I have the unique opportunity of making a lot of my creations with a fabulous pastry chef named Deb. Deb is a great teacher and friend and has helped me grow so much as a baker and decorator. I call her my personal pastry mentor!

For a friend, Deb and I made this cake together. Unfortunately, something came up and I had to do all the decorating myself. I was a little worried but it came out well.

The cake was a wet chocolate cake with a white chocolate mousse filling. It was delicious! The icing is vanilla wilton icing with fondant circles and bow. It’s such a large cake – the biggest I’ve made yet – and should have fed 50+ hungry teenagers! Here is a close-up of the bow and tag:

Here is Becca blowing out her candles at her “Pajama” party:

I received quite a few facebook comments about how good it looked and tasted! I’m so glad she was pleased. You only turn 15 once!

Carrie has been very busy with her cakes! I am always delighted to see new pictures in our flickr photostream of the cakes she has created! I am trying to catch up with her with some updates about my latest projects, but I either can’t share yet (don’t want to spoil any surprises) or they are just not ready for a big reveal. I do want to share one little project I did at the beginning of February.

I made this little shamrock ornament for a friend of mine who was preparing for her graduate program comprehensive exams. Priority mail wasn’t fast enough, so it arrived after she finished the exam, but I hope it reminded her I was wishing her the very best. I put some more detailed pictures on flickr if you want to see the front and the back. It was nice to use materials I had in my stash, and I think it came out pretty cute; I just love the frayed edges around the front. With St. Patrick’s Day coming up next month, this could be a simple decoration to make, and I would be happy to share my shamrock pattern with anyone who is interested.

This weekend I had hoped to finish a top I am making with blue and green batik fabrics, and I will post pictures once its complete.

Mom and I just finished and mailed off the invitations to Nicky’s Baby shower for next month. They are such a cute invitation and super simple! Look here for the inspiration. It was a great idea!

Here they are:

They looked adorable all piled up on the table. I must warn you though – they did cost over $1 to mail each one since they had to be hand-stamped! We hope Nicky likes them… even though they don’t mention the fact that she’s having twins! Horray!

My second cake for the Baywood tasting was a miniature version of a potential Wedding Cake. The cake was a vanilla cake with a hint of lemon. The cake had three layers of filling: two layers were Tangerine Mascarpone Mousse, one was a Raspberry Filling.

The icing was a Buttercream icing that took four tries to get right – but was well worth it! I think I’ve learned the trick to getting it right for now on! I also made roses from sugar icing to place on top.

This was one of my favorite cakes yet! I truly enjoyed eating this one way too much!

I had my first professional tasting this past week and I hope to post a few of my cakes from the event as well as a table shot before the tasting began. The tasting was with a local Country Club called Baywood. Baywood does premiere weddings and parties and will hopefully be referring us to their clients for now on!

This first cake is a Perfect Chocolate Cake. It was so delicious and it was one of the biggest hits of the tasting! It was 3 layers with vanilla cream filling and chocolate icing.

I have to give credit to my mother-in-law who, not only gave me the recipe, but also helped me with all the prep for the  big day! My mom also was a huge help with the pre-tasting as we tried many new recipes! And Chandler did a fabulous job presenting pastries and desserts for the tasting as well. It was a great experience and I look forward to working with their clients!