A (anything but) "Hokie" Bridal Shower

These fall flowered cupcakes, cake topper and Virginia Tech Hokie Bird sugar cookies were made for a bridal shower. The bride (Jen) is a friend of mine and I had the honor of attending the party as well, which was so much fun! It was a wonderful party, planned by her mom and bridesmaids and it had a lot of little touches that were perfectly Jen.

These are the cupcakes - chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with a swirl of vanilla frosting on top. Each cupcake was topped with a large flower made of fondant in fall colors.

The cake was vanilla with chocolate frosting and filling, covered in cream colored fondant, topped with a bouquet of fall flowers, with a brown and burgandy ribbon around the base.

Finally, as a party favor, I made Hokie Bird sugar cookies to celebrate the bride's favorite college football team/alma mater.  These were displayed at each place setting in clear goodie bags and tied with a burgardy ribbon.

                                       

Fall, Football & Vows

This NY Giants jersey themed grooms cake was commissioned by a bride as a surprise for her soon-to-be husband at their rehearsal dinner this past weekend.  Inside was a red velvet cake with cream cheese filling - his favorite! 

It was decorated to look like a football jersey, with the couple's last name across the top, the NY Giants logo in the center and a mini-football on top. Lying in a bed of fall leaves to denote the season, this cake was really fun to make!

Making the leaves was a fun project - they are made of fondant and I got the colors by mixing different colors together and rolling them out while they still had a tie-dyed look, rather than fully mixed together. Leaf cut-outs and my newly discovered favorite decorating tool - veiner molds - really brought them to life! My favorite leaf is the dark maroon colored one in the front! :)

                                      

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!

 

My Babies Turn ONE!!

A few weeks ago my identical twin boys, Patrick and James, had their 1st birthday - what a proud day for all of us! They've grown so much (26 lbs each!) and have already learned and done so many things (walking, a trip to Disney, appearing as Baby Henry on Guiding Light, going to their 1st Yankee game!) - we're so proud to be parents to such sweet kids! Here are some pics of their first year:

For the birthday party, we had an Elmo theme so I made cupcakes with fondant Elmo faces on top, as well as a few others with a "p", "J" and the "#1" on top in blue and green (the colors we've used to help identify the boys over the last year)!

Digging In! :)The boys annihilated their cupcakes and even managed to take a few bites of the leftover crumbs! We finished up the party with a ride on the nearby carousel for everyone at the party - so much fun!!

It's Element-ary My Dear!

One of my co-workers was planning a party for his brother and needed a cake - we brainstormed about what his brother's interests were and since he's a chemist, we decided to do a cupcakes topped with the elements. When you put the cupcakes together, they form the Periodic Table! I suggested that he keep them separated until his brother arrives and challenge his chemistry skills by asking him to put the elements in the right order!

The cupcakes were vanilla cake and split between chocolate and vanilla frosting, topped with a square of fondant to form the puzzle pieces!

Damask 30th Birthday Cake

This weekend I had a 4 tier cake due - my 1st 4 tier ever! The design was a damask print painted on the cake with chocolate frosting over light blue fondant. I was especially excited about doing this because it was for a co-worker's wife's birthday AND since these are Heavenly Bites signature colors!

I actually was attending the party too, so I actually got to taste the official finished product AND see all the reactions of the guests, host and most importantly, the birthday girl...she loved it! (Phew!) The cake was all red velvet with cream cheese frosting and filling - YUM!!!

Heavenly Bites goes to a Wedding!

The day after the mini-cakes were due, I had a 3 tier wedding cake and 130 cupcakes due! Needless to say, there were some late nights last week getting all the decorations prepared, but it was well-worth all the hard work, getting to see the finished projects (and then crawling into bed!)

The wedding cake was a 3 tier Devils Food cake with cannoli cream filling (YUM) and vanilla buttercream frosting. It was covered in sage green fondant, each tier wrapped with a darker green ribbon and decorated with several eye-popping orange tiger lilies (to match the wedding flowers) and pearl dragees in a swirly design...I was so excited with the end result!

Front of Cake

Back of Cake Side of Cake

The cupcakes were a delicious mixture of flavors...apple cake with cream cheese frosting, banana cake with vanilla frosting and vanilla cake with chocolate frosting...each was topped with a decadent swirl of frosting and either three tiny flowers or one large flower with a pearl dragee center.

Just Finished!

All set up at the wedding, with bride and groom cake topper! Close-up on a tier with apple and banana cupcakes

The wedding took place at the beautiful Liberty House in Jersey City, NJ in view of the NYC skyline and turned out to be a beautiful day - so happy for the bride and groom!