The BEST buttercream

I love my buttercream recipe. This isn't the "fancy" buttery one (aka Swiss meringue or Italian meringue), but the one that reminds me more like the yummy grocery store-type frosting, but with better ingredients. Fortunately my good friend Sheri happens to agree with me. Check out her recent post for details (ps - go overboard on the vanilla, more vanilla can only make things taste that much better). Thanks for the love, Sheri!

(and while you're at it, spend some time checking out her blog - everything this woman does looks and tastes amazing - I'm perpetually in awe)

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.

Claudia's cake

Cake for Claudia's confirmation. Vanilla cake with apricot filling and vanilla frosting. Wanted blue and green decorations so I went with gumpaste dots because I love dots! You can't really tell in the photos, but there are three different colors of green and three different colors of blue. I love the way this turned out - and am very happy that my writing is looking more confident. Two things: congratulations is a MUCH longer word than I thought, and Claudia isn't spelled Claduia (which is how I originally wrote it on the cake - but can't can't tell, can you???).