birthdays shouldn't be lame.

but kelly's birthday on nbc's "the office" definitely was. this cake was modeled after the episode where the guys on the show throw their co-worker a birthday party--completely with brown deflated balloons and a sign that read, "it is your birthday." the recipient of the cake is a huge fan of the show, and his girlfriend (my adorable cousin andrea) planned this as a surprise!
glad the guys from "the office" didn't plan my birthday party!

behind on posts...

so i've been a little lazy on my posting lately. but hey, i've moved, been to tennessee and back in the last month, and did i mention my husband is opening his own chiropractic practice too? eek!
but i have managed to do a few cakes. here are pictures of two of them, and as soon as i locate my camera, i'll upload a picture of the cake i did over the weekend.
the first is a birthday cake for a sweet girl named kate, who worked in the office my husband used to work in as well:


this one was a baby shower cake for our good friends patty and craig--they live in tennessee, and i haven't posted for so long that the baby is here now!! :) well welcome to the world, Robert Ford, and here's your baby shower cake:

the best day for a cake person--EVER.

So on Tuesday, I was showing my website to a friend who wanted to see my cakes. And if you haven't noticed, on the right side of my page is a short list of blogs that I like (see here---->). Included on that list is the wonderful Confetti Cakes blog. So as I glance at my page, the update for Confetti Cakes says "going to pittsburgh."
That's right, Elisa Strauss did a demo today in Pittsburgh! I was so stoked because she is like my cake-design idol! She was so nice and she demoed one of her spring cakes. I learned a couple of tricks that I'm sure will make my cakes look way better! I took her a print out of my first page of my blog...so if she's reading this, i'm a bit embarrassed because I was a little bit starstruck :/ oh, and i got my fav cookbooks signed by her!
I can't wait to make a new cake now; you all need to order cakes!! her work is what makes me want to do this all the time, and it was truly an honor to meet her.
Here's a pic from my cell phone. I forget my camera at the worst times.

Keaton's 1st Birthday

The finished design:



The cake before I added the sugar palm trees:



Some decorations that I made:



This weekend I attempted my coolest and most detailed design yet for my son's 1st birthday party. His party centered around zoo animals, and in addition to the cake I made decorations and all of the food. I'm way too obsessed with party planning.
I got the idea for the cake from a picture frame that I saw--then I added some sugar decorations and also Little People zoo animals from a gift that Keaton got for Christmas.
This is absolutely my favorite cake that I've done so far. I'm not sure if it's just because it was for my little man, but it really doesn't matter. I love it.
This cake was obviously 3 tiers (all with vanilla buttercream and fondant covering)--the bottom was red velvet, the middle vanilla, and the top tier was chocolate.

This cake is headed to space.

At least my space on blogspot. Ha. This birthday cake is for my pseduo-brother, who is a science teacher. Since his party is today--the first day of spring/the vernal equinox--I wanted to do something that kind of had to do with that. At first I was going to have a flower going from seed to full bloom but I'm not going to lie, it was a little girlie. After my trip to Houston and the Johnson Space Center in February, I've had NASA and astronauts on the brain. Hopefully he likes this flask gone NASA as much as I do.
It's a white cake layered with vanilla swiss buttercream, then covered with white fondant. I think there are 9 layers total. Oh, AND it's my first sculpted cake. I have to admit, it took a little longer than I expected.

mmm, chocolate...

i had some leftover chocolate cake batter from the palette cake below, so i decided to practice making chocolate ganache (YUM!) to fill and ice a smaller cake. i did that and then dusted it with cocoa powder. you might be wondering why i wrote "...love..." on the top. well, for 2 reasons actually. first, i love chocolate. more than a lot of other things. second, i made it for my husband because the entire time i was decorating it, our two kids were screaming because they didn't want to go to bed--and he was dealing with them. that's why i love him. :)

a palette of a cake.

I made this cake for my younger cousin's birthday...she is preparing to go to college to study art. She had to take her SATs today, and as far as I am concerned, there's nothing better than an overdose of sugar to combat post-test stress. Well...I'd probably prefer a large bottle of something else, but hey, she's only going to be 17. This cake is just 2 layers--one dark chocolate and one vanilla. It's filled with buttercream and covered with white fondant. The paint is just colored icing that I applied with a paintbrush and mixed around to make it look like paint. Yummy paint, but paint.

shout out to ali spagnola!

so this week i was looking around on the internet for ideas for my son's 1st birthday party (zoo theme. it's gonna be awesome.) and i happened upon a really cool website/blog created by the artist ali spagnola. you should check out her site, but the idea of it is that if you send her an email she'll create a piece of art for you-for free. so she's been doing this for a whole lot of people, and some have sent her things for a "trade" of sorts...reading this, i decide that we should trade a cake for a painting.
we've been emailing for the last couple of days and this is the deal. i get this painting:



and she gets a cake of her choice whenever she wants. but i'm working on another cake for this weekend and had some leftovers, so i made her this as a little "thanks":




unfortunately it's not really in "okay to go in the mail" form, but i thought she might enjoy it.

you all should go check out her site and throw her some support. she's just another artist doing what she loves. only she's way cooler than me. just sayin'....

http://alispagnola.blogspot.com

oh, and when i open up my bakery, she's SO doing the art for the building.

Steak night at the Wad-Mart.

Otherwise known as Wadding Meats, the Wad-Mart is a local must-have for the people of Home, PA. They offer catering, fresh meats, and butchering services. And on the nights that Dan Meyer has to cook, their pizza is sure to be seen on our table. Jim Wadding (owner and chief meat-man) is celebrating his 60th birthday, and my parents just left to take him my contribution to the celebration: two cakes in the likeness of t-bone steaks. I couldn't bear to do anything but red velvet cake with cream cheese icing. Then the steaks were covered in fondant and painted with food coloring. Before you know it I'll be asked to make camouflage cakes with whitetail deer on them. I don't know if I can go there.

A castle cake for Princess Clara

This week was a birthday party for my favorite little 5-year-old girl. She decided on a "princess castle" theme for her birthday party, so of course I had to make a pink castle cake!! This was a 3 tier cake--one was strawberry with buttercream filling, two were white cake with buttercream and raspberry sauce filling. Each tier was covered in fondant, which I painted pink to give it more of a "castle" effect, then I added a fondant tower, decorations and a sculpted fondant dragon and princess. Happy Birthday Clara!!

trying out a new recipe...

This week I used a family friend's birthday as a way to try out a new recipe for a cake. I made a white cake recipe and added the zest and juice of 1 lemon. Instead of a traditional buttercream, I used a whipped cream frosting made of heavy whipping cream, the zest and juice of 1 lemon, clear vanilla extract, and a little bit of powdered sugar. It was a 2 layer cake and I used pureed strawberries with sugar to soak the layers and then put the whipped cream in between. Everyone really liked it--it kind of tasted like a good strawberry shortcake with some lemon undertones. Would be great for a summer birthday too because it turned out very light with the whipped cream frosting. Definitely a repeat.

I LOVE the Penguins' throwback jerseys

And so does my sister, Charelle. So for her 25th birthday, she requested a round cake with the emblem on it. The Pens ought to lose the black, gold and white modern jerseys and use these again-because they are WAY cooler. This was a 3 layer marble cake with white buttercream icing and fondant decorations with some minor piping. Since the Steelers' season is done, we might as well start cheering on the Pens; the way they've been playing, they need the support anyway!

I don't understand the attraction of "Dancing With the Stars"....

...but it's my Grandma's favorite show. It was between a Singin' in the Rain cake and this one. And she loved the idea of the silhouettes of the dancers around the side. I liked the idea of modeling the colors of the icing on the opening of the show with the clouds and the pink and purple. It's a 2 layer yellow/white cake combo which makes the cake rich but light in my opinion. In between the layers is white buttercream icing with a layer of pureed strawberries with a bit sugar soaked into the cake. Everyone LOVED the addition of the strawberries! The disco ball was actually a Christmas ornament. It worked out perfectly and required a lot less work than the idea I had of cutting up an old CD and hot-gluing it to a foam ball. That would have been some hard core crafting fun, though!

Six-Pack Super Bowl for the Steelers!!

I made these two cakes for a Super Bowl party at the IUP Management Information Systems department. The Terrible Towel cake is a 2 layer white cake with white buttercream and the towel is a fondant sheet with food coloring drawings and fondant decorations. The crashing helmets cake is a 2 layer chocolate fudge cake with green colored buttercream and fondant and piped decorations. Go Steelers!!!

Who doesn't love old-school Nintendo?

So it's a week before my little cousin's 11th birthday party...my aunt emails to place a cake order and says that she wants cupcakes and to do whatever I want. I want to make them special, that's for sure, and I don't like boring cupcakes with a swirl of icing. Especially for an 11-year old's birthday party. So I start scouring the internet for cool ideas, and this is what I found. Super Mario Bros.! I couldn't resist...and I'd be willing to bet that Super Mario Bros. music is running through your head (if you're not humming it aloud right now). These cupcakes are dedicated to the talented Nick Luckett of www.4colorrebellion.com :)

A 50th birthday cake, Steelers-style!

This is the first cake I attempted with fondant decorations. It is a 50th birthday cake for my uncle, and he is a huge Steelers fan. It's an appropriate 1st cake venture to match the title of my blog!
The cake is a 2 tier (2 layers each tier) white cake with white buttercream icing. All of the decorations were made out of store bought fondant that I colored.

Welcome to my Blog!

Welcome, and thanks for viewing my blog! I have recently turned my love for baking and art into the beginnings of a new career: specialty cake decorating. I have started doing at least one cake about every week, and I am very lucky to have an understanding husband to help me watch my two small children.
The pictures that you see are the product of a lot of time spent watching Food Network and teaching myself some of the basic techniques of cake decorating. Each cake I design I try to attempt a new technique, and I will hopefully be able to take some professional baking classes in the near future. For now, this blog will suit as my "cake portfolio."
At this point, I am trying out some new recipes and flavor combinations, and I continue to have my cakes seen and tasted by a lot of people in my area. My intention within the next couple of years is to open a specialty bakery in the Pittsburgh area. Until then, enjoy the pictures and feel free to contact me at steelcitycakes@gmail.com.