My gram, who is now in hospice care, requested that I make her birthday cake and she wants a chocolate cake with raspberry filling and chocolate buttercream. So I did just that, but I’ve added pictures to tell the story of her life. Everything is edible. All buttercream except that the edible images are backed on fondant plaques.

I was asked to make a pineapple upside down cake and if possible represent the Olympic Rings. So I went for it and am loving ‘pineapple’ art :-). I painted the rings with vodka and food coloring once the cake had cooled and was chilled. Now, what to make next…...

Spice cake with a vanilla/cinnamon buttercream icing.

I volunteer with a local non-profit organization, Cakes for Causes, that assists other non-profits. We were asked by Candlelighters, an organization that supports children with cancer, to provide their dessert table for their prom. Their theme was ‘secret agent’ (it was a compromise between the girls wanting Candyland and the boys wanting Zombieland). So our team decided on many different sweet treats anchored by a ‘safe cake’. I volunteered to make the cake since my name is ‘safecakes’ ;-), so I made the cake and another volunteer, Dawn, made the awesome fondant handle, dial, and folder. The cake itself is 10 inches tall and 10 inches wide. Once I got the thing carved to a cube, who would have known that making a cube would be so hard (I replaced my Wilton pans which are not flush with Fat Dadio’s afterwards), I iced it in a crusting buttercream and then gave it texture with a paper towel. Using my airbrush I colored it black and then put a layer of pearl sheen on it to get that metallic look. The entire sweets table was a big hit and we were thrilled to be able to do this for the teens!

It was 106F+ degrees in my town today and I refused to turn my oven on. SO I turned on the gas BBQ grill instead and decided to do an experiment. Took my well seasoned cast iron pan, threw in ingredients for my favorite cake, pineapple upside down, and then baked it on the grill. It worked! I still would like to have gotten more lift but that will be for the next experiment :-). I know this is nothing fancy but I wanted to share what fun I had! Solar oven is next on my list! Ah the life of a desert dweller in the summer :-). I tried to put a little tutorial together on my FB page which is at: https://www.facebook.com/dizzydamesbakeshoppellc.

The ‘Geeze Pamela! Cake’ aptly named by Karlie :-). Pam is celebrating a ‘milestone’ birthday and wanted Devil’s food cake made with dark chocolate, strawberry filling and icing, chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate drizzle. Karlie takes the orders for me and she named it the ‘Geeze Pamela! Cake’ after Pam finished her order! Too funny! Anyhow, I used fresh strawberries in the buttercream icing, no flavorings, and put fresh sliced strawberries in the center. I need to work on my chocolate piping skills :-/! Happy Birthday Pamela! This was fun to make!

This was a gift to the bride-to-be for her shower. I’ve known her since she was a wee little lass. She loves Disney princesses so the maid of honor wanted the cake designed around Sleeping Beauty’s dress when the fairies where changing the color of her dress. It is carrot cake and lemon cake with cream cheese icing. Cream cheese icing is my nemesis when it comes to ‘smoothing’ so I piped it instead. Gumpaste spinning wheel and rose. Royal icing crown.

Gumpaste spinning wheel. My airbrush was acting up but it was ok with this one since it made it looked like wood!

Royal Icing crown with edible pearls and luster dust.

I love my science friends who order cakes/cupcakes from me! This time they wanted more fruit flies. Gumpaste young and adult fruit fly plaques on top of blueberry buttercream on top of yellow butter cake cupcakes. I molded everything in white and airbrushed for color. It’s funny, I can model a fruit fly without a problem but ask me to model an orange and all is lost ;-).

This is a 6 inch white cake with blueberry buttercream icing. I used fresh blueberries and the juice to give it the color and flavor. I learned that I did not cut the blueberries small enough because piping was hard even with the large tip…lol! Edible pearls to garnish. This cake was made for the non-profit group that I work with in my community, Cakes for Causes. We launched a program today called ‘You’ve Been Caked! For Your Kindness’ in which once a month we will be awarding a non-profit volunteer in our community a cake as a way of saying ‘Thanks’ for all that they do. This month’s recipient was SO surprised and was moved to tears. I love how cake and sweets move the world!

Make it wedding cake-’ish’ was what I was told when the order was placed. I had/have no idea what style the bride likes, so I just went with what I like to do…lol! Funfetti cake with vanilla buttercream basketweave and gumpaste ruffle flower thingie blinged up with petal dust.

Another cake I made many moons ago (1991). All buttercream. This is the cake that taught me how to write on cakes. I used a tip 3 for the letters and a tip 1 for the numbers of each element. I love to piping/writing on cakes. It is my favorite!

I made this one for a wedding back in 1995. Buttercream basketweave and fresh flowers which was all the rage back then :-). Oh and the bride only liked angel food cake (no frosting) so she had me make the heart shaped one with strawberries on top that is sitting slightly to the left of the wedding cake.

‘Mounds cake’ = Coconut cake with dark chocolate ganache icing and filling. Marzipan figurines that have been airbrushed. Buttercream ‘water’ and ‘ferns’. Yes, ok, the salmon is way bigger than the kayak but the birthday boy can finally say, “It was this big!” ;-).

The King Louis or Ode to Old School Cake. A dear friend of mine is celebrating her birthday this week and wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. She lets me be creative when it comes to the decorating and I felt like piping. And piping some more :-). I’ve been reading a lot of historical romance books set in France so I wondered if a cake like this would appear on one of Louis’ tables ;-).

‘The Leftover’: I had leftover coconut cake batter, green fondant, and orange and blue buttercream. SO I baked a cupcake and decorated it with the leftovers before eating it. Yes, I went ‘Bridesmaids’ the movie ;-).

Ok, so this one is ‘old school’ basketweave along with fresh flowers back in the day when that was all the ‘rage’ (1995) :-). I apologize for the picture quality since it had to be scanned off of a print, yes back in the day when there was this thing called ‘film’ ;-). It was a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream in yellow and ivory. This was the 3rd wedding cake order that I filled and boy was I nervous! Well wait, when am I not nervous when I have a wedding cake order?!! :-)

Ok, so I have a contract with a business in my town in which I provide their monthly birthday cakes. They do not want anything elaborate deco wise and only need a cake to serve 12 people. They prefer that I use natural based flavorings whenever possible and encourage me to experiment, which I love to do! This request was for a marble cake with lemon buttercream and boy did it become an adventure because instead of using lemon extract I opted to use lemon juice and zest in the icing and that changed up the coloring of the icing because the juice was bleaching the icing color…duh :-)! Anyhow after a long session of icing tinting, and not knowing how I got there ;-), I settled on the ‘rust, but not’ color and then broke out the edible pearls. I was going for one of those old-fashioned beaded bracelet looks :-).

A birthday cake for my next door neighbor Amelia who turned 6 today (Feb. 11, 2012). A 9×13 chocolate sheet cake with lots and lots of candy! Amelia wanted a “Candy forest with real candy canes and gumdrops and chocolate and candy hearts and pink icing and…(she went on and on!)” She has been asking me to make her cake for the last 6 months! The squeal of excitement and multiple ‘thank you’s’ as she was jumping up and down clued me in that I got her vision right…lol! My inspiration came from Amelia, Candy Land, and the Taste of Home. Happy 6th Birthday Amelia! It was an honor! P.S. I don’t think I’ve used that much candy on a cake in like FOREVER ;-)!