Happy Birthday Leigh

The more cakes you bring to work, the more you get solicited to bake!!  This was the case with Leigh's birthday cake.  Toni asked me to make her a "cowboy country" themed cake so the options were endless!  I know Leigh's favorite country singer is Trace Adkins, but I had no idea how to incorporate that into a cake.  Not quite as easy as a Hannah Montana Cake!!  I decided to make it a little bit more simple and stick with a cowboy hat and some paisley finishing to make it look sort of like a bandana.  This is definitely my favorite cake I've made so far.  It came out greater than I could have planned!!  It was a simple lemon cake with plain vanilla icing and it was perfect!!  I decided to go with a pretty teal color and covered the whole cake with a thin layer of that fondant.  Around the bottom I used brown fondant, made two thin strips and twisted them up to look like rope.  I used the same brown color for the hat.  Now this is where things get fancy!!  I stacked 2 Rice Krispies treats and molded them into a hat shape... rounding the corners and making an indent on the top.  I covered that and made a brim and VOILA!!  COWBOY HAT!!  The last step was taking some plain icing and freehanding the paisley decorations on the side.  I'm so glad everyone loved this cake because I was definitely a huge fan (even though I'm not a big country fan... just don't tell Leigh!!)

Hannah Montana Cake

I'm not going to lie to you... yes I have watched Hannah Montana and yes I somewhat enjoyed it.  And yes my middle name sounds like Miley (as in Cyrus) but it's spelled better (Meyle) and I had it first!  So needless to say, I was pretty excited when Lina asked me to make a cake for her daughter Mayra's birthday.  I was definitely not going to attempt drawing a likeness of Hannah Montana so I went with the next best option... a guitar.  I found a billion pictures of her purple guitar so that's what I went with.  I then cut out "Happy Birthdya Mayra" in the same text format as the logo and i was veeeeery happy with the way it turned out.  And from the look on Mayra's face when I dropped it off, she was happy too!  I made a strawberry cake and filled the inside with a strawberry icing with lots of chopped fresh strawberries.  Check out the cake recipe and the pictures!!

Strawberry Cake
1 box vanilla cake mix
1 3oz box strawberry gelatin
15 oz frozen strawberries, thawed and pureed
4 eggs
1/2 c vegetable oil
1/4 c water

Combine all ingredients and mix well.  (Make sure strawberries are completely thawed prior to pureeing them to avoid issues).  Bake in 2 round pans at 350 degrees for approximately 20-25 minutes.  The layer I put in the middle was just a vanilla icing with lots of chopped fresh strawberries. 

Gummi Bear Cupcakes

So a few weeks ago I felt the dire need to have a Mom & Kate Day.  These are official holidays (or mental holidays) in my book and this one was exceptional in its simplicity!!  Of course, being in Allentown, I felt the need to go to my favorite place... WEGMANS.  I have had serious supermarket withdrawal since moving to Delaware because no food store comes near to comparing to this glorious place.  Everything you can possibly imagine... and then some... they have it.  Of course I had to take some time to galavant around the candy section and while there, I found baby gummi bears.  I am definitely a gummi fan, whether bears, worms, sharks, fruit, octopus, eggs, etc and these were great.  They were each only about half an inch long and they packed a flavorful punch.  I figured it was worth a shot to try and bake them into cupcakes!  It wasn't my most successful venture, but I was happy with the flavor.  Basically, even though they floated in the batter just fine, they eventually sank to the bottom of the wrapper while they were baking.  It caused an ooey-gooey sticky mess, but I still liked them and so did everyone at work!!  I basically just put them into a white cake batter and topped it with strawberry frosting.  Sweet and delicious!  Thank you Mom and thank you Wegmans!

  

Harley Davidson Cake

Yes, I admit, I have been missing forever!!  Well, maybe not actually forever, but it feels that way.  My laptop cord is broken which essentially puts me out of a computer.  But no worries, I am back with lots of pictures and lots of recipes!!  So first, a cake for Jackie... or her husband to be more exact.  I was tasked with anything motorcycle related, specifically Harley Davidson.  I decided to go with the logo and I'm extremely happy with the way it came out.  The cake itself was chocolate fudge chip with chocolate icing.  Then for the logo I just colored and rolled fondant and cut out the lettering using a very sharp and very tiny knife.  It was time consuming, but it came out great!  Now eveytime I see the logo I think of this cake :)