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.

I had a big wedding coming up... I mean a *BIG* wedding, but more on that later.  I usually book the week before a wedding off from other projects so that I can get all my planning, shopping and organizing done.  However, when I saw an email from my bride asking me to make the cake & cupcakes for her bridal shower/traditional Greek bedding ceremony, I couldn't say no!  She said that everyone enjoyed the engagement cake I made for them so much, that she would really love for me to make the cake for her bridal shower.  She sent me a picture of a yellow cake with colourful flowers (below) and asked for cupcakes to go with it.

Here's my version, with the pretty cupcakes to go with it.  The cake is vanilla with a raspberry buttercream filling and the cupcakes are devil's food chocolate with French vanilla buttercream.  And for anyone else who was wondering...

"The Wednesday before the wedding is the day the bride invites her relatives to get the dowry ready. For those of you who do not know about dowries, basically they are made up of the linen for the new couple’s home, which the bride’s mother has collected over the years, while waiting for her daughter to marry. The bride’s sisters, friends and cousins separate the linen and tie it up in small parcels with colourful ribbons and again people arrive to gaze upon the beautiful bedding, the handmade tablecloths, the colourful towels, the expensive carpets that are all set up in one room for all to see."

This summer I had the extreme honour of making the wedding cupcakes for my friends Genevieve and Andrew.  We had a tasting at their house a few months ago, and after some amazing home-made pizza and wine, they dove into the test cupcakes.  Once all the dust settled, the couple agree on 120 vanilla cupcakes, topped with Lime, Chocolate and my my favourite, French Vanilla Mocha, buttercreams.  They loved the Fr. Van. Mocha just as much as I did, and decided to have that for their topper cake.  The cake is topped with hand made,and hand painted gum paste roses.  The trickiest part of this adventure, was then transporting all these many cupcakes and cakes up to the gorgeous venue in Penetanguishene.  Thank goodness the AC in my car still works!  It was a beautiful (but HOT!) wedding, and I was very happy to be a part of it.  Congrats Gen & Andrew!

This June, I had the extreme pleasure of making the cupcakes for Rupi and Gurveen's wedding.  I first met Rupi when she was a summer student in the office I was spending my days in.  I saw early on that she was bright, eager and hard-working - all qualities I respected, and we became friends.  I was very excited when she announced her engagement and asked to meet for a consultation.  At the end of the consultation, Rupi and Gurveen were ready to book me, but I encouraged them to go out and meet with other bakers.  After all, this was a once in a life time opportunity for free cake, and I wanted them to explore their options.  I was very satisfying when they came back to me with stories of high prices and dried out cupcakes.  We made the arrangements and the happy couple ordered 300 cupcakes, a topper cake, plus an anniversary cake for the bride's parents,who's anniversary was the day following the wedding (but the couple wanted to acknowledge and celebrate at midnight - what a great idea!).

Cupcake buttercream flavours included: Lime, Mango, Vanilla (tinted pruple) and Raspberry.

The wedding cake process always starts with the funnest part, in my opinion, the tasting!  I made some cupcakes for a friend's tasting a few weeks ago, and as expected, they loved them all!  From left to right I made vanilla cupcakes with Lime, Lemon, Raspberry, French vanilla Mocha, regular Vanilla and Chocolate buttercreams.  The new French Vanilla Mocha was a huge his, as was the lime.  My friends treated me to home made pizza and yummy salad before the cupcakes were devoured!  Can't wait for the wedding!!

This week I got a last minute request for some cupcakes and peanut butter poppers from a good friend of mine.  It was her daughter's birthday and she just wanted something pretty and simple.  Since the party didn't really have a theme or anything, I decided to go with butterflies - they're so pretty!  Luckily I had a cancellation this week, so I was able to accommodate my friend.  The poppers were for her husband, who LOVES them (who doesn't?).

My oven was kept busy with a bunch of projects that just kind of sprang up - which was good because I had a last minute ccancellation  Last week it was the birthday of one of the original supporters of OFGB.  This peanut butter poppper eenthusiasthas been a fan of my work for many years and always supported my eeffortsin many ways.  I wanted to come up with something that was completely over the top for him.  The bottom layer is rich devil's food chocolate cake, then a layer of my secrete peanut butter popper filling following by a rich and creamy cheesecake layer and topped with a ggorgeouschocolate ganash.

I was also asked to make some mini cupcakes for my client to pass out at the office.  There are 8 dozen of the little beauties and I would bet that every little one of them disappeared. Too good not to eat them like pop corn!

And if that wasn't enough, I also made some cranberry and plain tea biscuit for my weekly team meeting at work.

I had hoped I would have time for a super fun Halloween side project this week, but I was super busy with regular orders.  I was finally able to fill Andrea's blanket order request of the world's best Banana Bread (in loaf form this time) and dozens of whole wheat-oatmeal-raisin-toasted pecan-chocolate chip cookies - twice as yummy with fractionally less guilt!  Also on my plate were some Halloween cake balls and some Bat & Ghost shaped cookies, which I iced lightly.  I figured there would be enough sugar going around this weekend as it was.  I decided to put together some baskets with the extras and some colouring books and holders full of crayons, markers and pencil crayons and sugar-free gum!  I tried...

I also decided it would be fun to pass out some treats for the adults walking around with the trick or treaters this year.  I made some mini vanilla cupcakes with French Vanilla icing (in the white cups) and Baileys icing in the red.  It was pretty darn cold out, and I wasn't getting many takers (it was almost like they didn't want to take a treat from a stranger - odd) so I decided to bag the idea and keep my hands warm.  The lucky people at work got the left overs on Monday.