Talia's Swimming Pool Cake

Talia turned 5 last week and had a pool party, so naturally she wanted a swimming pool cake, and she specifically asked for one with a slide. I sent her some ideas from flickr and the favorite was this one made by the wonderfully talented Kelly O'Brien of Glass Slipper Gourmet.

411: vanilla bean cake with vanilla buttercream and raspberry buttercream filling (my new favorite flavor!) decorations made with gumpaste and fondant

9" and 8" cakes joined together, then I sliced a bit off the top of each top layer and cut out a smaller circle out of it to make the sides of the pool. Buttercream makes great glue!

Ready for chilling overnight (by this point it was 2am!)

I used a parchment template to help cut out the gumpaste for the water, making it much easier to fit it onto the cake.

Cake with water! I love the way the color isn't completely mixed in the gumpaste, so it looks a little more realistic.

The beach ball was a last-minute addition. I didn't have time for painted food coloring to dry, so I used powdered food coloring and petal dust for the colors.

Fire truck cake for Nicholas

The fire truck cupcakes were such a big hit, I thought I'd do a fire truck cake! Actually, was contacted by a friend of a friend to make a fire truck cake for her son Nicholas, who was turning 2. Nicholas has some food allergies - eggs, milk, nuts and even soy are no-nos, but butter, fortunately, was not.

Nicholas' mom gave me recipe she used to make muffins but had never tried as a cake. I modified it a bit (using butter instead of oil, upping the liquids) and it turned out pretty great (at least from the little crumbs that I was able to taste while putting it together).

All the decorations are made from gumpaste. I'm not a big fan of the alphabet cutters from Wilton, and have been using ones from Fox Run instead. These, called Tappits, are going to be my next purchase, I think, but I hear they're a little trickier to use than regular cutters.

The fire truck shape came from a Google search of fire truck coloring pages. I found one I liked the best, shrunk it on my copier and traced it on to a piece of gumpaste. Much better looking than freehand, especially when it's my hand doing the freehanding!

Happy Birthday, Max!

First it was Mets/Max cupcakes for his kindergarten class, then Max requested a racetrack cake for his actual birthday party, held at a local slot car racing place.

I've had a lot of practice making racetrack cakes, because it's the exact same cake Max requested when he turned 4 and when he turned 5! So this is racetrack cake 3.0! Cake was a combo of vanilla bean and chocolate with vanilla buttercream. Track "dirt" made from crushed chocolate cookies, grass is buttercream, all other decorations made from gumpaste.

Racetrack cake, circa 2009

(thanks to Flickr user CakeJournal for the race car inspiration!)

Racetrack cake, circa 2008

Racetrack cake, circa 2007

My friend Mike Schneider (no relation) says at a good blog is all about video, so here goes!

Aileen's cupcakes

I'm way behind in getting photos of new things on here, but I'm just waiting until the powers-that-be decide to add a couple more hours in the day and then I'll do it!

Made these cupcakes last weekend for a friend's daughter's engagement party. 36 cupcakes with gumpaste flowers. Went a little crazy with the colors, but I think bright colors can be really fun, especially when on chocolate buttercream.

A couple of people recently asked me about the boxes I use -- BRP Box Shop is a fantastic resource for boxes of all shapes and sizes. You have to buy in quantities of 100, but if you've got the room and/or the business, it's totally worth it. You can also email them and they'll send you free samples. Their cupcake holders are the best - nothing's worse than a box full of smooshed cupcakes!

Love the color contrast!

All boxed up and ready to go

Fire Truck Cupcakes

Update! I'm thrilled that Cupcakes Take the Cake blogged about these cupcakes on March 27. Thanks!

I've always had a thing for firemen (they're the only guys who can really pull off a mustache), and now I have a thing for gumpaste fire trucks. My search for a MINI fire truck cookie cutter was fruitless, so I had to improvise and make my own.

Cupcakes are vanilla bean with vanilla buttercream, fire trucks are gumpaste. Couldn't decide if the ladders looked best up or down (Doug said up, I thought down) so I did some of both. Handpainted the number 4 with food coloring. If I make them again I'd probably use some silver dust to make the number pop a little more.

(btw - I love these cupcake boxes and holders. They make any cupcake look that much better)