Cupcake Bites

I am testing out more little cake treats from ideas that I have seen on the website Bakerella.com. One of the things I've seen that I just HAD to try was Cupcake Bites. They are formed from cakeballs and decorated to look like cupcakes. The candy coating is melted almond bark in both the chocolate and white with about a tablespoon and a half of vegetable shortening mixed in to thin it out a bit. Below is a picture diagram of how to do this...

You'll need: Cake Balls, 2 different colors of almond bark or candy melts, colored sprinkles, M&Ms, and a 1 1/4 inch petal shaped cookie cutter.

After gathering supplies, roll one end of a cake ball so that it will fit into the cookie cutter, press until the inside of the cutter is filled with cake, and a mound remains on top. Pull the cutter off, and place on parchment paper. Then the dipping begins...

After the bottoms have firmed up, you can start on the top. The Almond Bark needs to be a bit thicker for this to avoid dripping to the bottom. Before the almond bark cools and hardens, sprinkle sprinkles on top, and place a M&M on the top (M side down).

And Voila!! A mini cupcake...

After everything is completely firmed up, it's time to enjoy!!

Tinkerbell Cake

I stuck a free classified on the local radio stations website, and lucky me, I got a response within the first 3 days of putting the ad up. The cake wasn't even in to be delivered in Carrington, which was SUPER exciting.

I was asked to do a garden-ish themed, 2 tiered marble cake with fudge filling for them with the inscription "Happy 3rd Birthday Lorelie". I also made a daisy shaped cake base with pale pink ribon on the edge to really finish the cake off. I was able to take pictures of the cake shortly after it was finished, but do not have any yet of how the Tinkerbell finished off the theme. I'll post those as soon as I get them.

The heat and humidity was an evil foe this time, and as you can see, I have a little bit of bulging in between layers... I'll have to figure out how to combat that in the future since I can't just refuse to do cakes in the summer.

In any case, I hope that Lorelie had a great birthday party, and I hope to be able to do many more cakes like this one!

Happy Birthday to My Baby

Although my youngest baby doesn't turn 2 until Saturday, we had his party last weekend because 1) I have to work on his birthday, 2) My husband has a horse show way far away on his birthday and 3) because it was the most convenient for all the family... and finally, because he's 2, and doesn't really care.

So we had his birthday party, all Elmo themed for the Elmo freak, and here is his cake....

It is a vanilla cake with powdered sugar frosting. I found an Elmo head shaped cake pan, which made it easy to frost it in the right proportions. He OF COURSE loved it, and made sure that it had fingerprints in the frosting before we were able to cut into it!

Happy birthday to my little man~ you've grown up so fast!

Cake Pops

So I thought that I found the COOLEST thing a little over a week ago, and decided to give it a shot. I found out how to make cake balls/cake pops. I had to improvise at first with the stick since all I had around was bamboo kabob skewers, but I have now gotten some lolipop sticks, so I'm ready to go! I just need to figure out how to make it so that they won't crack, and to see if I am talented enough to make them look like something else than candy coated balls of cake!

Spiderman, Spiderman, Does Whatever a Spider Can...

I also got to make a Spiderman cake last week for a little man who is a REALLY big fan of Spiderman. His mom saw a picture on here of the tiered superhero cake that I did for Aiden a little over a year ago, and liked the way it looked, so I tried another version of it with only a Spidey theme.

The top tier is a 4" round strawberry cake with strawberries and buttercream, and the bottom is a 6" round marble cake with Oreo Fluff Filling. All is covered in fondant. The bottom is lined with buildings for Spidey's skyline.

Star Wars Cake

My brother would be SO proud... I crossed over to the Star Wars that he's loved for, oh, 30 years. I was asked to do a cake last week for a young guy who also has the same love for the newer version... and his favorite character is General Grievous.

Hopefully I did both my brother and Tyson proud!

10" square chocolate cake with buttercream frosting and covered/decorated in fondant. Icing border and inscription, and hand painted General Grievous.

Google Search

I just googled myself, and found out that if you search for Sarah's Cake Haven, it will bring up this very blog right at the top of the page! How cool is that?
I must have been pretty dang original when I started this blog... miracles do happen!
Apparently being a Sarah and being a great baker must run hand in hand though, because there are quite a few Sarahs that I saw in the search.... a good sign for me though!

New FaceBook Business Page

I've made a page on Facebook now for Sarah's Custom Cakes. Please come check it out, and "like" it. Hopefully I'll get either this or the FB page updated on a more frequent basis... I guess we'll see...

You'll be able to message me with any requests, orders, or questions~ and all my contact info is also on there.

Spread the word to anyone you know who would like to try something new!

Graduation Cakes Galore!

Over a 3 day period, I made and delivered 5 graduation cakes. I managed to get pictures of 4 of them. Here they are! Congrats to all the 2010 graduates!!

Full sheet cake- marble cake, powdered sugar frosting, fondant scroll and cap

Full sheet cake- 1/2 white, 1/2 chocolate, powdered sugar frosting, and edible image picture. Also included in order, but not pictured-- 2 dozen chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter filling and cream cheese frosting and 2 dozen banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Full sheet cake- marble cake, powdered sugar frosting, edible image picture.

11X15 inch, 2 layer chocolate cake with fudge filling, powdered sugar frosting and fondant scroll. The other cake not pictured was same size, 2 layer chocolate cake with caramel filling, powdered sugar frosting and same fondant scroll.

Denim and Lace Wedding Cake

I tried some new things this time with a wedding cake, and for the first time in trying, it went pretty well. I had never done a table cloth like covering on a cake before, and had never done any freehand piping to make it look a little like lace. The theme for this wedding was denim and lace, and had a bit of a country feel to it.

The bottom tier is a 14 inch round chocolate cake with fudge filling, the middle tier is a 10 inch round carrot cake with cream cheese frosting filling, and the top layer (which they chose to freeze and save for next year) is a german chocolate cake with home made caramel pecan frosting.

More Monkey Business

Mr. Monkey has been a pretty popular theme in the last year, whether it's for Curious George or a "Mod Monkey" I have done this character 3 times now. This time, I opted to do him with a frozen buttercreme transfer, and I think he turned out alright. This cake is a 6 inch round chocolate cake with caramel filling, powdered sugar frosting and fondant decorations.

Little Mermaid

I wasn't brave enough to try to do any hand sculpted characters for this cake, so I opted to find PVC characters that I could place on top of the cake for this one. This cake was a 12X18 inch cake and was 1/2 vanilla and 1/2 strawberry. It was covered in buttercreme frosting and decorated with brown sugar "sand', and fondant sea critters.

The Running Plumber

Schulz Plumbing asked me to help them by bringing their cake for the 20th Anniversary Celebration. There were a full sheet cake and a 1/2 sheet cake made for the day. 1 full sheet was white cake and the other 1/2 was chocolate. The little running plumber was a frozen buttercreme transfer that I tried for the first time. I did have to try twice to get it right, but I think it turned out pretty good!

Here's to another 20 years!!

Old Man Crossing

This birthday cake was for  an "old" man who turned 30 this year. He got a suprise birthday party and cake at a local bar/steakhouse. This was a marble cake with white powdered sugar frosting, and rainbow colored "silly string" type border on the top. The old man was traced onto the cake and filled in with black pipig gel.

God Bless Jaxsyn

This is a baptism cake for a little man named Jaxsyn. It is a 9X13 chocolate cake with a cream cheese and whipped cream frosting and a fondant cross.

Go Diego Go!

So to go along with the Dora cake, I was asked no more than a week later to do a Diego cake. I may end up being a master of the cartoon characters before long! The cake was a 9X13 chocolate cake, covered in powdered sugar frosting and decorated with fondant.