God willing, the end of October / beginning of November should be a busy cake time for me for the rest of my life.  My good friend Tara decided to pop out two beautiful girls right around her own birthday.  It wasn't planned that way, but it's just how it worked out.  This year, both girls wanted Disney Princess themed cakes - Ariel from the little mermaid and Tinkerbell from Peter Pan.

This cake was Vanilla sponge with blue vanilla buttercream.  I also made 24 cupcakes to go along with this cake, also with blue buttercream.

Tinkerbell's dress is made from chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream, covered in fondant leaves - and LOTS of gold/green edible glitter!  So pretty.

Not picture here is a Red Velvet and cream cheese cake for Tara's birthday.

Oh my gosh, when I arrived to deliver this cake for my long-time friend Larissa, I was in absolute awe of all of the work she had put in to transform her home into a Pirate's Paradise!  In addition to everything she had set up for the kids in the backyard, there was a Pirate Ship in her dining room!  The kids had a blast!  I think I might have Larissa plan my next birthday!

For my nephew's 12th birthday, he requested a "Terraria" cake.  If, like me, you are over the age of 15, you may ask "what the heck is Terraria?"  Well, it's a video game and luckily for me, I got to experience it first hand.  Many hours of Terraria were being played in my home while I was busy in the kitchen, so even though I didn't play much of it myself, I was familiar with the look of the game and some of the characters.

The giant eyeball below is made from crisp rice treats, covered in white chocolate and then decorated with royal icing.

I apologize for the poor quality photo.  I was trying to snap one while ten 12 year old boys all crowded around me to see the cake.  I have to say, I was very impressed with one young man who could not believe that I had made the cake, and complimented me heavily for it.  You don't see that kind of respect with many kids these days.  Good on his parents!

My oldest niece turned 14 this year (where did the time go?) and instead of a traditional party, she decided she wanted to take her friends out to see the new Star Wars movie.  She left the cake design up to me, and since I had already seen the film, I decided to make my favourite new character - BB-8.  Such a fun cake to make!!

This year, Tara decided to have a combined party for both of her girls, since their birthdays are so close together.  The theme this year was Princesses and both of the girls were dressed for the part!  In addition to the three tiered cake above, (yes, the pumpkin coach is 100% edible) I also made some strawberry shortcake cupcakes.  One of the other Princesses dove into those before I could get a picture, though.

My good friend Larissa requested a cake for her son's second birthday, which was a great excuse to get to see her.  Life gets busy, so we don't always have time to catch up, but cakes are a great excuse to stay in touch!  I was able to re-create, almost exactly, the picture she sent me.  Declan was thrilled as soon as he say Thomas on top of the cake!

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine asked me to lead a cupcake workshop for her Ranger troop (ages 15-17 girl guides) and it was a huge success, so she asked me to come again for a new group of girls.  I was thrilled to be able to say yes and I began working on the event right away.  I started by making kits for each of the girls including:

• A decorating kit with a piping bag and 8 different tips
  
• All types of Piping bags, parchment, plastic and re-useable
• A pallet knife
• A small spatula
• 2 gel colours
• An extra coupler
• Practice sheets in protective plastic

I also made each girl a set of 6 cupcakes (various flavours) and 4 giant tubs of icing to share between the group.  Add to that the 6 different styles of sprinkles plus the candy and chocolate hearts and I was ready to head off to the school to start the demo.

All of the girls were fantastic.  They were all very polite and seemed interested in the activity, for the most part (when they weren't playing Candy Crush).  Some girls took to the techniques faster than some of the other girls, but I think they all had fun.  At the end of the night, we had some gorgeous cupcakes for the girls to take home - and I learned a lot myself on how I can improve future workshops.

Hockey has always been a big thing in my brother's house; they're all fans.  In fact, the first night their first child came home, I held the poor girl for three hours while watching a game.  I'm not a big fan myself, but it was worth watching the game to get to hold the baby!

This year I discovered that my only nephew is a Vancouver Canucks fan (not a Leaf fan, like the rest of his family).  And this year he asked for a Canucks cake for his birthday.  I had orginally considered doing a giant puck with the logo on it, but I decided at the last minute that he might like a jersey with his name on it instead.

I think the best part of his party was when the boys were sitting around the table, enjoying their cake, and one of the boys said "Hey Jackson, remember your Club Penguin Cake?  I took one of the penguins home!".  That's when I realized that I'm helping make memories for these kids.  It melted my heart.

On January 2nd, 2002, Miss Jamie arrived and made me an Auntie - that was probably one of the happiest days of my life.  I remember going to see my sister-in-law and the baby in the hospital.  My poor sister was so whacked out on pain killers (due to the C-Section) that all I remember her mumbling was "Hey, 'Amy' is in 'Jamie'!" (referring to our rhyming names - I guess it hadn't occurred to her before then) before she passed out and I got to spend my first moments with my oldest Niece.  Since then, Jamie has grown into an amazing, caring, considering, intelligent and beautiful girl.  She never ceases to put a smile on my face, even when she was bossing me around and telling me where to sit, before she could even talk.  I love making all the cakes I get to create for my customers, but by far my most favourite are the cakes I get to make for my nieces and nephew.  This year, Jamie was going to have a spa party - so I thought of a fantastic cake idea, but at the last minute, Jamie decided to have an ice cream making party (which, by the way, turned out much better than I expected - we had actual ice cream, not just milk soup!).  After some debating and figuring, I finally decided to give the giant ice cream cone a go.  The cake turned out great!  But, to be honest, I learned a lot about physics and cake contraction with this one.... there were originally three balls of ice cream meant to be on the cake, but I had trouble balancing them.  Next time I think I could nail the three scoops!

I couldn’t be happier to be celebrating Miss Mila’s first birthday!  I have known her wonderful parents for many years and I know just how much they love and adore her.  I began working with Tara over a decade ago (now I feel old) and we became fast friends.  I watched her wade through looser after looser until she finally met Mike.  He was wonderful from day one, and I knew he was the right guy for Tara.  I was honoured and flattered when they asked me (a very inexperienced cake designer, at the time) to make their wedding cake.  It was a risk, but it paid off!  Since then, I’ve been overjoyed to share their special moments with them (especially since the food at their parties is so darn good)!  I look forward to many, many more.  And maybe, if I’m really lucky, I will get to make Mila’s wedding cake too!  But for now, it was a Dora themed first birthday.  Inside the fondant smash cake is vanilla cake with strawberries and freshly whipped sweet cream.  Along with the cake, I made some cupcakes and cute pink cookies (not pictured, sorry) as give-aways for the guests.