Happy New Year!!!

This past year flew by and was an amazing year for my business. I saw my business grow into something I never thought possible and I have all of you to thank for that. For those of you that have ordered cakes, thank you for your business and I hope you enjoyed your cakes as much as I enjoyed making them for you. For those who have referred your friends, thank you also. It is one of the greatest complements you can give.

The last week of 2010 was very busy for me. Not only was I trying to recover from all of the Christmas festivites and the tornado of wrapping paper and new toys for my kids, but my husband and I were still trying to finish remodeling our new house. In between all of that, I also had 3 cakes due! Thankfully I made it through the week and managed to take down all of the Christmas decorations, get some work done on our new house, and get these cakes out the door:)

Here's to an amazing 2011! I hope you all have an amazing year and I hope you are able to achieve your resolution goals. As long as that doesn't include cutting out cake;)

This wedding cake was my first rainy day delivery. We don't much of that stuff here in AZ, but on this day it decided to rain all day long. Given that cake and water don't mix very well, I was a little nervous. Thankfully, this cake was referred by some friends who happened to also be attending the wedding and they graciously agreed to help me carry the cake to its table and hold umbrellas to keep it safe. We made it without anyone slipping and with only a few drops landing on the cake. All in all, a great success. The bottom tier and side cake (not shown) were chocolate with Bavarian cream filling. The next tier was red velvet with cream cheese frosting, and the top two tiers were vanilla with raspberry filling.



The client who ordered this cake held a huge surprise birthday party for her husband on New Year's Eve. She wanted the cake to tell a story of his life. The story began with how he was from France and came to the United States to continue his education, but fell in love with his American wife while they were working at Epcot Center. The top tier had a cutout in the shape of Minnesota where they lived for several years and had their children. He always calles his wife and daughters his 3 girls, and they wanted that incorporated in the cake with the laptop (he's a computer programmer) as well as 3 snowflakes (representing MN) and 3 cactus (representing AZ) plus a cutout of the state of Arizona. To top it off, the Eiffel Tower to signify his Parisian background with a shimmery "40". The bottom tier was chocolate with chocolate buttercream filling. The top tier was chocolate with almond cream filling. Yum!

This cake was for a friend's son who was turing 2. He loves Thomas the Train and she wanted this cake to go with his Thomas themed party. The yell he let out when he saw the cake was too cute for words. For the kids (and kids at heart), the bottom tier was marble with Oreo buttercream. For the grownups, the top tier was carrot with cream cheese frosting.

A Christmas Tradition...

When I was growing up, one of my favorite parts of Christmas was baking with my grandmother. She was an amazing baker and cake decorator and I learned so much from her. Every year, we'd spend at least a week baking Christmas cookies, candies, pies, etc. in preparation for our big family dinner. There were several things that you could always plan on having at her house at Christmas. One was her sugar cookies, and another was her peanut brittle. Although she has been gone for 4 1/2 years now, I still keep her memory alive by baking up a storm every December.

I inherited a lot of her recipes and cookbooks and this recipe was in one of her decades old cookbooks. I can't be sure whether this is the exact recipe she used (and grandma always tapped the bubbles out of her peanut brittle), but it is a huge favorite with my family.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do...

PEANUT BRITTLE

Bring 1/2 cup of water to a boil in a heavy saucepan, then add the following:

1 cup light corn syrup

2 cups granulated sugar

Boil on high heat until the syrup spins long threads. You can determine this by using a wooden spoon and drizzling the sugar mixture into a glass of water. When the sugar pours off of the spoon into the water in a constant thread, it's ready. Add 1 package of raw Spanish peanuts (approx 2 cups) and turn the heat down to medium to medium-high and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture turns to a golden brown (approx 15-20 minutes). Remove from stove.

Add:

3 Tbsp butter (cut in cubes)

1 tsp vanilla

Stir together until the butter is melted, then add 3 tsp of baking soda. Stir until it bubbles up and then pour it on a large buttered cookie sheet. Using potholders or oven mitts, pick up the cookie sheet and tilt it side to side to spread the mixture out. Using this meathod, the bubbles haven't broken and it makes it crunchy and easy to eat.

Set the pan in a cool place (such as outside during this time of year) until the peanut brittle has cooled and hardened.

If you'd like to make this recipe like my grandmother made it, spread the peanut brittle on the cookie sheet with a wooden spoon and then tap the sheet lightly to get the bubbles out.

Enjoy!

Oct 30th Cakes...

Fall floral cake

Here is a picture of the cake before it was finished.

Here is the completed cake. It was for a couple's first anniversary who also had just signed the papers on their new home:)

3rd birthday cake for twin boys.

Candy and knitting...

Here are pictures of two of the cakes I made this past weekend. One was a birthday cake for a knitting lover and the other a Candyland themed cake for a little girl's first birthday.

I was excited to get to try out my new gumpaste extruder when I made the balls of "yarn" for this cake. So much easier than trying to roll out snakes of gumpaste myself:)

Back in the saddle again...

I know it has been a long time since I've posted anything on my cake blog. I've come up with a lot of excuses such as lack of time, not feeling like I have anything interesting to say, and that uploading to Facebook was just quicker and easier. However, I love reading blogs and I finally decided that if I'm going to have a blog dedicated to my cakes, it was time to stop neglecting it. So here goes. I'm getting back into the saddle and I'm going to make a strong effort to stop pushing my blog to the side. Just to catch up, here are a few of the cakes that I have done over the past few months...

This was a western themed wedding cake. My husband and I are friends with the bride and groom, so we were lucky enough to also get to attend this wedding (which I must say was a blast!). The bride had showed me a picture of a cake that she really liked and I replicated the top tier of it for their cupcake tower. Her neighbor had decorated the cupcake stand for her as a gift and it really turned out great once it was all set up.

A box cake. I was lucky enough to go on a Cake Cruise last month where I learned this technique from Carrie Biggers. It's an awesome way to decorate a cake for a wedding or a birthday. This cake was a chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting and then I filled the top of the box with chocolate covered strawberries. I'm looking forward to making this cake again in December using white fondant and stamping snowflakes into the sides and filling it with sugared cranberries. Can't get more festive than that:)

A 20th birthday cake.

This gift box cake was for a baby shower. It was to be a topper cake for a cupcake stand.

I made this wedding cake at the end of July. The bride wanted me to duplicate the design on their wedding invitations. Their wedding colors were black and hot pink. It was also the first time I had made gumpaste roses and I loved how they turned out.

A closeup of the roses.

I made several of these cookie bouquets for the 4th of July. They were a big hit and looked so cute in the buckets.

These fireworks cupcakes turned out so cute.

This was for a baby shower. The mother-to-be had chosen a pirate monkey theme for the baby's nursery.

This was a first birthday cake with a Candyland theme.

I've got lots of cakes coming up that I'll post pictures of soon, so stay tuned!

New website!!!

I know it's been a while since I've posted any cake pictures on here. It's been crazy lately with cake orders and I haven't had the time to post anything on here. Plus I'm very excited to announce that I officially have a website:) It was put together by one of my friends who is a graphic designer. She designed my logo, business cards, and built my website. My new website is www.katiescakesaz.com.

Also because she did such an amazing job with designing everything, I have to highly recommend my friend Jennifer if you are ever in need of any marketing tools for your business. Her website is www.graphic-gal.com.

I'll be sure to start posting more pictures as well. This week is going to be a busy one, so I'll have several pics to post.

Another Round of Cakes...

This was a really fun cake to make. I used one of my son's little Lightning McQueen diecast cars as my model.

The theme for this cake was pink and gold. I made the flowers out of gumpaste and brushed them with gold lustre dust (which you can't seen in the picture), then I finished them off with gold dragees.