Piano Bar Dreams Cake

This cake was ordered by a client who wanted to make the birthday girl's wish of singing to an audience on top of a piano someday come true sooner, rather than later!  The cake was done with a black and white damask design, with little fondant bows wrapping up the bases of each tier.  The piano on top was made using rice krispy treat and covered with black fondant. The likeness of Joanie, the birthday girl was made out of fondant and gumpaste.

The cake was a coconut tres leche cake with whipped cream filling and vanilla frosting - HEAVENLY! :)

Splish Splash!

This cake was made for a sweet client who wanted to thank her amazing cleaning lady with a cake to celebrate her birthday! She was described to me as the "Queen of Clean" so I carried that title right onto the cake and into her fondant likeness!

The cake was devils food with vanilla frosting and filling...I was SO excited with how the bucket came out as well as the fondant "Queen of Clean"!!  She sits on top of her cleaning bucket with a crown on her head, ruling over the water, bubbles and her mop as a scepter!

I'm sure the Queen of Clean was so thrilled to have a client of hers think to do something like this for her birthday - so sweet!  Happy Birthday!!

Take a Bite Outta This!

My nephew Luke had an awesome birthday weekend...the Yoda cake on the previous post was for our family party and this next cake was for the party with his friends at Bounce U! Such a cool place for a party!

He LOVES sharks and is definitely the most knowledgeable person I know about these amazing deep sea creatures! On our family beach vacation this year, he read his shark book every day and told me all about the different types - AMAZING!!

So for his friends party, he requested a shark cake and let his mom know to be sure I made the shark blue - LOVE IT!!! Here's the shark! Cue the Jaws music!!! "Da, duhn....da, duhn...da, duhn..."

The shark was yellow cake, with chocolate buttercream filling and frosting, as requested by the birthday boy...Happy Birthday Luke! Hope you loved your shark cake!

With You, The Force Will Be!

This past weekend I made a Yoda cake for my nephew Luke's 5th birthday - I was so happy to see that he really liked it! But even cuter, younger brother Andrew kept going back over to the cake table to chat with Yoda during the party - LOVE IT!!!

Star Wars is HUGE for younger kids these days, thanks to the Clone Wars cartoon I believe...but most kids have seen the movies by the age of 5 too! I love it because Star Wars has such an amazing storyline - good vs evil - and such lovable characters like Yoda...I love that a whole new generation is going to be obsessed with these movies too! :)  Here is the cake! Yellow cake with chocolate frosting & filling.

I have a giant picture of Yoda hung up in my kitchen now that I had been using to work off of to get his facial features as close as possible...and instead of being scared of him, my kids (almost 2) LOVE him!! They go into the kitchen and say hi to him all the time...and say "Byeeeee!!" several times as they're walking out of the kitchen...then they'll go back in to make sure he's still there.  So funny how they can see he's one of the good guys! :)  I guess the picture will be up in my kitchen for awhile now!

Happy Birthday Luke - love you!!!

Birthday Cake

A colleague of mine, (Kathleen!) asked me to do the birthday cake for her friend Pam! The birthday girl's friends all pitched in with things that made them think of Pam - so sweet! So we created little fondant pieces of flair to add to the cake using all the ideas they came up with!

This was the front of the cake! There's a  fleur-di-lis on top, made out of dark chocolate - the birthday girl loves this symbol and has it as a part of the decor in her house. You can see a bottle of Grey Goose, flips flops representing a love of summertime, a sea lion representing a trip to Atlantis and you can sort of see a horse there in the shadow representing an annual NJ horse race, The Hunt!












This is the back of the cake where you can see a chef's hat, sneakers representing a walking club, a glass of red wine, a Peyton Manning jersey and a Colt's helmet, playing cards and dice, representing Atlantic City and you can sort of see the Tiffany bag in the shadow there, representing a love of shopping!













Here are some close-ups of some of the pieces of flair!

My favorite piece - the horse! I didn't want to put this with the cake once it was finished! :) Of course, I did though and later found out that by the end of the party, the horse was wearing the chef hat! Sounds like it was an awesome party! :)

Playing cards and dice, representing Atlantic City.

The Peyton Manning jersey and Colts helmet!

The Grey Goose bottle!

The Tiffany shopping bag!














Happy Birthday Pam!!! Hope it was a wonderful day!

Icing Smiles - Baking a Difference

I just read about this amazing non-profit organization, Icing Smiles, who is in the running to win a 25K grant from Pepsi - their idea is to provide custom cakes & treats to families impacted by a critical illness of a child to bring a little joy into their lives! The smiles on the faces of the children on their website as they're receiving their cakes are priceless and brought tears to my eyes!!

Icing Smiles Mission:
"Icing Smiles is a non profit organization that provides custom celebration cakes and other treats to families impacted by critical illness of a child. We understand that the simple things, like a birthday cake, are luxuries to a family battling illness. Our goal is to create a custom cake for the ill child or their sibling that will provide a temporary escape from worry and create a positive memory during a difficult time."



Find on Facebook

I plan to volunteer myself as a baker if they'll have me! Please vote for this worthy cause (it'll only take a click or two!) - it'll help bring a smile to the faces of families around the country who are facing heartache on a daily basis.

Thank you so much for taking the time...

Tara

ps - Thank you to Amy Atlas for twittering/blogging to get the word out about this amazing organization!

Party Inspiration

As the mom of twin boys, with their 2 year old birthday approaching, the party planning bug has firmly planted itself in my mind and find myself unsure of what theme to go with this year (last year was Elmo, since "Eh-mo!" was one of their first words and they recognized him everywhere!).

As a cake decorator, parties usually come onto my radar well into the planning phase after the theme has been chosen and all I have to do is help my client find a cake design idea that goes along with their vision of the party they are throwing...it's SO MUCH FUN to do this - I love it!

In my online searches to find great pictures of cakes to help my clients find their cake vision and combine them into their own designs, I have found some AMAZING party planning websites and blogs out there and I want to share these sites with you! There are some amazing people out there who have the most fabulous ideas and style and plan their parties down to the tiniest detail - truly inspirational!

I hope these links help you with your next party and if you need a cake (wink, wink!) and you're in the NY metro area, I hope you'll keep Heavenly Bites Cakes in mind!

Pizzazzerie (find on Facebook, Twitter)
Nashville-based Courtney Dial is editor of this amazing blog that highlights party ideas for all ages (one of my favorite kid's party showcases is the Sweet Shoppe Party!), gift guides, recipes and a Wedding Wednesday showcase of gorgeous weddings from all over the country. Most recently, she interviewed Tori Spelling about her party planning expertise! Billed as "a showroom of inspiration to help you add a touch of pizzazz to your inner hostess!" it delivers 110%!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Hostess with the Mostess (find on Facebook, Twitter)
I can't get over the fabulous party ideas on this site - so amazing! This site also provides categories for party types as well as articles on entertaining 101, recipes and great finds in entertaining products as well! Some insanely creative party ideas on here are a "Mad Men" themed birthday party, a Dino-ROAR birthday party and a Woodland Fairy Party. The pictures provided for each party are so amazing and detailed that you:
1) feel like you were there...and
2) could seriously plan your own party creating a list of all the things you see in the pictures!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Kara's Party Ideas (find on Facebook, Twitter)
Kara's blog features her own party creations AND features submissions from people around the country who plan amazing parties - it's amazing to see the creativity out there! Some creative ideas I love are the Alphabet Party where they served alphabet tater tots (how genius!), the Big Top Circus Party complete with popcorn stand and circus booth games like the goldfish soap toss, or the Red & Blue Argyle Party where they didn't miss a detail - argyle even appeared on the chinese food takeout boxes used for take home party favors! This site proves that party theme inspiration can come out of anywhere!  

All of these blogs provide links to most of the products seen in the pictures provided and/or how to's for a DIY...so easy!!! Um, except for the part where you have to CHOOSE which theme to go with!!!

Hope you'll all find this helpful as you plan your parties!!

Tara @ Heavenly Bites Cakes

Twitter & Shark Week

I just joined the whirlwind that is Twitter in order to promote Heavenly Bites Cakes and BOY do I feel slow on the uptake! Having a bit of trouble getting the hang of how to get followers, but after two tweets yesterday, I have 1 follower - thanks Urban Times!!! So at least I know somewhere out there someone is seeing my tweets! :)

Something I love already is the "Trending" section where it shows you what is being mentioned the most on twitter...and yesterday one of the mentions was "Shark Week"!! So that inspired me to make these Shark Week cupcake toppers!

The Dark Side of Cake

Happy Monday all! This past weekend at Heavenly Bites Cakes, the Dark Side took over our kitchen and Darth Vader made an appearance...in the form of a delicious cake!

This was a cake ordered by a mom in Maplewood, NJ for her son Hudson's birthday party. They also ordered cupcakes with light saber fondant decorations on top!

As decorating commenced, my husband and I could not stop ourselves from walking around humming the Darth Vader theme music "Bah, bah, bah, bum, bah, bah...bum, bah, bahhhhhh..." and the usual Darth Vader quotes of "Luke, I am your faaaatherrrrr" and "The force is strong with this one..." - since a number of our freshman year of college weekends were spent watching the Star Wars trilogy, this was a fun cake to work on that brought back a lot of memories! :)

The cake was a chocolate with vanilla filling and frosting - who knew Darth Vader could be so sweet! The cupcakes were vanilla cake with a vanilla frosting swirl and topped with fondant light sabers!

The whole family came to the door to see the cake when I delivered it and it was so great to see their reactions!!  Happy Birthday Hudson!