I bake.

I bake.
Did you know that?
My favorite thing to bake is cake.
Decorating the deliciousness that is cake may well be on my top ten list of favorite things to do.

A pretty & delicious cake is such a wonderful thing in my book. Lucky for me, I've had many opportunities to share my love with others.

Most recently...

Red Velvet Cake with a fluffy cream cheese butter-cream.  

Red Velvet cake via Bakarella

Classic American buttercream via Glorious Treats

 

 Me with the birthday girl.  Love this girl like a sister. So lucky to have found her.(my sisters live too far away:)

 

Moose Crunch Cake 

via Our Best Bites

Birthday Girls!

 Home made apple pie with my very first lattice crust.

Recipe via Our Best Bites(again! I love their cookbook)

 

 My Russell turned 4 this month. He requested an Angry Birds cake.

 I made everything from scratch. 

Except for some of the accessories for the birds. 

The bodies of the birds and pigs are cake balls, dipped in dipping chocolate(white) I colored myself. 

Their eyes are candy eyes you can purchase inexpensively from Wilton. (they carried them at the Walmart here)  I molded the beaks, feathers, crown & mouths(for the pigs) from laffy taffy candies(then dipped them in chocolate if needed) 

The pig noses are the delicious mint M&M's you can buy in a pouch(so good) and I used a food marker to draw on the black dots for the nose.

The white bellies on the red and yellow birds and the tiny eggs in the nest is the only fondant I used.  

The nest is made of crispy Chinese noodles covered in chocolate and molded into a nest before letting harden.

To attach all of the parts to the bodies I used dipping chocolate in the same color as the bird(or pig) it was going on. 

The "wooden" sling shot and structure the pigs sit on is made from kit-kats I welded together with melted chocolate and then let harden.

For the angry eyebrows I tinted a small amount of dipping chocolate black and piped it on.

The cake itself is yummy classic vanilla(at Russell's request)

recipe via Sweetapolita

I used my favorite cream cheese butter-cream frosting to frost the layers and crumb coat and then I tinted it grass green for decorating.

 I always decorate the night before a birthday. It's tradition to wake up to balloons. My favorite moment of Russell's big day--When he came running into my room first thing in the morning to announce, 

"MOM, it's raining balloons!"

Yes, yes it is Russell. Just for you.