Where did summer go?

How is it already September? How is my little baby boy going to be 1 in 10 days? Where did the time go? With sweetbabycakes, it went with some cakes! It has been such a good summer. A few cakes to talk about but let me show you pictures rather than type about them...Enoy!

And there were baby clothes!

So, yes, it was over a week ago that we finished and dropped off the cake, but things have been busy! As I hope you all have seen our website...www.sweetbabycakesonline.com! It was so much fun to put together and I hope that you all like it.

Now for the cake...it was an experience that was excellent. Sister and I started the cake on Friday. We made the cakes on Friday and let them sit overnight. Then on Saturday we iced, filled and decorated them. In addition to doing all those things we had to make sure that the baby was fed, happy and playing nicely.

In the end it was a great time and we made it to bed by 10pm on Saturday night! Perfecto! Check it out...



Oh and we had extra time and supplies so sister made a birthday cake for her friend...yummy!

Attempt Numbero Dos!

Yesterday was not fun...why? Well, I started to make my list for my second assignment of the summer: a baby shower cake! It is very exciting that I am making my first three tiered cake. In the end it will probably be way too much cake for the shower but who doesn't love extra cake to eat forever. And really, flour and sugar is not that much money. So yesterday was day one of the prep work for the cake. I was to make ALL of the decorations for the cake. It is a three tiered cake that I found online that we are trying to recreate. The decorations I am making are all made out of gum paste. So, the fondant needed to be colored and then mixed with some gum tex to get it to be the right texture.

Well...baby boy did not want to nap in the afternoon until 5:25pm! That's right so not much got done yesterday. Then the hubby wanted me to head to bed with him around 10ish...get your minds out of the gutter we went right to bed after hubby shed some light on me with some useless tips from a book my mother bought him.

So up to today I had only made the 120 buttons I needed. At least I think that is how many I made. We shall see when we start to decorate on Saturday. Today, as the nap is about to finish (the monitor is right next to be and the baby is starting to cry), I was able to make all 100 of the cookie cutter images for the clothes line! WooHoooo!!!

The rest of today needs to be done with making the frosting, roughly 23 cups worth and some pastry cream!

Yumm...

Happy Birthday to you...Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday Mom! As I am late posting pics of our birthday celebration. It was a tricky weekend as there were probably more lows than highs with the passing of my uncle, but we were still able to get together for a celebration for my mother's birthday. And of course it was her first birthday as a Nana!

The plan was to meet at this new restaurant in Hingham...Alma Nova I believe..run by a New Kids on the Block Brother. My sister wanted to wear our old NKOTB buttons and such. However, when I called to make a reservation 9:30pm was the earliest! Off the list! On to the Fours we went. It was a nice gather of my mothers friends, myself, the hubby, the baby and my sister. A six inch cake was perfect. Lemon was going to be the perfect tasting too!

Mother was surprise with the cake and with her friends coming. All in all it was a lovely celebration! And the cake was yummy!!!! Lemon butter cake with lemon curd filling frost with a Swiss merg butter cream. Decorated with crystallized lemons!

T-100 days!

The count down is on! Via Facebook I have learned that it is is 100 days till our dear friends wed and I provide the cake!! 100 days to go till 10/2/10! Cannot wait for the party of the year! So much fun to be had. What a great way to start it off by this week having the first official cake tasting. The girls and I headed over to the couples new home for a lovely dinner. It was a great way to start of the wedding season as the bride just had her first shower so she was able to wine and dine us! A great time.

And...to top it all of it was her birthday the day before so it was perfect for the tasting! Here is what I did. I made three six inch cakes. A white butte, yellow and devil food cake! They were then filled the following:

White Butter - strawberry and cream
Yelllow Cake - raspberry and cream on one layer then buttercream on the other
Devil Food Cake - raspberry and chocolate on one half and italian merq. on the other

All were iced with a swiss buttercream!

So Yummy! And the finally decision was....the white butter cake with strawberry and cream. It was the best one by far! The cake is to serve about 200ish people with the couple keeping the top tier for their first anniversary. The top tier, as it needs to be frozen, really should not have fruit in it, so that one will probably be chocolate butter cake with buttercream filling...YUM!

I hope by then I can have dairy! :)

See the pics of the night! Also, it was so fun coming up with the fillings and making the cakes for us to taste. Cannot wait for the next one. Less than a month till the baby shower cake!!!

Double the babies...Double the fun!

And so it was a year ago on Wednesday that they family welcomed two new little babies to it! It was double the babies. Bless their mother for carrying them around for 9 months - a total of about 14 lbs of baby - and letting us get to know those two little boys! They were tiny little newborns a year ago and now they are little boys. And for sweetbabycakes that meant cakes for two babies! It was double fun!!!

I was so honored to make these cakes for their first birthday. Not only was it fun, but it was my first real assignment! It was great. My partner in crime in my cake world, sister, was down in DC for a wedding so she was unable to help. Therefore, my mother graciously offered to head north (about 50 minute drive) to help. She was a great help with baking the cakes and helping with my little baby. Gosh, who will be a year in 3 1/2 months. I don't want to think about it yet. Yikes! Anyways, on Friday we baked all the cakes - 2 8 inch x 3 inch rounds and 2 sheet cakes. Each were one chocolate and one vanilla. Yes, there was WAY TOO MUCH CAKE!

We then were able to make a marvelous butter cream frosting via Martha Stewart's wedding cake book to fill the sheet cakes (they were stacked) and the vanilla cake. My the time this was all done and we feed and cared for the baby it was time for mother to head back south. Good luck with that Cape traffic! Once hubby got home I was able to finish the vanilla cake, which in turned ended up being Jack's cake and I also crumb coated my squares of the sheet cake. Now, I decided to make blocks by cutting out blocks from the sheet cake. What I learned from this - chill then coat! It was the most difficult part of the whole process. On Friday I was up until about 12ish working on the cakes and then jumped out of bed at 630am to start again.

I know this is crazy, but when you have to also take care of your own baby and make time to spend with the hubby it is worth it. So, up at 630am I started making the dots of the blue (chocolate) cake, which was Noah's. It was very easy and enjoyable. This was done with royal icing. All of the decorations on the cake were done with royal icing. At 7 I had to run out to get more eggs, sugar and butter for more frosting. I got home, feed and changed the babe and then made more frosting. The rest was cake!!

Sunday, after working all night at the hospital and a few hours of sleep, I just had to stack the blocks and we were off!!!

It was a great party and a perfect first assignment!!! Can't wait for the next ones!

Ps...note the adult beverages in one pic...def had a few on Friday!!! Yummy! Needed something to get thru it!

Ac is out! The butter is melting.....oh and three strikes you're out!

AC is out! The butter is melting.....oh and three strikes you're out!
Of course we are in the middle of our first heat wave and the AC decided to stop working, which for some would be fine. However, when you live next to a train that blows its horn every so often that scares your little baby when the windows are open it is not. It is currently 80+ degrees in the condo and hopefully it will not get any hotter.

What does this mean...it means that the buttercream frosting I made yesterday that was on the cake that I made was melting! But at least it started to melt right before I had a bit and then threw the rest away. Why did I throw it away? Well, because I had to! If I didn't I would eat it all and then there goes being back at my pre pregnancy weight.

Now, why did I have a cake though...well because it was the last class for me my sister to take in the Course 3 class. We learned all about fondant, gum paste and royal icing flowers. It was a lovely class minus that it went late every time and that we bailed on it last week after we got there because the hubby had a temp over 103! I could not have him get the baby sick. So we left the class and both of us agreed our instructor was not happy. oh well!

Back to why I had a cake that I threw away. Well we know why I had to throw it away but I had it because we had to make a tiered cake. Two tiers! I made, frosted and fondanized (I made this word up) the cake. Now, the cakes were not so good. Why? Well, because I left them in the oven when I get to go get the baby from daycare so they were in the oven far too long. OOOPSSS, strike one! Don't worry for those reading this that have a cake coming from me, I will not do that with yours. Just this practice one. So then I made the buttercream, which haha did not get to be nice and fluffy...but had to use it (strike two)!

So, then I put the fondant on and off to class sister and I went. Now, we just made one cake for the both of us because it would be even more of a waste if we did two! We get to class and start getting to work. We start working and we have tons of time and not enough frosting and this is strike three. On a side note we probably have way more strikes but why should I tell you about them. :)

We are decorating the bottom parts of the cake and realize this and pretty much want to throw our hands up in the air and give up. We continue to laugh about how terrible this is going.

Sister starts rolling out fondant to cut some small flowers, and I turn and there she goes throwing some in her mouth! So I follow suit and do the same. This continues for a bit and we are just laughing and laughing. It is hot, we have nothing to do and are hungry. Now, don't judge it isn't that bad but when you have a tad too much you don't feel good.

We stacked our cake and took pictures (see below) and headed home 30 minutes early!!! It was great...of course until we got home and there was no AC! At least the baby was asleep and I could watch the Biggest Loser!

And it begins again...but better...

It begins again, but it has been better thus far. Sister and I have started to take another cake decorating class, it started last week, and it is focusing on fondant and tiered cakes. This is excellent considering in less than 6 months I must make a wedding cake. It was our first time working with fondant and with gum paste and I must say, it is very easy and I love it! It makes the cake look so nice. What I will say is that the class runs late which is not good for this mommy! Why? Well, the class in about 35 minutes from my house and it is from 7-9pm. I do not get home till almost 10pm because the class has gone almost 30 minutes over for the first two weeks. Another reason why this is not good is because my little boy does not want to take a bottle. Grrr...so when I get home he is still up and waiting for me to feed him. The class must end on time soon! Granted there are only two more weeks and then we start another one in June!

So, first lets talk about how the class began..It was a $40 class for 4 weeks..great price RIGHT!! Well, little did we know that we would have to buy everything for the class. The classes I have taken before have been more expensive but they provided everything we needed. This one did not! So my mother and sister went to the store and purchased everything we needed. Then we had to bring some Royal Icing. Now, if anyone has ever worked with Royal Icing you know that it is stiffer than buttercream and that it gets hard quickly (that's what she said...sorry had to do it). So I had my sister make us a double batch while I fed the little boy before we ventured down Route 3 to the class. I said, it should be so that when you stop the mixer it should not move. It did not move when she stopped it so it was done. Off to class we went....

We get to class and take out our icing, the first time I am looking at it. HAHAH It was a brick. I tried to mix it but it would not even do that. Silly sister. She forgot to double the water amount for the icing, but we did not tell the teacher that. The teacher tried to soften it up for us and it worked, but then she came over and said oh...I should have added more water in it. Why, well because when sister and I were trying to pipe our bags were splitting because we were squeezing so hard. I could not even do most of it because my arms were not strong enough. It was a riot! She told us not to bring back that brick of icing. It was a hoot!!

Then comes the cake baking...first let me say that we never have used a square pan before and it does change how you bake it. But we did not know this and the cake cooked for an extra 30 minutes and then we had to take some of the top off for the middle to cook. AHH...however, the cake was not dry. I had some last night! YUMMY.

Then, it continues...I had to go buy more fondant for use to cover the cake. HA..So on three hours of sleep in almost 48 hours I decided it was good to head out to try to do this. I head over to AC Moore and buy two boxes of fondant each 1 lb 8 oz. I am driving home and think wait, we need 24 oz. I am going to have to go back tomorrow and get more are you serious! I get home, open the book and sure enough we needed 24 oz each. I keep going back and forth from the book to the box and say, I only bought an 8oz box. I did this, no lie, for about 5 minutes, until I realized that 1 lb 8 oz was 24 oz! LACK OF SLEEP! I need more of it still. Anyways..we had enough and decorated a cake each. I have pics of mine but none of sister's....enjoy...and some gum paste roses!

Part II....LAME

So, I am first so behind on my posting. Ah life has gotten in my way, better yet the lack of sleep I have has been getting in my way. Anyways, this will be short and sweet because the class, which took place on May 1st was too long and not well organized and drop me crazy. It was part II of my decorating class with the BCAE and it was not good. Our instructor decided to change the recipe for the buttercream a bit and it did not work. When you change something always try it out more than once before you bring it to a class. Because of this we wasted over half of the class making a buttercream that did not work and then had to make a basic frosting that was terrible to work with. I was frustrated beyond belief. The only positive is that I got to bring home a cake that was iced and I learned how to pipe with chocolate.

Anyways...here is the cake....

It was someone's birthday!

This past week has flown by! I cannot believe that tomorrow I already have the second part of my cake decorating class and that on Tuesday I start more! Crazy. So in order to practice this week I decided to make some yummy Champagne Cupcakes for a friend's birthday. You ask why Champagne Cupcakes, but it was a celebration. She was turning the big 3-0! So why not have some bubbly in the mix. I also made a champagne buttercream frosting. Now, even though I cannot have dairy I tried one. How could I not? They looked so good!

I made the frosting yellow and wish I hadn't. I need to find the right temp for my place when I am decorating as my hand gets too warm too fast and the house gets really warm with the oven on. For those of you who do not know this, but when the temp is high or above normal say, 72, the buttercream starts to melt and looks like poop! Therefore, they did not come out as nice as I would like, but oh well...I have class again tomorrow with a cake coming home from that. Cannot wait to decorate that cake!!!

YAY!

Champagne Cupcakes!

Mayo...lite or regular?

When do you use mayo? To make your tuna or when you put some on your bread? Right, those sound normal. What doesn't sound normal is to use it as a practice frosting type when pipping. Weird I know. However, this weekend I took my first class of a two class series at the BCAE and this is what our instructor, Susi, told us. She said to use mayo as it was very close to buttercream and way cheap. So...tomorrow I need to buy some practice mayo. I'll probably buy lite as that is what I normal buy. But...to class...

Because it is a two day class the first class was all practice! Practice, practice, practice! It was a good class. It was a little crowded, but it was good. We made a basic royal icing. For those that do not know what royal icing is, it is made up of sugar and egg whites. They are mixed together are form an icing that then hardens. If you you have ever had a hard flower on a cake or something like that it is most likely royal icing. It is pure white. It was fun to make it and also to use it as practice.

Next week we will be decorating a cake. I have to say that I was a bit disappointed that I was not able to bring home a cake on Saturday. I know I wouldn't be able to eat it but it would have been nice. I hope to make a cake tomorrow as LOST is not on so there will be nothing to distract me. Oh wait...I still have my 7 month old so we shall see if I get to. :)

Here are some pics from my practicing! I was told they were excellent. FYI - It is not mayo!

Tada....

I did it! I made my first dairy-free cake and I have to say it was so yummy. I found the recipe on about.com, so nothing too fancy but it was very good. The trick was that I was able to use a vegan butter sticks, rice and soy milk, and soy yogurt. It was soo good. Clearly, I am not able to keep my mouth shut and told the hubby that it was dairy-free before he had it but he did taste the frosting before and loved it! It was hard for me to decide how I was going to decorate the cake as I have the little babe here and time is not always on my side.

So, we went for the traditional nuts on the side and I would have like to do the carrots on the top but really was not in the mood to do it. Here we have it...I liked it very much but could not keep a whole cake in the house! It was nicely divided between my sister-in-laws! I hope they and their fams enjoyed. :)

Tonight's the night, I'm gonna make it...

So...I should probably not be doing this, but we are dead dead dead at work so here I am on my blog. Why?? Well, because right now it is 5am on April 12Th and most of you are sleeping. However, unless you are either teaching today and need to get up early to get to that lovely job of yours or you have a puppy that needs to pee or rather also a baby who is up or you are headed to the gym. There I think I covered it for those of you that might actually be reading this. I am at work thinking about what I will do tonight..

No...get your mind out of the gutter, however, that would be nice too! I am going to make my first dairy-free cake with dairy-free frosting. Last night the hubby and I were watching the Ultimate Recipe Challenge or what have you on the Food Network and one lady was making a carrot cake! So now the hubby wants to try it out. I will be making it dairy-free and will not be telling him. Hopefully I will be able to pull it off tonight! I shall add, while I was going to make this regardless for my dear husband to bring into work for all to share, I received a lovely message on Facebook from an old friend that gave me the idea to see about making a dairy-free cake. And, of course I need cake too! We shall see how it goes...

See ya dairy!

So, what a week...I know a few days past my normal Sunday arrivals, but it was Easter and it took me about an hour and half to get home on Sunday then I had to work 11p-7a! Yikes, it was a long day to say the least. What was interesting about it was that it was my first encounter with bake goods since my non-dairy diet. Non-dairy diet you ask, why? Why would anyone do this? How does this affect sweetbabycakes?

Here is the dealio! My little man has decided to have a reaction to dairy products. It has produced blood in his stool. For all of you moms out there, it is not fun to see that in there. Off to the GI doctor we went and he said no more dairy for me. The first thing I thought about was the buttercream frosting that I LOVE. I mean, I still have some in my fridge. It is way old, so I probably shouldn't eat it anyways but still...it's there.

I did cave and have a cookie on Sunday. It was yummy, but back to the dairy-free diet yesterday and today. I need to make something this week and practice. My first big gig is in less than 6 months so I need to practice.

However, I now know that this post is LAME-O. But I have a good reason, LOST is on soon and I found something that has no dairy in that I am enjoying...BUBBLY CAVA..YUMMY!

I didn't get one!

What a weekend! Where shall I begin...I'll begin at the end where I sit right now, typing up today's post with my baby sleeping in his own room for the first time! He should sleep very well and both of did not sleep so well last night at Nana's. Why were we at Nana's? Well, I played in A Score for A Cure tournament down in Plymouth. My friend, Heather, was able to get a bunch of her friends plus me together to play to help support breast cancer. It was very fun. Granted we only scored one goal and lost all five of our games, but we all had fun and probably all will not be able to walk at a normal pace for the next few days. We certainly not as young as we used to be. However, on a different note from the weekend, the baby got to wear some incredibly cute outfits! He was noted for "Save the Milk Machines" and "I'm a Breast Man." Oh how he loves mama's milk!

We were needed in Plymouth at 8:15am on Saturday and did not arrive back home till 5:30pm on Sunday, so you ask, when was there time for any sweetbabycakes? Friday! Friday was the fun day that started of amazing and ended just in time for Saturday to begin.

For Friday I was determined to frost and fill the cake I had from class and make cupcakes for hubby to bring in to work. Now, those of you that might be reading this that work with my hubby know that there was no cake! Why? Well, I had filled the cake with a delicious gnache and did a nice crumb frosting and then the baby woke up. What happens next is that that rest of the frosting hit the pooper! It was breaking all over the place and not going back together. It looked more like butter than frosting, but still tasted so yummy. I took care of the babe with a feeding and diaper change and then hubby was home. He took over the baby duties and I frosted the rest of the cake. The frosting was just not working but I did my best. Then it was time to decide what to decorate it with. Again, those that know my hubby and work with him know that the baseball season is about to start and working on Saturdays are not always the best. So, I made it in to a baseball. I was very proud of this cake as it was tricky from start to finish.

It looked good and ready to box up for transfer in the AM! HA...as you can imagine during the transfer it flipped right over and no one was able to see it or taste it. However, I tasted it and it was very yummy. Don't you worry it flipped over on the counter not the floor.

Next up were my cupcakes! I baked them earlier in the day and let them cool nicely while the baby was sleeping. I made a new batch of frosting that was perfect and started to frost them. It was now after 10pm on Friday and I was ready for B-E-D. I pushed onward and with a little bit of input from the hubby we had a finished project. However, I can only go by the word of those he work with if they were good (of course they were) as hubby ate the whole cupcake we were suppose to share and he ate it without FROSTING! Unheard of! :)

Here they are!

Yellow, bellow, bo bellow....

Yellow, bellow, bo bellow...yes, a yellow cake! Well, actually, not so much yellow but lemon. How delicious and refreshing! First cake class down and it was amazing! It was called "Just Cakes" offered by the BCAE. I loved it! I learned about mixing the cake correctly along with how to make some delicious fillings...here is the breakdown of the night....

First, I am sitting on the couch feeding the little babe before the hubby gets home so I can go. And what happens, but the phone rings, tis me madre! She is on her way back from Vegas and finds out she will be stuck in NYC (JFK of all places) as her flight from JFK to BOS has been cancelled due to high winds. So, mother calls me as I used to work in travel and had lots of experience dealing with cancelled flights and getting people home. Hmmm...so I do my best (called my good friend for some advice) and tada she was home as schedule per a personal driver. :) Meanwhile, I am still feeding the babe and hubby gets home...out the door I go. And per the new ways of my life I am late for class, but not too late. I was not the only one that was late. One person did not show up so I was able to bring her cake home for practice. In the end, it paid to be late to be next to the lonely cake without a home.

On to the class! We started with a demo from our instructor. We went through the entire recipe for a yummy vanilla cake. Her trick was to use half all-purpose flour and half cake flour. Next, we went through the recipe for the swiss whipping cream frosting. Again..mouth watering good. Then it was time for us to get to work to make the fillings. I was on a team by myself and loved it! I made a lemon curd filling. So good! It was the only thing you could smell in the kitchen. Lemon is just delicious. Another demo on how to cut, trim, fill and frost the cake with a thin layer followed. Another tip...when cuting the cake and frosting spread a simple sugar sryup over the cake first as it adds moisture and flavor.

And then it was our turn! Everyone else picked to use the chocolate filling but I stayed trued to what I made and used the lemon and added some raspberries too! Oh my...how good was this cake...so good! I also flooded the top of the cake with the lemon, which brings us to the yellow bellow cake!

I brought the cake home and it was dinner for me and the hubby, but one a slice a piece. The rest was sent off with him to work for others to enjoy. Now it is on to make some more treats for his work buddies!

One, two, three strikes...no more butter!

Oy! Where do I start with this weekend of caking? So, on Saturday it was going to be the day that I made an unbelievable cake for a friend's house. Everyone there was going to be blown away by the taste and the design of the cake. Yeah right! This is what happened....

I started off the morning per usual, woke up made a cake while the hubby and baby were sleeping, baby woke up, feed him, made frosting, and hubby left for work. Then the cake would not come out the pan and baby would not nap. So, I tried to get the baby to nap and then I made another cake. Mind you, the first cake tasted fab, but it was stuck in the pan. The next cake looked great! Took them out of the oven, let them rest for a bit and then it was time to have them cool on the rack. Again...yeah right! I flipped one and the middle fell right out. AMAZING! The other one was fine. Okay, I thought. I can just put the middle back in and cover it with frosting. I decided to let them cool longer and then it was time to move them. As you can only imagine the cake that had fallen apart a bit decided it wanted to fall apart completely! I was now stuck with one 9 inch round cake. Maybe I can make another cake. It was only ten AM and I had time as it only took twenty minutes to make. However, low and behold...no more butter. Three strikes I am out of this game for the weekend! I can make the best of this is what I thought. Decorating and frosting was next. HA! It was dreadful. I cannot even explain all the way the baby had woken up and needed to be feed and changed and yada yada yada!

Needless to say I made a stop at Wholefoods for cupcakes and bubbly..DELICIOUS!

Roses are red...

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Pansies can be yellow...how did I do?

Today was the day I started to practice. Practice, practice, practice. Isn't that what they always tell you when you are younger? Practice makes perfect. So today I practiced. My son was not napping in his swing, but I pushed onward and was able to put together some things. I started off with dots. My dots were everywhere. Then onto the swirls and twirls. It was all about perfection. One day it will come.

Next, it was on to the rose tip. It was fun using this tip with lots of different twirls coming out of it. They would be very pretty in a pink on top of a little girls cake. Anyone have a baby girl lately? I know of a few out there!

Now, it was dinner time. It was a lovely calzone. Yummy! Five years working in a deli definitely pays off. Wait...I did not mention that I attempted a cake today too. Before I even talk about my flowers that I made, lets discuss the cake I made. So, I completely went in blind. No recipe to follow, just flying by the seat of my mixer. In went the flour, sugar, egg whites, milk, vanilla and more...oh my! Everything mixed together nicely. In to the oven she went. Out 20ish minutes later and tada! We had a cake that was not a moist or cake like as it should be. What was missing? According to my wise mother and younger sister, fat and sugar. So tomorrow or the next day we will try again. It needed to be much more spongey and less bread like. On to the next one...

So, my roses. They got better as the twenty minutes I had went on, same with my pansies. It was nice to have some that actually looked like they should. During my class I was not good at them, so these are not perfect yet, but they are a great improvement for me. I do not have a picture for you to compare them to, but hey, what can you do, right? Check them out and let me know what you think.

A Blue E it was...

This weekend was....interesting (saying this as I point my finger around in a circle like Larry David). Very interesting! It was the first time I ever decorated a cake! It was so exciting. My sister and I headed down to a local bakery to take a class. She has decorated before with my mother and I never ever had done this. We got there a little early and were able to sample the little tasty treats they had in their testing bins. Yummy! A great sugary treat to start the morning off with!

Then we headed into the back of the bakery to man our decorating stations. So, there were eight people total in the class. Two other pairs of girls and then a married couple. Now, the stations were set up were three and three down two tables and then two together. The other pairs got right together and then there were two spots on different tables left. Oh no they didn't! They meant for my sister and I to split. I don't think so! So, we asked the married couple to scoot down. No biggie, but they were acted as if...sooo then it was time to begin the decorating.

The chef/owner of the bakery started off by going over their buttercream recipe. How nice right? However, I decided it was too hard to work with...got warm way too fast. But, we have the recipe if needed. Then we started creating dots! Dots, dots, dots! We used the #4 tip to create dots, lines, letters and things. It was very fun! I was getting used to using the decorating bag so one it was to the next tip. It created rosettes. Very nice and fancy! We were then ready to move on to the flower tip. It started out with pansies and moved on to roses. These were tough. As you will see in the pictures below there are no flowers as I was not ready to put them on a cake just yet.

After lots of practice and listening to how you create different aspects of the designs it was time to ice our cakes! YAY! So we took the buttercream frosting we had been working with all day on our cake. As you can imagine it was very warm to then start the design part...but we trucked on. We covered our cakes with the frosting and then we were left to design our cake. I decided to use just the blue frosting that was given to us our my house is two-third boys. It was then time to figure out just what was going on the cake. It was then that I decided to chose and E. I had made a nicee E while we were practicing, better than the one that ended up on the cake I must say. So, I went from there. Es then were around the cake with dots all over.

I think I did an okay job on the first cake ever that I decorated. But you can be the judge...but please don't tell me it's terrible.

sweetbabycakes - what??!!

Today is the day that starts the rest of everything! Everything is seemingly perfect. A new baby boy is asleep in his bed, the husband and I are sitting on the couch watching one of our favorite shows, "The Biggest Loser." Then LOST will follow...

However, it is most fitting that we are sitting here at the start of the new blog - sweetbabycakes. You are probably asking yourself, what could this possibly be?!? Well, I am here to answer all of your questions.

You take a stay-at-home mother (thats me at SAHM), who will be working part time as a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) with a passion for her baby boy and cakes! Put the two together and we have sweetbabycakes! I have been on maternity leave for five months and decided it was time for me to focus on taking care of my new baby. However, we all know that times are rough and that every penny counts. So, I took a class to become a CNA with hopes of, at some point, going to nursing school. Even though I will be undertaking the challenge of a CNA, lets just put it out there that it will probably not be the most profitable part time job.

Over the past five months and previous years of loving cakes is the second half. People, mostly my family, joke that my son is made up of cupcakes. I had so many cupcakes while I was pregnant that they are probably right, which then most likely lead to be having a 9 1/2 lbs baby who was literally too big to come out! What is it about the cupcakes that I love...the frosting and the cake together just tastes so good and melts in your mouth. Any combination of it is amazing!

You are probably thinking, I still do not get it. Well, I have also signed up for cake decorating classes! YAY! I am beyond excited to take these classes and will probably sign up for many more. I cannot wait to begin this part of the journey and possible grow sweetbabycakes to something more than just this blog I get to write, but one that will display cakes that I create and maybe one day you will enjoy!

Here's to my sweet baby cake that will let me begin this sweet sweet ride....