Baby Shower

Once again, it is a beautiful Sunday today!  And what's even more special?  It's also Mother's Day today! To celebrate mother's day, I decided that today's post will be on a baby shower that was hosted a few weeks ago.  What a better way to celebrate mother's day than to welcome an upcoming mother on her impending arrival?  Alrighty, so, this baby shower wasn't my gig.  I was commissioned to bake the cake and the baby onsies sugar cookies.  The lovely couple was expecting a baby girl, so of course, everything was a beautiful shades of pinks and purples and ivory.  The event was held outside of the Jacob's center in San Diego.  They had a lovely tent with ivory curtains put up.  Beautiful centerpieces and yummy desserts!  (I keep hearing about the food, but unfortunately, I had left before the food was set up!)  Anyways, everything was super beautiful already, and after the addition of the flowers and sweets, it looked awesome!

The gal hosting this event, also called Linda, envisioned this set up.  She did a fantastical job!  I especially loved the pink and silver eggs with the branch nests around them.  Get it??  Eggs in a...nest? (my cousin, who went with me to set up, totally did not catch that for a while until the lightbulb went off in her head)...Very creative Linda!  I also loved how all the different pinks just came together!  And I promise, there were purples at the party too!  In fact, the little babies on the table were wearing some purples!

So the cake was a strawberries and cream cake.  I made strawberry cake, filled it with a thin layer of custard, piled on fresh strawberries, topped with fresh whipped cream, and then stacked another layer of cake.  The entire cake was then iced in fresh whipped cream.  "Baby Zahra" and the cherry blossoms were all hand-made using fondant.  The cake was then topped off with local San Diego cherry blossoms!  So, cherry blossoms was kind of the theme...they had wanted cherry blossoms on the onesies cookies too.  Instead of piping royal icing on each onesies, I actually used brown food coloring gel and and painted on the branches.  It was a somewhat horrifying experience, since I know I am horrid at drawing/painting/doodling (I was scared of coloring in the cupcake labels for Jennifer and Justin's wedding!).  And yes, it was for fear of screwing up the painting part and messing up the cookie that I had already spent hours on!  You know, I think a baker actually needs to be a Jane of all trades (of artistic abilities).  Makes sense right?  Hmm, brings to mind lots of projects I need to learn to perfect!..Ok, digressing here...Back to the baby shower!  Well, after painting on the branches, I decided to use royal icing to make the cherry blossoms.  How hard can that be right??  Hmph, once again, I think royal icing just does not like me!  The first couple of cookies were atrocious.  The petals started to run into each other and created a fat blob!  Oops, made the icing too runny.  The problem is, if the icing isn't runny enough, then you get a slight, for lack of better word, "nipple" effect...in which you would have to go and flatten each individual, er, nipple.  That was definitely much more work!  You can't tell how many dots were on each onesies, but let me assure you that there were quite a few!  So, royal icing out of the piping bag and back to the mixing.  I finally got it to the right consistency (after tearing out a good section of my hair) and got to work.  I must say, they were pretty cute!

And more cake pops!  Cake pops weren't on my "to do" list, but with the surreal amount of work and activities filling Mai's day/weekend, I took pity on her and made the cake pops for her.  I know, I know, (for those who know me), I practically begged her for me to make them!  Hehee...what one does in order to bake and make pretty sweets all day long!  Below, Mai had made a dozen individual red velvet cakes.  They really were just too sweet and too pretty sitting on the frame!

See, you can't really tell, but these babies had some light purples on!  But for the most part, it was a pretty pink theme!  Don't you think Mai did a fabulous job with this centerpiece?  I was so amazed that simple candle holders can work so beautifully as floral centerpieces.  This really shows a true artist at play!  Here are more pictures of Mai's fancy handiwork:

 Isn't this beautiful?  It's a "wishing tree" and there are little notes with ribbon attached where you can write a little "wish" for the couple, and then hang it on the tree.  Super, super adorable!  What's even better is, the couple will then have a keepsake of little notes from their family and friends!

This was a beautifully set up event.  Everything went really well together.  I had a great time making the goodies and am thankful I had the opportunity to see the entire set up!  Great job ladies!  And congratulations to the beautiful couple.  Happy Mother's Day!