Happy Birthday to You and You and You and You... and me... Gobble Gobble

On my mother’s side of the family alone, we have 9 November birthdays – 5 of which are in the same week as Thanksgiving.  

• Aunty Theresa
• Uncle Dave
• Uncle Chris
• Nephew Logan
• Aunty Ellen
• Cousin Crystal
• Cousin Lawrence
• Myself
• Nephew Aidan

My family asked me to make a November Birthday cake to bring to Thanksgiving so we could celebrate the birthdays as well as the day of giving thanks.  Since I’ve been busy filling cake orders for other people’s celebrations, I was psyched to make my own design this time around.  At the same time I needed to keep in mind that this cake was for kids, adults, males and females so I kept it fairly generic.  If I didn’t work full time, I would have loved to make individual components that captured each birthday person’s personality – but I just didn’t have the time to make it “that special” with a full time job, a new baby at home and opposite working hours of my husband

I made both cake pops and cake and I love the way it turned out in the end.  The cake pops were a hit – easy to grab as someone walked by, and super delicious.  Another bonus is that I was really able to get to know my new toy/birthday gift as well and used it for the entire cut outs on the cake.

Needless to say, after our Thanksgiving feast, pie, appetizers and cake pops no one had any room for cake so we cut it up and sent some home with every family.  I made ganache to cover the cake with (under the fondant), and made sure to put a thick layer of the ganache on the cake as most people are not fond of fondant (no pun intended).  YUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMM!  I am a true chocolate lover and have a huge craving for dark, semi-sweet uber rich chocolate.   Let me tell you – this ganache was just that – heavenly!  I’m happy to have some left over in my freezer for either future cakes or ganache truffles or something.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it…

I’ve been really busy between cake orders, holidays, birthdays, full time job, baby and husband and I am really looking forward to a short “cake break” this week/weekend.  Although, I’m not entirely sure I will take the whole week off from caking…

Thanks for reading,

Tam a Lam

Keeping Busy

After my Under the Sea cake, I was anxious to get started on my big Thanksgiving/Birthday cake... When unexpectedly, I got a last minute order on Wednesday for Friday.  Working full time and coming home to a baby, this didn't give me much time to whip up the order - but I was optimistic...

This cake definitely challenged me.  On Thursday night, I stayed up almost all night and got up shortly after 4AM to finish it.  Nothing with this cake seemed to go as planned, and on Friday morning, I was contemplating calling the Jodi (person who ordered the cake) to tell her it just wasn't going to happen.  But I am not one to let road blocks hinder me from pursuing my goals, so I kept pushing through and made the most of it, altering my plans for the cake as needed. 

In the end, the cake turned out really cute, and received raved reviews.  The cake was for Mikenna who was turning 13.  The request was for a local high school's colors of light blue, royal blue, white and silver with paw prints (resembling the high schools mascot) on it.  

Happy Birthday Mikenna - and thanks for thinking of me Jodi!

Lots of orders are lining up - it's really encouraging to see this hobby/passion/learning experience turn in to more than just a nerdy hobby of mine :)

Thanks for checking in - Tam a Lam

Under the Sea

I received an order from someone who wanted to surprise their friend with a 21st birthday cake.  Her friend would love to be a marine biologist someday and so she wanted a "sea themed" cake.  To be quite honest, this is totally out of my element and not a design that I was particularly excited about...  My 'ideal' cakes to make are shabby, chic, feminine or pretty - but between cake orders and work I don't necessarily have a lot of time to design those kinds of cakes.  I have a few other orders coming up and I've been looking forward to getting this cake completed so that I could start on the other orders that I was a lot more excited about.

So I got to work researching sea creatures and sea cakes for inspiration and formulated a plan - hoping this cake wouldn't be too difficult or time consuming.  I made a large 21 and gave it some texture to appear "corally" (yes I made that word up).  I also made some sea creatures - an octopus, some fish, a jelly fish, a couple of star fish and a crab - all with cartoon like faces for fun.  I didn't forget about foliage and included sea weed and other sea plant life.  I covered the cake board with brown sugar and crushed up chex cereal as "sand".  I also added a whale tail splashing through the top of the cake for a fun detail.  With some bubbles and the birthday girl's name on the top, the cake was complete.

This is probably the first time I can say, this cake turned out so much cuter than I imagined (it is usually the other way around).  Although I was not looking forward to designing this cake I am so pleased with the way it turned out.  I don't want to sound conceited or anything but I think this cake is uber cute and cuter than the sea themed cakes I was pulling inspiration from.  Not to mention, the tropical colors are an instant eye catcher, especially with this dreary snowy MN weather.

Happy 21st Birthday Emily!  I hope you loved your cake as much as I did :)

Tam a Lam

Beginnings...

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Check ya later - Tam a lam