Guitar Cake

Here's another Creme de la Creme cake that Ashley decorated. She sent me these pictures with the comment, "Here's the latest cake that I did at work recently :-) This was one of my first BIG projects that I worked on by myself."


I may be her mom, but I think it turned out really well. It looks pretty real and from the pictures she sent, I'd have to say, "If I didn't know it was a cake..." If you click on the individual pictures, you can see all the detail that went into this cake.

I'm not sure about the flavor of this cake, but I do know it's buttercream icing with fondant & gum paste details.

Basketball & Wedding Cakes

First let me say, "We love making cakes! We love decorating cakes. And delivering cakes isn't so bad either when you get to participate!" We had another busy weekend. We made another sports-related cake...this time a 'basketball' cake for the boys who live next door to me. They both have birthdays on the 20th of the month, they are both on basketball teams and we needed to make a cake for our latest cake decorating class, so...it was a win/win situation. They totally loved the cake that we delivered to them and I had a picture of it but was unable to retrieve it at the time of this post. This particular cake is a 1/2 chocolate and 1/2 vanilla flavored cake with BC icing and fondant decorations.
We also delivered and set-up another cake for Creme de la Creme Bakery (http://www.cremedelacremecatering.com/). It was a beautiful 3-tiered wedding cake that we delivered to Sky Creek Ranch Golf Course (http://www.skycreekranch.com/) in Keller. The last cake we delivered, I mostly just stood around and observed, but today, Ashley let me help. As a matter of fact, she gave me the job of adding the hydrangeas to the cake because she said I was better than her at that type of detailing. I'm not so sure about that, but I was happy to do it anyway and we were both pleased with the results. What do you think?

PB Cupcakes & A Princess Cake

Ashley did 2 projects on her own, for Treasured Cakes, while she was off work for the week. The first was cupcakes and are the result of a recipe she came up with using peanut butter cups in the middle and peanut butter buttercream frosting on top of chocolate cupcakes…and 'just for fun' she added a piece of a peanut butter cup on top. VERY rich and VERY good were the apparent responses from her softball team which she'd made these for.
The other Treasured Cakes project she worked on was a Pink Princess cake for a 1st b'day party. She was given a picture of what the customer wanted and was able to recreate it as a smaller cake. When presented to the b'day girl, the cake will have a princess tiara placed on top and a pink boa around the bottom of the cake. Ashley said she had a few challenges with this cake just as we always seem to do (fortunately we always manage to overcome those challenges and issues). She says she loved adding the edible pearls and some fondant details to this cake and personally, I think the bow was the perfect finishing touch.

Baseball Glove Cake

This cake was the result of a request for a cake for an end of the season baseball party from a good friend of ours. The only real prerequisites were that the cake feed a whole lot of hungry young men and their families. We thought this one would fit the bill. It's a white 1/2 sheet cake topped with a chocolate baseball glove shaped cake that is probably about the size of a 10"-12" round cake. The icing is a chocolate butter cream that tasted totally decadent...like fudge but was the hardest thing to work with that we've found to date. I found the recipe online and as good as the reviews were, it was really hard to work with. It didn't smooth well, but it did pipe and decorate well and as I've said already it was absolutely delicious. It's a miracle that Ashley & I did so well at WW's weigh-in the next morning, because I think we did more than the usual 'tastings' due to the fact that it was so incredibly yummy. We delivered it on Saturday morning and hopefully it was a hit at the party.

Another Baby Shower Cake - Winnie & Eeyore

This was a very cool cake - our customer sent us a scan of the napkin she was using for the baby shower she was giving and I think we hit it dead on! This cake was a 2-tiered hexagon shaped cake (one of our favorite cake shapes thus far) with buttercream icing throughout (8" & 10" layers). We replicated everything all the way down to the butterflies and the caterpillars and in almost exactly the same colors as the napkin. It took a lot of time but was totally worth the effort! We loved it and so did our customer.

A Busy Weekend for Cakes!

We're working on 2 cakes this weekend. The 1st is a cake for a 50th b'day. The request was pretty generic - white cake/choc icing that will serve approx 50 and not to much more direction and/or requests than that. We opted to do a 2-layer, 1/2 sheet cake carved in the shape of coffin as you can tell.

The 2nd cake we made was for a baby shower. Our client sent a picture with pretty detailed instrux regarding colors, etc. She wanted a marble cake with buttercream icing using 'boy' colors and a ducky on top. The little boy baby's name is to be Edon so rather than use the ABCD letters that were on the example cake, we opted to use the letters of the baby's name.

In addition to making these 2 cakes, Ashley and I delivered & setup a very simple, but absolutely beautiful wedding cake for the bakery she works for (http://www.cremedelacremecatering.com/). This was my first 3-tiered cake delivery ever. My truck was the perfect vehicle to deliver this cake in as it's back seat is designed in a way as to give plenty of room but it was a little nerve-wracking to take an already stacked cake for that long of a ride...okay, it wouldn't have mattered how long the ride was, it would still have been nerve-wracking. Anyway, we got the cake there in perfect shape, did the set-up work to it that needed to be done, took a couple of pictures and then scooted out of there with nary a problem.

Fondant/Gum Paste class #4

Still taking classes and this one was a good one. This one was Wilton's Gum Paste and Fondant Class. A lot of the stuff this class covered, we'd already discovered and/or learned on our own, but it was a good class never-the-less. Everyone's final cake from this class turned out to be beautiful works of art as you can tell. I thought that everybody's cake turned out looking like really pretty Easter bonnets, but that's just me.

Thank you Belinda - again we learned a lot from you and look forward to learning more and the opportunity to share even more tips and ideas in the future. You are a great teacher and this was, once again, a great class. The white cake with the pink and purple daisies is Ashley's final cake, the pink and coffee colored one with daisies is my final cake, the yellow and white cake is Sonia's and the pink and white cake is Veronica's. And, once again, we had fun and made some new friends. Good job by all!

Not a TC cake, but gonna brag anyway!

Ashley sent these pictures today after spending the day delivering and setting up a cake designed to look like Kyle Field http://football.ballparks.com/NCAA/Big12/TexasA&M/index.htm at Texas A&M University. Ashley and her co-worker, Amber, spent weeks designing it and working on it. This cake was a groom's cake for a wedding reception held at the Fort Worth Club http://www.fortworthclub.com/. As you can tell it is quite huge so it took several trips from the bakery http://www.cremedelacremecatering.com/ and lots of coordination and work to get it completed in time for the reception but they pulled it off with only a little time to spare. I am a little jealous but ever so proud that she's finally doing what she really wants to do and is apparently pretty darned good at!

Another skateboard cake....by request

...and another weekend over way too soon! I didn't help with this particular cake because Ashley had my #1 grandchild, Alexis there to help. Alexis didn't help but it wasn't exactly her fault. Ashley had taken Alexis to the orthodontist on Friday to get some dental/braces work done, and bless her heart, she was in such pain, she wasn't able to help. Ashley did well despite that though. She even experimented with more new recipes that came out very well. This cake (design, flavor and icing) was made by special request for #3 grandchild, Damion Jr. He wanted a yellow cake w/chocolate frosting and wanted it to be in the same exact style as his big brother's cake that we'd made in February. We delivered it on Saturday and he was delighted. The cake itself must have been quite good because it was all but gone before we left.

A request for cupcakes....

...turned into an excuse to experiment with something new and different. I was asked to make some 'Spring themed' cupcakes for my keno group and was having a hard time deciding just what I could make that would 'impress'. While cruising the cyberspace highway, I read about and was intrigued by a blog on http://bakerella.blogspot.com/ about 'cupcake pops' and decided that this might be the perfect way to come up with something that would bring thoughts of Spring to mind and impress all at the same time. Fortunately, for me, it did both. And I took the extras to work the following day, in another flower pot, and they were equally delighted and impressed! Both groups claimed these cupcakes were totally decadent and a few even claimed they were the best they'd ever eaten!!!!!! Just for the record - these are made with red velvet cake mixed with cream cheese (on the inside) and then dipped in candy molds (shaped to look like the bottom of a cupcake) filled with melted chocolate. The tops are then dipped in pink tinted white chocolate. Each one has a candy/sucker stick stuck into the bottom and is individually wrapped and tied w/a green ribbon.

Latte & Pink Daisy Cake

This weekend Ashley and I were able to redeem ourselves a little after the disastrous 'Tiffany Box' cake we attempted a few weeks ago. Because we are determined to improve upon our cake decorating skills, we decided we'd make another practice cake using fondant. And because we'd learned so much from the last one, we went after this one a little differently, in several aspects, and as a result, this one came out so much better. This cake is chocolate with our signature strawberry filling and is covered in fondant.

Baby Shower Cake (Winnie the Pooh)

Ashley and I created another great cake - in our opinion. This one was for a baby shower, the first request we've had for one of these. We were hired by the new grandmom-to-be and I think she was very pleased when we delivered it today. The cake was a two-tiered, hexagon shaped cake using the classic Pooh colors in the icing. The bottom tier was white cake and the top was chocolate, as requested by her and was covered in buttercream icing with a strawberry glaze filling in both tiers. It was a fun one to make and involved a couple more 'firsts' for us.

It was fun and a good learning experience

Ashley and I decided to make a 'practice' cake last weekend with the idea that we'd try something we'd never tried before, have a fun learning experience, get some practice in and give the neighbors a sweet treat. Our plan was to make a 2-tier Tiffany gift box cake. Unfortunately, it didn't come out as perfectly as we'd hoped, but as anticipated, we did learn A LOT and the children next door loved it so much that they offered to wash my truck in return! Pretty good deal I'd say! We started out by making 2 3-layer cakes (6" & 8") and covering them w/fondant. Our trouble began with the fact that I used a different cake recipe than usual that was much too moist which made the cakes difficult to handle and even more difficult to ice. Our trouble continued when we proceeded to roll our fondant too thin because we were afraid we wouldn't have enough. And even though we've made bows before, this particular one didn't come out well at all and basically fell all apart when we tried to attach it to the top of the cake (hence the Christmas bow stuck on the top for the benefit of the little ones next door and picture taking, of course). All said, it was a good learning experience, the children next door think I'm the greatest neighbor they've ever had and the mother/daughter time together was, as always, fun.

Birthday Cakes For Our Boys

Two of my grandsons (Ashley's nephews) had b'days in February and both wanted cakes but didn't know exactly what they wanted. Due to time constraints, Ashley and I came up with these. The skateboard cake was designed for Dylan (9 yrs) because, right now, his favorite thing in the whole world is anything and everything to do with skateboarding and the Spiderman cake was designed for Dom (5 yrs) because he, right now, is loving everything about Spiderman! Both cakes were quickies made w/one chocolate layer and one white layer each, iced with buttercream icing and then decorated w/small things that we picked up at the last minute. We had fun making them and both boys were totally delighted that they each had their own cake to celebrate their individual birthdays.

Snakes!

A repeat customer asked us to create a cake for a 5 year old's birthday party. It is a 3 layer chocolate cake with chocolate between the layers and covering the cakes. Covering the chocolate icing are green buttercream stars and a leaf border. Three toy snakes were used to finish this one off.

Flower Power

A relative asked us to create a cake for a teenager's birthday. She gave us free range to do what we wanted. This two layer cake is chocolate on the bottom and yellow cake on the top. It is covered with pink tie-dyed fondant which is covered in bright multi-colored flowers.

Sweet 16!

A customer asked us to make a very special cake for her niece's Sweet 16. The bottom tier is chocolate cake and the top tier is red velvet cake. For this one, we tried a marshmallow fondant that we had never used before and it turned out very well. The base color is black with hot pink asymmetrical circles all over it. It also had a matching pink satin ribbon for a border.

Tinkerbell

We were asked by a very close friend of ours to do a birthday cake for her daughter's birthday. After throwing around a couple of ideas, we all finally decided on a Tinkerbell cake. A two-tiered cake covered in buttercream icing and then airbrushed pink with purple accents. I piped on a few flowers and a really neat leaf border that has become one of my favorites. The cake was topped with a Tinkerbell candle and some wire with silver stars.

Website is up and running!

WooHoo!! The website is up and running (www.treasuredcakes.com). It's obviously a 'work in progress' and will be for some time - while we get it perfected and as long as we're adding new cakes to it. Thanks to those who helped us get it there. We've also got our business cards and some cute little magnets ordered and on their way here so we'll be passing those out to absolutely everybody that we come in contact with.

Remember us when you think about cakes.

Birthdays are gifts

Here is another b'day cake we've made. It was ordered for a friend's b'day and was designed especially for her in the shape of a wrapped gift box with name tag and all. The icing on the cake is a typcial buttercream icing and the bow and other decorations are all fondant.

Birthday Cake #1

This was the first b'day cake we made - outside of a class cake. It just happened to be for Deby's granddaughter/Ashley's niece for her 13th b'day. It was our first 2-tiered cake and really fun not only because of how it was for but also because of the colors, etc. The icing is all buttercream icing w/purchased numbers and Happy Birthday letters.

Cupcakes!

For our very first paying customer, Ashley was asked to make five strawberry cupcakes with hot pink icing and one with white icing for a future bride-to-be, all to be presented at the bride-to-be's batchellorette party. This was the first time she'd decorated cupcakes with a piping bag but it all worked out and they turned out really cute! All of the cupcakes have sparkles on them and the bride's cupcake even had a little veil.

Welcome!

Welcome to the future blogging spot of Deby and Ashley as they build their cake decorating business! We're excited to be doing this and we can't wait to begin working on our first order. We're currently working on the official website of Treasured Cakes and ordering business cards.

If you'd like to place an order for a cake, cupcakes, or cookies, please call either Deby (817-683-4323) or Ashley (817-714-0874).