Party Animals

Last year, I had the opportunity to make the 1st birthday cakes for twin brother & sisters - Max & Laia. I was so thrilled to be asked to make their 2nd birthday cake this year! The theme was party animals and their mom wanted some adorable fondant animal toppers for the main cake as well as for their smash cakes!

The main cake had an elephant, monkey and a giraffe and the smash cakes held cutie little lions - all of them dressed up in little party hats! The smash cakes had to be exactly the same, except for the names of course...and as a mom of twins myself, I know why!! Conventional advice says you're supposed to individualize everything so that the children develop their own identities and so on and so forth...but apparently the kids haven't read those articles yet! In my own recent personal experience, different toys, different cakes, different anything could spell disaster if both children gravitate towards one of the items and not the other! And at a party, you just want everyone to be happy! So I took the request very seriously and made sure that everything matched as much as possible! :)

Max's cake:

Laia's Cake:

Close-ups of fondant party animals...

The Giraffe

The Elephant

The Monkey

Happy 2nd Birthday to Max & Laia!!

Winter "One"derland!

In the midst of the massive amounts of snow that fell in the northeast this winter, a sweet little girl named Annabelle turned one! Her mom planned an adorably themed Winter "One"derland party to match the weather we'd been having!  Such a cute idea!

I had the pleasure of making the baby shower cake for her mom, 30th Birthday Guinness Cupcakes for her dad, and her mini cakes with little angels on top for her christening!  I was so thrilled they asked me to do her 1st birthday cake as well - what an honor!

The cake was a snowy white with silver and pink snowflakes, a snow baby, a snowman and sweet little winter animals!

Snow Baby:

Another one of the snow baby! ;)

Penguin:

Bear:

Snowman:

And one more pic of the whole cake! ;)

Annabelle's mom sent me a picture of Annabelle sitting on the table next to the cake - it was such a sweet picture!! She looked so happy and proud to be 1 - and she should be! What a milestone!

Happy Birthday Annabelle!!

Tara

Winter "One"derland 1st Birthday Cake

Today I had the pleasure of delivering a cake for a 1 year old birthday party for Annabelle! This sweet little munchkin's mom planned an adorably themed party - Winter "One"derland!  I was so excited to do this cake because I did the cake for the baby shower and the christening as well as her dad's 30th Birthday Guinness cupcakes - being a behind-the-scenes part of this family's celebrations has been so awesome and such an honor!

For Annabelle's 1st birthday the cake was two tiers and all vanilla (cake, filling and frosting).  With snowy white fondant as the base color, and pink and silver accents, the finished product looked like a winter wonderland!

Each snowflake was hand-cut - the silver ones were handpainted with edible luster dust mixed with vanilla extract.  The fondant animals were so fun to make - I think I like the penguin best! :) Probably because it's the first time I've ever made a penguin! :) I plan to post a few tutorials on making fondant figures in the coming weeks for anyone who might be interested!

Sweet little Annabelle dressed in pink winter gear sits on top of her cake next to a fondant Frosty!

Wishing Annabelle and her family all the best as they celebrate her 1st birthday!!

Double-Whammy

This was an exciting week for Heavenly Bites Cakes with orders for a christening and a 1st birthday for twins! It was a lot of work, but totally worth it...and good prep for next week, when I have THREE cakes due in one weekend!

The christening was for a sweet little angel named Andrew John - hence the fondant angels on the cake!  His mom is a three-peat customer! I had the honor of doing her wedding cake/cupcakes as well as her baby shower cupcakes, so to be doing the christening cake for her as well was awesome!

The bottom tier was devils food cake with white chocolate mousse filling and vanilla buttercream.  The top tier was yellow cake with chocolate ganache filling and chocolate buttercream. YUM.

 

Additionally, I made vanilla sugar cookies in the shape of an "A", for Andrew, for party favors - they were covered in blue royal icing and decorated with white sprinkles around the edges...

All wrapped up with a party to go to! :)

The second order for the weekend was for brother & sister fraternal twins, Laia & Max who turned 1 this weekend!  For their party, their mom ordered a smash cake for each child to enjoy and a larger cake for the guests!  I somehow neglected to take a picture of the larger cake :( but it was very similar to the smash cakes, but incorporated both the boy and girl color schemes with the Happy Birthday Banner, a fondant "1" and the ribbon around the base of the cake made in a light purple color as the in-between neutral color! :)

Here are pictures of the two smash cakes!

The smash cakes were vanilla cake & buttercream frosting, while the larger cake for the guests was vanilla cake, with chocolate buttercream filling and white chocolate mousse frosting.

Looking forward to next weekend where I'll be making a casino themed 95th birthday cake, an Elmo themed cake for a set of twins 1st birthday and baby shower baby in blanky cupcakes and yellow duck sugar cookie favors! 

Kids Stuff!

The past 2 weeks have been a lot of fun - I had two orders for kids cakes/cupcakes where I really got to experiment with making fondant and gumpaste animals. It was really fun!

Can you tell me how to get....to Sesame Street?

First up was a Sesame Street themed 1st birthday cake for my best friend's son Matthew. I was so psyched to do this cake for them, 1) because Matthew is a little cutiepie and 2) because I can't believe my best friend from high school and I are now at the point in our lives where we're going to our CHILDREN's birthday parties!!

The 3 tier cake was all yellow cake with vanilla filling and frosting. It was decorated all in primary colors with beading around the base of each tier and there was a Sesame Street character on each level - Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Elmo and Oscar. We also made a smash cake for Matthew in the form of a giant cupcake!

The Smash Cake

Jungle Boogie, Jungle Boogie...

Next up was my nephew's 4th birthday! He had a jungle themed party in a park in Hoboken - the perfect location and a beautiful day! We made vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate and vanilla frosting. For the kids at the party, each had a choice of a cupcake with a fondant jungle animal face - there were lions, tigers, elephants & monkeys to choose from. For the adults, there was a giant swirl of frosting on top. A little melty in the August heat, but it's my opinion that everyone should be licking their fingers at the tail end of eating a cupcake anyway! :)