A tower of cakes

This cake was the biggest cake I have ever done, for 300 people. Plus, I transported the cake layers to northern Kentucky (just below Cincinnati), for the wedding. My husband's cousin was getting married, and I volunteered to do her cake. I made all the cakes and froze them, carried them up to their house the week of the wedding. Then I spent two days making icing and putting the cakes together. What was worse, my oldest son was only about 1 yr. old and he got his first and only ear infection while we were there. So the day I was supposed to get started icing the cakes we had to take him to the doctor. It was a nightmare. It took me two days to frost the cakes, put on the fondant, and then decorate the layers. Truly the last time I attempt a cake that big long distance. But it was a success, and they were happy with it. I think it turned out pretty. It leaned a little with all the columns and cakes, but it didn't fall and it was pretty.

Nathan's birthday planet cakes

My son loves space and the planets. For his third birthday he had two cakes. One we made together of the planet Mercury, with all its craters, and the other of Saturn. Totally homey looking, but he loved them.

New Year's wedding cake.. that almost landed on the pavement

I made this for the lady who so wonderfully helped us find our house. She is a wonderful realtor, and a good friend. She got married about a year after we moved in, and 2 months after I had our second child. Yes, I am a crazy lady, but I have always found it hard to say no to a friend. I am getting better at it these days. She got married on New Year's Eve. So cool. This cake is wrapped with silver and black ribbons. Nothing fancy, just simple and elegant. Well, when we took the cake to the reception site, as I was carrying it in in it's box, I tripped on a piece of pavement that was sticking up and almost lost the whole cake. As it was, the top layers of the cake slid on the bottom layer (reminder to self, even though it is a small cake, do not prestack cake before delivery, no matter what). I had to push it back in place. Fortunately it had slid towards the back of the cake and the marks I couldn't quite touch up perfectly from pushing it back into place were in the back of the cake. No one knew, but I tell you I was a nervous wreck.
Delivering the cake is always the riskiest part. You never know what will happen: a sudden stop, a trip carrying the thing in, who knows.

More Calla Lilies

I made this cake just before we moved into our first house here, about 5 yrs. ago. Can't believe it's been that long. I again, made the calla lilies out of gum paste. It was a simple cake based on a magazine pictures.

Periwinkle is blue right?

Okay, this is a cake that didn't turn out quite right that I did. Not because it didn't look right, but because the bride asked for periwinkle blue fondant, which when I was trying to get the color, started to turn a weird grayish color. Oh no. Of course, dork that I can be sometimes, didn't try the color in the fondant until the day of making it for the cake itself. And did I try it on a small amount first? Oh, no. I went full force into the whole batch. Well, you have to make it all at once, or you might not get smaller batches to match in color. Bad, bad, bad. The fondant started turning this grayish blue color. Ugh. Time to stop before it gets really ugly. Okay, so let me back up. The bride asked for a cake with periwinkle fondant. She saw the cake in Martha Stewart and wanted to make it match her colors, which she adamantly claimed were periwinkle blue and then some lavander and purple colors. She sent ribbons to give me colors (mostly light purples that matched the purple flowers that I put on the cake), but insisted, periwinkle blue for the fondant. Okay. My cabinets in my kitchen are periwinkle BLUE. They are blue. Not purple. Okay, so I get to the wedding, start setting up the cake, and notice all the flowers there and the bridesmaids dresses are purple, different shades of purple. No periwinkle blue anywhere. What a nightmare. I did what she asked: periwinkle blue. Anyway, she said the cake was pretty, tasted wonderful, but unfortunately didn't match the colors. I was deeply sorry, but didn't press the point it was what she asked for. Maybe she was thinking periwinkle was a different color.

Fresh fruit heaven

Okay, talk about a little pressure here. How about doing a wedding cake for another professional chef? Well, here it is. It is based on a Martha Stewart cake, with the basketweave being done with a large leaf tip. Unique and striking. The fruit was piled on high and I didn't envy the person having to cut the cake. The cake was chocolate and vanilla layers with raspberry mousse as the filling. yummy. I love it when brides want to experiment with flavor. Beats a plain vanilla cake anyday. Makes it more personal too. I did another cake like this for a friend whom I "taught" in a high school Bible study/discipleship class.

The tackiest cake I have done

I promised myself that I would never do a fountain cake. Never!! Well, you know what they say about never saying never. This was a unique cake in so many respects. The bride was marrying someone whose beliefs don't allow them to eat eggs. Well, who knew you could make an eggless chocolate cake. I don't think anyone had, because nobody she had contacted about making a cake for her would do it. She found a recipe for an eggless chocolate cake, so I said I would give it a try. Well, dilemma number two: no eggs meant no meringue based buttercream. I would have to do the butter and powedered sugar thing. Ugh. That icing is so hard to work with in smoothing it out on a cake cause it gets crusty so fast. This cake was the bane of my existence while doing it, but it turned out pretty well. The whole construction of the stairs and fountains was a pain too, but alas we got it worked out. So here is an eggless chocolate wedding cake with a fountain. I hope to never do another one.

This wedding cake was done based on a magazine photo a bride brought me. This was one of the more "decorated" cakes I had done up to this time. I arranged the flowers on the cake as well on site.

My first fondant cake

I love just buttercream only iced cakes, and was a bit skeptical about doing a fondant cake. I think most commercial fondant products (Wilton and others) are horrible. They are pasty and sugary and not very good for anything but looks and I would advise peeling it off before eating the cake. In my limited experience with it in tasting too, it was always a very thick layer on top of the cake. But I found a product called Choco-Pan that was so great. It is actually a chocolate based fondant that you are supposed to roll thin to cover the cake. It was a winner and so I could then offer fondant covered cakes. This is my first one. It is a challenge, and again, I taught myself on this cake. It turned out quite well. It is based on a Martha Stewart cake from one of her Weddings magazines. I love her simple, elegant style, at least it was at that time. I had a customer request this cake. It has her new monogram on the bottom tier. It is hard to see in the photos. I am not a photographer, so my photos for this blog are not the best. But the cake was beautiful, simple and so elegant. I also made about 150 lemon and orange sugar cookies that looked like wedding cakes for her to give as favors to the wedding guests.

My best friend's wedding cake

I made the cake layers (almond) for this and froze them briefly to transport them to Maryland for my best friend's wedding. I have known Dana since the 7th grade. I was in her wedding as a bridesmaid, and offered to do her wedding cake. About a month or so earlier, my mom and I transported several kinds of petit fours to her house for a bridal shower too. That is in one of the pictures too. Italian espresso squares, lemon curd tartletts with raspberries on top, linzer hearts,
and mexican wedding cakes. Yummo. They were so pretty and elegant. Anyway, I assembled her cake in her kitchen and transported it to the reception site before the wedding. Talk about stressful. That was nothing compared to what I would do a few years later for my husband's cousin. Anyway, I make cakes and will travel for friends and family to deliver. It was a different kind of cake for me, and the tuille swags were a challenge. Dana was so happy with the cake though.

My first try at Gum Paste flowers

This was actually my first wedding cake customer outside of family after I started my business here. The bride was a resident at Roanoke Memorial and their wedding was at the resort past Blacksburg, Va where they filmed the Dirty Dancing movie. I can't think of the name right now. Anyway, no air conditioning in the lodge, but it was so nice and cool. We had to transport the cake in separate layers, then I assembled them and arranged the flowers on site. I also made petit four desserts for the wedding too: lemon butter bars, raspberry filled cookies, and some other stuff that I don't remember anymore. This cake I taught myself how to do gum paste calla lilies and some other small filler flowers. The greenery and the purple flowers are real, but the rest of the flowers are handmade by me. It was gorgeous and I was so proud of the way this turned out.

Sibert wedding

Here is the wedding cake I made for my own wedding. It was vanilla cake with a peach champagne filling. It is a belini cake. My husband loves peaches, so I made it for him. The buttercream frosting is silky smooth with a hint of peach schnapp's. Love it. It even mimicked the print in my wedding dress, a detail I didn't realize until after the wedding. Anyway, it was good. It got a lot of church friends hooked on my wedding cakes. Some won't even eat wedding cake now unless it is mine. Again, no cake mixes here. All butter, flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla beans. Buttercream is an Italian meringue buttercream: none of that sticky, heavy shortening and powdered sugar stuff that bedecks and ruins cakes made by most folks. The taste of the cake, filling shine through and the buttercream adds a silky finish. Yummy.

New Blog for my pastry arts work

I am starting a new blog to chronicle my pastry arts work. I do this to share my other creative passion, even though right now in my stage of life, I can't indulge in it like I used to. Before I had my children, I used to make quite a few wedding cakes, desserts, and special occasion cakes and pastries. I love baking. I love being creative with not only the outward appearance of pastries, but the wonderful flavors you can combine in desserts, to delight the palate as well as the eye. I am so dismayed that so many people have yet to taste a real dessert; one that is made with preservative free, real and fresh ingredients. I too grew up on Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines cakes for birthdays and everyday. I can say that I thought they were pretty good... until I made my first cake from real butter, eggs, flour, sugar and vanilla. Oh how blissfully good, how completely different. There is no going back. Now as a side note, I still grab a cake mix or two for quick fixes for our family, but never in a dessert I would sell.

You may wonder how my journey into the pastry arts began. Well, it has many facets. I have always loved to eat dessert, and to help my mom in the kitchen. I loved watching shows with cooking segments on them and the beautiful way they presented the food. I loved my MINI MAGIC BAKE OVEN, and I have always read cookbooks like novels. I love looking at the beautiful presentation of food and desserts, and I love to eat them too. Dessert is my passion. I love the look, the textures, the tastes, all of it. Okay, so I also love chocolate, and that is motivation enough, right. I never knew I could make a career of something that was such a part of me. I honestly didn't know that until I was a junior in high school. Okay, so I am a little daft, as the Irish might say, but there you have it.
I decided to check into culinary schools. I must admit that was a bit daunting. I had plenty of home baking experience, but not anything professional. I knew I was gifted at baking and following recipes, but did I have what it took to do this professionally. I knew I wanted to have my own business someday, so I decided to get a business degree first at Wake Forest University. I did my focus in business in entrepreneurship, and even did a business plan there for that class to open a bakery. I presented my plan with fellow classmates to some local businessmen that my professor brought in. I even made pastries in the University cafeteria, where I was working decorating cakes and helping the baker there, to use in my presentation. I am not sure how well I really did on the plan, but the desserts delighted everyone.
After Wake Forest, I was accepted into the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. I was so excited. Two of the chefs I has worked with at Wake Forest were graduates, and they wrote recommendations for me when I applied. They pretty much cemented my decision to go to the best school for culinary arts. I know there are some who would disagree, but I don't. I took a Continuing Education course that was 9 months of hands on baking and pastry arts instruction. To say I learned so much, is an understatement. To say that I ate a lot of wonderful pastries would be an understatement too. The only way I didn't get fat, was that we were lugging 50 lb. bags of flour and sugar, and huge trays of breads, cakes, rolls, etc. everyday from 7:30 am to 2:30 pm. Plus I had a job outside of the school, and cooking for one stinks. So I managed to indulge but keep the weight off. It was a wonderful experience. I hope to someday go back and sharpen my skills when I can get back into the baking business.

So after that I had a string of blah jobs. I won't go into those disasters. But I finally found the job that was wonderful for honing my pastry skills. I worked for a wonderful dessert cafe in Durham, NC called Francesca's, on 9th street. I got to learn so much about making wedding cakes, and all sorts of other pastries. We made everything from scratch, no artificial anything. We couldn't even use food dye in coloring our icing for decorated cakes. It was chocolate, fruit purees, pure fresh everything. Oh, my word, it was heaven. The cakes we made to sell by the slice and for special order and restaurants all over Durham and Raleigh were exquisite. Most people around here have never tasted such bliss. I worked there for almost 2 yrs. before I moved here to Roanoke a new bride to my wonderful husband.

I worked for a few caterers here in Roanoke, hoping I would get to use my skills at homemade desserts, but alas they wanted, quick, cheap, not homemade. So I said, "no thanks," and started my own business out of my home. I started doing Christmas cookies and small cakes for friends of family and church family. By word of mouth from them, my business took off. I had made my own wedding cake (see the photo at top) and grooms cake, when I moved up here. Then a year later I made my sister in law's wedding cake and grooms cake. Between that and God's providence, I was on my way to a pretty good wedding cake business. Then Scott and I decided we wanted to have children. I kept doing wedding cakes up until our firstborn was about 1 1/2 years old, but it was clear that small children, a small kitchen and the breadth of work for wedding cakes wasn't a good mix. It's hard to do a good job on the cakes when your family needs you to be a good mom too. My family comes first, so I had to start turning people away, and saying I was giving up the business for now.
I started my Stampin' UP! business to keep the creativity going, but I do miss the baking. I am grateful to the gifts God has given me, and I pray that one day when my boys get a little older to be able to serve him with these gifts again. My boys love to help in the kitchen, so maybe it could be a family business.

I started this blog to share some of the things I have done, expound on the ideas I have or maybe share a good dessert I have tried. Who knows. It won't be updated too often, but I wanted to put it out there.

Thanks for letting me share my pastry journey.
Melissa