Since I’ve started this cake decorating journey several months back, my boyfriend has been leaving me less than subtle hints about what kind of cake I would be making him for his birthday! For the most part, he has been dying for a hockey cake, but unfortunately for him, I've stripped it from my cake repertoire. Instead, I found the perfect replacement!

My boyfriend is currently in medical school, so I decided that his birthday cake should reflect this other important aspect of his life (besides hockey!).

Here’s how it turned out!







I had SO much fun making the little pills, (bloody) band-aids, stethoscope and of course, the essential reflex hammer (which I actually find rather amusing in real-life too!). And obviously I had to throw some chest hair into the mix also!

He absolutely loved his cake!!!! Plus, it was chocolate cake with Oreo buttercream frosting - what's not to love??

Sunday, May 16, 2010

A Special Surprise For a Milestone Birthday!

Unfortunately for me, a significant part of my family lives out of town in Toronto. This means that we are rarely able to celebrate important family events as a complete cohesive unit! The fact that my mom, my dad and I have different work schedules doesn’t help the situation either – making it difficult for us to get away together to visit the family.

However, with a huge family milestone coming up, my parents were planning a quick weekend trip to Toronto. The milestone? My Grandfather’s 85th Birthday!

Since it was a BIG birthday, my dad and his two sisters in Toronto were planning to throw a party to celebrate the occasion!

One of my aunts had the idea that even though I wouldn’t be able to make the trip, I should make a surprise birthday cake for the event, and send it off with my parents! I was so excited that although I was not able to be there in person, I would be able to contribute one of the most important elements of a birthday party – the cake! Not to mention, my grandparents have been two of my greatest supporters throughout this whole experience, so I knew that having me make the birthday cake would mean so much, not only to me, but to them as well.

Before my grandfather retired, he worked as an engineer at Bell, so although I immediately nixed the idea of a phone cake when my aunt brought it up, I went along with it anyway!

Seeing as my grandfather, grandmother, dad, and aunts were one of the first families to test out the fashionable “Princess” phone, my parents thought it would be fitting that I make an exact replica of the one they used to have in cake form. So I did!









The pink Princess phone – like the one my family used to have! – was vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. It sits next to an old Bell Telephone book, which is chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting (I come from a long line of chocoholics!). Next to the Bell Telephone book, I placed a fondant message pad with a Happy Birthday message on it, along with a fondant pen!

I was so happy to be able to take part in the family celebration through my custom cake. Even though I wasn’t there physically, my grandfather would know that I love him and that I was thinking about him on his milestone birthday!

25th Anniversary Cake!

When my friend Emily asked me for a last minute 25th anniversary cake for her parents' friends, I was definitely up for the challenge, even though I had another HUGE and VERY important order to work on!

With the deadline only days away, here is what I came up with!



The cake was vanilla with chocolate frosting and I covered it in light blue fondant, with white and yellow polka dots, and a yellow 25 brushed with silver to emphasize the milestone anniversary!

Friday, May 14, 2010

Black & White Beauty!

As you can see from going back to older blog posts, my friend Jaclyn and her family have done a great job at sustaining and expanding my cake portfolio! With HER birthday fast approaching, I knew I had to make something really special!!

During one of our many coffee dates, I took mental notes about what kind of cakes she recently loved when watching “Cake Boss” and other such shows, so I knew a while in advance what kind of cake I really wanted to make for her!

As her birthday drew near, I didn’t know if Jaclyn wanted to design her own birthday cake, if her mom would pick for her and make it a surprise, or if I could surprise BOTH of them and execute my very own cake design idea! After telling Jaclyn that I had the most PERFECT idea in mind, she decided to let me have creative control and surprise her!

Here is what I came up with!







This black, white and gold cake was PERFECT for Jaclyn! It was simple yet beautiful, classy and elegant all at the same time – just like her!!

Though it was hard for Jaclyn to LET me surprise her, I think that the end result was definitely worth the wait!

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Happy Mother's Day!

Even though I had 4 other orders due this weekend, I knew I wanted to do something special to celebrate mother’s day!

I decided to make simple yet beautiful and elegant flower cupcakes to show my appreciation for the special ladies in my life!

Here they are!









Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there!! :)

A Walk on the Wild Side!

With the continuing popularity of the animal print cakes, I was not surprised in the least when I got a request for a leopard print cake for a 15 year old girl’s birthday celebration!

Though I absolutely love doing the zebra print, it was nice to try something new while keeping the same animal print theme alive!

Since leopard print consists of black and different shades of brown, I was asked to top it off with a pretty pink bow, since the cake was, of course, for a teenaged girl!

Here’s how it turned out!





Everyone absolutely loved the cake, and it's always nice to get the chance to try something new!

A Special Birthday Treat!

During the week (when I’m not trapped in the kitchen!) I work at an elementary school. One of my co-workers - and her family! - has been following me on my cake journey every step of the way! With her daughter’s 10th birthday coming up, she knew that the celebration would not be complete without a custom cake by me! She decided that she wanted both her daughter and herself to be surprised by my cake creation so she left all of the decorating details in my hands!

Here’s what I came up with!





Instead of the usual birthday gift style of cake, I wanted to do something a little different! I came up with this new custom cake in order to give her daughter a cake design that no one else has had yet!

They both LOVED it!!! I was so happy to be able to play a small role in the birthday celebration! :)

A Trip to India!

As you can probably already see, my family has done a great job at promoting my cakes - even from far distances! A while back, my aunt in Toronto told me to expect an e-mail from her friend here in Montreal regarding a cake, and alas! The e-mail arrived!

My aunt’s friend wanted something special for her niece who was about to celebrate her 25th birthday. Seeing as her niece was to leave for India a few days after her birthday, she thought that something India-themed would be suitable for the occasion. Knowing that I could not possibly pull a Taj Mahal cake off, I went the “inspired” route instead!

The birthday celebration was to be rather small, so instead of dealing with lots of leftover cake (since most of the people attending don’t even eat cake!), I was asked to make a dozen cupcakes instead!

Here they are!







The end result was a truly India-inspired batch of cupcakes!!

Football Cupcakes!

With my boyfriend’s brother’s birthday approaching, I knew I wanted to do something special to help celebrate! Knowing that his birthday weekend was also going to be one of my busiest weekends to date (5 orders – 3 days!), I decided to make some cupcakes instead – a nice alternative to an actual cake!

His brother loves sports so the cupcakes definitely had to reflect that. Luckily for me, football is one of his favourite sports (I didn’t have to make a Habs cake!) so I decided to make a dozen little football cut-outs to top off each cupcake!



Needless to say, he loved them!

1 order down, 4 more to go!

Monday, May 3, 2010

A Hole in One!

When my friend Diana asked me to make a cake for her mom's birthday, she immediately knew what kind of cake would be perfect for the occasion! Seeing as her entire family loves a variety of sports, it seemed fitting that her mom's birthday cake keep with that tradition. Her mom LOVES to play golf, so Diana thought it would be a great idea to showcase her mom's love of golf in her birthday cake!



The golf cake is chocolate with green buttercream grass frosting, and some crushed graham cracker sandtraps!

Diana's mom LOVED her birthday cake, making the end result totally worth the painfully tedious piping job! :)

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Sweet 16: Take Two!

Animal print has really become a popular cake design option! Paired with some fun, bright and girly colours, it has the potential to be the perfect cake design for a Sweet 16 Birthday bash!

I was asked to make yet another Sweet 16 cake, and with the ever growing popularity of the zebra print, it seemed like the perfect design for a celebratory cake (not to mention, the party invites were zebra print, so what better way to tie the whole theme together than with a matching cake?!). Since the invites featured bright pink as well, I incorporated all of these elements on a 2-tiered cake to create a beautiful and cohesive theme!









The bottom tier was vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, and the top tier was chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting.

And of course, no Sweet 16 cake is ever complete without a great big bow on top!