Happy 4th Birthday Anna!

It's hard to believe Anna is four years old!  Time really flies by!  Anna is my favorite four year old friend.  Anna lives across the street from my family with her parents and her five year old brother, Garrett.  They are like family to us.  In fact, I spent the night with Garrett (he was 1 1/2 at the time) the night Anna was born.  She came home on Christmas day.

It's so much fun making her birthday cakes.  Every year she has the hardest time deciding which cake to do.  We finally settled on a princess cake.  However, which princess was a different story!  I had to settle on one for her!  Belle was her first choice (well, first choice that day) so Belle it was!

Happy Birthday Anna!  XOXO

Anna and Belle.

We were singing to her...so bashful!

Make a wish!

Garrett enjoying the kahlua fudge cake and ice cream!

Haha caught you!

Very silly boy!

Happy, Happy Birthday Anna!  We love you!  What will we make next year?  :-)

Here's to You!

Evan's 1st Birthday

First Birthday cakes are very popular.  We make a lot of them.  I love first birthdays.  It's always neat to make a first birthday cake, and then turn around and make a 100th birthday cake.  Wow.  Every once in awhile we have the chance to make a cake for a real milestone.  Happy Birthday to those of you who have truly lead very full lives!  It sure is a blessing to have lived to see, 90, 94 and even 100 years!  Thank you for including us in your celebration!  Here's to many more birthdays---Cheers!

Milestone Cakes

Around the world in 90 years...

This cake was for our client's father's 90th birthday party.  90 years--very special.  He enjoyed traveling and was fortunate enough to know how to fly himself to many of his destinations!  We thought a suitcase with the world on top suited him perfectly!

And 94 years...

This was for a client's mother's 94th birthday.  She is still in awesome shape, although her eyesight is not what it used to be.  Her mother loves roses, so we made a beautiful, lush cascade of roses, carnations and hydrangeas.

Here's to 100 years!
This cake was for a gentleman turning 100.  His dream was to go to Paris and the family did discuss taking him there for his birthday, but due to his age he decided he'd prefer to stay home with his family.  So, they brought Paris to him!  Joyeux Anniversaire Monsieur!

Happy Birthday to You!  And many more!

Josh's 4th Birthday Party!

Josh's birthday cake.

The week of Thanksgiving A Piece O' Cake hosted a 4th birthday party.  This was the first time we had hosted such a party and we are so happy that we did.  We had a great time!

The party was purchased at the March of Dimes Signature Chefs Auction in October.  The highest bidder won a birthday party for her child and eight of his friends.  The theme for the party was the solar system.  The children went to the planetarium and then joined us at the bakery where they ate pizza, opened gifts, indulged in Kahlua fudge birthday cake and finally decorated their own personal cake to take home.

The young sugar artists at work!

The birthday boy working on his masterpiece.

Concentrating on his piping skills.

Jackie showing off her cake with her Mom and Grandma.

Having too much fun!

It's looking great!

Carefully placing fondant pieces on his cake.

Cutting out shapes from fondant.

Brushing water on the fondant so it will stick to the cake.

Making the solar system!

Happy Birthday Josh!  Hope you all enjoyed your cakes!

Christmas Croquenbouche at Le Chat Gourmet

Three years ago I contacted Denene Vincent, executive chef and owner of Le Chat Gourmet, because I was looking for an internship.  Little did I know that I would gain much more than a plethora of culinary experience, but I was blessed to have made a wonderful friend, too.  Denene is incredibly talented and I always look forward to taking classes at LCG.  She and her husband, Michael, are two of the nicest people I know and I'm very fortunate to be able to call them friends.

Denene & me in the LCG kitchen.

I often find myself perusing the LCG website for new classes, making my "wish list" of classes to take in the near future.  The class that was on the top of my list this time was the Christmas Croquenbouche.  It was something that was always a bit of a mystery to me.  Every time I search for French wedding cakes I stumble upon the Croquenbouche.  The Croquenbouche is the "piece de resistance" at weddings in France, and other important celebrations and holidays.   It goes without saying that the Croquenbouche is absolutely stunning.  What could be prettier than a tower of cream puffs dripping in caramel, then wrapped in spun sugar?

I did a bit more research about the Croquenbouche and learned that its meaning is very literal in the French language.  Broken down it means "crunch in the mouth."  Croque meaning crunch, and bouche meaning mouth.  This made me laugh since this is exactly what it does!  A combination of soft, airy cream puffs and crunchy homemade caramel is divine!

If you have not been to Le Chat Gourmet I urge you to go.  Whether you are a gourmet chef at home, someone looking to further your cooking skills, or even if you've never touched a knife, you will feel right at home in Denene's kitchen.  I promise, you will not be disappointed.

Photos from the Christmas Croquenbouche class at Le Chat Gourmet:

We all took turns mixing the pate choux.

What the pate choux looks like once it is all mixed.  It's a very sticky dough.  Piping the cream puffs with a piping bag is ideal.

Waiting to go into the oven!

Cooked eclairs and cream puffs.

Assembling the Croquenbouche:

Dipping the cream puff into hot caramel, using it as a "glue" to build the tower.

Sticking them together.

Drizzling hot caramel over the tower.

Beautiful caramel color.

The caramel is now ready to be spun.  Can you see the threads?

Voila le Croquenbouche!

As an added bonus we also made eclairs!

Denene piping the eclairs.

Denene filling the eclairs with vanilla custard.

After being dipped in chocolate they are dusted with cocoa powder.

Is your mouth watering yet?  I'll be making a Croquenbouche for Christmas this year!  Bon Appetit!

Turkeys for Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I feel very blessed.  I love what I do and I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to do it.  I'm especially grateful to be able to do this with my parents.  I am incredibly lucky to have them by my side helping, supporting and encouraging me.  For this I am forever grateful.

This week we've been very busy (another blessing!) and I'm happy to share with your our Thanksgiving creations.  We are so happy that our desserts were a part of so many Thanksgiving celebrations, hopefully making many tummies happy!

Turkey Cupcakes

Process of the Turkey Cakes

Turkey body & platter.

Feathers after being dusted, before being glittered.

Turkey with feathers on the platter.

Turkey Cake #1

Turkey Cake #2

I wish you a wonderful Holiday season and hope that you had a great Thanksgiving!  If you are shopping tomorrow, best of luck to you!  Next up in the Holiday cake department, Christmas cakes!

James Bond Auction Fundraiser

I attended Catholic school (Lansing Catholic HS & IHM St. Casimir) from Kindergarten to 12th grade, so Catholic schools have a special place in my heart.  When one of my favorite customers asked me to make a donation to St. Martha's fundraiser I was more than happy to be a part of their evening.  Rather than donate a small cake, I thought dessert might be fun!

My favorite part: The olives!

The Suitcase

This was just a fun cake celebrating a 50th Birthday.  When designing a cake with a client I often ask if that person has a special hobby or something really important in his or her life.  In this case, the recipient loves to travel, and in fact just returned from a trip abroad.  Having never tackled a suitcase cake before, I jumped at the chance!  I absolutely love designing something for the first time!

First we had to start with our cake.  You cannot bake a suitcase, you need to carve it.  It started as two 7" square cakes with buttercream filling in the middle.

After covering the cake with chocolate fondant and adorning it will a few details, such as the handle and buckles, we ended up with a petite suitcase!

Art Deco for the Christman Company

Although this cake was made in February 2008 (wow, I cannot believe it was that long ago!) it is still one of our most memorable cakes.  This cake was ordered by the Christman Company in Lansing.  It was made for the grand opening of their new headquarters in downtown Lansing.  It is a beautiful building!  We were so honored to be a part of their celebration!

We knew this cake was going to be fun, so we took the time to take several photos of the process, since it's always a bit of an adventure!  I have been looking forward to sharing them with you!  I hope that you enjoy!

Phase One: Stacking the Cake

This is our blank canvas.

Phase Two:  Decorate!

Piece by piece...actually now that I think of it, that's the name of a song from a CD that we listened to on repeat while we made the cake!

Attaching the strips of fondant with water using a paintbrush.

Carefully attaching each glitter dot with piping gel.  A bit tedious, but I was still having a ball!

It's coming together...

Final touches Tuesday morning.  You know it's a Tuesday because you can see the GF bread baking in the oven!

Ta da!  It's finished!