Hello....Kitty

Finished Kitty Cake

I've been wanting to post this cake for awhile but since I made it at the beginning of December, and tis' the season, my time has been taken up with teaching and lots of other fun stuff. I've also had some time to reflect on the past year and it has been AMAZING. I've had so many awesome students come from all over the world, been sharing my bakery space with one of my sweetest friends and have been so fortunate to have been in touch with so many people through facebook, twitter, etc. It has been so exciting and I am so grateful for all of it.

Nude Kitty (made out of gum paste)

Of course since it is December the Food Network has been re-airing the Holiday Cake-off from MANY years ago! (I think about five years or something like that)

Sugar bow with disco dust (glued on with egg whites)

I'm also looking forward to next year with lots of projects underway and teaching internationally.

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday filled with lots of sweetness. I told Kitty it wasn't nice to ignore me while I was working on her...hee, hee! Happy New Year!

THE First Birthday Cake

Perhaps it's only my fellow cake designers who can understand the stress (I put on myself) for my daughter's first birthday cake. In fact, my husband jokingly reminded me TWICE that he ordered a sheet cake, NOT a sculpted cake (a.k.a. cake that will take days to bake, sculpt and decorate) but OF COURSE I was not going to serve a sheet cake at my own daughter's first birthday party.

"Owl Eyes"

So the stress actually started months ahead of time deciding on a design. I finally chose an owl because we affectionately coined the phrase for my daughter "owl eyes" for when she should be sleeping in her stroller but we see her bright large eyes looking back at us.

My inspiration: sketches and tear sheets

The colors came from the plates and napkins I chose, and the style was modeled after all those fabulous Owl pillows, back packs, change purses that are around now. I used a special textured rolling pin to make the medium-pink color look like corduroy on the back and in the ear and pocket details. I hadn't used that rolling pin since the first sock monkey I made, in 2005 on the first Food Network Birthday Cake challenge. Lots of stitching, everywhere to make a cute and cuddly owl.

It was made of our old-fashioned vanilla cake with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream, very simple but delicious.

And it is kind of appropriate I joined twitter today and I am using this "bird" cake photo for all my tweets! Follow along...

**Top photo by my talented cousin Jordan Pique

The Cake Boss is coming to Town Hall

One of the sweetest guys around is my friend, Buddy Valastro. It's hard to look at all the styled photos of him from his TV show because he looks so serious and that isn't him at all. He is the type of guy that would do anything to help anyone. He is releasing a new book and is giving a live performance next week at Town Hall, it should be a lot of fun!

Here is a special discount code for the tickets:

Discount offer valid October 4th 10am – November 2nd 10am.
Password: CAKE
$5 savings on price level two and three tickets.
Previous purchases do not apply.
Valid online only.

PRESS RELEASE:

Buddy Valastro: The Cake Boss

The Bakin’ with the Boss Tour

The Town Hall · November 3rd · 8pm

- Tickets are on-sale Now -

America’s favorite baker Buddy Valastro will bring his “Bakin' with the Boss Tour” to The Town Hall on Wednesday, November 3^rd at 8pm. Tickets are on-sale at ticketmaster.com, 212.307.4100, or The Town Hall Box Office. Tickets are $39.50, $49.50, & $59.50 plus applicable service charges.

In this live interactive event, the baker and star of TLC's “Cake Boss” will share the stories behind his hit TV series and his colorful Italian family, answer audience questions, and give a live demonstration of the techniques that have made him one of the most successful and renowned cake artists in the nation. Buddy will even invite audience members to join the fun on stage. The whole family is invited for a night of “bakin’ with the boss” one will not soon forget.

One of the centerpiece shows of the TLC network, a third season of “Cake Boss” debuted May 31^st on TLC. Viewers continue to celebrate the mouthwatering desserts and not-to-be-missed Valastro family moments occurring in bustling Hoboken, NJ, home of Carlo’s Bakery, which celebrated it’s 100^th anniversary in June. On November 2^nd, Free Press (Simon & Schuster) will publish Buddy’s first book, Cake Boss: The Stories and Recipes In the book, Buddy shares recipes and his family’s inspiring, fascinating, and poignant life story.

Wizard of Oz Cake

Dorothy, Glenda and the Wicked Witch are all non-edible figurines. Ok... so I cheated a little! Everything else is made using either buttercream or fondant. Happy belated birthday to my sweet little 8 year old! Sorry it took mommy over a month to throw you a suitable party! Also... hope you'll forgive me for not including the 20 munchkins you requested. Maybe next year? lol

Columbus Day

This cake wasn't done for Columbus day but the theme seemed fitting. The cake was created recently for one of my favorite clients. It was her son's fifth birthday and he is interested in world soccer and flags. Since Columbus supposedly sailed around the world, here is a world globe, an airplane and flags of over thirty countries made out of sugar. All the details on the globe are piped in Royal Icing and then hand painted with petal (flat) powders mixed with lemon extract. All the flags were made individually out of gum paste, that's right each one was researched and then created by me, one at a time! Some flags took over two hours....check out the British flag, that's a lot of stripes!

The cake was our traditional Vanilla cake with Chocolate ganache and Vanilla Buttercream.

Martha Stewart Radio

It's almost Halloween! One of my favorite holidays filled with costumes, candy and fun desserts. Tomorrow, October 6th at 3pm I will be the guest of Mario Bosquez, the host of the Living Today show on Martha Stewart Living Radio on Sirius Satellite. We will be discussing Halloween Cake Ideas. The show airs live so I will be taking all sorts of baking and decorating related questions.

Just in case you can't listen live or if you want a copy of the interview:

you can sign up for a FREE 7 day subscription at http://www.sirius.com/freetrial/register, and record the interview while it’s LIVE onto your computer.

50th Anniversary Cake

I really love this cake and btw... I don't often use words like "love" when speaking of one of my cakes. lol This cake eventually sported a 50th anniversary cake topper... but I don't have that photo available.





The beads and leaves are fondant covered in luster dust... the roses are simply white fondant. Very simple and elegant. Why I don't normally like to recreate the same cake twice... I think this piece of artwork might be the exception. :)

The Duff Goldman Cake Line Review... Brought to You by Cake Space!

I'm delighted to have been among the privileged cake decorators asked to sample a portion of the (new to the market) Duff Goldman line of cake decorating products. I can't begin to tell you how exciting it is to have a box of goodies sporting Duff's image on top!

My only regret is that it's taken me this long to finally get my review published to my cake blog, but it was so worth the wait... at least for me. lol I'm thrilled to finally have baked and covered a sweet heart of a cake for the Duff Goldman line.

So... here's what I was sent... a box of premium chocolate cake mix, a tub of red fondant, and a set of texture tiles for giving texture to fondant.

I was a bit intimidated by the fondant when I found it on the shelf at my local Micheal's craft store as it's more expensive than the brand I normally buy. Here's the thing though... Duff's fondant is actually GOOD! I usually only add fondant accents to my cakes, rather than covering the entire cake in fondant as I've never much cared for the taste, and given that adding fondant adds expense, why mess with it? However... Duff's fondant  is worth paying for and messing with! lol It's only going to enhance your cake's taste and appearance, so I say go for it!

The free fondant shipped to my door was red, which is great because taking white fondant and coloring it red is a chore. Before this review, I'd never worked with pre-colored fondant... I've always colored it myself. Duff's fondant has a great feel to it and is not dry, like the other brand I'm familiar with. It doesn't easily rip or tear when draping over a cake and works well in layers... by that I mean if you're making fondant accents to place atop a freshly covered fondant cake, you may not even need a dab of water or vanilla extract to help it stick. One less step!

Just for fun I used the Texture Tiles to give my added hearts a bit of... well, texture! lol I have dedicated this heart cake to Duff and his fun (and tasty) new decorating product line.


My overall impression? I would definitely buy the fondant again. In fact, I'm already planning on it. The premium chocolate cake mix is very good too. I don't know how often I'll be able to swing the extra money to buy it though, as it's significantly more than what I currently use. Not that it's not worth that price, it's just not likely I'll purchase too many cake mixes down the road. Maybe on special occasions... like my wedding anniversary or my husband's birthday I'll splurge.

The Texture Tiles are fun and will be something I'll probably use again. They're of course reusable, assuming you don't place them in your dishwasher! lol I think they'll work nicely for small projects like this heart cake, so I'll be hanging on to them.

This cake is double-layer 8" heart-shaped design, which was just the right size for 1 Premium Chocolate Cake Mix. I had A LOT of extra fondant after covering and decorating... I think I could have decorated another cake of this size with the amount of fondant remaining.

If you'd like to have a little fun, visit Micheal's craft store and check out all the awesome Duff Goldman products. They even carry cake tattoos! lol I was really hoping to receive one in my goody box, but I'm almost over that disappointment. lol They look like a lot of fun and I even found a few at my local Walmart... which was a surprise!  I didn't realize anyone other than Micheal's would be carrying Duff.

I hope you've enjoyed this review as much as I enjoyed providing it. I'll agree it was probably more fun for me though, because I actually get to help eat the cake! Can I just say YUMMY!!?

Ladybug Baby Shower Cake

Pottery Barn Patterned Baby Shower Cake

Icing Smiles

We were recently introduced to a non-profit organization that is using the incredible talent in the baking industry to improve the lives of critically ill children.

As if Kate Sullivan wasn't already my cake hero. Now there is just one more reason to love Kate, owner and master creator of Lovin Sullivan Cakes in NYC. She recently made a cake for the organization Icing Smiles.

Cake by Kate Sullivan of Lovin Sullivan Cakes

Tracy Quisenberry is the founder and executive director of this AMAZING organization. Icing Smiles just became operational in January and already has volunteers in 31 states consisting of both professional bakers and hobbyists. They are working hard to expand their network of bakers, volunteers and donors to serve as many families as possible. Please take a minute to check them out and consider how you can help "Bake a Difference" You do not need to be a professional cake designer to help. Read more about the cake Kate made for Icing smiles here on her blog. You can also stay in touch with Icing Smiles via Facebook. We are on sabbatical until the Fall but Confetti Cakes is looking forward to joining this organization's list of generous and talented cake designers.

Grab The Bookmarketer For Your Site

Duff Goldman's Product Line Review... Coming Soon!

I've been invited to sample and share my thoughts and experiences on a few of the exciting products from Duff Goldman's (Ace of Cakes) new line of cake decorating products! The much anticipated box recently made it's appearance at my front door and I was ever so eager to rip it open and hold the treasure in my greedy little hands, only to realize my camera wasn't working with my computer! Which means... I'm going to have a tough time posting photos of the product before, during and after I've created my next project. I just can't imagine not sharing a review with photos. I mean... what's the point?

With the help of a friend (aren't friends lovely?)... I hope to surpass this annoying issue and have the review up and going this time next week. Please revisit Cake Space at such time and witness in photos... yours truly having a blast with Duff's fondant, cake mix and another goody I can't wait to share with you. It will be a great time... don't you think?

In the meantime, if you're interested in checking Duff's cake line for yourself, you can find it at Micheal's Craft Stores! Did you know they had a coupon in the paper this week? Let's see... 2 plus 2 equals...

Tinkerbell Cake

Tinkerbell and accents are fondant.

Bridal Shower Cake... Sheet Cake Decorated Like Wedding Cake

One of the challenges with sheet cakes (at least for me) is photographing them! I didn't get a great photo of this cake... which is a shame because it turned out really cute. :)

Click for a larger view!

Rosey Day Cake

I found my inspiration for this cake from a contributor's creation in Mailbox News magazine. I LOVED the colors and design and only made a few modifications.

My kids told me it needed something in the center, but I kinda liked seeing the buttercream spatuala marks in the frosting, so left it alone. Besides, it's really easy to overdo a cake. :)

Click the photo to see an enlarged view.

Golf Sheet Cake

Here's a full sheet cake for a teacher's retirement party. It was the first golf cake I've made and a lot of fun!

Click photo to enlarge to full screen view.

BumbleBee Transformer Cake

This is a my lame attempt to give my 9 year old a BumbleBee birthday cake. It's head is a helmet, so only the shoulders are cake. Making BumbleBee isn't all that easy to do, especially given every picture I pulled up of him online looked so different from the one before. I decided getting the color right was what I'd concentrate on and just go with a simple design.

This cake was made using a total of 3 sheet cakes (12"x18" pan). So... it's a lot of cake! I didn't smooth the frosting as I decided it added to the rough look of BumbleBee. By the way, I don't think I'm spelling his name right, so might be editing this post later! lol

If I had it to do again, I'd add a license plate to the front. Would have been cool, but I ran out of time!

Chocolate Swirl Wedding Cake

I made 3 double-layer sheetcakes with the same design, but didn't get a photo!

Click the photo for a larger view.

Rachael Ray Airdate

Happy Spring!

Make sure you tune in to the Rachael Ray Show on Monday, April 26th at 10 am (in New York) on ABC. Me and my friend, Buddy Valastro (a.k.a. the Cake Boss), will go head-to-head to see who can provide the best cake tips!

The show is syndicated, so please click here to check your local station and time. If you miss it, don't worry-there will be a clip of the segment on the Rachael Ray website once it airs.

Cake Girls

For those of you who haven't heard my friends, Brenda and Mary Maher of Cake Girls lost their bakery in a fire last month. You can help by purchasing a t-shirt, the proceeds go to help their staff while they rebuild their bakery. Aside from being AMAZING cake artists they are super kind-hearted people.

Here's the link: http://www.thecakegirls.com/

Winner of the Butterfly Shaped Cake Pan!

I'm pleased to announce the winner of the Cake Space Butterfly Shaped Nordicware pan is entrant number 33! Congratulations to Crystal! WooHoo!

I used Random.org.... which I've attempted to share here, it's small, but for the sake of legitimacy, wanted to share with my readers that this drawing was entirely random.
Thanks to all who entered this giveaway!  I hope you'll follow Cake Space for future fun and baking related giveaways! :o)