Crazy and Exciting Times!

It's been a crazy but exciting month for Heavenly Bites Cakes! May has by far been my busiest month with cakes, cupcakes and cookies galore! Every project is so fun and tests my abilities at a new and different level...I just love it!! :)  I believe I have already exceeded the amount of orders I filled all last year and it's only May! Thank you to all my wonderful clients, especially my repeat clients - I'd be nowhere without you!

Since my last blog post, I've filled 7 orders! 30th Birthday Guinness Cupcakes, a double celebration birthday cake, a christening cake, a Shrek grooms cake, bridal shower high heel cookies, a college graduation party and christening mini-cakes with angel toppers.   Here are pictures and descriptions of all!

30th Birthday Guinness Car Bomb Cupcakes

These cupcakes were not only Guinness themed, but also had Guinness extra stout in the batter, as well as Bailey's Irish Cream in the frosting!

Double Celebration Birthday Cake

This cake was ordered by Marisa - one of my very first and fabulous clients! She ordered it for her Grandma's 85th and her Uncle's birthdays!  The cake was one tier of vanilla cake and vanilla buttercream filling and frosting and a second tier of chocolate cake with chocolate pudding filling and vanilla buttercream.  The flowers and banners were made of fondant.  I don't normally do buttercream-only cakes, so I was very pleased with how this one came out!! I know it's no Sylvia Weinstock, but I liked it! :)

Georgia's Christening Cake

I was thrilled to do the cake for my college roomate's daughter Georgia's christening - the cake was one tier of vanilla cake and one tier chocolate cake. Both tiers had chocolate ganache filling and vanilla buttercream.  Decorations were made with fondant.  Again a buttercream-only cake, which was a challenge to make smooth, but so much fun to work on!

Shrek Grooms Cake

When I got the request for a Shrek grooms cake from a sweet bride-to-be for their upcoming rehearsal dinner, I couldn't help but wonder what the story was behind that! Luckily, one of my co-workers was in the bridal party and she gave me the low-down! Apparently, the groom is a big cuddly guy, (just like Shrek) and his friends all call him Shrek! Love the idea - such fun! I am sure the groom was so excited that his bride thought of this very special touch! The cake was carrot cake with walnuts mixed in and was filled and frosted with cream cheese frosting.

High Heel Bridal Shower Sugar Cookies

These high-heeled sugar cookies were ordered by the bride-to-be - she had seen the idea and loved it so she ordered them as favors for her bridal shower!  The sugar cookies were made with a high heel cookie cutter and frosted with royal icing!

College Graduation Cupcakes

These cupcakes were made for my cousin's graduation from St. John's University in NY - Go Kristin! :)  The cupcakes were red velvet with cream cheese frosting and chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting.  This is the first time I melted the frosting and dipped the cupcakes, which gives them this smooth and shiny look - I LOVE it!!

Christening Angel Mini-Cakes

It was too hard to choose between the cute little angels on top of these cakes, so I had to include 3 pictures here! :) Each mini-cake was made to serve 2 people and were made in the following flavors: red velvet, vanilla & chocolate. The mom who ordered them came up with the fabulous idea of making the hair of the angels on top of the cakes match the flavor inside! Red-head = Red Velvet, Blonde = Vanilla,

Brunette = Chocolate...umm how creative is that?!?!?! Awesome idea!

Phew! What a crazy couple of weeks! So much fun to make all of these goodies and even more fun to be able to post the pictures of the final products!!  Hope you've all enjoyed!

Coming up in June...a monkey 1st birthday cake, a beach birthday cake, a Thomas the Tank Engine cake (ummm, gotta be sure to keep my little sweets bandits away from that one in the fridge!! haha!), A Rockabilly wedding cupcake tower, a monster cake, an Ohio State cake, a Washington Redskins cake and a super-secret baby shower cake (cannot be revealed until it's made and delivered!)!! Woohoo!!

Seussical Cake & Cupcakes

Back in January, Heavenly Bites Cakes participated in a benefit for the homeless and donated tennis cupcakes and a baker's basket to be auctioned off. The basket included a gift certifitcate to Heavenly Bites and last week the very generous winner of the basket called in an order for a cake to be served to the cast of Seussical, performed by the St. Ann's Players in Fairlawn, NJ!  The cake was to have some 3D figurines of the main characters from the play on it and she also ordered cupcakes with Seuss toppers as well!

Here is the cake! It includes Horton, The Cat in the Hat, Things 1 & 2, Jojo, The Grinch and the teeny tiny people of Who-ville living on their clover!

 

(If you're wondering why there is a reddish tint to the pictures, something weird was going on with my iphone! I was so sad I had left my camera at work and didn't have a better option to take pics of this cake with!)

Here are the cupcakes! They include Horton, The Cat in the Hat's hat, The Grinch and the Who-ville clover!

The cake and cupcakes were a mix of vanilla and chocolate cake and frosting.  Hope you like! These were a blast to make! :)

The Cookie Bandit

While making the duck sugar cookies last weekend, I was taking a break and letting the frosting on the cookies harden up before packaging them, so I left them on a giant cutting board on top of the stove.  I had made 25 cookies for a 24 cookie order and saved the rest of the dough.

My sister had just brought Patrick & James back from an outing with her and we were was playing games with them in the living room.  Patrick disappeared into the kitchen for a minute and since nothing was baking in the stove, I didn't mind.  After a minute, we were like "hmmm, he's too quiet in there"...my sister walks into the kitchen and all I hear was "OH MY GOD!!!!" and start hysterical laughing and Patrick comes tearing out of the kitchen as she is chasing him down...

He had reached up to where the cookies were and grabbed TWO off the edge of the tray! When my sister walked in (I crack up every time I hear her telling what he looked like) he turned quickly and looked at her like "Uh-oh, I'm busted!!" and then started shoving the cookies into his mouth!!! She was able to grab one away from him, but he got away with the other and that's when I saw him tearing out of the kitchen with my sister in pursuit yelling "He's got a cookie!!"

The Cookie Bandit eating his prize! :)

I've never seen my child run so fast or dodge getting caught by either one of us - he could've been picked up by a pro football team after that performance! By the time we caught him, all that was left was the head of the duck - we were in shock that he could've eaten the rest of it that fast! In the meantime, my husband walks in from work and we're trying to control ourselves telling the story of the cookie bandit...

All of a sudden James walks by with a cookie in HIS hand!!  We lost it thinking that he had gotten another cookie off the tray that I had moved, but it turns out he cleverly found the piece of cookie that Patrick had dropped when we were chasing him - boy did he make out!! :)

I had to make one more cookie later that night...haha! That'll teach me to make MORE extras the first time!! :)

On a Personal Note: Baking with Kids

Baking with kids around can be fun, but is also a challenge if they are still at the age where they don't listen when you want them to step away from the stove!

My twin boys, Patrick & James are 19 months old and are FASCINATED by the stove - probably mostly because my husband and I are always saying "NO, NO STOVE!" when they go near it - I'm sure they think its a game we're playing with them, even though what we're really doing is trying to protect them!

Patrick

James

I usually do all my baking & decorating at night after the boys go to bed but last week, with 3 cakes due, I was baking non-stop and it had to be done while the boys were awake. I never really noticed how often I open the stove to test the cake to see if its done, etc, but now that I was doing it in front of the boys, it seemed like a lot because we had a whole routine to follow each time the timer went off.

It went..."Beeeeeep" (timer sound).  The boys would drop whatever they were playing with, look at each other, look at me and then BOLT for the kitchen to see who could touch the stove first. I would come running and try to distract them with crushed ice from the ice maker on the fridge because the love the sound and they love the ice (haha!). Then I'd quickly open the stove to either test the cake or take it out and they'd come running again and I'd be boxing them out with my butt like a basketball player protecting a rebound...if they'd get too close, I'd just close the oven door quick and try to distract them again - insane!!

Finally as the day went on, they started getting the idea that touching the stove was a "no no"...instead of running and touching it they would run up and stand thisclose to it and...Patrick would shake his finger at the stove saying "no, no! no, no no!!" hahah! I'm not sure if he was yelling at the stove...or if he was telling himself no,no! James would run up to it, stop about 2 inches away and would gaze at it like he was dying to touch it. He would sloooowly put his hand out to touch it...and then sloooowly turn his head to look at me to see if I was looking...and then he'd sloooowly put his hand back at his side and continue gazing at the stove. SO FUNNY!! It was so hard not to laugh! Love those guys!!

Aces & Spades, Rubber Duckies & Elmo

Last weekend, Heavenly Bites Cakes was super busy with 3 parties to deliver cakes for!

The first one was for a party for an amazing 95 year old woman - her family and friends threw her a casino party!

Next up was a baby shower where the mom-to-be's friends threw her a beautiful baby shower in the W hotel in Hoboken, NJ - they ordered cupcakes with blue babies in blankets toppers and rubber ducky sugar cookies for favors (funny story about these).

And last, but not least...an Elmo cake ordered by a mom in Hoboken for her twins first birthday party! And away we go!

The casino cake was made for Rose who just turned 95 - that is amazing! Her friend that ordered the cake from me told me a little about her and she is a fun, energetic lady who keeps everyone laughing and amazed  by her energy! I was so excited to make the cake for her special occasion. Here are some pictures of the casino cake - inside each tier was vanilla cake with cannoli cream filling and vanilla whipped cream frosting.

Next up, the baby shower cupcakes and ducks delivered to the W hotel residences in Hoboken, NJ.  The party was planned and hosted by the mom-to-be's friends and sounded like it was amazing! The cupcakes were a mix of chocolate and vanilla cake with blue and white vanilla frosting swirls. Only some of the cupcakes were ordered with the babies in blankets on them. Here is a picture of the topper that was on the cupcakes.

The ducky cookies were really fun to make and definitely my best sugar cookie work to date - so excited with how the icing came out! They ordered 24 cookies to be packaged in clear cellophane bags with blue ribbons.  I had made 25 since there was an extra spot on the cookie sheet and it's always nice to have extra in case one breaks...and I saved the rest of the dough. (luckily!) See "The Cookie Bandit "post for the story of why it's always good to make extra!!

For the first birthday party of twins Madelyn and Zachary, their mom ordered a version of the Elmo cake I made a few months ago, but changed the base fondant color to yellow since the cake was for both a boy and a girl.  The bottom tier was white chocolate cake with cannoli cream filling and white chocolate buttercream and the top tier was devils food cake with strawberry filling and vanilla bean buttercream.  YUM!! 

Next up, an order for the St. Ann's of Fair Lawn, NJ "SEUSSICAL" cast party featuring the Cat in the Hat, Horton, Thing 1 and Thing 2, the Grinch and Jojo!!