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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Swallowed by the Holidays

It has been awhile since I blogged.  Just like everyone else, my already insanely busy life gets all the more crazy around the holidays.  The past few weeks I’ve been juggling a full time job, opposite working hours as the hubby, a baby at home, baking, shopping, decorating, wrapping, get togethers and trying not to let the house fall apart.

Before Christmas, I made somewhere between 400 and 500 cake balls in either the form of pops or truffles.  These were for multiple orders, gifts and get togethers.  Surprisingly between all of the craziness and separate packaging of the treats – I did not manage to get any pictures.  One of my co-workers took a picture of one of those 400-500 treats from a batch I shared at work… Feast your eyes:

Not the best quality...

From the reading I’ve been doing, I’ve anticipated that January/February would be quieter as far as placing orders is concerned… but so far, I haven’t noticed with my January quickly filling up with various cake orders.

I’ve been doing a lot of cake pops and truffles lately, and while I enjoy putting them together and especially enjoying eating them, I’m really looking forward to decorating a cake again.  Some of the upcoming orders are really going to challenge me (camouflage, carving…)

Maybe when a slow season does roll around, I’ll be able to decorate a cake just per my design?

Anyway, just wanted to put a quick update out here.

Tam a Lam,

P.S. Don’t forget to get your Valentine order in soon:  www.cakeaholiccakery.com

More of those Deliciously Cute Cake Pops :)

Working 45-50 hours a week, I probably spend more time at the office with my co-workers than even my own family... And of all my co-workers, I spend most of that time with Mel.  We sit right next to each other, and for a long time, were the only females on our half of the office.  You can probably imagine the conversations we've shared :)  I know at times we drove each other crazy, but for the most part - we keep each other sane.  

Mel's been keeping up on my cake progress from the very beginning (albeit I am still in that phase), and celebrated with me as orders began rolling in.  She has been itching to place her own order or recommend me to anyone who may need some cake product of sorts but thus far, nothing has come up.  My birthday is only a couple of weeks before hers and when we went out for lunch and drinks to celebrate - she got excited as she realized her birthday was coming up and was a perfect excuse to get some cake pops.

She only requested a dozen, and wanted a purple/silver combination.  I do not yet have an edible airbrush machine, and was not able to get my hands on any silver icing in time, so I found silver sprinkles to accent the pops per her request.

These were a lot of fun to do, and a good warm up for me before my up coming holiday orders.  A very pretty request for a pretty birthday girl - Happy Birthday Mel!

At this point, there is no stopping me... If I am not working, taking care of the baby, eating or sleeping, I am either baking, decorating or blogging about it :)  Just kidding... sort of...  Needless to say, you all are keeping me busy - and I love that.  

Hope to share some of this deliciousness with you soon!

Tam a Lam