Dylan's Jungle Cake

Making and decorating cakes always makes me happy, but today's cake makes me SUPER happy. I love when the finished cake turns out better than I imagined it would.

The cake is vanilla bean, with vanilla buttercream and strawberry jam filling. Decorations are made with gumpaste and royal icing. I got new cutters for this project from Amazon - the giraffes are my favorite. Although my brother thought the yellow creature on top was either a hippo or cow, it's a very short-necked giraffe. That and the monkey are also made from gumpaste.

Jaden's Basketball Cake

Vanilla bean cake with vanilla buttercream. Basketballs are made from gumpaste and royal icing. The basketball lollipops are my favorite. As usual, the photos are so great because Doug took them.

Sam's Penguin Cake

Sam's mom wanted a simple chocolate cake for a small family party she was having for his second birthday. Then she mentioned that he was really into penguins, so we decided on a chocolate cake, chocolate buttercream, with a couple of gumpaste penguins and snowballs as decorations.

I searched on flickr for ideas, but nothing jumped out at me, so I did a little experimenting.

(the poor guy on the right ended up getting the boot)

Sam has an older brother, so I decided to make a whole family of penguins. His mom tells me that three have survived - the older brother ate the biggest one, but soon realized that although gumpaste is edible, it really doesn't taste very good!

(yes, those white things are supposed to be snowballs, not eggs, like my husband and son thought)

The birthday penguin and his party crown

Caleb's Darth Vader cupcakes

I'll admit right now that I'm not a big Star Wars fan, and either are my kids, so I was a little lost when a friend asked me to make cupcakes for her son Caleb's Star Wars birthday party.

Again, Flickr saved the day - a search for Darth Vader cupcakes brought up these, from the oh-so talented Kati Peck. She just started a blog, Tasty... Good... Delicious..., check it out - her work is amazing!

This was my attempt the recreate her design. Thanks, Kati!

Heads were made with a bell-shaped cutter

Light sabers in the making

I always make one bigger cupcake for the birthday kid (I'm sure there's a "Luke, I am your Faaaaather" joke here somewhere)

Big cupcake boxed and ready to go

Dad's cake

Is it too late to say Happy New Year? Not sure what the protocol is, but since this is my first 2009 post, I'm just going to say it. Happy New Year!

Have been very busy enjoying our new kitchen - can I just say that I actually LIKE to empty the dishwasher now because everything in it has a place to live?

I've been baking quite a bit and am trying to find the time to get new projects up here. First up - my dad's 70th birthday cake. My wonderful father, Bob Golier, turned 70 at the end of December and my mother threw him a big surprise party. He expected a brunch for 10 people, and he got over 40!

He's a big golfing fan, so I did my best, with limited supplies (they're in Pittsburgh), to make him a golfy-type cake. I am not a big fan of using anything non-edible (or non buttercream or gumpaste for that matter) on my cakes/cupcakes, but because I also didn't have a lot of time I settled for the plastic "Golfing Man" thingy from Wilton and made the rest.

The cake was spice, with a vanilla buttercream frosting. I forgot to bring my secret ingredient with me, so had to settle for regular vanilla. It turned out great and I realized that as much as I love using the vanilla bean paste, those little vanilla beans get in the way sometimes. I didn't have gumpaste with me, so made the golf balls out of buttercream that I piped, froze and rolled into a ball (not really a process I'd recommend, it was a bit of a mess!)

grandkids get a shout out

(I love a cake in action shot - going to have to get more of these!)