Gender Reveal Cake

There is a new trend among pregnant people. The utlra sound technician writes down the gender of the baby and seals it inside an envelope. The couple takes the envelope to the bakery and the bakery will make a cake and dye the inside of the cake blue or pink--depending on the sex of the baby. The cake is then covered, so you can't see the color.

The couple will host a party and everyone will find out the sex when the cake is cut into. A couple contacted me and asked me to make a gender reveal cake for them. It was pretty cool to be the only one to know what the couple was having!

And since the party has already occured I can tell everyone. . .IT'S A GIRL!!!

July 31

I went a bit nuts on July 31. I have 6 cakes due that day. Never again. I will NEVER agree to make that many cakes on one occasion!!

The first cake was for a wonderful little girl named Audrey. She was the flower girl in my wedding and turned six at the end of July. Her cake was a simple sheet cake, cut out to spell "six." The dot of the "i" was her own personal cupcake.

I also made a burnt coconut cake for my friend Peggy, who's mother was celebrating her 80th birthday. This cake is one I've made a few times before (and blogged about). It's a favorite of a lot of people.
Finally, my mother-in-law co hosted a bridal shower for a friend's future daughter-in-law (follow that?) I made them a french vanilla filled bridal shower cake, but then they also had a sampling. I forgot to take pictures of all the cakes in the sampling, but there was a strawberry shortcake, whipped chocolate cake and a small burnt coconut.

I made a bridal shower cake, but that was during those few weeks when the heat and humidity was over 100 degrees. This makes cake decorating very difficult. As I was decorating the cake, things started to get soft and the top layer sunk into the bottom layer. So the NIGHT before I was running around making a new cake and planning out how to make it all work out. I went with a totally different design and ended up with this:

The flowers didn't have a lot of time to dry, but all in all, the cake turned out alright. The chocolate fondant is probably the best tasting fondant there is. Since fondant is mainly marshmallows and sugars, most people do not like the taste of it. You can buy oils and flavorings, but it's a pretty difficult process. The chocolate tastes much better with a lot less effort!

Root Beer Float

I've been INCREDIBLY delayed on posting about my recent cakes. I've made quite a few cakes lately and I have pictures of most of them. Back in July I made a cake for my niece, mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law to celebrate their birthdays. They all have birthdays with in a week and a half span in July.

The cake itself was pretty ugly. I tried to combine a bunch of colors and designs and it looked like a Crayon box had been eaten and thrown up, so there weren't be a picture.

BUT, I experimented and made a Root Beer Float cake. It was awesome. The cake itself tasted like root beer, but when you mixed it with the butter cream icing, it tasted just like a float. Lots of rave reviews and in all reality, pretty easy to make!

Space Shuttle Retirement Party

Get ready for photo MANIA!

Today the Gheens Science Hall and Rauch Planetarium held a Shuttle Launch/ Retirement Party. Not only did I lead the kids' activities, but I made the cake. It was my biggest adventure to date. The cake fed close to 300 people! Since it took about a week to make a year off my life due to stress, I took as many pictures as I possibly could. Here is the final product:

At the Planetarium, I am known as Commander Kaet. This is me in my astronaut suit. Fetching, isn't it?!?

The layers were chocolate, white and butter cream vanilla. The astronauts and flag were made from fondant covered sugar cookies. The stars and shuttle were made from a fondant/ gum paste mixture.

I tried to take pictures from all different angles. The fondant fixtures don't taste that good. . .in my opinion. They are mainly marshmallows and sugar. Most adults I know can't stand the taste, but since it's got sugar as the main ingredient kids LOVE them. I saw several kids eating the stars like candy. Kind of grossed me out. . .

This is the "After" shot. I think that means they liked it!!

Burnt Coconut Cake

There's a few cakes I know I make well. One of them is a whipped chocolate cake. The other is a burnt coconut cake. Made with coconut and some rum, I've gotten a lot of compliments on it and already have orders for it as far out as October!
I think these are the same pictures, but I know I took two different ones and they keep coming out the same. Cakes I can do. Apparently, digital photography. . .not so much!

Fourth of July

The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. I love the summer, grilling out, watermelon and fireworks. I tried to get Adam to get married on the fourth, but he passed, so I settled with July 10!

Last year, we were a bit preoccupied on the Fourth of July :) so we didn't do much. I don't even think we watched the fireworks! This year, we went down to Owensboro to hang out with the Barron family for the weekend. I was asked to bring along a cake with me. The bottom layer was chocolate and the top layer was basic white.

I was also commissioned to make a cake for a Fourth of July barbecue picnic that was also a "Meet the Baby" event. So the cake below was to celebrate the Fourth, but more importantly, Miss Emma Rylee Hoffman. It was yellow and chocolate.

Crazy Diasies

Last night I had my final in my gum paste and fondant class. In order to "graduate," I had to make and decorate a cake.

The cake itself was a new recipe. It was a French Vanilla cake. I honestly think it tastes just like a plain white cake, but a bit softer and has some light flavoring. But as much as I like to bake and decorate, I can't say I'm a huge fan of actually eating cake, so I may not be the best judge!!

Otherwise, the class was pretty exciting. I had been having a bit of trouble covering cakes with fondant and our teacher went over the EXACT way to negate that issue. We also learned some tips and tricks to making different things out of gum paste. . .like animals and various things to embellish your cake. Learning things like that gets me really exciting and I'm anxious to try it out. Luckily, my niece has a birthday coming up (Vera will be 1!) so I'll get a chance to try some of it out!

Shavon took the cake to the College of Education at the University of Louisville, so hopefully I'll hear good things about the cake shortly. John King usually sends me a message on facebook about giving him food poisoning, which I take as a good sign!!