Sometimes, you never know when you're going to meet your next client!  I was hanging out outside of a friend's apartment, probably on my way out, and one of her neighbours walked up and joined us.  Of course, I was introduced as "the cake lady" and Willie jumped all over it!  She said she needed a cake for a baby shower for her daughter.  Honestly, I hear this quite a bit and sometimes that's all that comes of it.  But, not in this case!  Willie was true to her word and ordered a cake for the shower.  She had seen another baby belly cake that I had done on my site and wanted the exact same cake.  No sweat!  It was a pleasure to make and I think this one came out better than the last one.

When I was dropping the cake off, the soon-to-be-Uncle give me a giggle.  "That's an awesome looking cake!" he said, "Except that its strange to be eating what's meant to be my sister's boobs..."

Yup, dig in!

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 post is long overdue - and for those who read my blog regularly (Hi Mom!), I apologize.  Literally seconds before I had to carve this cake (the cake I have been most nervous about to date), I received a phone call with some devastating news about my Mother - She was diagnosed with early stage Cancer.

My gut reaction was to drop everything and go see her, but I had committed to this cake for a big 40th birthday, so I had to get it done.  I have never created this cake before, so every cut was a guess.  I'm always afraid that I am going to cut too much (its always easier to cut ore, but you cant put cake back once it's trimmed!) so that's why Vader look a little bloated. 

Luckily, my client LOVED the cake.  Phew!!  And, more good news a few short weeks later - My Mom had an operation and is now 100% cancer free!  Sometimes, things do work out for the best/

Sometime the challenge of a cake is the recipe, sometimes it’s the technical aspects of the decorating work and sometimes the challenge is the deadline.  This time, the challenge was all of the things.  Most of my cakes are one-of-a-kind creations, which means I need to sit down and puzzle out exactly how I am going to make it happen.  Once you do something once, it becomes much easier to do it a second time, but I didn’t have that luxury with the Slot Machine cake.  This one was a doozy to figure out – and I was short on time!  Once the basic construction was done, and I had the shape of the cake right, everything started to fall into place afterwards.  I “cheated” a little by using some edible images to decorate some of the aspects of the slot machine instead of making them by hand.  Personally for this cake, I think this was the right way to go.  I wanted the reel to look as authentic as possible.  Some people have asked why the Cherries are the winning symbol instead of the bars, but that answer is simple – that’s what the customer asked for!  Inside is carrot cake with cream cheese icing.

I also made some cookies as give-aways for my customer.

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!

A few weeks ago, while attending a shower for a friend of ours, Tara handed me her cell phone and told me her husband wanted to talk to me.  This was a bit odd as Mike and I have never chatted on the phone before, but I politely took the phone and hoped Tara didn't think we were having an affair.  Knowing that I was making the cake and cupcakes for his daughter's upcoming birthday, and knowing that his lovely wife's birthday was the day before the party, Mike asked if I would please make a birthday cake for Tara.  I felt like a heel for not thinking of it myself, and gladly agreed!  Mike said he just wanted something simple to recognize Tara's special day, but I had other plans.  Mike had just given Tara a Michael Kors purse a few weeks prior and she LOVED it.  I took that as my cue and created this little piece of edible art for one of my best friends.  Inside is chocolate cake with chocolate cream cheese icing.  YUM!

I think Mike was pretty happy wit the cake... He hugged me at least twice and thanked me a bunch of times and then left some darling comments on the pictures I posted.  I can't wait for next year!

Back in October, I was blessed with the opportunity to change jobs.  It was a scary prospect, but something was telling me to do it, and luckily it turned out to be an amazing decision.  Part of the reason I’m so happy with my day job is the people I work with.  It’s a small family run business and everyone here is very much like family, even with the practical jokes and teasing.

The youngest member of my new family is a cute, smart and talented girl named Samantha – who also happens to be the daughter of one of the other employees.  Samantha is big into Cosplay (she makes her own costumes!) with her favourite show being Stargate.  It’s really nice to have someone at work that I can geek out with!

As soon as her Father saw some of my cake work, he requested a Stargate cake for Samantha’s birthday – months in advance.  I was quite nervous about the project because I knew what a great eye for detail Samantha has, and I know how accurate she and particular she is with her costumes.  This Cake Had To Be Right!

After much crispy rice treats, fondant and airbrushing, I think the cake turned out very well.  My biggest regret is not being able to see Sammy’s face when her Dad brought it home to her – since she’s on her summer hours now and doesn’t come in every day.

It's not always about the cakes...sometimes it's about other things.  Yummy things.  Things like cookies and care packages.  Once a year, my family gets together for "Christmas in May".  My Dad, two brothers, sister-in-law and Auntie all have birthdays within a month of each other.  This makes it really easy on me to bake up a storm for them - and one of the things I love sending in a care package to my Auntie is cookies.  This year I decided to include some peanut butter cookies - topped with a caramelized peanut (a little trick I learned in the half-a-second I worked in a 4 star restaurant).  I also decided to include some cakes in a jar.  It's the only safe way I've found so far to ship cake.  Let me know if you want one!