Some cakes

I have been busy again! I love it and would never complain....I'll show you what I've been working on:

4 dozen chocolate and vanilla cupcakes frosted with vanilla and chocolate frosting. Simple fall colored decorations. These were for a wedding rehearsal dinner. :


A fun cake for a 16th birthday party. Alana's mom gave me a photograph of what she wanted and I went from there:

Bottom tier is a 9" vanilla cake with fresh strawberries and vanilla SMBC. Top tier is the same but filled with lemon curd. All decorations are homemade marshmallow fondant except for the "16" which was made from gum paste. (Wires weren't edible) Please excuse the quality of the photograph, I was in a hurry to deliver!

A Dora cake for a little girl turning 4:

10" chocolate cake with vanilla SMBC and homemade MMF decorations. Store-bought Dora candle.

2 dozen mini chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting for a birthday celebration at school:

2 dozen s'mores cupcakes for a Halloween party.

Love the ghostly faces

A Jack Skellington cake for a birthday close to Halloween:

9" vanilla cake with lemon curd filling and lemon SMBC. Fondant face. I do believe my smooth icing is improving!

Isn't that the cutest cake you've ever seen? :)

Thanks for stopping by!

TWD: Sugar Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

This month's Tuesdays with Dorie selections are different. Because of the Thanksgiving holiday this month, we are allowed to post any of the 4 chosen recipes on any Tuesday this month. Since I plan on making the fancy Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake for Thanksgiving dessert, I chose to make these lovely cookies first thanks to Pamela over at Cookies with Boys.

These babies do pack a wallop of flavor! Spicy, sweet, peppery...all that goodness. I didn't put the "large" pinch of cracked pepper in the mix...stuck with the "small" as the kids will be eating these. I also rolled the balls in turbinado sugar prior to baking. I like the finished look of the cookies I didn't press down before putting them in the oven. I think you can see the sugar crystals clearly and I think they're prettier :)

These cookies taste like Christmas. I kept half of the dough in the freezer to make later this month as it has been about 85 degrees here for the last week...it sure doesn't feel like fall/winter here!

I'm also excited this week as a friend of mine from high school who moved to Colorado and started a family has joined TWD!!! Shelly, whose blog can be found here, and I have kept in touch throughout the many years we have lived far away from one another and I am happy we get to do this together!!

Stop by here to see what the others baked up.

Thanks for stopping by.

TWD: Allspice Crumb Muffins

It's Tuesday. It's cold, wet, rainy and windy today. Unlike yesterday which was clear, warm and dry. Typical Northern California weather...we went from summer to winter in one day. The poor trees are always so confused...do we turn colors or just skip that and fall straight to the ground? It's the same every year, but every year we act like we've never experienced it before! Roads are flooded and trees are falling...I think I'll stay inside and bake the day away.

This week's TWD selection was chosen by Kayte of Grandma's Kitchen Table.
The fall smelling and tasting Allspice Crumb Muffins can be found on pages 16 and 17 of Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

Not much playing around with this recipe except to substitute buttermilk for the whole milk and adding a few raspberries to half the muffins.

My kids will love these for breakfast!

Don't forget to check out what the others have baked up over here.

Thanks for stopping by.

See...I have been busy :)

I had a few orders and made some cakes:

Some friends of mine had a small church ceremony for family prior to taking off to Cabo San Lucas for their wedding celebration. They had a little lunch reception at a restaurant here in Roseville and I made their wedding cake.

Bottom tier is a 2 layer 10" vanilla buttermilk cake with fresh strawberry filling and vanilla SMBC. Top tier is a 2 layer 8" vanilla buttermilk cake with fresh lemon curd filling. Same frosting. Brown ribbon and scrolling topped it off. The top is a little wonky but not bad for my first wedding cake!

I made a birthday cake for an 8 year old boy born on the Fourth of July!!

10" chocolate cake with strawberry filling on the bottom and 6" vanilla cake with strawberry filling on the top. All iced with vanilla SMBC. Fondant stars.

A first birthday cake for Addi:


10" vanilla cake with fresh strawberries and vanilla SMBC. Addi's mom asked for a pink, black and green color theme....and Addi got her own little smash cake on the top. The ladybug is vanilla cake as well. All fondant accessories and all edible except for the antennae.

I love the ladybug trail.


(Pictures of this cake were taken with my point and shoot camera....my apologies for the quality :) )

A Princess cake for Ella's 4th birthday:

I didn't really know what I was doing here and thanks to all the inspiring princess cakes over at cake central.

The towers are rice crispie treats covered with homemade MMF. Next time I would let the treats sit out a little longer to harden. They were very soft and kind of wobbly...the kids loved them sliced up though!

And finally....a baby shower cake:

I was given a link to the bedding the mom had picked out and a cake flavor and that was it! The decorating was totally up to me. I think I do better with specifics...I looked at too many green and brown cakes and couldn't narrow it down!!

This is a 10" 2 layer spice cake (yay for spice!) with cream cheese frosting on the bottom. The top layer is 1/2 spice and 1/2 chocolate with cream cheese frosting. Homemade MMF decorations. The mom-to-be was happy with her cake and I think it matched the bedding perfectly.

Anyone have any tips for smooth icing a cake? I'm up for anything.

Ok...I'm gearing up for next week...4 dozen chocolate and vanilla cupcakes for a wedding rehearsal dinner and a 16th birthday cake! Wish me luck :)

Thanks for stopping by.

TWD: Chocolate Un-Crunched Caramel Tart

Now known as: GOOD LORD, SOMEONE TAKE THIS AWAY FROM ME IMMEDIATELY!

This week's super spectacular yum-yum was chosen by Carla at Chocolate Moosey.

Really, no words are needed....

I could have eaten the whole thing myself. Luckily my friend Michele (of the lemon, persimmon and fig trees that I so often take from) was having a birthday last week so I was able to off load half of the tart to her. Two pieces to another friend with a birthday...and then I ate the rest!

The only change I made was to leave the nuts out so my tart was un-crunched and super smooth.

I will definitely be making this again, and again, and again. I need to get myself some tiny tart pans....that would be awesome!

Don't forget to stop by here to check out the other bakers.

Thanks for stopping by.

See...I did make them

These Flaky Apple Turnover were last week's TWD pick. Julie from Someone's in the Kitchen chose them for her hosting week.

My 5 yr old and I picked the apples from a neighbor's tree.

We put all the rotten apples in a pile for them to pick up. (I would have done it but I only brought along one bag...for MY apples)

We were very careful of the little bird and her nest when picking.

Chopped them up.

Dropped a raspberry on a few.

Chopped up some caramels on a few.

Made some into little bundles.

Sprinkled the tops with raw sugar and.....

....there you go. Passed some out to the neighbors with the apple tree. We loved them.

I have 9 tucked away in the freezer to be consumed at a later date.

Thanks for stopping by.

It's still Tuesday isn't it?

I know, I know...total slacker. I really have a good excuse....but who really cares? I'm here now and it's not like I haven't been baking. I have...but finding the time to take the photos off the camera...onto the computer, and then sitting down and actually writing something? That's the hard part!

These Cottage Cheese Pufflets that Jacque from Daisy Lane Cakes chose for this week's TWD adventure were not my favorite thing to make. But that's the whole idea of this baking group, right? To venture out and try new things. Don't get me wrong, the taste is lovely I just get frustrated when something is not going the way I think it should be going! :)

Should have chilled the dough more...even more than I did. I used apricot jam for the filling and my kids don't care what they look like. :)

Don't forget to stop by the website to see what the others have created.

Thanks for stopping by.