It's my party and I'll cry if I want to...

Some of our really good friends had a little boy 6 months after we had Riley. They are going to be best friends when they grow up, that's our plan lol. Bob and Tiff are so good to us and our family, when I heard they were throwing a party, I wanted to be the one who made that cake! The theme was dinosaurs, and I was only in charge of making Ben his own mini cake. It was so fun to do. Smaller cakes are hard to do a lot of detail on, so I cheated and bought tiny dinosaurs (don't tell).

The flavor was chocolate cake/chocolate fudge frosting , and vanilla buttercream for the decorating. The best part was, Ben has never had any type of sugar before. NEVER. And let me tell you.. he was having a ball! He mushed it in his hands, rubbed it in his face, up his nose. It was probably the best and biggest mess I have ever seen a 1 year old make.

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY BEN! We had so much fun celebrating with you :)

Baby Showers GALORE

I had SO many things going on this weekend. Including two baby showers. One for my sister, who is having a girl, and one for my sister-in-law who is having a boy. Obviously, the themes for each were very different.

For my sisters we had the cutest 'Pea Pod' theme. Everything was green and pink. We invited her friends from all over Utah, and had the greatest time. Along with some really yummy food, I was in charge of making cupcakes for the party. Naturally, they were pink and green :)

Pretty cute, huh? Cupcakes are NOT the same as baking a cake. I have 2 great receipes for cakes made from scratch, and neither one turned out as a cupcake. So I had to use the good ol' fall back box mixes. They turned out yummy anyways! I made chocolate, vanilla, and lemon poppy seed. De-lish!

The second shower was kind of crazy. I ended up running late because of last minute stops we weren't planning on making, which put us back forever! But once I got there, It turned out to be an open house, and lots of people were still coming and going.

Megans colors for her babys room are red, green, orange, and blue. SUPER cute, so I tried to use that as my guide. I forgot to take pictures at the party, so I used some left over cupcakes and did it the next day before throwing them away :) I also made vanilla, chocolate, and lemon poppy seed, but only because lemon poppy seed was the flavor they used at their wedding AWWWWWWW.. I'm so romantic hahaha. She also had this FUN game. Meg and my brother pick a unique name, and didn't want to tell everyone right away, but at the shower, she had some scrabble letters, and let everyone try to figure out his name! It was so fun, and I suck at spelling (which you know, because you read my blog lol) so I had to have some help. I can't say what it is, because I don't know who doesn't know still, but trust me, it's really cute, and fits with the Farwell name perfect.

This week wasn't only crazy because of the showers, I have been a busy baking bee! Stay tuned.

Cake Release

One thing I learned while taking the Wilton Cake Decorating class Course 1, was that the key to a smooth cake, was no crumbs. And having no crumbs, starts at the very beginning of your process. Preparing your pan. Just think about it. If you have a hard time getting your cake out, and it tears a bit, you have loose cake crumbs all over. And when you are frosting, they are bound to come to the surface. I always had problems with  crumbs, until I learned about this fabulous product from Wilton, called 'Cake Release'. It's like magic! All you do is use a pastry or silicon brush, squirt it into your cake pan, and spread it around. No need for flouring, which eliminates a step. For me, that is huge. Time is valuable. After your cake is baked, it will literally fall out of the pan. Like I said, M-A-G-I-C!

Now, there have been times where I'm in the middle of baking 3 or 4 cakes for a customer, and I run out of my niffty little friend, and I have to resort to shortening/flour. Which I had no choice resorting to until I made a trip to my local Hobby Lobby store. But recently, I have found a new solution, and I am real excited about it. I haven't tried it yet, but it got 9 1/2 stars out of 10 in reviews. They said it didn't leave the cake all dry and pastey from the flour, and it wasn't too moist from the shortening. The best part is, it's things that most bakers have around the house! So if I don't have my #1 choice, at least I'll have a close second. And it can be stored! Let me know if you try it, and how it works out for you.

Ingredients


2 c. flour
1 c. vegetable shortening
1 c. vegetable oil

Instructions

In a medium bowl, mix 1 c. flour with 1/2 c. vegetable shortening on medium low speed on mixer until well blended. Add remaining flour and shortening and continue mixing until blended well. Slowly drizzle in vegetable oil and blend until homogenous mixture is obtained.

1.Brush liberally on edges and sides of cake pan using pastry brush or silicon basting brush.
2.May be stored in refrigerator for up to 6 months.

R ya redy fer the NASCAR Chet?

`Being from Seattle, NASCAR was not the norm around our house. But since I have moved to Utah, I have met more and more fans, and actually, the stereotypes are so funny. This cake was for my SIL, and if you have met her, she is good at EVERYTHING. Her whole family is. So you can imagine my anxiety when she asked me to make a NASCAR cake for her fathers 60th birthday. This cake weighed heavy on my mind for the 2 months before it was due. Needless to say, I researched NASCAR a lot. Gregs favorite driver is Carl Edward... any NASCAR fans out there?? He is the one who bump a car on purpose and caused a huge wreck, and I guess he was suspended. hahahahaha. I had already started the car when Lindsy's mom wanted to change it because of this whole scandal. Good thing Greg really likes this driver lol. The flavor was Chocolatey-chocolate cake, ganache filling, and chocolate fudge frosting.

I guess Lindsys dad was impressed I knew the sponsor was Aflac.. (thanks BING search). Hope this was everything they wanted and more!

Catching up on all my favorites!

This was my first REAL cake. I was taking a fondant class, and had to make this for Riley's first birthday party, before I even had the class that taught me how to do anything. I remember thinking how good it was, but now I look back... and even though it's good, I sure wish I had been through that class first. haha

This is the cake that I made at the end of my fondant class. If I remember right, it was lemon poppy seed, SO good.

This was for the Tadd Family Christmas party. It was actually after Christmas, so I made it more 'winter'.

Happy 30th Birthday Emmerson! He coaches basketball, and LOVES the Utes.

This one was for my good friend Jenn's niece. I was lucky to find such a perfect Tinkerbell topper.

My co-worker Mandi LOVES stars, Happy 19th Mandi :)

And Mandi also has a twin sister, Megan, who loves peace signs. It was kind of last minute, so it wasn't perfect due to the wrong size tip. I was still learning at this point. 

This was for a friend of a friend. Pretty much, my first client who I didn't know. It was also my first time working with edible images. Thank you Walmart for being WAY cooler then Target.

The day after I got the call about the HSM cake, I got a call from a good, good friend who needed a cake for her sons birthday as well. Both to be delivered on the same day. This one made me nervous because doing characters is really hard, since they are so recognizable. I have to admit, I was shocked myself when I pulled this off.

I was DYING to do a princess cake. I only have a little boy, so this isn't something I get to do everyday. This was also the first cake I carved into a shape. Harder then it looks, let me tell you! But thanks to gum paste, it turned out good, well, after the first slipper shattered like glass, true story.

At Ruby River, we go through a lot of managers, since we are a training store. One of our last managers went to the Downtown store, and as a last minute celebration, I pulled this one together. We used to put peppers on our steaks, and as a back of house secret, we use steak markers to show what temperature steaks are cooked at. Pink means medium rare. Yumm..

PHEW! Done. Looking back, I can't believe I pulled most of these off lol I really hope that after I start teaching, I'll master more of the basic skills. Let me know if you have any questions, I would love to answer them.

Introduction

So I decided it was time to create this extra blog, so that I'm not constantly filling my family blog with the cakes that I'm making.

In the near future, I'll be posting sizes, and prices, so if you are in Utah, you will have the best idea what I can do to make your special day, well, more special!

The next few post might get a little monotonous, because I will be uploading the last few cakes I have done, starting with the first, and ending in the most recent. So please bear with me :)

Thanks for looking, I hope you like what you see!