Saturday, May 29, 2010

Sweet Relief Bake Sale Results...


The results of the bake sale are in! We raised $893.55 for Second Harvest!

I made Chocolate and Cherry Cake Balls dipped in chocolate and Red Velvet and Cream Cheese Cake Balls dipped in white chocolate. So happy to be a part of helping this great cause.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Sweet Relief Bake Sale




I'm so happy to participate in this bake sale. I'll be doing cake balls again. If you are in the Nashville area please make plans to stop by this Saturday.

Cooked up by the local foodies on Twitter, Nashville’s food bloggers and their food blog fans are having a bake sale Saturday, May 29th to raise money for flood relief efforts in Middle Tennessee. Dubbed Sweet Relief, the bake sale will run from 1:30pm until 4:00 (or until the goodies are gone!) at the Green Wagon in East Nashville (1100 Forest Ave.). All proceeds from the event will benefit Second Harvest of Middle Tennessee (http://www.secondharvestmidtn.org/) and their efforts to provide relief to victims of the recent flooding. Be sure to come by and show your support by enjoying some guilt-free sweets. Your tastebuds will thank you.

If anyone is interesting in baking for this event, info can be found by clicking HERE.

RSVP on facebook or just show up in person. Nashville thanks you!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Open Bar. Cupcake Bar, that is.

For Cherry's 1st Birthday Party on Saturday, we did a cupcake bar. It was so fun and I got lots of compliments on the idea. I thought it suited her little personality so well! We had a great time celebrating.



Here were the cute little invitations:



The Cupcake Tower featured Butter, Strawberry, and Chocolate cupcakes. Cherry's cupcake was the topper. A strawberry cupcake w/ chocolate frosting, flower sprinkles, and her "1" candle.



I decorated each tier with some adhesive ribbon I found at Michael's. We made our own cupcake wrappers from a variety of scrapbooking paper using a template I found online.

Frosting choices were Buttercream, Strawberry, Chocolate, Cream Chese, and of course... Cherry! I actually didn't know that there was Cherry flavored frosting. It was interesting... worked good on the chocolate cake. We also set out chocolate and caramel sauces. YUM!



Toppings were gummy bears, oreo crumbles, flower sprinkles, mini chocolate chips, and of course... cherries!



The Full spread.



Endless Cupcake Combinations!!!


My personal favorite was a chocolate cupcake with buttercream frosting and oreo crumbles on top. You just can't go wrong. And yes, I definitely had a sugar hangover the next day from the open bar.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Where Is Baby's Birthday Cake?

Happy Birthday to my sweet Ella Cherry!

She turned 1 on Thursday. I made her a cake based on the book "Where Is Baby's Birthday Cake?" by Karen Katz. We read this book everynight the month before her big day and she LOVED it. We would pretend to eat the cake at the end and even sing happy birthday.

As I have mentioned before, I AM NO CAKE DECORATOR! But I figured I could make it happen! I gave it a whirl came up with this.



As you can tell I have issues coloring inside the lines. When I woke up the next morning the icing had melted and fallen down the sides. My husband encouraged me to try again. I'm glad he did. I like the second version much better!



We read the book just before serving her the cake and she didn't skip a beat... just dug in and started eating! A happy birthday for a happy girl!



I wrote the author and sent her pictures of our special day. She wrote back and was excited about the cake and said she would forward on to her publisher because they would get a big kick out of it. She said it looked just like the cake in the book. Well, I wouldn't say exactly, but I'm glad she liked my interpretation of her work.

We had the best day celebrating Cherry's Birthday. Time flies.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

PlumpyCakes

So, maybe you've quit reading my blog because there have been no posts lately. I would do the same thing. The truth is, I have still been baking- just not as much. And the things I have been baking are repeats of what I've all ready showcased here. Really, how many times can I post cake balls or guinness cake? really.

Well, allow me to offer an explanation and apology (sort of). You see, CrumpyCakes had begun turning me into PlumpyCakes... well not really. I guess having a baby actually did that, but the baking and tasting wasn't helping the scale numbers descend. Knowing full well that I had a VERY special cake to make for a VERY special girl in the near future made me realize I needed to make a change. So I began rendezvousing with the arch nemesis of CrumpyCakes... P90X.

I wasn't sure if I'd be able to stick with it or not... so I didn't tell many people I was starting it... but I've been doing it for more than 7 weeks now and am pretty close to my goal. Basically I traded baking time for exercise time. And just squeezed in the baking on the side here and there for friends.

However, as I mentioned before I've been eagerly anticipating making Cherry's 1st Birthday Cake for quite a while now. A month ago I purchased this adorable book to start prepping her for a birthday party. (Who knows what that even means?) Every night we read "Where is Baby's Birthday Cake?" by Karen Katz.

She loves it. It's a lift flap book that takes you on a little treasure hunt looking behind the chair, in the refrigerator, etc... until you finally find the cake in the living room! Then we pretend to eat the cake. And I sing happy birthday to her.

Her actual birthday is Thursday and I thought I would make her a smash cake that looks like the cake in the book. As you know, I'm no cake decorator... but it should be fun and I'll be sure to post pictures!

Then we are doing a cupcake bar for her party on Saturday... lots of fun ideas there and I'll also provide pictures of that.

I've been debating whether or not I'll eat some cake on her birthday because I've been so vigilant in my healthy eating habits... but then my husband threatened, "You're going to eat cake on her birthday or I will tell her every year until she's old and wrinkly that you wouldn't eat cake on her 1st birthday." I guess that settles it.

Surely just one little bite won't send me back to PlumpyCakes! ;)

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Duffinately going to check this out.


I was in Michael's the other day in the baking aisle and was surprised to see a line of products from Duff of Charm City Cakes fame.

Check out the announcement on the CCC blog.

The line includes: fondant, icing, dyes, cutters, tools & accessories... and who knows what else is to come. Haven't heard anything about the quality yet. I'm "Duffinately" going to have to check this out!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

May Day

Just realized I hadn't posted in two weeks! So sorry.... although I don't have a lot of newsworthy creations lately... I thought you should at least see this that a friend forwarded me. He mentioned that it would be a good way to handle any left overs... pretty funny!