Gumpaste Roses

I've been working on these flowers for weeks learning as I went. I have never taken any classes so I've been scouring youtube for videos to make the steps easier but it is still very time consuming. Whenever I have an extra hour or so I would sit at my dinner table and roll, cut, roll, cut. There are 20+ petals in each flower...individually cut circles, ruffled edges and formed to open. Each flower takes the combined time of probably one half hour each not including the drying between each layer of petals. Yesterday I did my final touches by petal dusting them with pinks and yellows. I have very high respect for cake artists that can create so many different flowers that are beautiful..one day I'll get there!!!

Grandma's Cake...

This was a cake I did for my dear 86 year old Grandma's birthday! Every year the whole family gets together to celebrate this wonderful person. She's a fantastic woman and I only hope to be as graceful as her one day. xoxo

The Cake of Patience

There's a point where you just have to walk away when everything is going wrong...This was the cake from hell (I say it jokingly right now but not that week!). It was already a busy week for all of us but this was a family wedding shower so it was important for me to make this cake extra special! I absolutely wanted it to be pink velvet to match the pink in the shower theme...It looked pink in the mixing bowl but when it baked it turned teddy bear brown!! Ahh! When I came to roll out the fondant, it wasn't as easy as it usually is and I realized with horror that I had missed an important ingredient...water!! Too late at that point to add it in I just had to use more muscle to roll it out and it wasn't as smooth as I wanted. I had been struggling with the design since the beginning since I had free range to do whatever I wanted..I had made tons of little black and pink flowers and put them around the middle tier which at that point my husband informed me that the cake was leaning..YiKeS! I had to unstack the cake to fix the one dowel that was causing the problem when I dropped the second tier and luckily caught it before it hit one of our kitchen chairs! I put everything back together, slapped the flowers on the second tier and put it in the fridge but I had that feeling of "you can do better, Nia". I kept looking in the fridge and slamming the door shut in disgust..I was told to leave it alone and go to bed because I was about to go mad!! The next day on my to work the cake was haunting me...there was no way I was bringing it like that to the shower that night the way it was right now!! I left work at 11 only to go home and undo the whole design and start fresh with an extra bow and way better flowers. I felt so much better bringing the cake after revamping it...I'm still sighing with relief!

24 years ago today...

Nope I didn't make my own birthday cake..lol...my chef friend Lise made this one! Deliciously deep in chocolate! Thanks to my friends and family for spoiling me beyond belief...I've gotten some major upgrading in my cake tools thanks to them!! I'm excited to use everything!! xoxo, Nia

Happy Mother's Day...

It's that weekend of celebrating your momma and all the little things she does for you...Crazy weekend since it's sandwiched between my mother in law's birthday and mine...yikes! Tha above is actually an Easter cake I did for a client but it would've been perfect for this holiday too...Although next time I definitely will make my bow with gumpaste rather than fondant as the heat was making it droopy...Happy Momma's Day!!

The niece and nephew...

Ok so I know there's a lot of posts today but only because I'm trying to catch up to make room for the new cakes coming up this month! This was a birthday cake for my twin niece and nephew! Their momma had a hard time thinking of something that would suit both a boy and a girl...she liked a vintage Pooh cake but without the Pooh and loved the honeybees...and Voila this cake came about! Yummy white chocolate pound cake and raspberry buttercream too!!

Parisien Macarons....

OMG.....soooo good. I test ran this recipe last night for my super supportive boss who loooves the parisien style macarons. These are chocolate hazelnut and boy are they delicious!! Can't wait for her to taste them!

New to this....

Welcome to my new blog...I never thought I would be one to do this but it's a little insight to my passion and my life...Making cakes is definitely an adventure! I wanted to show the progression of learning new tricks and hurdles you overcome all add to the experience. Here's the first fondant cake I did with my sister in law last year for a sweet sixteen Tiffany themed party! As hectic as it was that week it sparked an imagination and dream of one day being able to do this as a career rather than a hobby...Thanks to my sister in law!!