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The first week of September brings two birthdays in my household. Landing right amongst the flurry of fall activities. At this point I really should be better prepared, but I'm not, every year the craziness catches me off guard.

First, there is my husband's birthday.
I would like to point out that my husband doesn't eat cake. But, for some reason, I have to make him one anyway. Fortunately I have discovered the joy of the mini cake so we weren't stuck with absolutely obscene amounts of cake in our house. 
The man who doesn't like cake, is also, as I've probably said before, a Star Wars dork. This year he requested a Jawa. I try to know as little about Star Wars as possible, but I will tell you that Jawas live on a desert planet and they are scavengers and they like hamburgers. Maybe I shouldn't try hand out Star Wars knowledge. But, I'm pretty sure that this Jawa does like hamburgers. 
This is banana cake with cream cheese icing as a filling. It's covered primarily in chocolate fondant.

Two days after his birthday is my oldest's birthday. This year she had to take her birthday treat to school the day after daddy's birthday. I really didn't think this through and felt really rushed with this project.

The birthday girl asked for lemon and coconut cake. Really, she did. I had already bought everything to make strawberry cake though, because she always wants strawberry, because it's pink. Kids always have to change things up on you. We decided to try for strawberry lemonade cupcakes, but she didn't give me much direction on how to decorate them. 
She loves High School Musical and after much searching I found this super cute cakelet from Cupcake Envy. This is no where near as cute or well executed but it served it's purpose, which was to not make the cupcakes look so random. Because I'm crazy. Because I'm sure a room full of 2nd graders really could care less about the "theme" of the cupcakes. They're just happy if they get to eat one.

And of course we had to have cake for her actual birthday, because if I have learned one thing, it's that a birthday isn't a birthday without cake.
I went the mini cake route again, this one is chocolate coconut cake with coconut cream filling. My daughter came up with the flavor again, she's apparently big into combining flavors right now.
It's a dance bag, made to look, at least in colors, slightly like her own dance bag.

Little ballet and jazz shoes, as they are the dance classes that she takes.

Thankfully, we decided to to her birthday party a little later in the month. So, I didn't have a big cake to do for her, but I did agree to make a cake for a friend. Don't know what I was thinking!

In the midst of all my family's birthdays, I made this chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream for her husband's 30th birthday. It's covered in marshmallow fondant and the design for the bra was piped with royal icing.

Yes, it's that time of year again. Time for the fair. I made an entry for all four decorated cake categories again and I also made a decorated cupcake entry.
I really don't know why I decided to do the cupcake category. I am not a fan of decorating cupcakes. I also waited until the last minute do even think about what to do with them. 

I ended up not at all impressed with my entry. But, it's done. 
If I had done a little more planning, I would have used a dark brown for these and probably something different for the flowers. Oh well, I guess they're not terrible. 

I also wasn't thrilled with my entry for the Holiday Cake. It's beginning to be a recurring theme I guess, I didn't like last year's Holiday cake either. 

I had planned on doing New Year's Cake for this category but decided to switch to this when I was looking over my other entries. I hadn't done any figure work and wanted at least one entry that showed my figure work (although, I will admit, my figure work needs some work). 
I did love the way the top of the cake turned out. 

Santa's chair came out super cute and Santa isn't half bad. That is his big toe sticking out of his sock.
I'm just not in love with the base cake. I wasn't sure where to end the pattern and it didn't go on very smoothly. I'm really not sure how I feel about this cake as a whole. On the other hand I know I like this next cake.

This is the only entry I made that was a duplicate of a cake I've done before. I had made this before for my son's 2nd birthday, though I used a Valentine's theme with that one, this truck is based on Chuck the Dump Truck from Tonka.
I went back and forth about what I wanted to do for the Small World category, this was not even one I was thinking about doing. One night I was looking at some of my old cakes and saw the Chuck pics and had to do it for the fair.
The red and the black are the Duff fondant you can get in stores now and not my usual marshmallow fondant. It was really easy to work with and tasted amazing. The cost will probably keep me working with mmf though, unless I need a lot of red or black because mixing those colors can be kind of a pain. 

This is my Adult entry, I made a birthday cake for a mom, or it could be a Mother's Day cake.
I had a terrible time making the bow for this cake! It fell apart on me three times before I got this one on the cake. I'm not happy with this bow either, the colors are off and it's just kind of funny looking, but I wasn't going to attempt it again.

I cut all of the larger flower petals with a fondant cutter. The smaller petals were all cut from a small daisy cutter, I cut them in half and also cut all the petals down the center to make them small and frilly. It was very, very time consuming but I think the results are worth it.

This last cake is by far my favorite.

It's an engagement cake for the Special Occasion category. I'm in love with the black on white! I used my new Circut Cake for the design on the cake. Getting the cutouts on the cake was a challenge! I'm sure it would be no matter what the cake looked like but putting the black on the white without leaving marks! When I got it all on I breathed a sigh of relief. 
Like Santa's chair the ring box was another chance to work on the mini cakes I am now so in love with. Again, I used gumpaste flowers on an entry, this time anemoes. It took me a while to figure out where to place the flowers but I really liked my arrangement.

My girls also got in on the action. They both decorated cupcakes for judging.
These were decorated by my 6 year old.

And these are my 4 year old's.

I think they both did a pretty good job and I know they are both excited to see their cupcakes on display at the fair.

Some times I just want to play with my food. I like to experiment  and see what I can do. 

This was one of those occasions.

Ever since I first watched the youtube tutorials from cupcake envy I have been in love with making little bitty cakes. It's a fun challenge to see what you can make little and it makes for a lot less cake to be eaten when I want to play. 

These mini cakes are white cake covered in marshmallow fondant.

Aren't they cute!

It's taken me forever and 6 days to get this post up, so I'm back tracking a bit with this. Last month one of my little minions turned 4. Now for Mama birthdays are kind of bittersweet; it's a celebration, yes, but it also means my babies are getting bigger. To keep my emotions in check, we'll concentrate on the celebration part.


For starters, my baby girl needed a treat to share at school.

She requested "princess cake on a stick," and this is what I came up with. The crowns are cut from marshmallow fondant. Inside they are purple because purple is what the birthday girl requested. It is amazing how much the color of something can change the flavor, I could barely recognize it was strawberry cake. 


Since she didn't have school on her actual birthday, I also had make something for her birthday. I mean, what's a birthday without cake!

She loves frogs so I made her this little frog prince cake. Cookies-n-Cream cake covered in marshmallow fondant.

Wonder what's gonna happen?


So... school treats... birthday treats... what are we missing here? Oh yeah, a party! And party we did.

We had a joint party with a good friend who's little girl was also turning 4, my daughter insisted on a princess cake. 

Pretty princessy, huh?


Strawberry cake with vanilla cream filling covered in marshmallow fondant, with fondant and gumpaste decorations. I figured that each little princess needed their own cake so they each got their own princess.

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Inspired by Cupcake Envy, these mini cakes are white cake with buttercream icing covered in marshmallow fondant.

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