Elyjah Baby Announcement

I became an aunt in May and offered to do the baby announcements for my new nephew. I absolutely love to design these types of things so it was my pleasure. These are my first baby announcements though but i think they turned out pretty cute!

Our First Job.... A Baby Shower!

Hope and I did our first baby shower baking today. We made two dozen chocolate chip cupcakes and two dozen white chocolate cupcakes all with blue, green, and yellow pastel baby items on top. We are so happy with them, they came out SO cute!

Intermediate Class.... Mission Accomplished!

Today was our last day in the intermediate decorating class. This class was only three classes long because the teacher couldn't do the fourth class so we came early on a few days. Hope was on a teaching conference in Boston (jealous) for the week to come back today so i baked and dirty iced both of our cakes and this was the best cake i have ever made!! It was oh sweet and moist.... YUM! We learned basketweaving today and covered our cakes in it. We had to put the flowers we made on our cakes along with the dreaded birds but i'm still proud nonetheless. We also learned the rope technique which was pretty easy and i loved it. Unfortunately these classes don't give us a lot of room for creativity because we follow along through the book to create the cakes using what we have learned. I absolutely CANNOT wait for the advanced decorating class so we can touch on fondant and i am further taking the fondant and gumpaste class. I may just fall over from excitement, but i must wait for those until September. I am so glad i started doing this!

Friends, Food, and Fun

We had a get together at our house last night and had a bunch of friends over. We barbecued hot dogs and hamburgers and we had chips and dip and some monogrammed cupcakes. I also made a taco dip and deviled eggs. I have never made deviled eggs, but they were so good, that was the first thing to go! The vanilla cupcakes are filled with a vanilla cream cheese filling and topped with buttercream and the chocolate chip ones are filled with mousse and topped with chocolate buttercream. I hand drew the monograms with chocolate and topped them with sugar crystals.

Flower Garden

Yesterday we made daisies, violets, pansies, daffodils, and apple blossoms. It was so much fun! The daffodil to the right looks funny because we made it out of the wrong colors because half of our class didn't show up for some reason. We also made color flow birds. My bottom one got a little crushed while i was packing it up. We will finish these by adding the beaks next week too. The best thing about these is that they last forever. I can make a ton ahead of time and use them for a project next month if i want. This is getting easier and easier, i guess i'm getting the hang of it!

Candy Making

Yesterday was chocolate making class and it was so fun! We made peanut butter cups, cordial cherries, turtles, chocolate rice crunch, and yummy tiger butter. We had a ton of candy all over our tables and we came home with a box full. I of course brought it to work and only ate one piece, the tiger butter. I made the chocolate rice crunch and Hope made the turtles. Yum! The cutest part was this little mouse that we made. Justin posed him by the cheese for extra affect! Is it just me or does his butt look huge!?!? :-) You can't see real good but his ears are slivers of almond. Too cute...

Practice Run

In an effort to prepare for our get together next weekend at our house, i decided to make a practice run of the chocolate and white cupcakes i wanted to serve. The chocolate cupcakes have chocolate mousse filling and chocolate buttercream icing and the white cupcakes are amaretto cake cupcakes with bavarian cream filling and buttercream icing. They were so good but oh so very rich. The mouse came out SO good. That's the first time i made any kind of mousse.

I made way too much for a tasting but i forgot i was making half a batch and put the full batch of eggs so i had to double everything else i had already done! Oh well. The more the merrier, right? The people at work will love me... I ended up making about 40 cupcakes. Yum! Here are the cupcakes with the filling showing placed on my magnificant appetizer plates.

Intermediate, Schmitermediate

Last night was the first class of the intermediate cake decorating class and it was fabulous! We touched back on shells but learned rosettes, reverse shells, rosebuds, and made chrysanthemums. I can't wait to make all the beautiful flowers. The only thing about the class was that there were numerous people that had not taken the first set of classes so instead of moving right along, our teacher had to reteach many things. Why would you not take the beginner's class before taking the intermediate class? Anyway, i finally got the buttercream thing down! This class will only be three classes because our teacher has to go out of town for a teaching conference but it looks like it is going to be a busy three weeks! On a separate note, i got my ice cream maker attachment for my kitchenaid mixer! I was so surprised when it came in as a wedding present. Nothing better than free gifts, right? I can't wait to make the ice cream!

Recipes

If anyone has any yummy baking recipes they would be willing to share, please do. If you would like, email to shannonlharvey at aol dot com. I am especially interested in moist cake, filling, and buttercream frosting/icing recipes so that i can expand my recipe box of options to choose from. I would share mine but i don't have any yet! Also, what is your secret to a moist cake? I have seen a ton of add-ins discussed online. I know i will come across a tried and true recipe i like but i am being very experimental right now!

The Red, White, and Blue

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend, i know i did. I just got back from a weekend at the beach and wanted to post Thursday's cake for you. It was our last class of our beginner's class. We even got a certificate!!! So cute..

Hope and I of course made our cakes festive so we could enjoy them along with all the great food we ate. I left my cake at work for them to enjoy and we brought Hope's to Florida. We decided to make some stars on top of our cakes and insert a few scattered jumbo start sprinkles i bought a little while back. We also sprinkled the top with red, white, and blue non-pareils. The cake was red velvet. We didn't have enough food coloring so we used half of what the recipe called for. The cakes were okay but there is another recipe i want to try for a better outcome. The icing started to melt off the sides but it was delicious!

My Cake

Hope's Cake

The Inside

One down, a bunch to go!

I also decided to make some cheesecake balls to bring to work for Monday. They were so good and fun to make!

Graphic Love

I love personalized stationery especially address labels. Here are some that i made for myself. Can you tell i like pink? I love to personalize things and i love monograms. I also love graphic design. I have learned a lot over the years but still have no formal training, only self teaching. I will eventually go to get my graphic design degree because i am fascinated with all the capabilities these programs have. I am really excited to do that but i must master baking first! Once i do that, I'll move onto custom invites, stationery, and maybe even monogramming. I am so lucky to be able to do the things i want when i want with the support of my wonderful husband and our jobs to fund it!