Exciting news!

...but I'm not yet ready to share. Let's just say it's awesomesauce with a side of fantastic!

I do miss writing here, and I have done many pretty things in the last couple of months. Hopefully, I'll find a little time after the holidays to return to my love of pretty.

I will definitely announce my great news, too! You'll like it. I promise!

Meanwhile, check out my totally awesome 80's cakes that I made for a friend's daughter's 14th birthday:



Polka dots and neon hearts - I mean really, who can resist!

Working and Cake

You may want to know where I've been. I'd like to know myself - help a girl out and tell me where the last two weeks have gone! The reality is that I've been working. And working. And trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. So, no big.

But, of course, some cupcakes snuck their way into the last couple of weeks. That's just what happens at my house.


First, there was Cake Chelan (ala cupcakes). I created this cake in honor of someone's birthday some years ago. It's definitely one of my favorites. How could it not be? White cake (sometimes with coconut extract thrown in if I remember) with a lime cream filling (these were dairy-licious, so I couldn't eat them, but I have a vegan version as well - Mmm), topped with a coconut meringue frosting and toasted coconut. Yes, it is amazing.

Up close and personal:


Right!? I know. Here are some with red stripe cupcake liners. I mixed it up a bit.


There were a couple left, but since I couldn't eat the cake or filling, I ate the frosting off (it's that good) and then yard-wasted (what? that's totally a verb) the rest. Don't hate me.


I did bribe my uncle with one of these puppies. Then, he mowed my lawn. But there's something you should know. If you leave my uncle alone in your yard with a lawn mower, you may return home to this:


Yes. To interpret this little gem for you, it was Chris' birthday last weekend and my uncle's present to him was mowing his age into my lawn. No joke. Awesome. Now I need to bribe someone else to finish mowing that patch!

And when it rains birthdays, it pours birthdays. It was also Chris' daughters 8th (8!!) birthday. She's into horses right now since, you know, she's an 8 year old girl. So, I made her some horse cupcakes from the Hello, Cupcake book.


They aren't perfect, but I had to assemble them in approximately 10 minute's time - remember that work thing I was talking about? Yeah, I got home after 7pm that night. Thank goodness Chris cooked dinner! (Yes, you read that right. And, yes, I ate it. Love me some TJ's curry sauce!)


I covered the orange circus peanut candies with chocolate. This first one looked fine, but he other two were a hot mess, but sometimes these things happen. Plus, they were all devoured within about 20 minutes of being "born," so there's that.

I have tons and tons of things to do and many many pictures to take. I'm working on some invitations - I hear those things need to get in the mail. I promise there will be more wedding goodness soon.

In the meantime, I'll be figuring out the rest of my life. Wish me luck!

I heart rainbows

I've always liked rainbows. Just look back at any drawing I did as a child. There was one on the fridge for years and years where I filled an entire (small-ish) page with hearts and rainbows. I don't know if I was just trying to prove that I was, indeed, a stereotypical girl. Regardless, I still heart a good rainbow. So, when I was asked to make a rainbow cake, I was pretty excited. (Especially since it started out as Dora and I wasn't terribly confident in my ability to make a cake actually resemble Dora. Phew.)

So, it started with the sketches from this earlier post. Then, I moved on to making the cake batter. Then, I cooked it. Then I ran it by my official tester. She approved.


There were some scraps.


My uncle ate those while fixing everything under the sun in my house. I love people who work for cake - especially scraps! (I'm very lucky.)

Then, there was frosting to be made. The mixer got a workout by batch 3 or 4.


Ah...frosted cake. Yes, it's ugly - that's really just a crumb coat so that I could rainbow-ify it without getting crumbs in the stripes of the rainbow. Plus, I used a pretty sweet buttercream, so less is more - that was my theory anyway.


Then, I used a toothpick to draw the rainbow from my template. I love it when I can see everything coming together.


I piped some thick frosting around the clouds, thinned a little frosting with more milk and corn syrup (more sugar!) and filled in the clouds. Then I did the same for the red and orange...


...the yellow and green...


...and finally the blue and purple. Try as I might, I could not get a photograph showing the true purple-y-ness of the purple, but it was *purple* I tell you, not bluey-purple. (Note to self: maybe you really should read that camera manual...)


Rainbow!


I won't lie - those stripes are deceptive. It probably took me 2-3 hours to do the clouds and the stripes. Then again, it involved 14 different frostings in the end. Each color had two different consistencies. And there were pastry bags to be washed over and over. And quite an array of colorful dishes and waters.



The cake itself was fairly big - 12 inches by 18 inches and at least 2 inches tall.


The cake then found its way into a large cake box.


I was so grateful when, at the last minute, I was able to buy a cake box from Coffee to a Tea. I added a cupcake sticker because it's cuteness.


And that's how I made a rainbow cake instead of sleeping.

(PS - I have a cold. Wonder why.) :)

Sketchy

So, yesterday I mentioned this rainbow cake I'm baking. It's for one of the little girls at D&G Dance Company. I *really* extra super hope it turns out so, so pretty. However, I still haven't decided on which buttercream frosting recipe I'm going to use. This could be a problem as it has to be frosted tonight. Meh - what's one more late night?! I'll be on vacation on Saturday! (Oh wait. Vacation with a 7 year old. Dear sleep: I miss you.)

Although I haven't decided on the frosting, I have started sketching the cake. Yes, I sketched a rainbow. There were rulers involved. And three sketches gone awry.


This is serious math.


How come it seems that I used to be able to do this free hand as a child no problem, and now I need rulers?

Baking, baking, baking...

For fun, I made some coconut marshmallows. They were deeelicious! Don't they look it!?


I used this recipe here, but I also added some coconut extract into the batter because, really, that's a necessity.

We also celebrated my awesome graphic designer friend Agnes' birthday this weekend. I wanted to make her some cake. She requested white cake with raspberry filling and white chocolate buttercream, so I obliged. I thought the results were quite pretty.


I took this opportunity to try out a new white cake recipe. I think the cake turned out well. I also tested a new frosting recipe. I actually recycled the printout of that one after I was done. Clearly, I wasn't such a fan.

I also made some cupcakes for good measure!


I'm testing out all these new cake and frosting recipes because I'm making a cake for someone I don't even know off of a referral, which is pretty exciting and so much fun! I want the cake to be the best it can be! I hope to have a photo of that here too at some point. But first, superbowl cupcakes! It's baking season, apparently. Wait...it's always baking season at my house!

A little taste of summer...

It's snowy/rainy/cloudy/a little sunny here in Seattle (so, you know, normal weather for us). I'm thinking about how nice it will be in the next few (ok, six) months to not have to consider donning two pairs of socks and some long johns (I'm cold all.the.time.) The thought of sun and warmth reminded me of the cute little vegan tea party we had last summer. On a bit of a whim I decided to throw the tea party for a friend's daughter - she had a dress and no where to go. What a tragedy!

I was inspired by some Laura Ashley plates I found at Michaels, which were teal and hot pink. Apparently, I have a surprising amount of teal and pink stuff in my house, so the rest of the decor just sorta came together! (I mean, really, I had hot pink wrapping paper to use as a table runner and teal tape! It was meant to be.)

Of course, I forgot to take photos until after everyone left because I was behind in making the tea sandwiches. Some day time management will just click with me, right? (Right!?)

The four year old guest of honor picked out these lovely gerbera daisies, which just happened to match absolutely perfectly. I just love it when things work out that well! And, because I'm obviously certifiable, I took some lettered beads I had at home and spelled out each of the kids' names and attached them to place card holders. Cuteness!

I also had some pretties hanging from the ceiling.


Here is the one photo I managed to take of the spread.


I made jelly sandwiches on white bread,


and these amazing vegan cucumber mint tea sandwiches with wasabi maple spread on wheat bread from here.


Then there were blueberries (of course - they're blue!),


and strawberry panzanella with either soy or regular yogurt (which looks like a hot mess, but is absolutely amazing. Here is the recipe. Make this NOW.)


We also had homemade strawberry lemonade, which I managed to accidentally crop out of this picture. Good thing I got the random sprinkles in there, though. Excellent.

And yes, I labeled the sugar and the lemons. Sometimes I get carried away with paper goods.

Of course, there were cupcakes for decorating. They were vegan chocolate and vanilla (in hot pink and teal cupcake wrappers) with soy buttercream frosting.

The kids went outside (outside = best decision ever) and decorated their own cupcakes with sprinkles and more sprinkles! I don't have a photo of all the sprinkles I made, but because of concerns about allergies and hidden ingredients, I just took sugar and dyed it 5 or 6 different colors. It was inexpensive (thank goodness - they poured ginormous quantities on each cupcake), and it worked out quite well.

As an after-cupcake-decorating event, I made little books using my grandmother's sewing machine (which was really just an excuse to create a whale border on something), laid out tons of puffy stickers on a small picnic table with crayons and colored pencils and let the kids create their own books.

Do you think I have a photo of the table or the end products? Yeahno. But the kids had a great time, and so did the adults!

First fun with fondant!

So, this weekend was all about the butterfly cake. My friend's (shameless plug) daughter turned 13 this weekend and ever since I made her this Hello Kitty Cake (sorry for the awful photo - it's rather old):


she always asks me to make her cake. This year she wanted butterflies. Since Chris was again out of town and my Friday night was free, I thought it was a good time to try out this recipe for marshmallow fondant. I've never used fondant before, and I think it tastes kinda yucky, but I thought it was a good compromise to use the fondant for the decor but use regular ol' buttercream for most of the cake. At least people could pick it off if they so desired. Turned out pretty well for my first attempt, I think!


Again, since I couldn't stop with just one giant butterfly, I made smaller butterflies from Hello, Cupcake! to paste to the board. I didn't have the melting chocolate disks, so instead, I just dyed white chocolate purple. I also dyed the cake purple for fun, but I don't have any photos of that.


I probably could have color coordinated the whole thing better, but all in all, it was worth not sleeping on Friday. :) I didn't think the cake was all that exciting - the birthday girl just wanted white cake with frosting in the center, and yet I got at least three more cake orders for future birthdays. :) Unfortunately, they are birthdays in August. I'm guessing I might be a bit busy one month before the wedding to make a bunch of birthday cakes, but I am crazy after all. Someone stop me if I agree to this. Please.

366 Days (But Who's Counting!?)

Oooh Oooh I am! We officially signed our venue contract and put down the deposit yesterday. Yay! Chris wasn't even concerned when I texted him telling him that we had signed our lives away. I'm taking that as a good sign. I now have one year to accomplish the ridiculous number of crafting projects that I love and want to include at my wedding. But, I do have a good start on them. I have about 85 dupioni silk yo-yos (photos to come), and six silky flowers, thanks to an impromptu pie eating/wine drinking craft night at Chelan's last night. Here they are:



Love.

Also, last week I made this vegan cake and sold it to a friend. I really wish I had tried it! Vegan coconut cake with lime cream (soy) filling and lime buttercream frosting with toasted coconut on top. Mmmm...



I also feel the need to start the hunt for a great inexpensive wedding photographer. I'm afraid that such a thing doesn't exist. I understand that photographers put a great deal of time into editing photos, and sooo much money into their equipment, but it seems that all the photographers I like charge a minimum of $3,000 (without any prints), and that is a LOT of moolah to pay. Ah, another challenge. I'm optimistic that we'll work it out - everything else has gone well thus far!

Kerissa Likes Crafting

I adore my friends and family! Last night, 8 of us gathered to eat pizza, drink fizzy white wine from Trader Joe's (so good!), and make wedding crafts! Between us all, we managed to make 3 fabric ruffly delicious pom poms. (Doesn't sound like much work, but it took at least 3 yards of fabric, which had to be cut into 4 inch circles and then individually glued onto tiny chinese lanterns! I never could have done anything close to that amount of work in one night by myself!) I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with the poms at the wedding just yet, but I love them so much! Maybe as chair markers for Chris and me, or perhaps as hanging backdrop behind the dessert table. Here's a photo - they still need their ribbon, but that part's easy!



And for fun - one more:



I definitely could not have done it without my aunt, who picked up and baked the pizzas before I even got home for work, and had everything all set up. She also made me this ridiculously adorable champagne cake for dessert!



There was champagne in the cake itself, and also a champagne/powdered sugar glaze. It was worth all the lactose intolerant pain I may endure as a result of eating it, but so far, so good! :) (You can also see my "slight" addiction to wedding magazines in the background of that photo.)

We also made a number of fabric silky flowers, although I need to sew them together before I take a photo. Oh, and so far, I've made 50 fabric yo-yos from dupioni silk. It's moving right along - now I just have to keep up the pace!

What a productive evening! I love to see the crafts all coming together with still more than a year until the wedding!

Let them eat cake...

...somewhere else. Ok, I don't love cake. Yes, I love to bake cake. I like to make cute cakes. Pretty cakes. Layered cakes. But eating them...meh. This is how I can have a freezer full of cupcakes and not pig out. Now, if I had a freezer full of cookies or pies or, heaven forbid, jelly bellies, I'd be in trouble. My fiance isn't a huge cake fan either. So, I'd like to do a dessert buffet with pies, cookies, rice krispie treats (LOVE THEM), and candies. Oh, and donuts - who doesn't like donuts!? Crazy people, that's who. But no cake. I know it's not very traditional, but is it so terrible that I want to ply my guests with equally sweet and delicious baked goods? Really? I don't think so.

Also, the dessert bar will include an homage to beef jerky. Yes, that says beef jerky. On our first date, my fiance informed me that his favorite dessert was beef jerky. Done. :)