aunt erin's 50th birthday cake

i really loved making this cake! it was for aunt erin's 50th birthday party! the colors used were red (of course), pink & brown because the party was at jim edmond's 15.

all of the girlies!

another shot

a big cake

i made this cake for a work event. it was 7 cake mixes! i used butter cream icing and lots of sprinkles. it was a hit!

oil versus apple sauce

lately i've been baking more often with apple sauce rather than oil. i wasn't sure if it would be best to use all apple sauce instead of oil, or half and half, so i decided to do a test with cupcakes. i made one batch with 100% oil, another with 100% just apple sauce, and a last with 50/50 oil & apple sauce.

here are the results--

100% oil--fluffy, but a bit oily

100% apple sauce--still tastes good, but very flat

50% oil and 50% apple sauce--rises well and still tastes great

overall, i do think that baking 50/50 with oil and apple sauce is best. it lowers the fat and the taste and look is still good.

a wedding cake

our next cake in the class was a 2-tier fondant covered cake with gum paste roses. this cake was fun to make, and while the roses were very time consuming, they look really great. i added white polka dots, and a butter cream border.

big brown bow

this cake was a new challenge...covering a cake in fondant :) turns out, fondant is kind of a pain, but it looks really great...it just doesn't taste the greatest! i made this cake during the fall of 2007, so i made it an autumn theme. there are red, orange & yellow leaves, and a big brown bow!

basket weave

in this cake i used the basket weave technique. along with the "basket weave" sides, i got to make flowers and doves out of royal icing. the flowers are apple blossoms, daisies, victorian roses, daffodils, mums and violets.

smell the roses

the next cake was the roses cake. they were pretty easy to make, but took a long time!

scary cake

in 2007 i decided to take cake decorating classes at the michael's in rockwall, tx. one of our first cakes was this clown cake! i don't really care for clowns, but we had to make it. it gives me the creeps!

starting from scratch

for the past few years i have been doing a lot of baking. i really enjoy baking and creating new desserts...i also enjoy eating them! i wanted to put all of my pictures together from the past and also any new creations i make. i thought a blog would be a good way to do this...so we will see how this goes.