A very special princess celebration

This past week was eventful in my kitchen. With my husband's birthday and a princess party, my oven was working overtime. I know I promised to post tutorials on how to make fondant and a cupcake tier, but I am going to do things backwards this time because I am so excited to show off my latest cake adventure.

The princess cake was a 6" cake with pink MMF in a quilting pattern with little pearl dragees to mark the corners. This is definitely a pattern that I would like to perfect and use often. The cake was a devil's food chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream. The tiara onto is made of gum paste with the letter "H" to represent the perfect princess birthday girl!

There were 24 cupcakes, each with their own fondant figure. The green cupcakes had golden crowns to represent the frog prince. Little castles, star wands, and mini gum paste tiaras adorned the other cupcakes. I used three different frosting tips for the buttercream frosting to give a little variety.

The cupcake tower was no easy job. Although the materials are basic enough, it was difficult to center the supports and make sure they were level. I used six cake boards, two 12", two 10", and two 8", glued together and wrapped in sliver paper. The supports were made from PVC pipe, cut and assembled by my talented husband, and wrapped in white paper. The princess ribbon was glued around each plate, for a finished and personalized look.

As a special surprise for the birthday girl, I made this sweet little unicorn out of MMF. She was my first attempt at creating a figure and I think she turned out wonderful. I've heard that the birthday girl now displays this magical unicorn in her bedroom as a token of her wonderful day.

Happy Birthday Princess Hayden!

Starting a blog was harder than decorating this cake...

Here's to my first post, my first blog, and basically my first time attempting to explain what happens in my crazy kitchen.

Wait... don't leave, it will get interesting, I hope...

I was born a Baker - literally - and in my free time away from kids, house work, and husband time, I have been working on living up to my former surname and perfecting the art of actual baking. I will admit that I have never had much interest in baking until I discovered that cakes could be bold, bright, and FUN!

The very first cake that I made was almost six years ago for my son's first birthday. I wasn't satisfied with the basic round, frosted variety and between fits of frustration and tears and the patient encouragement of my wonderful grandma, I created two 3D cars sitting "artistically" on a construction paper road! I might be brave enough someday to show these pics, but for today I want to share one of my latest birthday cakes.

My fourth and smallest child is a WILD THING - which coincidentally is the name of this cake! This cake is your basic white cake topped and filled with a traditional buttercream frosting. I used MMF (marshmallow fondant) for the zebra stripes, jaguar spots, decorative trim, and Phoebe. The stripes and spots were hand cut and designed by my talented Aunt Teri - who just happens to know everything there is to know about WILD THINGS!

The inside of the cake was dyed pink - no it's NOT strawberry cake! I dye the inside of many of the cakes I make for kids because it's fun, and why not? I used Wilton gel food coloring for all of the color work.

Some people might wonder why I didn't cover my entire cake with MMF... WELL... that's another post for another day! I will also be posting my MMF recipe with pics this weekend as I get

ready to make a cake for my husband's birthday bash!

Hope you enjoyed my first attempt at blogging - Remember, I am not a professional, but a self-taught, bright eyed, student of the trade. I am constantly inspired by my fellow bloggers and I hope that I was able to inspire something in you.