Peacock Cake Topper

I absolutely love the colors on the tail of this peacock cake. Animal toppers are such a fun and in this case classy way to top off a cake! The rich blues and purples are the perfect compliment to the semi translucent shimmer of the gelatin this figure is made of.

 Would be the perfect way to top any number of cakes!!

 One more of the tail, just because it's so perty :)

Woodland Fairy Tree Stump Cake with Lit Windows

Fairy villages are all the rage right now! Our fairy village is sadly... quite sad. Not much there, but this woodland tree stump cake made it look pretty darn cool when I set it amidst the fellow houses and few fairy things we have, to get my pictures!

 It actually almost blended right in with my tree!

 Even more fun, is the light up windows and door way, that give the cake a nice glow.

 My village may be sad, but this fun tree stump cake sure isn't!

Gold Fantasy Flower Cake

I love finding a cake design that works well in a number of venues, this one does that! I love a good gold accent piece, but really love the way these gold lace flowers look to dress up a cake!

 Even more, I love that it looks good and even a little different in many settings!

 I love how warm it looks in a more rustic amber lighting,

As well as how fun it is pool side with some foliage beside it. The bionic cake design!

Musically Sweet Violin Cake

This cake was a challenge I was excited to take on! A cake was requested for the 20th anniversary celebration of a violin music studio, and she requested something classic but with a bit of a wow factor and also to include an edible violin on top.

It was fun to brainstorm ideas with her, and we came up with a simple top, highlighting the 3 dimensional violin to go on top, with a few red chocolate flowers to give the cake a pop of color.

For the bottom tier we went with classic white frosting rosettes. I thought it would be a nice element to give the cake some dimension with the mix of fondant and buttercream, plus I decided to airbrush a bit of gold luster dust to give it some shimmer- who doesn't love a little bling!

My favorite was the middle tier, which we decided to wrap in a type of sheet music. To accomplish this, I printed music sheets onto wafer rice paper and shredded it into bits. The process of "gluing" it on allowed for the paper to shrink up a little on the edges, giving it an aged and worn look. It was finished off with a touch of the gold luster dust  to match the bottom, giving the bottom two tiers more of an antique finish and spotlighting the violin on the top- fresh white- tier. I loved how the middle "aged" sheet music tier turned out!

 The violin was a new project for me, but I have done a handful of wood finishes so that part was fun as always. The struggle once I had the violin pieced together, was what to use for the strings. Sadly, everything edible was either too heavy, or would degrade (in the event of spun sugar) in the fridge which, due to a previously schedule trip, was where the cake would have to stay for 3 days before the event. I ended up using a heavy black thread, which suited it fine. I may have used a dark metal thread if I were to do it over again!

 
In the end, this was a fun cake to work on and I was more than thrilled to see it come together! Of course, the true verdict is in the clients face, and I was thrilled to see her slightly speechless when she picked it up!! Congrats to the Ruth Godfrey Violin and Viola Studios for a wonderful 20 years!

A Dolphin Tail Cake

I love working with people who know what they want! It makes the cake design process very straight forward and easy. This was a first, and it was so fun to work with this darling colaborating on her special birthday cake. It all started with a drawing she did and a very specific explaination of what everything was on it for the cake, right down to the dolphins made of rice krispy treats! It was all very sweet and so cute to watch! I had a lot of fun incorporating her drawing into her cake, and was very happy with the end result. It was her second dolphin cake, but my favorite of the two! :)

 mommy dolphin hugging little dolphin

 complete with her snorkeling on the front of the cake!

 Happy Birthday to the sweet birthday girl, Felicity!

Luau in January

I can't think of a better time to have a Luau birthday party than in the dead middle of winter! Haha, actually I can think of many better times, but my daughter always picks the most convenient themes for her January birthday party, so January luau it was! Luckily, its such a popular item in the winter (catching my sarcasm?), at least most of it was on sale! When it was all up, I loved having all the bright colors and tropical themes all throughout my house, while it was cold and gray outside.

I may say lets have a January luau every year!!!

Out in the front of the house we had 4 torches burning to set the scene. I had purchased a hot coals runner that I had planned on lining the sidewalk up to the house with, but it didn't arrive in time. Once the guests entered the house they were greeted with our tiki bar table and waterfall that I had created running down our entryway staircase lined with twinkling fairy lights. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of it, it looked really great against all the bright colors.

You can kind of see the side of it in this pic.

 The guests were given a party bag with a little beach ball, coconut cup with an umbrella straw, tattoos and flowers for the girls hair

then they were able to pick out a grass skirt and flower lei to wear during the party.I worried about the skirts fitting all the different sizes of kids because they were just children's, but with the elastic waistband and velcro it fit everyone up to the 11 year olds!

those were all for the kids, but every guest at the party was given a lei, you have to set the scene for it to feel like your really at a luau, right?

 They then got to catch a wave in front of our giant wave background while we took their picture to later put in their frame, which was the craft project. We also had photo props for the photos. They included this Ukulele, shark fin and surf board

 Each child got to pick out a fun paper border and glue it to their wood frame, adding stickers, drawings and wooden dolphins or crab embellishments to go with their picture!

The food is the best part at a luau, right? I made sure that color was the main ingredient on the dessert table, incorporating all different bright colors to be highlighted against the turquoise tablecloth

 Sea shells on the sand chocolate covered oreos

 flip flop nutter butters

 candy sea glass

 raspberry macaroons with lime and candied ginger filling

 chocolate covered flip flop oreos- I didn't want to double up treats, but these always go so fast and I loved the color combination!

 Must have pina coladas at any tropical suarez- Pina colada cupcakes

 Roasting "gummy" Pigs on a skewers

 Beach ball cake pops

 Marshmallow cut plumeria flowers

 Now onto the real food (unless your me, the real food is dessert- who are we kidding!) I just loved the ability to have macadamia nuts and pretty wood serving platters so I pulled out all the dishes from my travels and visited my local Hawaiian Hut!

 Dole whip Luau Punch- almost as good as Disneyland's. Recipe below

 One of the favorites- Bacon wrapped pineapple skewers. We tried to do almost everything in finger style portions so it was more like a luau buffet so people could snack on a little of everything. 

 super yummy fruit dip served in a hallowed out pineapple

 loads and loads of tropical fruits sprinkled with fresh orchids

and the pulled Kahlua pork..... oh the pork! it had an amazing sauce on it from the Hawaiian Hut, custom made made the Polynesian family that owns it, Throw it all in the slow cooker for 9 hours then shred the life out of it! Mmmmmm

 While the kids played, we had tattoo stations for them to visit as well

I usually try to make cakes my own design, but my daughter was in love and had to have this exact cake, so I copied it from a beautiful one she found on pinterest.

 Birthday girl and her bright pink hibiscus cake!

If you haven't had a luau party, I highly recommend one! Especially in the dead of winter! 

Dole Luau Juice

Ingredients: (this makes 2 big batches of punch)

2- 12 ounce cans orange juice concentrate (thawed a bit)

1- 12 ounce can lemonade concentrate (thawed a bit)

1- 46 ounce can Dole pineapple juice

6 cups water

2 cups sugar

6 ripe bananas  

2- 2 liter bottles of 7 up (add when ready to serve)