One of my close friends is about a month shy of popping out her first baby! I cannot wait to meet the little guy! I was invited to her shower and also to make her cake for the party. One of the most popular designs for a baby shower cake is to match the bedding. I went a little cleaner than usual to make a pattern for the cake. Let me know if you like it!

The cake itself was chocolate with vanilla cream filling on top, vanilla pound cake with raspberry filling on the bottom. The icing was buttercream – a new recipe that I love! And the fondant decorations were stuck on with a little royal icing. The buttercream was a little slippery (must be all that butter!) and wouldn’t stay put without it!

The pacifer sat on top of a star for the cake topper. I loved the simplicity of it! It was just too cute! And since it came out of the fridge, it looked a little wet – like it was recently sucked on by a sweet newborn boy!

My gift to Brooke was an assortment of baby goodies atop 6 refill containers of wipes. I hope she liked the practicality of it, as well as the cuteness!

I cannot wait to meet Brooke’s little man!

This weekend we finally got a day to can all of these tomatoes from the garden! Except, the tomatoes were mostly still green… so we canned mostly tomatoes from the farm stand! But, that’s ok! My mom and friend, Kathleen, came over and we spent most of the day canning. It’s a long process but a fun one!

We started with chopping all of the tomatoes. We put them in a BIG pot and cooked them down until they were soft and very juicy. Then they went through the mill – which is a rustic old tool but amazing. No chewy tomato skins and no peeling! It’s the best of both worlds!

Then back into the pot it went! This time we added all of the veggies! Kathleen spent hours cutting onions, peppers, more tomatoes, and lots and lots of garlic! She smelled nice!

Once it was nice and hot, we put it in the cans, and sealed them in a water boil. They all sealed nicely!

Salsa was similar – we just added cilantro and didn’t do the precooking. Instead we parboiled the tomatoes and peeled them first. We added the chunks of tomato to peppers (including some jalapeno!), garlic, lime juice, and the cilantro. We warmed it just so it was hot enough to go into the cans and canned them.

It was a productive day! We made almost 20 large jars of tomato sauce! We made 3 large jars of salsa and about a dozen pint jars. It should last us a month or so… Thanks Mom and Kathleen!

I am definitely more confident when it comes to making a topsy turvy cake these days! I love making them and seeing the final product when it’s finished. This cake screams “teenage girl” and I love that about it!

Peyton loves to watch Ace of Cakes and really wanted to see something crazy like that for her cake. She picked out the colors and design for each tier and I did the rest.

She really wanted a big bow and the gift tag that said Happy 13th! I liked the colors but the bow looks a little icing-y from this angle…

The curly cues are made from jewelry wire in 2 different gauges. The thicker gauge could support the beads – I believe it was 12 gauge. The thinner gauge (18?) worked great for the smaller curly cues.

The cake itself was three flavors: vanilla with strawberry filling, red velvet with vanilla cream filling and chocolate with vanilla cream filling. I tasted the cream filling (I always do… I can resist the cake but filling? to die for!) and it was scrumptious! I have one more cake this weekend then I get to take a break!

Today we finished and delivered a beautiful cake and over 150 cookies. It was a whirlwind day and I’m excited to tell you all about the wedding cake. It turned out gorgeous so I’ll tell you about it in picture form:

The cake was 3 tiers – 2 tiers were Chocolate and the middle was Lemon. They were each 3 layers tall and contained strawberry filling with fresh strawberry slices. It took a little less than 4 quarts of strawberries to make enough for each tier!

The icing was a fantastic buttercream! We used almost 50 egg whites… what do you do with 50 egg yolks? Not sure…

Each tier was lined with 2 rows of ribbon – 1 1/4″ baby blue and 1/2″ brown. It looked so good, we didn’t need any piping at the base of each tier. Good thing as we forgot to bring preparation for that!

The cake was covered in 10 fresh white roses. We bought little flower holders that are meant for cakes. The roses were able to stay in water so they won’t wilt before the cake cutting and had spikes to help push them into the cake.

Here is Chandler with the cake. The lighting is perfect! She’s so gorgeous it almost takes away from the cake!

I posed with the cake too, but the lighting is different. Not sure why…

We did take a picture together since it’s our last cake together before Chandler moves to Colorado, but the man taking the photo stood right in front of the cake (and mirror) and is reflected in the picture. Not cool. So you don’t see that picture here.

This is probably my favorite picture. I added it to the home page of my business website, coastalcakery.com, and it looks beautiful. I am very proud of this cake. And I think I deserve a long night sleep! Good night!

For a wedding this weekend, we were commissioned to make 160 cookies – half with the Oriole’s logo and half with the Yankees logo. They were to be used as the favor – wrapped in little bags next to a sign that says “Pick your team, Marissa’s Yankees or Kevin’s Orioles” Super cute, eh?

This task seemed easy enough – but it also hung over my head like a load of bricks. The time it would take was seriously expected to be in the many many hours column. But, as always, we got it done.

We started with the baking. We made about 168 – with a few extras in case of child stealing (check), falling on the floor (check), looking a bit too crooked (check), and over-browning (check, check, check). The final count is closer to 151 so we are in the clear! Here they are lined up like little soldiers on my counter:

Once they were baked, we let the cool a few hours. Then came the white icing. I must admit, I have found the BEST cookie icing recipe for this. I found it online and copied it right away. Here it is:

Best Cookie Icing Recipe:

You’ll need:

6 oz (3/4 cup) of warm water
5 Tablespoons meringue powder (you can buy it at baking stores or Michael’s)
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 kilogram (2.25 lbs.) powdered sugar

In mixer bowl, pour in the warm water and the meringue powder. Mix it with a whisk by hand until it is frothy and thickened…about 30 seconds. Add the cream of tartar and mix for 30 seconds more.
Pour in all the icing sugar at once and place the bowl on the mixer. Using the paddle attachment on the LOWEST speed, mix slowly for a full 10 minutes. Icing will get thick and creamy.

You can use this amazing icing as an outline and then thin it a lot to fill it in. It worked great!

Here are the cookies filled with delicious white icing:

So yummy!

We let them dry (harden) overnight and the icing was nice and smooth and rock solid (in a good way!) Then, the decorating began. A few months ago I bought some stencils and we tried to use spray icing on some practice cookies back then and it didn’t work at all. Really. It was terrible! And then we didn’t try anything again so I was a little worried…

But we tried a few times, made a few mistakes. And then got in a rhythm. Here I am working on them like a little trojan horse (my grandma used to say that – and probably still does!)

I ended up using the stencil as a general guide and then filling in / adjusting after. It worked really well.

One more for funsies:

Chandler made most of the Oriole’s:

and I was in charge of the Yankees:

We had a few for taste testing and they were given the stamp of approval. Now all that’s left is time to dry and then packaging up to look so cute!