Happy Birthday Jaxon

And another hump day has come and gone.  Thank goodness.  I find that once Thursday rolls around, the weekend is just a wink away!  And this so happens to be a holiday weekend, so I'm sure there are grand plans for relaxation all over!  Anyways, I thought I'd take the time to blog about a fantastic under the sea themed party tonight.  I was contacted a few months ago, and my client had wanted a birthday cake, cupcakes, and Parisian macarons!  Her baby boy, Jaxon, was turning the big 1!  Since baby Jaxon loved the aquarium and fish, the theme for his birthday was a very cool "under the sea."  They had rented out the clubroom for this party and did a fantastic job decorating!  It literally felt like I walked under the sea!  I couldn't believe how they found all the cool sea decorations and balloons!  It looked fantastic!  As for me, here are my contributions:

The actual birthday cake was chocolate with vanilla buttercream.  The cupcakes were red velvet with cream cheese frosting and strawberry cupcakes with a strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream.  All the decorations on the cake and cupcakes were edible.  The sea critters were made with chocolate, while the corals were made with fondant.  I didn't get any pictures of my macarons, but as an avid reader, I'm sure you already know that it was beautiful and the colors went with their theme!

Happy birthday baby Jaxon!  It was a pleasure baking up goodies for your party!

Nancy's Baby Shower

Happy Tuesday dear readers!  And what a fantabulous Tuesday it is...especially since we get a new blog post!  Yaaay!  Ok, ok...let's get down to business.  Today's post is all about babies!  I had the wonderful opportunity to set up a dessert table for my good friend Nancy.  Nancy and Aaron (you might remember their #1 from this post).  Well, they are now expecting #2...and it's a boy!  Baby boy is supposed to come into this world sometimes in early October..but the parents are thinking earlier because Nancy is getting pretty darn big!  Anyways, the theme for this baby shower was Precious moments.  For those who know Nancy, they know that she loves, loves precious moments.  I must admit, they are pretty darn cute.  A touch harder to find nowadays though.  But working my magic (and stealing whatever Nancy had around the house), I made it happen.  Check it out!

Isn't it a cute cake?  The top layer was peanut butter and the bottom was chocolate.  There are several ways to make clouds, but because this was a baby shower, I thought marshmallows would be more fun and appropriate!  This time around, we had Parisian macarons, lemon lime curd tarts, cake pops, sugar cookies, raspberry cheesecakes, mini cupcakes, and some assorted candy!  Don't you  just love the precious moments sugar cookies?  I even had them personalized for her!  I knew Nancy would get a kick out of them (In fact, she loved them so much, she wanted to hide the whole box!)  This time around, I opted for a more simple dessert table, as there was a lot less guests than the last shin dig I did for them!  Overall, the baby shower was a lot of fun!  They played some weird versions of baby shower games...and surprisingly, it was fun. I certainly cannot wait for the new bundle of joy!  Congrats to my dear loves! 

Happy Birthday Tiffany!

Good evening, dear readers!  It's a tad late for me...as this is beyond my bed time...I know, I know...it's only 9pm.  However, I'm up at 4:30am every single morning, so, this is a tad late for me!  Anyways, since I am just a touch sleepy, but more energized than sleepy (does that make any sense at all??), I decided that it's time for another blog post!  I know, I know...I've already been reminded that it's been more than eleven days since my last post.  I promise, I will work harder at writing more consistently!

Anyways, today, or rather, tonight, I would like to share my little cousin's birthday.  These cousins actually live in Toronto, Canada, but they visit the fam bam twice a year...summer break and winter break.  Luckily for Tiffany, her birthday falls in July, so she always (and I mean always) gets to celebrate her birthday with the whole San Diego family.  Her brother Ryan, not so lucky.  His birthday is in March.  I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles.  Anyways, back to Tiffany's birthday.  She turned eight this year...and seriously, for the past seven birthdays, it has always been something foo foo and pink.  Like Hello Kitty, or Princess, or pink flowers...just always something super girly and pink.  Well, actually, I take that back.  One year, she did a Dora the Explorer one.  The cake was a funky mix of, well, Dora colors...but after that, it has always been something super girly and cute.  So, finally, finally, this year, I've been asked to bake her birthday cake!  Hurray for me!  So, I'm thinking...I totally got this.  I've already had plenty of practice for Hello Kitty cakes and I was pretty darn sure that I will totally perfect hers.  And what did she want this year?  Dogs.  Well, actually, it was first Tweety bird (Tweety, really??) and then at the last minute, she changed her mind and wanted a dog theme.  You know, while I'm a dog lover myself, I've never made a dog cake before!  And here was my one chance to wow the fam bam, and I didn't get a cute girly theme to work with!  No matter, I still did the doggy theme and even set up a super tiny dessert table for her.  Check it out!

I think the dogs on my cake is some kind of weird mix of a dog.  They started off looking like those mop dogs, and then somewhere along the way, I wanted them to look like my American Eskimo, Pepper (hence the pink ears)...but when it came down to the snout, it started looking like those grandpa dogs (Scottish terriers?...or something in that family?...you know, the ones with the long muzzle!)  So, it is what it is...just a mix of different dogs.  You can see that in the puppy cake pops too.  I actually have no idea what kind of dogs these are.  They kind of look like beagles, but not really.  Meh, some kind of dog, that's for sure.  The cake pops were actually kind of cute!  Oh, the flavor?  It was red velvet!

Happy birthday love!  Oh yeah...this was a vanilla chiffon cake, filled with fresh strawberries and bananas!  ;)

Baking Buddy Help- Jai Lao Foundation

Happy hump day!  I can't believe it's August already!!  This year is certainly flying by beyond fast!  I guess it's true what they say...as you get older, the time goes by quicker!  I guess this is why one must always make the best out of what they have because you are never guaranteed tomorrow.  With that in mind, I had the pleasure of helping out my baking buddy, Mai, on one of her philanthropist adventures. She has been active in the Jai Lao Foundation and this year, she helped out by doing a dessert table at one of the charity's function.  Jai Lao raises money and builds schools and opportunities for those disadvantaged children  in rural parts of Laos.  For more information on Jai Lao, click here .  It was an organization close to Mai's heart, as she, herself was a refugee and she wants to do what she can to better the lives of her people and give them the chance that she was given.  So, to help her out, I was given the task of making cake pops, sugar cookies, and macarons.  It was definitely my pleasure as the flavors for this event was something very different than what I've been making.  I even put in some extra efforts and spruced up the sugar cookies and tried a different shape for the cake pops!  Take a looksie!

The colors for this event was green and orange!  I was tired of the same heart look, so I decided to add some fondant flowers and leaves to these cookies.  I also painted a branch on the white hearts (well, what's supposed to look like a branch!) and then luster dusted the edges in gold and pinkish/reds to match Jai Lao's characteristic heart.

As for cake pops, I thought, wouldn't it be cool to make a heart shaped cake pop??  Especially because Jai Lao's symbol is a heart, it would be awesome to incorporate more hearts into the table.  Let me tell you...a round cake pop ball is pretty difficult in itself to dip...make it heart shape and I was out of my mind.  The task started pretty easily.  I had no problems shaping my hearts.  It was the dipping part that gave me grief!  Lo and behold, I got it done and was super happy with how they turned out!  I also make regular round cake pops too, just for variety.  Oh, and let's not forget about those macs!

I made coconut pandan flavored macarons (in green) and orange marmalade macs (in, well, orange).  You know, I've always loved orangey colored stuff (usually drinks), but for some reason, orange marmalade never appealed to me.  So this was the first time I've tried orange marmalade...and gosh darn it, it's actually not too shabby!  I think I keep imagining a more bitter taste because of the orange rinds, but there was no bitterness at all.  It was actually quite tasty!  I'm happy to say, too, that the macs gave me no grief...only the packaging.  Check out this mac fail:

I know, I know...that's mac abuse right there...although, I'm sure Mai was perfectly fine with it...after all, she gets to eat the ugly ones!