Pie Contest Winner!

This past week I entered the Atchison Area Chamber of Commerce Farm-City Banquet Pie Baking Contest and I won! Technically I tied for first in the fruit pie category but a tie is still a win. I made a blueberry pie. My triple coconut cream pie took third in the cream pie category.  Now, the competition wasn't equal to a county or state fair, but it felt great to win. It felt great because I'm not an expert pie baker. My husband reminded me that he has yet to taste one of my pies. I love pie! Both sides of my family love pie and there are some great pie bakers in my family. The competition in my family is fierce and I have never felt my pies can compete. Heck, why do I have to bake a pie when I can enjoy a pie baked by my Mom, my Grandma, numerous Cousins, or any of my Aunts? If only we could still enjoy my Grandma's apricot pie! I have entered pies in the Johnson County Fair but I have never won. So, winning felt great and it gave me motivation to enter a pie in the Platte County Fair this summer! Here's the prize winning blueberry pie straight from the Betty Croker cookbook. I kind of want a piece of pie right now!

Chanel and Minnie Mouse

Ah, I love baking and I love transforming cake into art!  It's been several months since I had an excuse to make a cake and it felt good to be creative the past couple of weeks.  First, a Chanel cake for a bachelorette party.  I learned two things making this cake.  First, the design on top is not two horesehoes, it's the CHANEL logo!  Second, it's hard to make frosting or fondant black, but marzipan takes black food coloring perfectly.  The cake was red velvet with cream cheese frosting. 

Thursday night I put this cake together for a little girl's birthday.  Got to love Minnie Mouse!  It's a white cake with a thin layer of raspberry jam between the layers.  I tried a new product by Wilton called Sugar Sheets.  Basically it's very thin sheets of fondant that you can cut with a cookie cutter or scissors.  It doesn't taste like much but it's edible and I used it to make the Minnie Mouse silhouettes.

My next cake will be a replica of our wedding cake to celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary.  Who needs to save the top when the baker is in-house and cake just make the cake again!

Cakes for brothers

Several weeks ago I made these two cakes to help brothers celebrate their birthdays.  I love the fact that their mom asked for two separate cakes.  I know every year I celebrate another birthday, making sure I celebrate my birthday with family and friends becomes more important.  I’m not always happy to turn another year older, but I’m happy to celebrate my blessings from the previous year and excited to see what the new year holds.  The themes that Spencer and Riley chose were Spiderman and Pikachu.  I knew of Spiderman but I wasn’t sure who Pikachu was.  So, off to Pinterst to find ideas and here are the results!

 

My husband delivered the cakes to his co-worker and I haven’t heard if they liked them or not.  I sure hope so! 

Fun Wedding Cake

My Mom and I worked together to create this masterpiece this weekend.  The bride, Emily, wanted to include the colors of her wedding which were navy, guava, watermelon, and tangerine.  So fun!  The flavors were white and chocolate.  What exactly is white cake flavor?  To me white isn't a flavor but it's not exactly vanilla either since it has a touch of almond.  I've also heard some say the difference between white wedding cake and white birthday cake is that wedding cakes have almond.  I use the same recipe for wedding cakes and birthday cakes so that's not true for my cakes.  As I was helping cut the cake, I will tell you more people took white cake over chocolate cake.  I will stand by my theory that most people want to eat white wedding cake when the go to a wedding :)  Congratulations Emily and Jordan!

Happy 30th Chelsea!

My good friend and former housemate, Chelsea, turned 30 on July 4th and I was asked to make the cake.  Blue and classy was all the design help I was given.  So, here's what I created!  Shhh, don't tell anyone it was super easy to frost the cake like this. 

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SpongeBob SquarePants comes to life in my kitchen

This weekend I got to see the smile on Huston's face when he saw his SpongeBob SquarePants birthday cake!  I don't have a clue what SpongeBob is all about, but give me a picture and I will make it come to life in edible form.  I think this was another successfull cake!

A nice December day for a wedding

Who would have guessed it would be sunny and 60 degrees on New Year's Eve?  It was a nice weekend for a wedding!  I was asked to make a cake for a bride who's father ate a piece of one of my cakes at another wedding.  My little business is growing outside of my friends and family circle which is fun!  The theme for the wedding was drinking!  So, I topped the cake with a pair of champagne glasses.

I think this might have been one of the few cakes where I  designed the cake without much help from the Internet.  The idea was the champagne was being poured down the side of the cake.  I think it turned out beautiful thanks to my assistants, Mom and Lindsay, who help adorn the cake with flowers.  I sure hope the bride and groom enjoyed the cake!