Yahtzee!

This was another Pinterest inspiration!
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/376613587563295472/

My family loves to play games and when I saw the picture of these dice I knew I couldn't go wrong giving this as Christmas gifts.

I couldn't find really solid instructions to creating the dice, but thankfully I have a handy husband. We purchased a 4x4 and he cut it into equal blocks. I measured out all the holes using a real die to make sure the numbers were on the correct sides. We sanded them, stained them, sealed them and glued some black felt into the holes.
I took home some old milk crates from work, cleaned them up and spray painted them all black. I created seat cushions for the top of the crates so they could double as an extra seat.
Each milk crate got a 6 dice, a booklet of a ton of dice game instructions, score sheets needed for a few of the dice games, a smooth piece of wood painted with chalkboard paint and a box of chalk to keep score with.
It makes a great outdoor game to play with friends and family.

Gingerbread

I was looking for something unique to bake for some Christmas gifts and came across an Irish Gingerbread recipe. This makes your whole house smell like Christmas.
I gifted some loaves and used a loaf to make a gingerbread-eggnog trifle. This is a very moist bread that gives you the taste of a gingerbread cookie, but with the texture of a cake. It tastes great with a thin layer of butter and a hot tea to sip along with it!

Woof Woof

I saw this idea on Pinterest, (see the link below)

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/376613587563295435/

As a leash and treat holder, I thought it would make a great Christmas gift for a dog lover!
I found a scrap piece of wood from a prior shelf building project and painted a light coat of grey left over from our bathroom reno. After the pain dried I wiped it with some dark stain. You can't really tell from the picture, but it gave it a nice rustic/country look.
I happened to have some brown material left over from another Christmas gift so I cut out a paw print and using hot glue, attached it to the board.
I found a hook and the 'o' clamp at our local Home- Depot for a very low cost. The screws that came with the hook were a little too long so I looked around in my husbands tool room and found some smaller self-drilling framing screws. They were very easy to screw into the wood with just my kitchen screwdriver. I got my husband to attached the 'o' clamp as I was having trouble getting the screws through the tiny slits. He then tightened it up with the jar inside and voila!
I added some picture hanging hooks on the back so I can be easily hung on the wall.
Overall this was a very easy and relatively inexpensive homemade gift. I liked it so much that I'm making one for myself!

Hespeler Village Celebration

I was hired to make a big cake for the Hespeler BIA, (Business Improvement Area). Their definition from their website is as follows,

What is a Business Improvement Areas (BIA)?

A Business Improvement Area (BIA) is an association of commercial property owners and tenants within a defined area who work in partnership with the City to create thriving, competitive, and safe business areas that attract shoppers, diners, tourists, and new businesses. By working collectively as a BIA, local businesses have the organizational and funding capacity to be catalysts for civic improvement, enhancing the quality of life in their local neighbourhood and the City as a whole.
 My Hubby happens to be their current treasurer, so I have a little bit of a connection. They wanted it to celebrate a board members 50th birthday. Also it is their election night, so they wanted a cake to celebrate the new board members and those board members that are leaving. My only instructions were to make it large and Hespeler Themed. My wheels got turning in my head and I decided to highlight some of the local business in Downtown Hespeler. I sketched out some business signs and made fondant replicas and scattered them on the cake.
I apologize in advance for the photo overkill. I wanted to get every angle.
Have a look!

 

 

This cake was made to Celebrate a Happy Birthday and the election of new board members:

 

Size: This cake is quite large with two 12 inch cakes on the bottom, two 9 inch cakes in the middle and two 6 inch cakes on the top.

 

Flavour: The bottom cake is a plain vanilla cake, the middle is a chocolate fudge cake and the top is a lemon-ginger gluten free cake.

 

Filling: Each level is spilt and filled 3 times with homemade chocolate pudding.

Decorations: The cakes are all iced with a thin layer of homemade buttercream and then decoarted with coloured homemade marshmallow fondant. All the other decoration are also made out of coloured homemade marshmallow fondant. 

Sweet Hearts

Are you or anyone you know gluten free? Do you feel like there is something missing from your life? Something delicious, and moist? Something full of rich chocolate flavour? Something sugary and sweet? Well look no further, here I have made a flourless chocolate cake, stacked and filled with chocolate ganache and covered in a thin layers of both homemade buttercream and coloured fondant!

 

 

This cake was made just for fun, to celebrate my sweetheart!

 

Size: This cake was made out of 2,  9 inch cake pans, because of the flourless aspect, it does not rise, therefore it creats a very dense, short, cake.

 

Flavour: This was a flourless chocolate cake, lots of chocolate flavour from both semi-sweet chocolate and cocoa powder.

 

Filling: This cake was filled with a homemade chocolate ganache.

 

Decorations: This cake was decorated with homade buttercream icing and then covered with homemade marshmallow fondant and decorated with fondant heart cutouts! 

Girly Fondant

  I've been wanting to try out some techiques such as the checkerboard cake and the fondant bow and when my mom asked me to make a cake for my Grandmothers birthday, I thought it was the perfect opportunity!


This cake was made to celebrade a Happy Birthday!

Size: This cake was made out of 4 9 inch cake pans stacked ontop of each other.
Taste: This was a vanilla cake batter, tinted different colours.
Filling: There is homemade vanilla buttercream between all the layers and under the fondant.
Decorations: This cake was decorated with homemade mashmallow fondant and the writing was done in homemade vanilla buttercream.

Just for fun!

This cake was made just for fun!

Size: This cake is two 9 inch cakes stacked on top of each other. 

Taste: The flavour is a chocolate fudge cake.  

Filling: This cake was filled with chocolate pudding.
Icing and decorations: This cake was decorated with homemade buttercream icing, all decorations were made with coloured buttercream icing.

Work Meeting

This cake was made to accompany an Annual General Meeting. 

** This cake was special as I got the privilege to teach several of my clients how to decorate cakes and got to make this yummy cake with them!**

Size: This cake was made out of a 15 x 22 sized cake.

Taste: The flavour was half vanilla cake and half chocolate cake. 

Filling: There was no filling in this cake.
Icing and decorations: This cake was decorated with homemade buttercream. All the flowers and other decorations are also made out of coloured buttercream.

Baby is coming!

These cupcakes were made to celebrate a Baby on the way!

Size: These are 12 regular sized cupcakes. 

Taste: The flavour is a chocolate fudge cake.  

Filling: These cupcakes were filled with chocolate cream cheese.
Icing and decorations: These cupcakes were frosted with coloured buttercream icing and topped with rubber duckies and flowers made out of royal icing. (hardened but still edible.)

Company's Coming

This cake was made to share with friends!

Size: This cake was made in a 12 inch spring form pan.

Taste: This cake was a chocolate truffle cheese cake.  

Filling: No filling in this cake.
Icing and decorations: This cake was decorated with homemade chocolate whip cream, fresh raspberries and dark chocolate shavings.

New Babies

 

These cupcakes were made to celebrate the birth of twin boys!

Size: These are 12 regular sized cupcakes. 

Taste: The flavour is a chocolate fudge cake.  

Filling: No filling in these cupcakes.
Icing and decorations: These cupcakes are decorated with homemade chocolate buttercream. The nests and birds are also made with coloured buttercream.

Fathers Day

This Cake was made to celebrate a Happy Fathers Day

Size: This is two 9 inch cakes stacked on top of each other.

Taste: The flavour is a chocolate fudge cake.  

Filling: This cake was filled with chocolate pudding. 
Icing and decorations: These cupcakes are decorated with home made chocolate buttercream. The basket weave around the cake and all the flowers are also made out of coloured buttercream.

Christening

These cupcakes were made to celebrate a baptism 

Size: This cake is a 15 x 11 2 tiered cake.

Taste: The flavour is a sweet vanilla cake.  

Filling: This cake was filled with homemade vanilla buttercream and store bought vanilla pudding.
Icing and decorations: This cake and all the decorations are made out of homemade buttercream.

Purple Flowers

This cake was made to celebrate a Happy Anniversary!

Size: This cake was made out of three 9 inch cake pans, stacked on top of each other.
Flavour: This cake was a rich homemade vanilla batter.
Filling: This cake was filled with Chantilly cream and fresh strawberries.
Icing and Decorations: This cake was iced with homemade buttercream. All decorations are made out of coloured buttercream.
 

Chocolate! Chocolate! Chocolate!

This Cake was made to celebrate a Happy Birthday!

Size: This cake was made in a 12 inch spring form pan.
Flavour: This was a triple chocolate mousse cake! Dark chocolate on the bottom, milk chocolate in the middle and white chocolate on the top!
Filling: No filling in this cake, only the mousse
Decorations: This cake was decorated with fresh strawberries and drizzled with some dark and white chocolate.

Vroom Vroom

 

I wanted to give you guys some history on this cake design. My Papa (my Mom’s Dad) joined a car club in 1954 when he was 16 years old. The car club? The Strokers! The name Stroker comes from somewhere in the engine…

Anyways this past weekend, the Strokers celebrated their 60^th anniversary. It was hosted at my Grandparents farm. There were raffle prized (I won a power sander…woo!) and lots of food (pulled pork, chicken, roast beef…) and lots of music (My Dad’s band played all afternoon/evening). It was a lot of fun.

My Grandparents asked if I wanted to make a cake for the party, I said I would love too! Papa stopped by that afternoon and gave me the DVD from their 50^th anniversary party to watch and get some ideas. He thought it would be neat if I used the DVD case as reference.

 

 



Their ‘team car’ was a purple dragster (interpreted above).

Here is my version!  

This cake was made to celebrate a 60th Reunion!

Size: This cake was made out of two 15 x 11 cake pans placed side by side.

Taste: Half of the cake was chocolate fudge, the other half was vanilla.  

Filling: This cake was filled with strawberry jam.
Icing and decorations: This cake was iced with homemade buttercream icing. All of the coloured decroations are made out of homemade marshmallow fondant. Everything is edible on this cake.



Here is a picture of the actual dragster!

Happy First Birthday

 

his cake was made to celebrate a Happy First Birthday!

Size: This cake was made out of two 9 inch cake pans stacked ontop of each other and then two 6 inch cakes stacked ontop of that.

Taste: The flavour was a chocolate fudge cake.  

Filling: This cake was filled with homemade chocolate buttercream icing with chocolate pudding.
Icing and decorations: This cake was iced with homemade buttercream icing with letters, clouds and dinosours made out of homemade marshmallow fondant. Everything on the cake is edible.

Business Cards!

Purrrrr

These cupcakes were made to celebrate a Happy Birthday!

Size: These are 12 regular sized cupcakes. 

Taste: The flavour is a chocolate fudge cake.  

Filling: No filling in these cupcakes.
Icing and decorations: These cupcakes are decorated with homade chocolate buttercream. The kitty faces are made with white and dark chocolate.