Burnt Out.

So I have been avoiding writing this particular blog because I certainly do not want to put anyone off, make anyone feel regretful for recent orders placed or detour anyone from placing an order but man, I just need to get this off my chest. 

I am SICK-OF-CAKING.

there. I said it. and it can't be taken back. 

before I elaborate on that at I just want to clarify that I absolutely love making edible art and I am still completely obsessed with it, and I have no plans on quitting any time soon… additionally, the statement was not directed at any particular order or person in any way, shape or form.  I am tremendously thankful for all of the orders and people that come my way and thoroughly enjoy working with each and every one of you!

Now to explain my statement:
If you've read any of my previous blogs, its no secret that I feel a bit "busy". 

A typical day for me goes like this

• 5:00AM wake up to baby crying
• between 5 and 7:40AM juggle getting ready for work, packing my lunch, cleaning and taking care of baby
• 7:40AM frantically try to get out the door for work
• 8:00AM-5:00PM (give or take a half hour in either direction) work my day job, kicking ass and taking names [or something along those lines]
• 5:30PMish arrive home to baby immediately wanting me to hold and give him shameless undivided attention - to which I am more than happy to oblige.
• 5:35PM shovel dinner down our throats so that at
• 5:45PM Dan (husband) can rush out the door to teach music to his eager students or attend a rehearsal or gig [percussionist by trade]
• 6:00PM clean up dinner, dishes, baby and high chair while simultaneously running his bath
• 6:10PM bathtime for baby
• 6:30PM time to start the bed time routine with baby - brushing teeth, reading stories, closing all blinds etc
• 6:45-7:00PM put baby to bed
• 7:15PM assuming baby went to bed right away, begin working on cake stuff until I crash - which is anytime between 9PM and 10:30PM usually
• 10:30PM-5:00AM wake up 2-4 times throughout the night to a teething baby
• 5:00AM start it all again…

Anyone want to trade places? 
Yeah, didn't think so…

Point being, while I love to cake - I don't have the opportunity to do so until everything else through out the day or my life, has sucked any bit of energy I have out of me first…  All the while, I miss out most opportunities to have any sort of recreational time with friends or family. 

Bottom line: I am just burnt out and I feel like it is definitely beginning to reflect in my work.  What I don't think that most people really understand is simply the amount of time that goes into just one cake.  Think shopping for ingredients, shopping for supplies (boxes, board, ribbon etc), mixing, baking, cooling, filling, crumb coating and settling, making accents, coloring fondant, decorating and the worst - cleaning up after all of that.  Even on the simplest of cakes I'm talking about 8 hours of work minimum, while most cakes take at least double that.  Between baby, work, and home where the heck am I suppose to find an additional 16 hours or more in a week for caking?!?  Throw time out the window - how about energy? 

People often ask me how I find the time to juggle it all - my simple answer  is "I don't sleep".  But in all seriousness, I just get frantically stressed, emotionally distressed, embarrassed by less than par work and sick to death of caking.  I love it, and I don't want to lose that - I just wish I had the time I need to dedicate to it. 

Okay I am done ranting.  I am not asking for pity or an ego stroke.  I chose to do this, I opened the door for business and as such, I will continue and will continue with a grateful attitude.  Many people are not so blessed - and with that realization I will move forward.  Just needed a little vent break.

Thanks for listening (reading) my rant...

Tam a Lam

cakeaholiccakery.com

Spring/Early Summer

Whoa so it has been a while to say the least, I am on a much needed vacation this week so I thought I would finally get a blog out.  My husband has found it a bit humorous that even on our vacation, I have spent every day of it thus far, caking in some way or another.  What can I say?  I'm obsessed, totally addicted; hence the name "Cakeaholic".

To say I've been busy would be an understatement as well as a cop out.  So besides working 50+ hours a week at my day job, taking care of my baby/toddler, working near opposite hours as the hubby and all of life's other demands, here is what I've been up to Cakeaholic related since my last post:

Spiderman Cake for Grant's 4th Birthday!  The cake was supposed to be a 2 tier topsy turvy style cake… but it just wasn't cooperating with me.  Lucky for me, the cake was ordered by an ever understanding co-worker.  Spiderman scaling the side of the cake was my favorite detail, and the sharp edges fell right in line with the rigid style of the Spiderman illustrations.  From what I heard, the birthday boy couldn't be happier with his cake - and that is all that matters :)

 

The same day the Spiderman cake was due, we were celebrating Easter (it really has been awhile) and my sister's 31st birthday with my family.  My sister and I are night and day - so when I asked her what some of her "favorites" are for inspiration for her cake, and I got this list: 'Movie = Braveheart, Flowers = Sunflowers, Flavors = chocolate, strawberry, cream cheese, Colors = metallics mostly Blue, Hobby = Gardening, Wine = Shiraz…'.  Well that put me way out of my element and any pre-conceived design ideas in my head were thrown out the window.  I obviously wasn't going to dump all of that onto her small cake - so this is what I came up with.

A wine bottle (100% edible including the label "Sonya's Shiraz - Aged 31 Years"), with metallic blue accents and Sunflowers to compliment.  Everything on the cake is edible.  The cake itself was chocolate with raspberry filling.

Next up was a Wizard of Oz inspired 50th birthday cake, staring the Wicked Witch of the West, a Flying Monkey and a crystal Ball showing Dorothy.  I was really happy with the way the figures turned out but not so pleased with their fragility and needing to transport them.  The crystal ball gave me the opportunity to learn a new technique of creating gelatin bubbles (that's right, the crystal ball is edible!).  The cake itself was a from scratch carrot cake (Yum!) with nut, coconut and carrots of course, complemented with a crusting cream cheese frosting.  I love the Wizard of Oz movie, so this was a really fun cake to make!

Rosette Cake: This cake wasn't ordered but really just an excuse to try this technique that is becoming really popular.  I was lucky enough to enjoy this cake with my husband's family as sort of a Father's Day/Birthday cake - and discovered my recipe needed a bit of improvement.  I'm excited to make a variation of this design again for an up-coming wedding.

My next order was for baby shower cake pops, Mickey mouse silhouette.  These turned out so dang cute!  I especially love the long dramatic sticks.  If you remember, I made similar pops for my babe's first birthday party January 30th.  This time around however, I decided to have them displayed so the pop portion sits on the plate with the stick in the air.

Another Baby Shower inspired cake for my cousin + my old friend's little bundle of joy on the way - It's a Girl!  I had free reign on the design of this cake and I thought the birds/egg/nest idea would be cute.  I also played with the look of lace/ribbons, fabric inspired flowers and ruffles along the bottom.  Super girly but a fun cake to practice some techniques on.  All white cake; one being buttercream/caramel/pecan, one being buttercream with raspberry filling and finally, the top being buttercream-strawberry - almost like a sherbet.  Unfortunately, this cake didn't quite turn out as planned (do they ever?), nor did it travel well... but it tasted great!

Ice cream cake pops: another gift.  A coworker of mine had helped me out with a special project I had, and to show my appreciation (and as an excuse for me to try these super cute cake pops), I made him some red velvet cake pops/ice cream cones.  These were surprisingly easy to make a really fun summer time design!

And finally, I recently made a sweet 16 cake based on an Art Eats Bakery design, incorporating hot pink, zebra stripes and "bling".  The bottom tier is white cake with almond-buttercream filling, the middle tier is my "too much chocolate, chocolate cake" recipe filled with dark chocolate and covered with ganache and the top tier is red-velvet with cream cheese.  The client also decided she wanted coordinating zebra cake pops, and I wasn't sure how I was going to make those but I am really happy with the technique I came up with and the way they turned out.  The cake and cake pops looked great on the super cute hot pink/zebra themed candy buffet table her mom set up for her.  From the sounds of it, Hailey had a great 16th Birthday celebration.

Soon to come, a Welcoming citizenship cake, another Camera cake, a 100th birthday-house cake, a few wedding cakes and whatever else comes my way.  Having a lot of fun testing my ever work in progress of discovering better cake recipes. Additionally, after seeing this "hobby" of mine unexpectedly take off on me, I have added quite a few new cake flavors, filling flavors and altogether combinations to my menu (I still need to update my website) to keep ahead of the curve with the continuing orders that are making their way to me.

Thanks for reading - I'll try to keep up on this blogging thing better… I am amazed at people who can find the time to blog a couple of times a week…  maybe someday I'll be able to keep up :)

Until next time,

Tam a Lam

cakeaholiccakery.com

Cakeaholic on Facebook

Bridal Shower Cake

I was so excited when I finally had an opportunity to do this cake.  Amanda had asked me about making a small bridal shower cake – but she didn’t have any specific design ideas in mind.  I had this design floating around in my head for quite some time and it was a perfect occasion to make it.  Since Amanda left the creative juices up to me, I was so psyched to make this idea a reality.

This cake is inspired by many ruffle wedding dresses, and focuses on one of the most eye catching details on wedding dresses – the buttons on the back.  The peonies add that simple extra touch of color and elegance to make this cake not only ultra feminine but also a bit romantic.

The peonies were a first for me, and I struggled with them a bit.  All of the tutorials I could find required petal cutters, colored luster dust and wires.  None of which I had, and since I wasn’t going to make a profit on this cake, none of which I could justify purchasing.  So I had to wing it and use what I had to make the flower petals – and I am actually quite pleased with how they turned out.

Additionally, although the photos don’t really reflect it, all of the pearls and some of the ruffles “shimmered”.  

This cake was 4 six inch cakes stacked.  Every third “ruffle” intentionally looked a bit imperfect.

Now if only I had all the time and money in the world, I would practice making cakes inspired by fashion every-day ;)

Thanks for letting me take the reigns on this cake Amanda – I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did making it :)

On another note, took my Certification test this past week... not sure of the results yet, but wish me luck!

Cheers,

Tam a Lam

www.cakeaholiccakery.com

Fashionable Cake

I’ve been slacking here with this blogging thing… just been so crazy busy as usual finding it really hard to keep on top of everything, especially since sleep has suffered in attempt to get it all done.  This entry actually isn’t about any cake, cakes or cake products that I have made myself, but rather is simply a tribute to some cake designs that I adore…

From Left to Right white cake: sweetandsaucyshop.com (they also have super cute cake stands), 

middle cake: superfinebakery.com,

right most cake by my Canadian Cake Hero thecaketress.ca

I do want to have it stated that I love making cakes for other people and learning new techniques with each design request that comes my way.  That being said, if I had all the money and time in the world and could just design whatever type of cake my little heart desired – this is definitely the style that I would follow.  Some would call it “Shabby Chic”.  Others would describe these cakes as “Vintage Inspired Couture”… call it what you may, I call these stylish cakes gorgeous!  These cakes mimic dress designs, fabric flowers, ruffles and lace that are just so perfectly “imperfect” – swoooooooooooon…

This is part of the reason why I am looking forward to my next cake order so much.  A simple, small, romantic, girly cake with flowers, ruffles and buttons…  cake art inspired by fashion – love it! 

That’s all for now.  Still looking for a commercial kitchen space to rent out in  the Minneapolis area that won’t cost me an arm and a leg – so keep me posted if you have any leads.  

Thanks for reading, 

Tam a Lam  

Cakeaholiccakery.com

Baby Shower, Beer, Baby Shower

They go together right?!?

Beckie had contacted me through a referral looking for baby shower cupcakes.  Sounds easy enough, except that this was my first cupcake order… I read up on cupcake frosting techniques (woo-oo, woo-oo… hear that?  It’s the nerd alert siren), sent her some design ideas and asked her for a bit of direction.

She went the safe route and decided everyone would like chocolate flavored cakes.  It was a perfect opportunity for me to test out a new recipe… holy moly, I kid you not, this recipe turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to chocolate cake – YUUUUMMM.  I will never use another recipe for chocolate cake… soooooooo good.  This comes from the heart of a self-proclaimed chocoholic.  If this is the safe route, I will hardly ever venture off of it.

Then, were the decorations to make my cupcakes unique.  She wanted the designs to include soft blue, soft green, taupe and brown.  Beckie leaned towards designs that included booties, bibs, onesies and circles.  Being such a small order (only 14 cupcakes) I didn’t want to over-kill the design, so I made 2 different types of booties (so stinkin cute), 2 different types of similar “Baby” and “Boy” plaques and a few cupcakes with round coordinating “pearls”.  They were a hit!

Next up?  A last minute order for a pint of Guinness to feed 20.  I love this beer and I was so psyched to make a large one [cake], though as stated in my previous post, a bit apprehensive about the tall skinny design.  In a word – supports.  This cake has a large dowel going down the center, and several smaller dowels throughout, not to mention cake boards inside to help with the support system and height of the cake.  I decided to try wrapping this cake in fondant, as I really could not come up with a different strategy for covering it.  With help from my husband, I was surprised at how easy this actually was, especially after reading so many people suggest against this approach.

I then hand painted the whole thing, added the logo in fondant (the harp is actually shiny gold) and covered the top with the beer head.  The base board is also covered in fondant scored to look like wood then hand painted to get the wood grain effect.  Finally, I wasn’t sure where to put “happy birthday” on this cake and thought a napkin would be a clever/playful addition.  I added a “ring” on the napkin to mimic the look of a wet beverage on a bar napkin and jotted “Happy Birthday” on it.  I am so pleased with the outcome of this cake. 

I later found out this cake was for a judge in the largest county of our state… to me that is kind of a big deal… (I think I hear that siren again)

And I kept on going with an order I had been dreaming/drooling about for a few months – CHEESECAKE, CAKE POPS.  Imagine, cheesecake bites dipped in a chocolate shell and displayed on a cute stick.  Soooooooooo goood that I am currently wiping the drool off of my face as I reminisce about these.  These too were for a baby shower.  I had a lot of fun playing with the display of these (including jelly beans, glass flutes and white platters), as well as taste testing a few – quality control ;)  I was a bit worried that the blue was too bright (they seemed to get only darker with time, and I didn’t have time to re-do them as the cheesecake has to be frozen when you dip the balls) – but I think they ended up matching the invite perfectly…

Thanks so much for thinking of me for your special events Beckie, Rebecca and Libby – I had a lot of fun with each of your orders!

In other news, I’ve been getting contacted quite a bit from different businesses etc and I am working on finding a larger commercial kitchen to work out of, so if you have any connections to one in the Minneapolis area, please let me know.  I have also been working on getting some promotional materials together – such as business cards, stickers, brochures etc… you all have been keeping me so busy I haven’t had time to get this stuff together yet – shocking!  I know.  Finally, I am currently in the process of getting my official Certification in "Kitchen Management" - becoming all official and what not :)

Anyway, I am booking up fast and having so much fun with this “hobby” that I had no idea would take off the way it has.

Until next time,

Tam a Lam
Cakeaholiccakery.com

Happy 21st Birthday William!

I received a request for a 21st Birthday Cake.  Playing on almost any American 21 year old’s eagerness to legally drink, his family thought a frothy beer mug cake would be just perfect.  William had spent a summer in Muchen and so the mug was designed around a popular beer in that area. 

I wasn’t quite sure how I would cover such a tall skinny cake with fondant, so instead, I cut out tall strips to cover the rounded pleats on a traditional beer mug.  I pulled a mug from my husband’s stash and used it as a model, for the size, the handle and the general look of a beer mug.

To make the actual “beer” I simply hand painted the fondant with a couple of different edible colors.  To make the foam/froth I baked up some merigne cookies and then topped the cake and sides with candy coating, making sure it created a small pool around the bottom of the cake as any beer drinker knows, when ordering a tall beer from a bar it often flows onto the table to make a bit of a mess.

The logo was a bit of a challenge, as I don’t have an edible printer so I had to make the small logo with the small gold crown and red jewels by hand.  But I am very pleased with the way it turned out.

Finally, I had the beer mug sitting on a “wood surface” to mimic a table.  The wood surface was fondant that I scored and again, hand painted to give it the look of real wood grain.

Happy Birthday William, I hope you enjoyed your beer cake and the beer that I am sure you enjoyed in celebration!  Cheers!

Tam a Lam
Cakeaholiccakery.com

Something Smells Fishy...

My father in law is just a big kid.  He has been a band director for over 30 years and is so good with his students – and it is obvious why.  Being that his birthday cake was a gift from me, I had free reign over the design aspect.  My husband and I brain stormed, and we new the cake had to capture his love for summer or boating or fishing.  I found a similar cake online and thought I would give it a shot.  She called her cake “fillet fish” – and I didn’t think I could possibly get my cake to look half as good as the original artist’s cake.

I found many shots of a real small mouth bass, as well as lures meant for bass and went head first.  The fish is a carved cake, covered in fondant and hand painted with edible icing colors/vodka.  The lure is also hand made and brushed with a gel to give it a “plastic” shine.  Finally, the cutting board is also cake, covered in marbled fondant, scored to look like wood and again, hand painted with edible ice colors/vodka.  Everything about this cake is edible except for the hooks – I just didn’t have the time or patience to figure out how to make these look real.

Favorite quote of the day “I’m going to post this on the fishing forum!...” to which I replied “I’m going to post this on the cake forum J”

The next cake order I received initially started with a request for a small birthday cake for 3 people’s birthday that needed to serve only 11 people.  However, the client wanted the cake to be themed on their cabin, reflect the three birthday people, show the relation of the golf course, a putting green,  a road, the cabin and the long lake behind the cabin with a dock… I wasn’t sure that would all fit on a small cake – so we came up with a design that would reflect 2 of the birthday people who enjoyed golfing, the other birthday person who loved to fish as well as incorporate the general “up north” feel.  I had fun with this cake, the water was a lot of fun to incorporate, I made the fishing pole out of an uncooked spaghetti noodle, and the trees were a blast.  Knowing this cake had cookies and cream filling inside – it was hard not to delve in to this cake.. YUM!

Keeping busy as usual, and also recovering from a short lived flu… sorry for the delayed posts lately…  Thanks for staying interested J

Until next time,

Tam a Lam

Cakeaholiccakery.com

What's a Break?

For about 2 months straight, I drove my self crazy keeping insanely busy from the moment I woke up until the moment I fell asleep (some nights I kept busy taking care of baby instead of sleeping).  All of the busyness was related to working in some capacity or another with nearly no time for fun, grooming, cleaning or relaxing.  As you know I was juggling being a pseudo-single mom, working full time, hosting celebrations and the cakeaholic business.  The last weekend in January was the tip of the ice berg.  From the previous 2 posts, you can see that between work, planning Noah’s birthday, my migraine, an unexpected meeting, and a large cake order my heart felt like it was going to pound right out of my chest all weekend, I couldn’t sleep, and I felt like I could vomit and/or faint at any given moment.

The majority of the orders I receive are placed “last minute” with less than a week’s notice.  So when I didn’t have any February orders lined up – I wasn’t surprised, and made the decision to decline any orders for the whole month of February.  Frankly, I needed a break, and at this time, caking is the only activity I am able to cut.  Well… my “cake break” lasted one whole week.  By the second week in February I was scheduling each of my nights, baking, decorating and running to the craft store for supplies.  HA!  There is no way I could last a whole month off, especially with Valentine’s day around the corner… So, I made a bunch of conversation heart cake pops for my coworkers.  

Using advice from the queen bee of cake pops – I purchased edible markers to write the notes on the conversation hearts.  Just to find out that the ink doesn’t like the hard shell coating texture of the pops.  So, I ended up using a toothpick and gel colorings mixed with Vodka (this dissolves keeping it safe for kids to consume and tasteless) to write each message out.  They were a big hit – most of my co-workers brought some home to share with their loved ones.

Bringing in the conversation heart cake pops also resulted in a small Valentine order.  I swore that I was going to decline any orders – but this was such a small cake, and the person who ordered it pretty much gave me full creative freedom to do whatever I wanted on this cake.  He told me the flavor he wanted, and to put a message like “happy valentines day” or “be mine” or “I love you” or whatever fit and a heart on it.  J I love making these kinds of cakes – where the client doesn’t have a specific design in mind.  So I was really excited to make this cake, no stress involved in it at all since it was so small, I had all weekend to do it, and I had could basically do whatever I wanted with this cake – just keeping Valentine’s day in mind.  This is what I came up with:

 I love the way this cake turned out.  It was not inspired by any other cake design I have seen and was truly my own design. 

When I gave him the cake, he thought I bought the bee and couldn’t believe that not only did I make the bee but that the bee was completely edible J I love to hear that kind of feedback!

Anyway, I really do plan on taking the rest of the month off from caking… whether I stick to that plan or not is to be debated.  I hope you all had a wonderful love day!  Thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Tam a Lam

www.Cakeaholiccakery.com

Welcome Baby Walfoort

To My Love Bug!

Meeska, Mooska, Mickeeeeeeeeey Mouse!  Somewhere along the way Noah has grown quite fond of Mickey Mouse, his Clubhouse and all of his friends.  Its been pretty interesting to watch a baby, recognize and get excited over a character he sees.  If we ask “Do you want to watch Mickey?” he squeals in delight.  He loves his Mickey toys or anything he sees with Mickey printed on it.  The hot dog dance makes him bop bop bop bop, and Tootles is always sure to make Noah smile!  So it wasn’t hard to come up with a theme for his first birthday party.

I made a “Happy Birthday Noah” banner complete with Disney font, and Mickey Mouse silhouette cutouts.  Bright colored tissue paper balls hanging from the ceiling, red/black/white gift bags, Mickey Mouse Brownie pops complete with a red and white polka dot ribbon and another Disney inspired banner “Birthday Boy” hanging on his high chair brought the theme together.  But the focal point (besides the birthday boy of course) was most definitely his over the top, entirely too large birthday cake.  

 

I intended on starting the decorating process on this cake on Friday - I took the day before off from work, but unexpectedly had to go in for a 3 hour meeting… right before the meeting , I started to feel a migraine coming on.  Needless to say, this all set me back on the actual cake decorating.   Frantically on Saturday morning I scrambled to get this cake decorated – and it definitely did not turn out as well as I had planned.  The bottom cake is chocolate with my home made ganache, the middle tier is a white cake with simple white frosting, and the top tier/giant cupcake/Noah’s smash cake was a chocolate cake with simple white frosting.
 

The giant cupcake is actually made in two separate pieces, and silly me – I forgot to level the bottom of the top part of the cupcake before I frosted it.  So, I had my husband get more frosting and try to cover the gap between the two parts of that cake… A project I probably should have taken the reigns on…

Oh well – the cake was still a hit.  The party was fun.  I stressed out waaaaaay too much over a party that was A) only 2 hours long and B) a party that Noah will never even remember …

Happy First Birthday to my little Love Bug.   You are the very best thing!

I love you,

Mommy
Tam a Lam

www.cakeaholiccakery.com

Happy Birthday Michael!

Michael is Nicholas’ (Sweet Land of Liberty) older brother, and a drum student of my husband.  When his mom contacted me about his birthday, she noted he was a big sports fan – particularly of the Twins or Gophers and asked if I could incorporate one of those organizations into his cake. 

I decided on a baseball cap, accompanied by a large cake truffle to look like a baseball.  

 

There are a lot of small details on this cake that I’m really happy with from the stitching to the eyelets, to the rumples in the top (a perfectly round hat wouldn’t look realistic), to the adjustable back with his birthday age/number, to the “dirtied” baseball (brushed with cocoa powder).  I hope I get an opportunity to make more baseball cap cakes in the future.  This was a blast to make!

Enjoying the Cake

 More coming your way soon!

Thanks for reading,

Tam a Lam

www.cakeaholiccakery.com

Quick Update

Quick update to my "Sweet Land of Liberty" Post:  

Here is the proud birthday boy with his cake :)

 

Love this!

First Time Carving

My little sister turned 21 at the end of December.  She has a raw eye and exceptional talent in photography.  We played with the idea of making either some sort of fancy drink cake (think martini) or a camera cake.  I tried to persuade her to go with the drink cake – as I could jazz that up with skills that I am comfortable with.  But her heart was set on a camera cake.

Carving a cake was a territory I had not ventured into yet, and through my research, found out it is a territory that a lot of cake decorators flat out avoid.  I figured that since it was my sister – she would be very forgiving if the cake was a total flop.

Man, that lens gave me trouble.  From the cutting of the cake, to the stacking and dirty icing, to the actual lens (which is made from poured sugar colored black – yay!) I struggled with that thing.  I made 2 cake lenses and 3 of the glass lenses until I was satisfied…

The camera itself came out a lot sloppier than I had hoped – but then again, I am my own biggest critic.  However, I was pleased with the color scheme, the bottom tier of the cake and the little balls I decided to add as a finishing touch.  

This cake seemed to have earned me more recognition than any of my previous cakes.  This makes me eager to give carving another try – I’m hoping my skills can only improve from here…

Happy Milestone Birthday to my Little Sister Tasha!  I’m glad you enjoyed your cake.

Watch out for my next cake – which will also be carved...

Cheers,

Tam a Lam

Cakeaholiccakery.com

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Sweet Land of Liberty

Ringing in the new year, I was asked to make a camouflage cake for a boy’s 13th birthday. This boy is very interested in honoring our country in service someday.  Camouflage – totally out of my element.  I was excited to learn a new technique of creating a camouflage pattern on fondant.  I love to be 

challenged.

My first attempt was not as great as I’d hoped, but at least it was obviously camouflage… The dog tags with the birthday age was my idea, and I made those from scratch (totally edible) – I really like how these turned out.  I wanted them to look a bit rough, not super shiny and clean  - and I think I accomplished that.

 

After I had made the cake board, (which was covered in tiny red and blue stars) I decided to incorporate stars in to the design.  The birthday boy, Nicholas, is not interested in guns, war, tanks or bombs – but rather giving back to a country that has given him so much.  I thought stars would be a great way to display this respect for his country.

When I met him, I knew this was a perfect birthday cake for him.  As Nick came with his family to pick up the cake, he was wearing a camouflage shirt he had just purchased from the Army surplus store.  He was quiet – as is his nature- but all smiles when he saw the cake.

Happy Birthday Nicholas!

More coming soon,

Tam a Lam

cakeaholiccakery.com

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