Happy Birthday, America! I made you this cake.

The Fourth of July is sort of the anniversary of my love of cake making. Not to mention, and much more importantly, a great day to celebrate! I love America so much, I made it this cake.

I like to make cakes that look like other food, and what better than a cake that looks like a pie? The pie tier is chocolate cake with strawberries on top (more on that later) and buttercream icing. The picnic table tier is yellow cake with chocolate pudding filling.

View from the top.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I feel that it is my duty to let you all know how this story ended. Between the heat and a right hand turn in the car on the way to a party, my cake had some technical difficulties. Turns out, frosting is not enough to keep a bunch of strawberries in place. Which I should know, and yet...

This is your cake on drugs.

Happily, I didn't cry. And, in a stroke of luck this cake could have used, the entire top didn't spill all over my dress, as the cake was in my lap when the top fell off. Also, it still tasted delicious, and the party was really fun (as my hangover this morning proves). Anyway, happy birthday America. I love democracy EVEN more than I love sugar (which is really saying something).

And now a trip down memory lane to visit the cakes that made all of this possible...

To me now, this is pretty ugly. But way back in 2010, you wouldn't believe how proud this piece of cake made me. I saw a (much more professional looking) picture of a flag cake, and thought I have way too much time on my hands before we throw a party. I should really attempt this in an effort to clean less before. And so I did. The frosting tasted so amazing--white chocolate frosting. I'll have to dig out that old recipe now that I'm thinking about it. Anyway, a seed was planted.

2011. I saw a hamburger cake in Jewel and I thought, I'm going to make that, but way better for our 4th of July party. And so I did. On top those are actually sesame seeds. At the time I had no clue how to level a cake (and it still is very hard for me), but I think that sort of adds to the authenticity of the burger. After I finished this cake, I looked at my boyfriend and said: "I am pretty good at this. I want to take some classes." 

And the rest, dear reader, is history.

Shower Power!

I've reached the point in my life, where nearly everyone I know is getting married. I'm in three weddings this year and will have attended five by the end of 2012, and we all know what that means: open bar!

It also means showers and bachelorette parties galore. My best friend Lauren's incredible aunts (who I named this post for) decided to throw her a big, beautiful shower, and they asked me to make cake pops as the favor for the guests. I had seen a lot of variations of Bakerella's bride and groom cake pops, and decided to try my hand at these cute little guys myself.

Lauren's colors are black, white and purple, so I decided to accessorize in color. 

The veil is a small piece of glittery tulle.

I was so happy with how they turned out! These aren't for the faint of heart--I was up until one in the morning decorating them, but it was well worth it. The scary part was bringing them in the car for a five hour drive in the heat wave, but (thankfully) they made it unscathed. 

This is the seventh shower that Lauren's aunts (a.k.a. Shower Power) have thrown, and you can tell. 

How cute are those little bags? These were at each guests' seat.

The shower was a huge success, and it was fun to meet Lauren's family so I know a few more people before making a speech at her wedding. If that goes even half as well as my cake pops, I'll mark it in the win column!

At the shower: Me, Lauren (the blushing bride) and Bevin, another bridesmaid

The Bells of Saint Mary's

Well, these are coming two weeks late. I was hoping to be able to get my act together in time to get some Saint Mary's cake pops ready in time to bring for my five year college reunion. '07 y'all! Alas, I did not. However, part two is this weekend: one of my best girlfriends from college is getting hitched. (Shout out to Brooke and Aaron--have a lifetime of happiness!)

Since many of my friends live far away, they've been supporting my baking from afar, but haven't actually gotten to eat anything that I'm made.  THIS ENDS NOW! (Or in a few hours when I actually leave the office and head to the wedding.) I decided to make some cake pops that reflected my favorite school in the world: Saint Mary's College. We are the Belles, and often interpret that in the more literal sense, although each of us is as beautiful as we are smart. The French Cross adorning the front is one of the school's symbols.

I'm excited to share my treats, and a friend's happiness, with my friends this weekend. Hope all of you have something fun planned too. Long live summer!

Everything's Coming Up Roses

One of the things I'd say I'm best at, when it comes to cake pops, is making bouquets. I've done this with different kinds of flowers, but after all of my trials, the roses always come out best. They have become my go-to gift, and I made some for my mom on Mother's Day. She taught me everything I know about liking sugar, and made sure none of them went to waste.

I make them a little bit bigger than an average cake pop and make the top a little bit flat to help showcase all of the petals. The leaves are made out of candy coating as well, and even thought you can't see it here, where the stick hits the flower there are little green leaves. I haven't found green lollipop sticks, but clearly that's the next logical step I need to take. If anyone knows of these, let me know!

A dozen, including a vase and ribbon, cost $30.

Hit me up: cakebitebakery@gmail.com

Shamrockin Out for the March of Dimes

Ever since my first venture into cake pops, I have been in love, and my friends have become obsessed as well. My good friend, and first customer, ordered some for her team's brunch after they walked the March of Dimes. Brittany wanted them to be an Irish theme, since they had made green team t-shirts. They were walking to support her cousin's son, who as born premature at 24 weeks. They did the walk on Saturday, but if you feel so inclined you can still donate here. 

I used a mini shamrock cookie cutter--the trick is that you HAVE to have a cookie cutter without a top. You need to be able to use a knife to cut the cake so it is flat on both sides. I wasn't sure if the shape would really come out (the cookie cutter had a little stem, but it was so little I didn't bother keeping it on any of the pops. Brittany ordered two dozen, so hopefully they satisfied her team after their march!

Keep Calm and Carry Cake

I make baked goods as a form of stress-relief, and as this week was particularly rough for me, I decided I needed a REAL project. Something I hadn’t ever done before that would take up a lot of time (which would mean I would be thinking of frosting instead of real life for hours on end). So I decided to teach myself how to make royal icing, a form of icing that gets really stiff, and give stenciling a go.

A few weeks before I was walking down the street this book caught my eye. It is amazing and super easy. The first cake I made waswith the bird stencil provided, and I just sprinkled cocoa powder over the top. I got too excited and missed some of the directions (when using powder you should cover the stencil in Pam or Crisco and it will catch the extra), but it turned out very nicely despite my inability to follow directions, as you can see.

But for this stress I needed a bigger challenge. A lot of fancy cakes use stencils for their designs. You’ll often see this on white cakes with fancy black detail, but I wanted to use some colored fondant I had left over, so I kept the royal icing white (although in retrospect, dyeing it would have taken even MORE time, so in the future I may need to do this).

I tore the crap out of the blue fondant I began with, and then needed to recover the sides, so I went with some purple. No one is kidding when they say you have to be ready to cover you cake as soon as you roll out your fondant. I wasted time, and it got too dry. Don’t be like me folks!

Anyway, I rolled out more, and did my best to cover all of my mistakes in purple. Then I got to work. I stenciled the top, which only took about a minute. But I was prepared for this. I’d heard that stenciling the sides was the tough part. This isn’t a joke. Side stenciling IS harsh. The stencil moves around, and your fingers are always in the way. I’ll need to figure out a way to get it to stay in place. Plus I decided to use only part of the stencil, so making sure you don’t accidentally do more of the picture is tricky. But, all said and done, I thought it looked pretty cool. Next time I can probably get the lines a little cleaner. What do you think?

The Tallest Thing I've Ever Baked (or To Infinity and Beyond!)

After a month of anticipation (on my part, but possibly also on yours), I was finally able to take a tiered cake class. It was being offered by Give Me Some Sugar as a Do-It-Yourself wedding cake class. Not a bride-to-be, I came up with a clever cover story so I could fit in among all the betrothed (pretending to make my brother's wedding cake). Fortunately, it was all for naught. My other classmates were a 12 year-old boy working on a school project, and two already-married women with children. None of us had made a tiered cake before, so we had our work cut out for us.

It was a two day class. I'd never made a multi-tiered cake before, and I'm really excited to try again soon. This is a chocolate cake with Italian buttercream icing and fondant covering and decorations. The silver stripes were my first time working with luster dust, and I haven't decided what I think about it. So far it seems to work a little better in smaller areas. I don't know if I'd want to paint stripes again with it any time soon. Hard to make it all consistent. As my instructor Betsy said to me at the beginning of day two, "Well, I know you're anal about the details."

She is correct!

Anyway, it was great to learn how to dowel a cake, how to make bows from fondant, and even though the jury is still out on luster dust, I'm glad I could give it a try. I'm extremely pleased with the results.