Truly Outrageous! {Birthday Cake}

As a little girl in the 80's I was definitely a fan of Jem & the Holograms.  Anyone whose ever seen the cartoon will have a hard time NOT saying "she's truly outrageous!" after hearing "Jem & the Holograms" spoken out loud! :)

Liz is a major Jem & the Holograms fan and for her birthday this year, she and I designed an outrageous Jem themed cake!  Besides being the lead singer of the Holograms, Jem was known for her awesome fashion sense and wore the coolest 80's clothes ever! So we based the cake design on one of Liz's favorite Jem outfits! Here is the dress:

Here is the cake!

The fondant guitars around the bottom tier were modeled after the different instruments played by the Holograms in the cartoon. And the shoes...oh the shoes...Jem had the coolest shoes for each outfit, so I ordered Jem shoes (non-edible!) online and placed them around the base of each tier.

The inside of the cake was RAINBOW tiers!! Of course I could not get a shot of the rainbow awesomeness because I couldn't cut into the cake...but the birthday girl posted shots on her amazing blog, Duchess in Brooklyn! I've also pinned it on my Heavenly Bites Cakes board on Pinterest - are you following yet? :) Come on over! :)

Hope you had an outrageous birthday Liz!

Tara

Small, but Sweet!

A small, but ever so sweet cake...this was created for a birthday girl who celebrated her special day by throwing her friend a farewell party! How sweet is that?!? Julie was one of the masterminds behind the NY to San Francisco party and her co-party planner sneakily planned a birthday surprise for her by ordering this cake!

Light pink fondant covered a red velvet cake with vanilla filling and frosting. It was topped with a large fantasy flower and dark chocolate fondant beads...delivered alongside it's buddy cake to Dublin 6 in NYC! :)

Happy Birthday Julie!

Tara

For the love of Penguins

After seeing the adorable picture of a cutie penguin sent to me by my client as a visual to work off of, I've noticed that there are a number of adorable penguin characters in my kid's favorite movies and shows and I've fallen in love with their cuteness!

This is the penguin from the Backyardigans:

Image from Google Images

This is Wheezy from Toy Story 2, who broke my heart when he said that "mom" told Andy she'd taken him to the store to get his voice fixed, but instead hid him on the dusty shelf that made him even more wheezy! (TEARS!!!) 

Image from Google Images

And I feel you just don't have a heart if you don't think these real life penguins are the cutest little things you've ever seen!!

Image from Google Images

For my client's girlfriend's birthday he wanted to get her a penguin cake as she is in love with all things penguin (I hear ya sister!) haha! Here's my rendition of the penguin picture he sent over...I feel like this little guy is doing the "Walk Like an Egyptian" dance...yes I was a child of the 80's!!!

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Tara

Sweet Shades of Purple

My sister-in-law Karen's (mom to Jake, who turned 1 this past weekend!) birthday was last week and I wanted to make her a cake too to celebrate! Karen has been ULTRA-supportive of my cake decorating venture, referring me to tons of her friends and local moms in Hoboken, NJ and I couldn't be more grateful for her support! THANK YOU SIL!! :)

I decided to make her a fun cake in different shades of purple...why purple? I remembered her telling me a story about a purple dress she had purchased to wear to my boys christening and how excited she was about the color...so for some reason that stuck with me and I decided purple would be the colors of her cake!

The cake was devils food with vanilla buttercream and filling and covered in fondant. The circles around the base, on top of the cake and the large flower were all fondant as well! I was super excited about how the circles looked around the base and was pleased with the flower (even though there were some cracks in it!)

Happy Birthday Karen...love you!

Who doesn't love Nutella?!?!

For her husband Catalin's *0th birthday (not stating the number here because he doesn't like to see it!), his sweet wife (and mom-to-be!) Anna planned an awesome "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" party and ordered a Nutella Jar cake from Heavenly Bites Cakes! This was such a fun cake to work on!

The birthday boy has recently fallen in love with Nutella and has been putting it on everything, so she thought it would be awesome to have a Nutella jar shaped cake that also incorporated the flavor into the cake itself!

The cake itself was vanilla with nutella swirls. There were alternating layers of filling - nutella & banana custard...YUM. The frosting with chocolate buttercream.

The jar top was made of rice krispy treat (which I got to see a picture of the birthday boy eating it on Facebook!) I love it when nothing on a cake goes to waste! :)

The cake was covered and decorated in fondant and the banana was also made of fondant.  The Nutella label picture was handpainted in edible food color.

And what a party this was! The "I don't wanna grow up theme" was seen in everything from the food, dessert bar, to the entertainment (i.e. water guns, video games set up on the lawn outside and a character visit from one of Catalin's favorite video games, Halo.)  Happy Birthday Catalin!!

ps - Catalin and Anna are the geniuses behind the lens at Ipoze Photography. Check out their website if you're looking for a photographer!

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!!

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!

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!!

Elmo's World!

This Elmo cake and cupcakes were made for the 1st birthday of an adorable little boy named Frankie...I was told that when he saw the cake, he sang "La, la, la, la!" from Elmo's song, which I consider the best review ever!

The cake itself was white chocolate cake with cannoli cream filling and white chocolate buttercream frosting. Elmo himself was fully edible - the body was made of cake and cannoli cream filling and his head was made of rice krispy treat.  Even his eyes and nose were edible - marshmellows!

The cupcakes were a mix of chocolate & vanilla cake and frosting, topped with fondant circle cutouts with the number "1" on them depicting the birthday boy's age. Other cupcakes had Elmo faces on them!

Birthday Pre-Paris

My sister turned 29 last week and is planning to go to Paris for the first time with our cousins soon - for her birthday I made this little cake highlighting some famous sights she'll see when she gets there!

The trees and sky were handpainted with edible pearl dust and the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre and Eiffel Tower were hand-cut from fondant and detailed in edible ink.

The cake was moist devils food cake with chocolate buttercream - we're total choco-holics in our family! This was a really fun cake that I made about an hour before our family dinner - I was so excited to have the idea in my head come out so quickly on the cake!

Lightning McQueen 2nd Birthday Cake

My nephew Andrew's 2nd birthday party theme was Lightning McQueen, so the cake was decorated to look like the famous car itself! The best part was seeing Andrew and his brother Luke's faces lighting up when they saw the car. The best complement came from 4 year old Luke who said "You did a really good job on that cake Auntie Tara!". Melted my heart!! :)  Here are some pics:

The cake inside was Betty Crocker's Gluten Free Chocolate - it tasted so delicious, I don't think anyone would have guessed if we hadn't mentioned it! My sis-in-law told me that after we left, Andrew ate the whole fondant spoiler with his name on it...so cute! Love you Andrew! Hope you loved your cake!