Alice in Wonderland

Our offices take Halloween very seriously - we start planning weeks in advance and everything from what we wear to what we bake is themed.

This year we did Alice in Wonderland and it was so much fun.

There were soooo many ideas on-line for themed cupcakes, cakes, cookies, Mad Hat Tea Parties. It was exciting!!!

I settled on these and made Mat Hatter hats, Mat Hatter tea pots, Hearts playing cards, Strawberry pie slices, paint cans with painted roses and Toadstools.

Halloween again! Eeeek!

Halloween always means a lot of baking for me :-) I love making something for the kids to take to school for their classmates and this year made cookies again, this time Zombie face cookies.

What a lot of fun!!

Monster High cake take 2

I had another request for a Monster High cake and found a really simple one online, my coworker loved it and I made it for her daughter.

 

Tried a couple different techniques for the buttercream icing underneath and didn't refridgerate the cake this time. Made a huge difference when applying the fondant. I think this was the best smoothing job I've done so far!

Hockey

A co-worker at work asked me to make a cake for her husband's birthday. He is a huge Montreal Canadiens fan and his birthday co-incided with the beginning of the hockey season and the Leafs versus Montreal game.

Raised in a family where the Leafs were to be admired and the Canadiens were to be booed, this was a difficult cake to complete! LOL

After my husband gave me the idea of a table hockey theme, I ran with that and made hockey players out of cookies that I iced with royal icing. It was hard work and I quickly realized that I would not be able to complete all the players and keep the cake a smaller size, so I made fewer players.

As you can see it takes four Canadiens to play against only one Leafs goalie ;-)

Baby cakes - gotta love 'em!

Tried out a new buttercream icing - did NOT like it. It was soooo sweet and quite buttery. Made for a crackle on this cake that I did not like, but, icing aside, it was so much fun make the characters for this cake. You gotta love baby cakes!

Pig Pen cake redeux

Pig Pen Cake #2. A friend of mine at work was looking for a fun cake for a friend. She had seen the other pig pen cake that I had made for a fundraiser and though it was just the kind of fun she was going for :-)  This time I tried making a pig diving into the mud. My oldest was appalled at the poor pig with the piece of wire up his butt LOL

 

End of another School Year!

The end of another school year took place today and with it my oldest son's teacher retired after teaching her last class.

She was truly an amazing teacher. I think one of the few old school teachers who disciplined kids that misbehaved and demanded respect from her students. My son has HFA and he truly thrived in her class. He needs order and can't function in chaos - find me a grade in school that doesn't have chaos.

She taught him last year in Grade 3 and when we talked to her about Kyle, she truly listened and heard what we had to say. This year, when she had another split grade 3/4 class, she asked us if she could teach him again this year.

You have to love a teacher like that.

As a surprise, I wanted to do something different for her today, something that came from us.

So beside cupcakes for her class, I made her a cake :D

Tandem and Pup

My cousin's wife - who is awesome - asked me to make a cake for her little guy - it was a very specific cake that he wanted for his 5th birthday.

A tandem and pup cake just like his Grandpa's.

I had to ask Natalie to send me a photo of what he was wanting - after I googled tandem and pup. LOL

This was Grandpa's real truck

 

This was the end result. The little guy was thrilled and his parents were happy. I love my life.

Putting the cart before the horse.

I bought little sundae/banana split paper bowls at a store once because I couldn't resist how cute they were and then ended up hanging onto them for months until the opportunity to use them!

 

We had another fundraiser at work and I had a chance to put the bowls to use as ice cream sundae cupcake holders.

 

I should have colored the cupcakes better so that they looked more like scoops of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry icecream and possibly some fondant bananas on the side, but I really like how the "whipped cream" and chocolate with sprinkles on the top of them worked out! and they were yummy ;-)

 

 

Cupcake Competition loser!

We had a cupcake competition at work for a great cause - United Way as part of our Public Service week. Unfortunately I was out of town for most of the week of activities and only returned Wednesday night when the cupcake event was going to take place on Friday.

 

I had an idea - I quickly thought of the Bakerella hamburger cupcakes that I had made for a previous birthday of Kyle's. I have them posted somewhere on this site. They were quick and I had made them before, so I knew I could bang them out Thursday night quickly. But when I checked a co-workers page on Thursday at work, she had posted almost identical cupcakes for her entry! LOL My brain was soooo stuck in a BBQ food type theme that I had difficulty finding alternatives, but I did find a couple ideas online and after supper on Thursday, I made these!

 

They were not the winner - my co-worker and friend did an amazing job on her entry and totally deserved the trophy! But let me tell you!! Now my creative juices are flowing for next year LOL Watch out Teresa!!

 

Science Cake

My youngest is a Scientist. He invents things constantly, loved magic tricks, gag gifts and practical jokes, but most of all he loves all things science. For Christmas last year, he asked for chemicals. (For the record buying chemicals for a 7rd old turning 8 is not something that is accomplished easily.)

For his birthday, he decided on a Scientist theme. This worked perfectly for me as I managed to contact the local high school Science Teacher who welcomed us into her Grade 12 science lab on a Saturday for an hours worth of science experiments - bunsen burners and exploding Gummi Bears included!

I may have surprised him with his birthday party, but he had a lot of input into his birthday cake. He picked the most "Sciencey" word he could think of for around the side of the cake.

The girly world of Monster High!

Friends of mine asked me if I'd make their 10 year old daughter a Monster High themed cake for her birthday. Having 2 boys, I didn't know anything about Monster High so I had to do some serious searching online on the theme!

Good news was that the internet had no shortage of Monster High cakes, better news was that the birthday girl was very specific on her favorite character - Clawdeen.

After a search, Clawdeen Monster High themed birthday cake. It was a small group and I used 2 flavors for the cake - one on each side of the cake - which made it easy to apply a couple pattern ideas. What I didn't count on is that an argyle pattern does not nicely make when applied around round corners LOL I got a little confused and dizzy part way through!

In the end - I think it turned out nicely and the birthday girl and her parents were happy - which is what counts!!

Gave in to a challenge

After a few people sent me the famous Pig Cake from Pinterest, I took up the challenge and I have to say - this was a pretty easy cake to make!

The hardest part was actually making the icing as dark as mud. It was raffled off at work in a silent auction.

Easter Egg Nests

This was a case of buying the little candy boxes before I even had an idea of what to put in them. The idea of Easter Egg cupcakes was a good one at the time, but I quickly realized that to make cupcakes for these little boxes, they would need to be mini cupcakes. Then a search for tiny little eggs took place. I had no clue how to make the little nests so took the easy way out and colored coconut green for the nests.

Made these ones for another fundraiser

(I'm noticing a theme now, I only seem to bake for fundraisers LOL)

Valentine's Day says Cookies!

Valentine's Day cookies - Mini cakes and cookies on sugar cookies. Another fundraiser for work.

These were so much fun to make! I made the lazy version of the ones found on Bakerella's site.

Let it Snow!!

Christmas Cupcakes for another work fundraiser. I have no idea how that color of icing was actually made, but somehow I managed a wedgewood color.

The silver balls barely made it onto the cupcakes - 2 little boys were gobbling them up pretty good!

Snow Cookies

Found an awesome tutorial for these Snowman Cookies and fell in love with them. They were so easy to make - just make sure hands are well greased LOL

My youngest helped out and got a little excited with the smashing of the melting marshmallow a couple times, but they worked out great and made some money for a great cause.