Wow!  I wish I could have been a wall flower at the ball tonight!  More to come when I hear back how it went, but for now, a couple photos will have to do.

This tuxedo (chocolate and white layers with fillings of chocolate, vanilla, and mocha buttercream) is to be partially *yes, partially* auctioned off tonight at the ball.  I’ll be back with a report when I have one.  I for one can not wait to hear the results!  The comedy and tragedy masks were shaped over corn starch by hand, dried and then painted.  The dancer silhouettes were done using the pin prick and cut method.  Very tedious.  But…worth it!  I love this cake!  And, I’m proud to say that the red fondant is my home made fondant, and we all know what that means!

Have a great night!

Thanks so much to Lisa  and Tim Walsh for inviting us over for a little Super Bowl Sunday action.  We had a great time.  I took along a cake of course that Lisa had requested and I was pleased to say the least when she reacted with a little amazement.  I guess her expectations were a little less than 3D.

I also had another order for a football cake, so both Lisa and that client got a cake like this one pictured below.  I was really happy with the texture I achieved on the chocolate fondant “leather” and wow does Lisa’s shot of the cake show it off!

Enjoy, and I hope you enjoyed your Super Bowl Sunday too!

Lisa blogged the cake on her site too, you can check it out here.  Thanks Lisa!

We all love to watch Food Network, right?  Meet Jacob, he loves it too. He also is a big fan of mine, I love it that he is inspired by my cakes.  So, Jacob’s mom purchased an afternoon of baking for him as a gift.  By the time we finally had our date in the kitchen, it was just about Christmas so we made some yummy mini cream puffs and a Christmas Stocking cake.  I took a few photos for Jacob and thought I’d share them with you.  There was a lot of activity in the kitchen that day, I think Jacob enjoyed it, I know I did!

the puffs are already in the oven when we started photos.

With all the activity, we realized we hadn’t been taking photos from the start! Here, the puffs are already in the oven while we turned our attention to the pastry cream.

yolks and sugar with starch ready to be tempered in.

Jacob stirring the half and half with sugar, don't get distracted Jake!

that's better Jake, constant stir now.

Jacob stirs the tempered yolks into the half and half, paying close attention now, till thick and with bubbles just starting to come up from bottom of pan…almost done.  Then we strained out any little clumps that were missed and added chilled butter and vanilla.  We took a break from the puffs while the cream set and worked on his cake.  Jacob loves my fondant!  He did a great job with rolling it out and with some help laying it on the cake, it came out terrifically!  Check out his candy canes!

so proud!

When the cream was chilled and the puffs were dry, we moved back into the kitchen to fill the puffs!  Always fun, and sometimes messy, it’s the perfect time to sample his work.

do they pass inspection Jacob?

The first one is always the best, but who can stop?

Oh, just one more? Riiiight.

I think we were able to save at least a few for the rest of the family! Hopefully Jacob will make these for their next party, I know everyone will be impressed!  Thank you Jacob for inviting me to your kitchen, bake it a great day!

Thank you so much to everyone who made 2009 a year to truly remember!  I’m blessed and honored to be part of your lives through cake and the memories built with each and every celebration you include us in.

I’m wishing you all a truly fantastic 2010!!

~Jen

It’s another busy, busy week here at She Takes The Cake and I’m deep in cake mode without much time to write, so I thought I’d post the video clip from my visit to Bridge Street on 9WSYR here in Syracuse NY for those of you who might not have seen it.

It’s full of some great 4th of July ideas for desserts for your family and neighborhood picnics!  Enjoy!  And be safe this weekend! (you know…don’t over do it with the cake)

Here’s the link!

http://www.9wsyr.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?navcatid=1127

What an awesome lady this birthday gal must be!  My client, Camille, came in for a design session for the cake for a special 85th birthday and we came up with this terrific cake.  After a loose sketch and an extensive list of locations her Grandmother had traveled to and a list of her hobbies, the design was complete and I turned it into cake.

Here is her 3D globe, loosely rendered and hand painted with little fondant push pins in as many locations of travel that I could fit on the white and chocolate cake globe.  Then a new flavor that I am really fond of - Coconut Creme Cake with raspberry filling - was covered with fondant and surrounded by 13 paper doll cut outs to signify the number of grandchildren.  On the cake I situated several 3D fondant vignettes of her hobbies.  They included: movie reel, popcorn, books, roller blades, raking leaves, exercising, jam making, berry picking.  What a busy lady!!  My daughter Emily made some of the little figures for me, she is so talented, she’ll be helping on many a cake when it comes to mini models.  Her popcorn was awesome!

Two photos today for you.  Enjoy!  And Camille, thank you so much for your enthusiastic pick up of this fun cake!  I hope she loves it too!

Lots of other great cakes were picked up for this weekend, I’ll put them up soon for you to enjoy! Thanks to my fab clients who order challenging designs and fun, yummy cakes!

And I love every minute of it!  Ok…almost every minute, but your faces make it all worth it!  I will try to update on each thing next week, but you know me by now.  Here is just a snippet or two of what I’ve been up to, and a few photos as well.

The Open House was fantastic!  Thanks so much to everyone that came out to see the new space, and thanks to all of you who placed orders that week!  I do wish I could be there everyday.  I’ll have some one in so that orders can be picked up on Fridays, and possibly take on that intern sooner than later.

This week I had the privelege of making a cake for Thom Filicia from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Dress My Nest fame for his book signing that took place in Skaneateles to benefit Positively Pink Packages.  PPP, if you follow my blog old or new, as you know is Jennifer Tom’s non profit organization that puts together wonderful care packages for women who have been diagnosed and are facing breast cancer.  Jennifer is an amazing woman.  And Thom…well, he’s an amazing guy with a great sense of STYLE.  That’s his new book by the way; Thom Filicia STYLE.  It’s full of awesome photos and ideas that will really inspire you.  Professional photos are coming soon, but for now, here is a shot I grabbed with my bb at the event of the cake I designed and created for Thom.  I wish I could say a photo is coming with him standing next to it, but it was such a crazy night and there just wasn’t an opportunity for that.

The book in front of the cake is a hand painted cookie book, done by me, to mimic the real thing.  It was time consuming and I’m pleased to say it showed.  I do think everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.  I know they devoured the cake once it was sliced. Gosh, I hope someone took a piece to Thom!

The rest of this weekend is full of orders for Communions, Birthdays, a bridal “show” at Henry Wilson Jewelers, and a wonderful cake for Dori for her Bat Mitzvah tomorrow.  A couple orders that went out tonight are shown below, I’ll post the others another time.  For now…enjoy!  And thanks again to all my new and old cake friends and fans!

I’m so excited to be participating in Savor Syracuse this year to benefit the Central New York Food Bank.  So many awesome restaraunts, wineries and other local food companies are participating and I do hope I get time to sample everything as well as the time I’ll be spending serving up samples of my yummy cakes.  I’ll also be bringing along a 2 tier custom cake for the silent auction, so make sure to look for that and bid often for it!  The flavors for that cake will be chocolate with chocolate ganache and mocha buttercream and my fabulous almond raspberry torte cake - which by the way just came out of the oven and boy does it smell amazing!

For more information on this year’s event, sponsored by Welch Allyn, go to www.savorsyracuse.org.  You’ll also find a list of participants to get your mouth watering before tomorrow night!  It’s from 6-8:30 at The Hotel Syracuse…see you there!

My open house at the showroom is quickly approaching.  I sure hope you are coming to see the new space and to enjoy some samples of what I can do for your sweet tooth!  The times you’ll find me there for the open house are (and I’m not changing or adjusting them again I promise! LOL) from 9-4 all week - yes, a whole week of samples and smiles!  I’ll be there late into the afternoon and early evening on Wednesday and Friday as well because I know some of you just can’t make it during the day.  Again, the address is 8195 Route 92/Cazenovia Rd, Manlius.

So am I ready for it?  Well, I’m getting there.  Lots of baking will be going on this weekend so that I’ll have so many yummy things for you to try.  And more display items have come into the showroom - I can’t wait for you to see Bride Design’s corner of the room.  I’m working on some more display cakes to show off birthday ideas, because I do birthday cakes too you know.  And I’m totally pumped to meet you all.  I’ve had some great photographers drop off some wedding prints for display too and speaking of great photographers, I met Genevieve Fridley on Monday when she came over to interview me for her blog series on wedding professionals in the area.  She did a fab interview on Erin of Bride Design and Monday was my turn.  I’m so happy she came out because A. she did an awesome job (I in fact love the photos she took) and, B.  now I know one more incredible photographer to refer brides and families too.    You can see and read the interview here :http://genphotos.com/blog/?p=1296 I’m anxious to see who is next on her list, I’ve made a suggestion for who I’d like to see her interview.

Have a great day!

Join me for the grand opening from Monday March 30th until Friday April 3rd from 10am until 6pm!  The showroom is located at 8195 Route 92/Cazenovia Road, Manlius NY - just look for my awning out front!

Well, it’s a couple weeks beyond my originally planned date, but furniture is finally all in, most of my finishing touches are finished and I am ready to rock and roll.  I can’t wait to see you there!

First a couple details, and then the photos.  The purpose of the showroom is, well, to show what I can create for you.  But it goes beyond that.  Because I value your time as much as my own and really strive to focus on treating you to the best cake experience you can have, I’ve been coming to you - the client - on a regular basis for tastings and meetings.  That means I’ve visited many a hotel or coffee shop over the last few years and I have grown tired of it and grown out of it.  This showroom will display quite a bit of my work, as well as some of my other favorite event professionals in our area.  You’ll be able to come in and do your tasting in comfort and style, and purchase an item or too and of course plan to contact some of those great companies whose info I’ll have on hand for you.  You can view gorgeous prints from some terrific photographers, browse delicious stationery from Bride Design, enjoy a cup of coffee roasted right here in CNY, and be in the know for networking and seminars or workshops for your event planning needs!

The hours are as planned:  Mondays, every Monday except some holidays, from 9am to 2pm.  Wednesdays from about 5pm to 7pm (ish) and other times by appointment for tastings or cake pick ups.  We’ll add other hours as soon as we can.

Don’t forget, there will NOT be cake on hand ready to go unless you have ordered it ahead of time.  The licensed kitchen is STILL in South Otselic and ALL baking still takes place there.  Plan ahead - typically a week is enough.  And yes…we do all cakes, not just wedding cakes.

What will be on hand though, are some really cute cake themed items, some stationery, and even some tshirts and wearables.  I’ll also have examples of particular designs for holiday gift giving and cakes for your celebrations.

Ok…now, onto the photos!  I can’t wait for you to see it!