This was for a combination birthday party where we lumped both of my boys together, since we will be moving cross-country soon and my youngest wouldn’t have a party with his friends if we waited till his actual birthday. My oldest picked the theme, and then astutely convinced my littlest one it was his idea, hehe. My daughter had some friends over as well and we treated it as sort of a going-away party, while we were at it! Chocolate cake with Oreo filling and ganache for the bottom tier (in our 90+degree weather, I used Rice Krispie Treats to cover the sides of the cake to at least give the sides something to “wear” once the icing melted off as I was expecting it to! ), middle tier was honey cake with peanut butter filling, and the top tier was raspberry cake with lemon filling. Homemade fondant and gumpaste for everything … I got to do some of my favorite go-to techniques for this one … I absolutely LOVE painting on cakes, and incorporating 3D elements!

For my (now) six-year-old daughter’s birthday this weekend. Many firsts on this cake! First stencil ever, first peonies (was actually quite disappointed that my peonies looked more like roses than they should have … oh well, live and learn!), first use of impression mat and “inking” of cake board … lots of fun! She wanted a Pinkalicious cake, and we made it quite pink! Pink lemonade bottom tier (strawberry cake, lemonade filling, white chocolate ganache), cherry chocolate chip middle tier (cherry cake with chocolate chips, chocolate ganache), and PBH top tier (peanut butter cake, honey creme filling, white chocolate ganache). Loads of fun!

A friend of ours put on a huge birthday bash at our local baseball stadium for four other friends who were all having their birthdays within the next couple of days. The 103-degree weather and a looooong bumpy drive made me super apprehensive about embarking on my first topsy-turvy cake ever, but all’s well that ends well . Bottom tier was chocolate with peanut butter filling and dark chocolate ganache, middle tier was Macsmom’s citrus twist (orange and lemon swirled cake with lemon curd and cheesecake filling … sounded so good, I used it exactly as she described it, and loved it!), top tier was straight-up WASC with raspberry mousse filling. All details hand painted … I included all four birthday people’s names on the cake in two different places, putting their “autographs” on the top tier “ball”, then I made a fondant list of the starting line up for the baseball team and included one of our friend’s names as the pitcher (the general manager is the name of the guy who put on the birthday bash, hehe!); the other names are on the pennants and banners.The yoga “om” sign was because all of our friends are from the same yoga class. I can safely say that, given the fact that I almost stroked out trying to protect my cake from the inevitable sagging that accompanies this kind of heat and bumps (thank goodness for SPS!!!), I won’t be doing another topsy-turvy for a very long time .

Love how cyclical trends are! A little friend of ours wanted a smurf birthday … she didn’t want smurfette, she wanted a smurf, but she wanted pinks and flowers and dstuff (she’s 4, and you can’t argue with a 4-year-old! ). So this is what I came up with! LOVE the carved novelty stuff!

My friend’s little girl turned 9 this weekend, and had a very prim and proper tea party with her little friends. Everybody dressed up, and there was much tulle and rhinestone involved in the celebration, hehe! They asked for a teapot cake, and had originally asked for a small teapot on a table to give sufficient servings (50+ servings). I thought it would be so much more fun to carve a much larger teapot out of cake and make it only a teapot without the table. So much fun! So, the cake was a hot cocoa cake with marshmallow creme filling and chocolate ganache. I added an extra coat of white chocolate ganache over that just to give myself a nice light base for my white fondant … painted the flowers onto the fondant with tinted white chocolate. The little girl flipped!

R2D2 cake topper, fondant R2D2

Storm Trooper Cake, Clone Wars cake, captain rex cake, phase 2 clone troop cake, clone trooper cake

For a friend’s little boy. They’ve been living on the East Coast for for the last year, and ended up coming for his birthday on the spur of the moment. We were super happy to meet her little munchkin, even if he was asleep. I ended up doing a Charm City stormtrooper design and adding on the mini R2 as a sort of smash cake for the little boy.

For my little boy’s fourth birthday! He LOVED the Cars 2 movie, so I did this with the bottom tier as Mater, the middle as Lightning McQueen and the top as Professor Z (LOVED working on him!!).

My Mater (Chocolate cake with chocolate chip cookie dough filling and dark ganache) completely melted in the sun, as you can see … the ganache was liquid by the time we cut the cake, and the fondant had all slid off.

Made for a great “after” picture too . The other tiers (vanilla cake with coconut mousse filling, and peanut butter cake with honey filling) were covered in buttercream, and though they sweated and drooped, nothing slid down onto the next tier, thankfully, hehe.

Pink champagne cake with cheesecake filling for a friend’s bridal shower/bachelorette party. She’s having a pole-dancing class for all the invitees, so I thought we could have a little fun with this . Very “blingy” girl, and very into hot pink, so I figured that’s what we would do, hehe! All fondant, imprint mat used for the corset.

Made this fun cake for a friends 4-year-old’s birthday party!

Eric Anthony’s cake (and party) was a hit!

Bottom tier: Hot Chocolate cake (cocoa cake) with dark chocolate ganache and chocolate chip cookie dough filling. Chocolate chip cookie dough filling is one of my favorites – use just non-perishable food items. No eggs, for example. We surrounded this with Rice Krispie Treats shaped into the folds of the snakes, covered with fondant and painted.

Green Tier: Sour cream vanilla cake with raspberry mousse filling.

Top Two Tiers (Blue and Turtle): Pecan French Toast … butter pecan cake with a maple-cinnamon filling.