I always get excited when I see an email from Beth in my in-box.  Some of my favourite projects have been for Beth, like the Palm Bay cans, the crawling out the grave cake and her daughter's 10th birthday cupcakes.  This time she wanted another belly cake for a baby shower, pretty much exactly like the last one.

Lisa, my new BFF at work (who befriended me and showed me everything I needed to know when I was a newbie at my recently new day job) is having a baby and her hubby Herb asked me to make the cake for her shower.  This was a huge honour for me because Herb fancies himself a pastry chef too (though, he does have far more industry experience then I do) and it's been a running joke between Lisa and myself that when they finally have their wedding, that *I* am going to make the cake.  She always said Herb wouldn't have it because he wanted to make their wedding cake.  So I told her that at least I would get to make the baby shower cake, and even that she shot me down on saying Herb would probably want to do it.  I win!  The baby's room is painted blue with an underwater theme.  We suspect it's a girl, but we can't seem to find anyone in the medical profession who will confirm it for us.  Congrats Lisa!!!

I already had a lot on my plate with Anna Maria and Sean's wedding, but when I got an email from my first bride asking for a baby shower cake, I couldn't resist!  Not only was it a chance to catch up and say hello, but also to welcome a new life with many birthdays to come!  I love that this job lets me start and build relationships with people so that I get to enjoy all the happy milestones in their lives.  From weddings, to baby showers, then birthdays and who knows, maybe one day a second generation of weddings!  That has to be my new favourite part of this job.  For the cake, my client raved about how everyone loved the wedding cake so she asked for cupcakes with the same flavour combinations as her wedding cake - chocolate and mocha.  The cake is a vanilla cake with yellow buttercream (we don't know what the baby is yet).  This particular client isn't a fan of fondant, so this cake (like her wedding cake) had to be decorated in buttercream (which I find more challenging).  The baby bottle accents are fondant, and were made by my assistant.

One of the guests at Rupi and Gurveen's wedding enjoyed the cupcakes so much that she requested a baby shower cake.  She wanted something simple and pretty and yellow, because they didn't know the gender of the baby yet.  The cake itself is layers of red velvet (which is essentially devil's food chocolate with red food colouring - just so you know) cake and cream cheese icing.  The cradle topper is made from a crisp rice treat and cupcake glued together with buttercream.  The flowers are fondant.

About 2 months ago my good friend told me he was going to be an uncle again, for the fourth time.  Initially the doctors through the baby was going to be a girl, but it looks like he was playing his first practical joke because upon a second (or third?) ultra sound, it looks like she is actually a he (which is lucky because the kid almost got stuck with the name Patients).  Of course I offered to make the cake should there be a baby shower.  I had thought I would have a consultation, or at least some communication with the client before committing to the cake, but nope!  My friend told his Mom I would do the cake, then told me that he had committed me to it.  Ok, no problem, I'll make it work.  What is the cake and when is it due, anyway?  After some email challenges, I got the order: 50 3x3 blocks of chocolate cake covered in vanilla buttercream and decorated as baby blocks - due Friday no later than 6 pm.  Since I work full time in an office until 5pm and because I had a class Thursday night, this was going to be a time challenge!  So, with a little time off of work and a lot of help from my friend and the discovery that the block were huge and would actually feed 3 people each (so I didn't need to make as many), I was able to pull it off.  They're not quite as pretty as I would like, and I can't take credit for the lion, apple or duck, but I think they turned out super cute (and tasty too - yay leftovers!).

This week we celebrated the second anniversary of miss Jessie Robyn's arrival into the family.  My sister called me earlier in the week and let me know that Jessie is really into baby dolls right now, so that might be a good idea for a cake.  I, like many cake decorates, abhor the idea of cutting up and eating a cake shaped like a baby, so I decided to do something a little different.  I really like putting toys on top of cakes because then the child has something to play with, and also because then there is some remnants of my artwork that wasn't utterly destroyed within 24 hours of completion.  The cake itself is layered vanilla buttercream and vanilla cake, and all of the elements are edible (except for the baby, of course).