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As Time Goes By, I feel more and more confident about my Flower Pot Cakes. Pictured above is one I made for a friend who had a (and I'm not going to tell you how old she is) who had an extremely significant, half-century birthday today.


This one has an open rose in the middle surrounded by 6 rose buds, a plethora of leaves and small white generic flowers. I like the balance, I like the color combination and I like the size. I believe the perfect one will have 5 rosebuds with one center open rose. Stay tuned for that.


What is different about these roses from previous flowers are that the middles are done in a burgundy color and the petals in a light pink that is under-mixed, creating a slight marbling effect that gives depth and a tad more authenticity to each flower. The leaves are likewise slightly marbleized.


Of course, I have no idea what the little white fake flowers around the edge are representative of, but I can tell you that they're staying.


My special birthday friend, Joanie, also received a Macadamia Nut Crusted Key Lime Pie. Who said getting older wasn't sweet?


Happy Birthday to YOU!

Garden Party

Summertime is picnic time here in the mountains of Central PA and I had a request to make a dessert for a coworker for her neighborhood picnic. We looked at some pictures and she was drawn to the teal/white theme. Cupcakes are the latest rage and easier to eat standing up, so I decided to do both a small cake and cupcakes to match.



The cake and cupcakes are lemon with buttercream icing. The cake was then covered with fondant and sugar gum paste daisys and the cupcakes all received a daisy, leaf and some some dragees just for fun.

Above is a close up of one of the flowers on the cake. I painted a little pearl luster on the flower petals to make them stand out.
The cupcakes were both adorable and yummy.
This order was accompanied by a signature Flower Pot cake with hand-painted rose buds that looked much better in person than we could capture on film.

Big thanks to Linda for her ID stakes. I hot-glued one of my business cards on one so everyone at the picnic would know where the amazing confections originated.

Garden Party

I went to a garden party to reminisce with my old friends

A chance to share old memories and play our songs again

When I got to the garden party, they all knew my name

No one recognized me, I didn't look the same

CHORUS

But it's all right now, I learned my lesson well.

You see, ya can't please everyone, so ya got to please yourself

~~~

Someone opened up a closet door and out stepped Johnny B. Goode

Playing guitar like a-ringin' a bell and lookin' like he should

If you gotta play at garden parties, I wish you a lotta luck

But if memories were all I sang, I rather drive a truck

CHORUS

But it's all right now, I learned my lesson well.

You see, ya can't please everyone, so ya got to please yourself

Going to Pot

Sorry it has been so long since I have written but the end of May begins gardening season here in Central PA. My friend, Linda, has been sharing her wonderful perennials with us this spring as we build new flower beds here at the house and I was pleased to learn that she would have use for some cute little cakes as Thank You gifts and Birthday Remembrances, so I got to experiment hoping to be able to reciprocate a little. Of course, being two gardeners in early summer, I felt compelled to stick to the theme.

Call me Dr. Frankenstein, but I was a mad woman (as if that's different for me) in the kitchen one night baking cakes in real flower pots after failing to make a fondant flower pot. Live and learn. Even I have my share of dismal failures but this particular one led to a wonderful discovery of a new line of items--my new unique flower pot cakes.

Now, I have to warn you that the flower pots are real, the cakes inside are real and the flowers are made with sugar gum paste, but I wouldn't eat the pot or the flowers as they would be waaaaay too crunchy. You can eat the cake but these little pots are so cute, how could anyone rip them apart for a snack? It would break my heart.

Linda received three pots to give out as gifts: One pot had rose buds, the second had open roses with a "fantasy flower" and the final pot had sugar gum paste daisys with blue forget-me-nots and (in true gardener fashion) a token worm. I weighed the appetizing factor against the cuteness factor before adding the worm and they cancelled themselves out to a neutral on the Gross-Me-Out Meter. The worm stayed.

As a finishing touch, Linda added gardening ID tags to her pots and wrote her messages of Thank You and Happy Birthday on them.

Yeah, I am now a pot(s) pusher.

Behind My Back

I am inspired. Again.

I have been surfing the web, exercising my Google and Flicker pages, and have found soooooo many pictures of beautiful cupcakes.

Cupcakes aren't what they used to be when I used to (technical term alert) slop batter into 25 cupcake papers, (again) slather them with icing and send them off with my daughter to kindergarten.

In case you are not aware, cupcakes have grown up.

Also, cupcakes come in different sizes and shape these days from mini to giant. Who knew so much was possible?

Check out these beautiful creations:
The cupcake at the top of the post is embossed fondant topped with a fondant rose. The one above is covered in minature roses. Major cute alert. But that's what cupcakes are: They're cute.

As the outsides of cupcakes have been changing behind my back and so have the insides. You can scoop out a cupcake and stuff anything inside such as fruit or preserves or even use it for a hiding place for MORE ICING. Yes, my name is Leslie and I'm a sugarholic.



To the left we have a culinary interpretation of shabby chic. Oh yeah, I'm making some of these.

Just in case green food turns you off, they would look equally delighful in pink or white. These look as though they were dipped in royal icing or poured fondant and topped with a buttercream or fondant flower.
Now, is this the most beautiful cupcake you have ever seen in your life OR WHAT? What do you think those curlycues on top are made of? Pink chocolate? I'm pretty sure I could make this using white chocolate and it would be equally beautiful.

If anyone has any ideas on how to make this, I would really appreciate your input. It's just too pretty.

Finally, these cupcakes to the right are just flat elegant all decked out in white rose buds. Half have a single, slightly open rose while the other half are sporting three closed buds, strictly following the rule to always decorate in odd numbers.
If I had to guess, I would say that these cupcakes were topped with fondant and have either gum paste or fondant roses. Wouldn't these be great to serve at a wedding or anniversary party?

You can not get more mature than that.

And that's how to go directly from kindergarten to grad school.

Mother's Day Cakes

This cake is a devil's food cake that was jazzed up with a dozen crushed oreos mixed with (and forgive me for being so specific with these technical measurements, but that's how it goes in my kitchen) a mountain of buttercream icing (note specific procedural term) shoved between the layers, which made it yummy for the tummy when we finally sat down and devoured it Mother's Day night at my parent's house.

The gum paste flower known in the Wilton World of Flowers is called a Fantasy Flower because you aren't ever going to run into one of these suckers out in the woods. However, they're a head-turner.

I used Wilton's garden colors to color the fondant and am hooked on the sage green, delphinium blue, white and pink combos. They are sooo shabby chic.

I made a six inch cake just like this with my leftover batter for my future mother-in-law. I tied a few yards of tulle around the brim and tied bows and it looked just like a spring hat. They don't eat many sweets at that house so a six inch cake was just right.

Sorry, but I don't have a picture of that one, but it was very similiar--just smaller.

I think small fondant cakes made to look like spring hats would be an adorable sweet alternative for Easter dinner dessert. Meanwhile, it would make a great centerpiece for the table. You could even put a basketweave impression on the brim to make it look like a straw hat.

So many cakes! So little butter!