Baby Boy Bonbons

I've mentioned to you this mini baby-boom my friends are all experiencing. Within the span of about two months, six of my friends will have off-sprung! This particular assortment of cakes was for a colleague of mine from my last job who is expecting her second little one, a little boy named Logan, whom she will be welcoming into their family any day now!! There were two occasions that called for baked goods, one was her last day at work for which I made the cake and pops, then I attended her baby shower to which I brought the mini-cupcakes. The theme of her shower was actually a "Baby Sprinkle," thus making the decorations on the cupcakes all the more important!

When ever I think of babies, one image I always think of is illustrations in the Nursery Rhymes. Soft animals in celestial settings, playing and frolicking, pure innocence on a page. Therefore when I was designing this cake, I couldn't help but make it slightly nursery rhyme-themed with the jumping sheep, the sun and the moon and the soft grass. 

One special request I got was to cover the cake in marzipan instead of fondant, so that is indeed blue-tinted marzipan surrounding the blue velvet cake inside.

I loved making the fences, I wanted them to look realistic enough to pass as wood so I went so far as to make notches in the planks. 

These little guys were fun to make also, and were different enough from the little baby girl pops I made for another friend's shower. So simple, yet so visually effective.

The pitter patter....

 Finally, the mini cupcakes I made for the "Baby Sprinkle". Lemon cupcakes, topped with blue-tinted cream cheese icing and multi-coloured sprinkles.

(I've discovered that my fridge casts a a beautiful light....who'd a thunk?)

A Rainbow for Serena

A while back, you may remember a group of Unicorns I made as part of an auction lot I donated to our Church's talent auction this past Summer. This group of colourful pops is the second half to the lot. As I was made to understand these were going to be put into the freezer, and taken out by the young lady who won the auction lot and eaten whenever she fancied a pop. I think that's a very rational things to do, just when you need a little something sweet.

Working with the request "just make them colourful!" I went ahead and made a two-toned design with contrasting sugar colours. Important to keep track of the colours, otherwise I was easily confused... all worked out in the end, and I do believe they can be described as "colourful".

Flowers for England

My Mum made her annual trip to England this Fall, and in her carry-on luggage was a box full of these little truffles. Mum knew there were already several engagements made and she wanted to have something to bring with her as a thank-you. I was happy to provide some truffles for Mum to bring. Originally I was going to send her with some boxes of truffles but in the end the truffles were too big for the boxes so Mum made up bags of truffles whenever she went to someone's house, that worked perfectly.

I had several emails from people that Mum had just gone to see, thanking me for the sweet treats. I even got a photo of the cakes in mid-consumption! (I think they liked them)

Fall Fair at St. John the Baptist Church

For the second year in a row I packed a box of pops to bring to the St. John the Baptist church in Pointe-Claire. It was nice seeing familiar faces again, the garlic farmers and the bees was Ladies. Plus all the people who came to my table and asked for something specifically because they had it last year and loved it! That is particularly gratifying because having a good reputation is the most powerful thing.

I brought a selection of Autumnally decorated pops with those fabulous leaf sprinkles, and I added some new sprinkles too. I practically squealed when I saw the "skull and cross bone" sprinkles, how cool are they? I also brought along a sweet flock of turkeys all set for Thanksgiving weekend. As well as the pops I brought my "Gourmet Boxes" with different flavours. Back by popular demand I had my lemon, red velvet, and mint-chocolate boxes, and also the apple pie cake and pumpkin pie cake boxes, this time with a little twist.

I even had the added bonus of my Mum keeping me company, and without her I wouldn't be making these pops!

My table this year had the addition of my new banner!

 The Autumnal pops, with the skull and cross bones sprinkles on the white pops in the front (so fabulous!)

I'm still in love with these leave sprinkles. They work with any autumn coloured chocolate and still look stunning.

 The Pie-Truffle boxes with a twist! I made both the apple and pumpkin pie truffles look like mini pies, with a crust and everything, so sweet! 

One Year Later...

Our church is very much a community where we celebrate the little events as well as the bigger land marks in people's lives. The most recent event we celebrated was marking Kisha, our Youth Worker's first wedding anniversary, and naturally we expressed our happiness with cake. Kisha and I discussed what she wanted for her pops, and the only real directives I got were: the colour pink, and red velvet cake, the rest was up to me. Somehow, through cake,chocolate, and confections I had to reflect her warm personality and our joy for her and her husband getting successfully through one year of wedded bliss.

The first anniversary is traditionally marked with paper as a clean and new sheet, but personally I think Kisha made a good choice... cake tastes better!

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

It would seem as thought there is a mini baby-boom occurring in Patrick's and my social circle (of which I'm not taking part!!). Among some of them are our friends who were married a couple of years ago who are expecting a girl, one of my high school friends is expecting a boy, my cousin is expecting a boy, and my Mum's neighbour's son and daughter-in-law are expecting a little girl. The last baby was the reason for this week's order, hence the distinctive tint of pink to both the cake pops and the cupcakes.

I saw the little feet design in a book a couple years ago and thought they were adorable and much less creepy than that "belly-cake" that people often have at their baby showers, which are essentially a pregnant belly made out of cake that always have a large pair of breasts on it, and inevitably there are two little feet pushing out of the belly... in theory, they seem sweet but you have to go far enough in the thought process to imagine eating this belly cake. Nonetheless, I preferred these pops and cupcakes leaps and bounds over the "belly-cake" idea. The little baby faces will fit perfectly at the party, and the cupcakes will definitely add to the pink décor!

 *****

Apart from the oh-so-pink order for my Mum's neighbours, I made cupcakes for our friends, whom I mentioned earlier, who are also expecting a little girl in mid-December. These friends are particularly fond of chocolate so chocolate cupcakes it was, with a little bit of pinkness added in for good measure. Plus, I got to use my new tiered dessert plates that my Mum gave me!

Alessandra has Graduated!

Any occasion worth celebrated always deserves a cake! The latest occasion was the graduation of my cousin-in-law who recently graduated from Concordia University with a teaching degree, and now has plans to go on and do a special certificate in order to teach English as a second language. This in itself is a wonderful achievement as there are only a few people accepted into the programme. This girl is going places and she was very deserving of a big party to celebrate this notch, and so with copious amounts of food and a nice big cake we honoured her and her brain!

Congrats Alessandra, you're awesome!!  

The pieces to go on top of the cake.

A big red sugar rose for Alessandra.

A chocolate seal for the scroll... my own little addition, stamped with the seal from my Grand Dad's tannery.

I hand-painted the scroll, I wanted to include her graduation year...

... and at the other end of the scroll, I painted Concordia's motto.

All topped off with a grad cap!

Alessandra's favourite colour is green, so naturally the cake had to be green!

 All put together!

With a little help from Justin, Alessandra cut the cake. Hope you enjoyed!!