Every girl's first cupcake should be this grand...

I had so much fun creating this little cutie, it was a real joy to design this cake for one of my favorite families (between mom and daughter #1 they've become welcomed regulars). The cake for Audrey's first birthday was based on a handful of photos that were sent to me and a copy of the invite - with a cupcake on it of course. We needed to pump up the colors just a tiny bit, and make the cupcake the focal point. I love that Audrey's mom let me sort of do my own thing with the cake within the idea range she sent me. They loved it!

Birthday girl was napping at delivery time so I'll have to wait to see her reaction in photos; I especially hope to see her with her very own little coordinating "smash cake" sitting to the side of the cake. I make those for every first birthday cake I do as my little gift - hey...gotta get 'em hooked young! ;-)

The bottom cake is a 4 layer 10" round Caramel Apple cake (one of my signature flavors) and the cupcake was made using a couple 6" layers, a 7", and half of a ball pan. No giant cupcake pan here, just a little carving and voila! Add some delicious butter cream, made from scratch fondant and a chocolate #1 and there you have it - a first birthday cupcake fit for a princess!

After delivering the cake, I took my own little cupcakes out for a great day of some very last minute back to school shopping. It was a terrific day all around!

OMG is that a Carrot Cake?

Why, yes, yes it is a carrot cake! After leaving for a mini vacation after delivery I thought it was time I dig up the photos I took of Chris and Amy's cake...you know, the one with all those fabulous carrots in it! Their farm is amazing, fresh green everywhere - my husband is eager to get more info about their harvest sharing programs; you can get the info here.

So, out of the 14 or so pounds of carrots that Amy brought to me for her cake, we ended up with just under 13 after trimming the ends and used just over 10 of it for the cake. This cake consisted of 10 batches of cake, made with as many organic ingredients as possible - almost all of them! I am in love with cream cheese icing I made with organic cream cheese and fresh butter from Hillcrest Dairy in Moravia NY, made with cream from cows not treated with rBST; so salty and creamy. I was excited to see that Wegman's (the Dewitt location) carried it in their ever expanding organic and special diet section. With a little fresh lemon juice and organic sugar, and some vanilla bean...it was delicious!

I assembled the baked layers, I think 7 or 8 in all (I don't recall!) with the dreamy cream cheese icing in between each, then carved to my little heart's content. Somewhere, out there, was a very happy Bugs Bunny I'm sure. ;-) Then I finished it off with the fondant we make here in the studio - this was the one element that we did not attempt to create with organic ingredients. (is there organic gelatin or glycerin out there??) A little pleating, some creative folding, and hand painting resulted in a very satisfying carrot. At 39" long before the stem was added, and over 50lbs, this big guy made quite an impression on the few folks in the tent when we delivered. The "dirt" was crumbs of organic cookies and graham style crackers (Paul Newman's Own brand). The leafy green was celery stalk if you can believe that?! We needed something fresh and green and big enough and low and behold my husband ran down to Dawn Hotaling's fresh produce stand (Plantation Farms I believe is the name) on State Hwy 26 and Route 42 just at the edge of South Otselic and picked up the perfect size bunch!

One last look for you...I hope you enjoyed the suspense of these cake photos. I'm glad you hung in there with me until I could blog them. Our busy summer is finally starting to come to an end and with school just around the corner we were blessed to squeeze in an unexpected trip to St. Clair Shores MI to see some family that lives there and more that were visiting from AZ. Couldn't pass that up! We've had our fill of the great New York State Fair as well, and are now anxiously awaiting the first day of school next week! With that first day with a new teacher right around the corner as well, we'll be moving on from carrots to apples soon I'm sure. Mom always said to eat your fruits and veggies...

Thanks again Amy and Chris for finding me and asking me to do your cake, definitely a favorite for the year! See you soon!

Beautiful Carrots!

I'm seriously craving carrots here! Amy and Chris from Common Thread just dropped off about 14 lbs of fresh organic carrots for their wedding cake this weekend.

I am so excited about this cake. They've grown and harvested the carrots themselves on their farm and have asked for as many locally produced organic ingredients to be used as possible in their cake.

But the most exciting aspect of this order is not that they are getting a carrot cake, not just a carrot cake, but a carrot shaped carrot cake! Yes, their wedding cake. Weird? Not at all! Not weird to them, and not weird for us! I'm super happy that they found me and asked me to do their cake. Stay tuned...the wedding is this weekend, so there will be photos by next week.

Now...just to hide the carrots in the studio so my self proclaimed vegifruititarian 10 yr old daughter doesn't eat them all! (and I'll have to fight the urge too, they just look so fantastic and crisp!)

Head on over to Common Thread's site to get more information about the terrific produce sharing you can purchase and participate in right here in Central NY! I think what they are doing is amazing!

Thanks Amy and Chris...have a great week and I'll see you this weekend!

Kara and Greg's Amazing NYC Movie cakes FINAL ACT

Ok, so we're skipping to the final scene...I know many of you have been anxiously awaiting the outcome of this order and believe me I toyed with the idea of making you wait it out a bit more so that I could edit and put up the photos in the order in which they were taken. Well...I'm anxious for you to see them too but for the last two weeks I have had to put other things on hold while doing this order so I'm playing catch up right now with various duties in and out of the studio - which means I can't sit and blog the way I'd like for a few days.

First of all...I think I'm caught up on sleep. Yesterday I was pretty much in a coma. Here's another behind the scenes tid bit for you, when it's a one person business and the deadline looms with perishable product, sometimes very little sleep, if any at all, is had. I don't know sometimes if I can take it. With God's help and the amazing support of family and friends I muddle through. This order was no exception. I'll post more later on the specific support given, but I have some amazing and talented friends in this business and a couple of them came to give more than just moral support. Beth from The Pink Cupcake Bakery in Mt. Vernon, OH came out (yes from OHIO!!) to lend a hand and brought her daughter along for help. They were here for just a day and a half but I can not tell you how much help that was! And wait till you see what Beth did...she's a rock star with Styrofoam and my Dremel tool!! There will be a whole post dedicated to her talent soon. And then of course there is my pen and paper gal, Erin, from Bride Design here in Syracuse; she came over the other evening to help me paint. She's an amazing painter, did you know that? I think the task at hand was a bit limiting and boring compared to her usual subjects, but again, the help she provided was really a much needed, incredible boost.

Ok, so now for the eye candy. I'm skipping ahead here to the finished product. See how nice I am? I know you've been waiting. You'll have to come back again in a few days to see the rest of the order progress, I have lots of pictures to show you don't worry.



The main "cake" is the Empire State Building with King Kong and bride. I refuse to call it a cake, as it contains NO actual cake. This is a display. It's displayed like a cake, it takes the place of a cake, it could have been done in cake. But it is not cake. The cakes are in the centerpiece displays, so no cake here was needed. The display is made of Styrofoam and pastillage. More on King Kong later, but his insides are also Styrofoam and then I detailed his face with sugar paste and finished him off with royal icing. The bride is sugar paste. More on the construction of the topper in another post.


The centerpiece cakes were also the table names. Each table was named after one of their favorite NYC movies. These were incredibly time consuming and some of the parts were just plain difficult, but the desired finished look was spot on and I'm very happy with them. While setting up, we met the father of the groom, who was also very pleased. Let me just tell you how nice it is to hear the phrase "Worth every penny". It's nice, very nice. So here are just a couple of the table cakes, the films are obvious.



Technically all edible, each of the centerpiece cakes consisted of the film canister cakes, the film reel, a scene from the movie depicted on the film strip in printed icing sheets, all laid out and cut out by me, the movie poster to match. The movie posters are front and back edged with gold and silver dragees - painstakingly placed by Beth and Arie while they were here...this took forever! I can only imagine if they weren't here to help that this part would not have been done. Each cake was placed on a custom mirrored charger plate made by a friend of the parents - I'll get that info later, they were really cool. We loved how in most of the photos the film strip look of the charger reflected back up onto the cakes or the cakes onto the mirrors. Usually a reflection like that ruins a cake shot - the blade of the cake knife for instance often leaves an odd blemish looking shadow on the cake, not so this time. Oh, and did I mention that the cake flavors were all different? I doubled up on a few flavors, but this was definitely an order where the 20 Qt Hobart mixer did not come in handy - which of course added to the time it took to bake. Note to DIYer's...don't try 16 different cakes at home, from start to finish this part took two days and no sleep.

Ok. Thanks for your patience, thanks friends for your help. That's it for now. Enjoy. Me...I'm going to go ice my hands some more, and catch up on the rest of my emails and phone calls from the last 2 weeks. I'll edit and post some more "in progress" shots over the next couple days but then it's right back into the thick of it with other orders so give me a minute or two...it's just me here!! The progress shots are really worth a look though, so come on back to see them!

Kara and Greg's NYC Films Wedding ACT ONE

So this is the first of what will hopefully be several blog entries chronicling the progress of Kara and Greg's wedding cake. Their exciting theme...films shot or set in NYC. Each of Kara and Greg's centerpieces will depict a different film - is that the coolest idea or what? They're not having boring old table numbers, they're using their favorite movies!! I will post as I'm able to...but obviously I'm a bit busy with the actual cake ;-)

The part I'm showing a glimpse of now is the seemingly endless construction of the edible (technically) but non cake parts of all of their 16(yes, SIXTEEN) centerpiece cakes each with film canister cakes (not shown since I bake fresh and we're not there yet) and then on top of each a pastillage film reel with filmstrip matching the movie poster on a pastillage plaque that will be positioned on each reel. There will be a little bling and a bit more strip than shown in these photos, but that's all in due time. A little tid bit of info client's don't know about is that for every cake order there is at least one piece of decor that can and will be done ahead of time, but there are so many that just can't be done until the cake is baked. Whether it's hand painting on a fondant covered cake, or in this case, positioning very fragile strips of fondant "film" with printed icing sheets to duplicate a favorite scene from the movie, many things just can't be done ahead. Because we want an unwinding effect, the last strips of film for each cake will have to be placed when the cakes are done while the fondant film is fresh and pliable; this means I can't make that part until the cakes are ready for it. It's this type of work that usually leads to very late nights and sometimes very long set up on site when cakes are delivered.

Want to see just how much was involved in making the parts for that centerpiece above? I've been taking just a few photos of some steps that were necessary to get there. And yes, that means I actually left out some steps!! Pounds upon pounds of pastillage had to be made, drying forms had to be constructed, dough rolled and cut, dried on forms, parts painted, "glued" with icing in sections, more parts added...each step with significant drying time allowed...

click to see a larger view of the shots.

I'll try to add some shots of the "film" being made when I make those additional strips toward completion of the cake.The centerpiece cakes are not the entire order, but you'll have to check back for the rest of this exciting wedding cake story! Until next time...

Meet and Greet Arts in the Valley 7/13/08

You know what they say...well some folks anyway; sometimes you find the best stuff in the most out of the way places. Then again maybe I just made that up, but it's true.

This weekend, in my tiny little home town of South Otselic about an hour south of Syracuse, our local artists will be taking part in a "meet and greet" day in the town park. From acrylic paintings to woven textiles, quite a bit should be represented here. The Otselic Valley is home to so many talented people that have been undiscovered or unseen before. We also have a few accomplished artists as well. Sunday should prove to be a day of discovery and good family fun. Lots of info, plenty of eye candy and even some activities for the kids.

She Takes The Cake will be just one small part of this look into our talented community. I'm baking up some fresh cookie blanks that will be used as mini canvas for your own edible masterpieces. Even some cupcakes too! With edible paints, icings, and decor on hand, I'll show you or your little Van Gogh some ideas for fun and tasty artwork. You might not want to eat it, but go ahead...my cookies are yummy! We'll also have some of our cakes on display and the portfolio too.

Lori Wood, an incredibly talented muralist, will be "Creating Young Artists", music will be in the air, food will be available, and some artists' items will be available for purchase.

More information about Arts in the Valley can be found here; this is a new organization that already has contributed greatly to community involvement and activity in South Otselic. We're happy to be a small part of it!

Not familiar with how to get here? If you want to check out the map I made up for directions on how to get to my shop, the park is just down the street! Of course, you can also contact Arts in the Valley for more precise info on how to get here and what to expect this Sunday from 1-6pm. Hope to see you there! The event is free, but bring some cash for an inspired purchase or two.

jackson + gwen = FUN CAKE

Just winding up some Gwen and just having fun with a cake this morning. The bride, an art teacher, sent me her color swatches and at one point a description of some splashes of color. Immediately I asked if she meant Jackson Pollock and she said yes! She gave me artistic freedom for how far to go.

Most of the time, I really like what I do. This morning, I loved it! I hope she loves it too, I'll find out when I deliver it.

This is my fist attempt at a video, so be kind. It's just a quickie fun look at my world;-)

BakeOff! Throwdowns on Flickr

flickr bakeoff! round 3 cake
Originally uploaded by She Takes The Cake

So there's a new group on flickr that I'm loving being part of, the BakeOff! group. We've got at least 200 members already and it's relatively new yet. All cake designers and decorators - cuppies too - of all different skill levels out for a good time. The idea of the group is that two members will challenge one another for a throwdown; come up with an inspiration or concept and each create a cake in one week without seeing the other cake or knowing anything about it other than the idea itself. Then, photos of the cakes are anonymously posted to the group by administrators and members vote for their favorite interpretation of the concept.

This cake was my interpretation of the theme that Kim from cupcaketastic and I threw down on. We decided it would be for an eccentric wedding couple, two tiers high, and that we would do whatever we like based on an inspiration board compiled of images she and I sent to an admin of the group for selection. Of the 4 images we each sent, a total of 6 were chosen and then announced to us at the same time for fair play. Surprisingly, a couple of the photos were somewhat similar - we must have good taste LOL. But our cakes couldn't be more different! I'm proud to say I "won" this challenge, but it was a close one! It was all for fun, and that it was!

Eat Art in Syracuse?!

Hey, check it out! We're headed to The Delavan Gallery to install the grid work for my interactive cupcake mural! Yep...cupcakes...hanging in a grid...on the wall...interactive (as in you get to eat it!!) How cool is that?!

The installation along with a cookie mosaic (pictured above) also being installed are part of the kick off for monthly drawings at The Syracuse Th3 Coalition events across Syracuse. Not familiar with Th3? Th3 is a citywide art open in Syracuse, New York, that takes place on the third Thursday of each month from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. This ambitious project, initiated by the Everson Museum of Art and the Delavan Art Gallery, is joined by the most distinctive venues in the city in a grand event to bring the artistic experience to the public. Th3 establishes Syracuse as a city for the arts in this initiative to reach out its local and regional communities. (taken from Th3 website)

For more info you can go to their website of course, and for sure head over to the Th3 blog for a run down of tomorrow's events!

There will be a second cupcake mural at one of the other locations...I guess you'll just have to check 'em all out if you want to find it. And don't forget to enter the drawing for this month's raffle. It's a She Takes The Cake cake of course! Inspired by the sunflower paintings of Van Gogh, Monet, O'Keeffe, and Caillebotte; I've done a small sunflower rendition of my own. You'll be able to see it at each location and then I'll recreate it in delicious cake for the winner! Art never tasted so good!

Hope to see you there!

Once you've had a peek at the cookie mosaic and cupcake murals you're gonna want one...you know where to find me!