Bethany's Baby Shower Cake

I am way behind in posting about this cake... but better late than never, right?

SLC's friend Bethany is expecting her first baby, a little girl named Madisyn, this month... I had the privilege of helping to host her shower a couple of weeks ago, so SLC of course contributed the cake!

To be honest, this was one of those cakes that had us wondering what we'd gotten ourselves into around the half-way point, but we persevered! I think it wound up pretty cute!

We decided to do a different color scheme for this one - soft blue, light pink and melon to coordinate with some of the other shower colors... It was NOT working until we added the accents of white and pale yellow, but those little accents really can jump in to save the day when the night has gotten way too long! I know it doesn't really sound all that pretty, but it was a really soft color combination in person.

Here are a few pictures from the shower! Even though I had to cut it myself, it was really nice to go to a party with the cake instead of just sending it off into the unknown... Oh, and eat a slice, too! ;)

Now we are just waiting to meet Baby Madi! Congrats, Bethany!!

- Laura

The Green Cake!

So I have THE sweetest new coworker! She just moved to Birmingham and needed a cake to take to a birthday party. Her request was green cake with green dots and a green bow.

Sounds simple enough...

Until you and your cake makin' friend make about a hundred batches of green fondant trying to get the right shades. Okay so maybe just three. Still... there was a stressful moment there when we nearly cried. Well, maybe more like I almost cried. Laura is the level headed one. This is my new coworker after all! What if she hated it? What if she then decided she hated ME because of her RUINED cake? Thank goodness for Laura. She shook me and said "GET A GRIP, WOMAN." Maybe she didn't shake me when I think about it. Oh who knows.

To make a long, inaccurately remembered story short, I gave the cake to my coworker, and she loved it! YAY!


-Mallory

Happy 1st Birthday, Charlie!

When Laura and I were asked to create a cake for Charlie's 1st birthday party, we were THRILLED! Charlie's mommy suggested that we base the cake on the invitation to the party... it had to be one of the sweetest invitations EVER! Creating this fun shape was a blast! We especially enjoyed making the little streamers!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLIE! We hope you enjoyed your big day... and your FIRST cake!

-Mallory

Double Doozie

I know I'm a little late in posting these pictures, but it's been a busy week! To catch you up, we made two totally fun cakes last Friday!

This cake was for Laura's sister's "Stateside Again" party that her friends had in honor of her return from England! We decided to go with a stars and stripes theme, and look how cute it turned out!

We also had another onesie cake to do on the same day... This one was for a baby girl and in the lovely color scheme of pink and green! Precious!

If you are an avid reader of this blog, you are probably thinking "Whoa, whoa, whoa... Isn't your ONLY rule that you don't do two cakes on one day?! Don't you ALWAYS regret breaking this rule?!" Well, my friend, we have triumphed! Two cakes at once and they both turned out super human cute!

-Mallory

Up in Flames

My grandparents celebrated their golden anniversary this May, and our whole family found two whole days a couple of days last week when all of our schedules were free enough to spend a little while in Atlanta celebrating with them. My mom asked me to make a white and GOLD cake for the occasion, so that was something new... GOLD! SPARKLES! Woo!

It sort of started out heading down hill and then just picked up speed as we went along... I will elaborate.

Since this was a mid-week cake, I baked all the cakes ALONE and I guess it just wasn't my day... Knowing that it was all on me helped me to ruin about SIX cakes in about three hours.

Seriously?

At least I made the fondant and the buttercream okay on my own... My confidence was sort of semi-restored... Mallory came over after work, rescued the cakes, and we got the main elements done super easily and quickly. (Yay!) We packed it up for SLC's first ever on-site assembly...

So smug.

Things were looking up! Just not for very long...

At my aunt and uncle's house, Leah helped me put all the pieces together, and we really put in a good effort... but we had some issues with the little gold pearls sticking and then sliding down the side of the cake leaving little sparkly slug trails behind them. Cute, right?!

Don't we look glum?

Here is the finished result...

Okay, so maybe it isn't SO bad...

Of course... I think it looks so much better in the pictures than it did in person. I probably should be keeping that to myself... but this is a blog, not a portfolio...

Oh, and our super cool number shaped sparklers were also sort of a let down... They looked nice before they were lit, but guess what... They don't burn long enough for the first ones to still be on fire when the last ones get started...

Cake provides comic relief... Go figure!

Luckily it was for the family, and since they didn't pay, they couldn't complain!

Somehow I don't think they were going to anyway...

Have a wonderful week, and stay tuned for the next two cakes we have coming up this weekend!

-Laura

SLC Gets a Mini Makeover!

One of SLC's very best friends is quite a pro at blog design, and she offered us a free button yesterday! You know us... Who are we to turn down free anything???? Especially anything for our fabulous blog!

Once she sensed our extreme excitement (because we came right out and told her we were flipping over her gracious offer), she decided to make us a new header, too! Before we knew it, we'd gotten a bonafide mini makeover!

Now aren't we fancy?

It's Just Like... It's Just Like... A Mini... Cake! Hey! Hey!

We made a tiny cake this weekend, and it was big fun! It's sole purpose in life was to serve as a centerpiece (and then as a take home dessert for the parents-to-be) at a baby shower on Saturday morning...

Usually our cakes this size are just one layer, but since this was the whole thing we changed it up a little! This one was three mini layers! That much more buttercream only serves to make it that much more yummy if you ask me!

Have a great week! More cakes coming soon!

-Laura

Remember Us?

Okay, folks... So it's been awhile, but we are officially BACK from our little baking hiatus. I'm sure we were missed, but don't worry -- we missed you, too! And after all, absence makes the heart grow fonder... or so we've been told! Anyway, as of yesterday afternoon, we are back with a bang!

We are always thrilled to do something a little bit different for a change, so you can probably guess how excited we were when SLC's new friend Monica asked us to do a baby boy shower cake in turquoise, green and orange!

(If we have made a cake for you in the past and you want to believe that your cake is the cutest cake we've ever done, then by all means go ahead... BUT, seriously, how cute are these colors?!)

Have a great weekend!

-Laura

Baby Boom!

Is it just us, or does it seem as though there are new babies everywhere these days?? We LOVE it!!

This weekend we made another onesie cake... This time for mom-to-be Heather and baby boy Jacob!

We were very excited to have been given "full creative license" on this cake, so we tried something new!

Hope you like it!

-Laura

Twice as Nice

It's no secret... we LOVE making cakes for baby showers! It should come as no surprise to anyone that when we were given the opportunity to create a cake for the shower of a mommy expecting TWINS... well, it could go without saying that we were TWICE as excited!

We KNEW we had to do two cakes (there ARE two little babies on the way after all)... but after some discussion, Laura and I decided that there would not only be two cakes... there would be *TWO* TWO- tiered cakes!!!

We had SUCH a fun night... even if that last picture wasn't taken until close to midnight...

Have a great week!

-Mallory

Happy Birthday, Hannah!

My sweet friend Rachel (from work) asked us to make a cake for her daughter's fourth birthday party... She wanted a Barbie cake and hoped that we could do something a little different than the traditional-although-very-cute dress cakes... She settled on a Barbie Mariposa cake, and we started getting super excited about this new challenge!

I think the results speak for themselves! We had a blast making this cake!!!

-Laura

It's a Bust!

Well... We knew this day would come eventually... but that doesn't mean that we had actually braced ourselves for it... We had our first dissatisfied customers this weekend. It will be portrayed as a very sad day in the Lifetime Original Movie that will one day be made about our lives - the cakes chapter.

Here's a picture of the cake:

And here's the story behind it:

We had been commissioned to create a black and ivory bustier cake after someone saw this cake that we made for Emily's bachelorette party... So we set to work!

We knew that the cakes were not identical, but we have always liked this about our cakes... We don't even know exactly how they will turn out by the time we are half-way done with them... It definitely adds to that home-made-with-love vibe that we are putting out there with each and every one...

We went with our new fondant recipe again, and the fondant was absolute perfection!! It came together smoothly and quickly... It rolled out like magic... It draped over the cake almost effortlessly... We trimmed the bust and hips with black lace and finished it off with a black satin ribbon around the bottom...

We delivered the cake with the most confidence we've ever had... (usually we are very self-conscious about the tiny flaws that we've never been brave enough to share on this blog...) BUT, this cake didn't have any of those!!

Our customers gave us a rave review when they saw it...

Until...

dum dum dum...

The phone rang.

They were dissatisfied... The cake wasn't what they had expected... They didn't want any money back, but they were going to take the cake to Bruno's so that they could have it "fixed"...

GASP!

We had a very huge learning experience on Saturday... We had to just let go and try not to think about it too much... Just because we bring these cakes into existence doesn't mean that the new cake owners can't do whatever they please once the cake is out of our hands...

-Laura

Monogram Cake!

Last weekend we attempted our very first monogram cake! It also happened to be our largest cake to date! After a couple of preliminary disasters (involving the oven and some pretty brown cakes that have been donated to a good home), we think it turned out pretty well... The fondant turned out perfect... at least the best we've ever done.

We think the letters turned out cute! They were really fun to do once we figured out the design we were going for... which took much longer than we would care to admit on this blog.

We don't have a picture of the inside, but we made the buttercream hot pink on this one. We are thinking about making that our signature thing... Brightly colored buttercream inside all the cakes! Who knows what color you will get? It will be our little surprise for every one...

Until the next cake...

-Mallory

Happy Birthday, Anna Grace!

We made a cute little birthday cake last week for a SIXTH birthday party! It's hard to tell from these pictures, but the cake is actually light pink on darker pink - so in other words, extreme cuteness done at the birthday girl's request! We decided to attempt all lowercase letters this time... so that is something new for us that we are pretty excited about! Hope you like it!

It's a Football Pie!!!

Another weekend full of baking and decorating...

The first cake we did was... SURPRISE... another present cake!!! We loved the big "H"... and the great platter Laura found that was the PERFECT size for our beloved present cakes! She is so good at finding these things!

The next cake was our favorite cake we've ever made (this is what we always say when we do something new). In honor of the Super Bowl... a football cake! We had SUCH a fun time with this one... especially creating the little bits of "grass" around the bottom. Go Steelers...or Cardinals... or whoever won! Just kidding... really...

I hope everyone enjoyed their cakes... We very much enjoyed creating them!!!

-Mallory

So Many Presents!

Today we made another present cake! We are getting to the point with these cakes that we really don't even have to talk (or think, much) about the cake at all while we are making it... We just blab about whatever is on our minds and the cake just sort of happens...

I'm not so sure how I feel about that... Maybe it's time for a new challenge...

-Laura

Baby Shower FUN!

"What were we THINKING?" is what Laura and I usually say when we commit ourselves to more than one cake in a weekend. Not last night though...

Laura and I both have sweet friends who asked us to make a cake for the baby showers they were hosting. We decided that since the paisley cake was so enjoyable to make, we would look closely at that experience to see what we could learn. Mostly what we came away with was eating dinner before we started yelling at each other and vowing to never speak again would be the first step to successful baking/ decorating (we are two GRUMPY girls when hungry). This changed our experience drastically! We were calm, happy, and simply loved every second of the process!

The first cake we made was for a boy. His name will be Mason, and Laura and I just loved that name so much that we decided it should be on the cake. Luckily, the mommy had a blog that we could peruse to "get to know her" before we designed the cake. Her fantastic blog gave us an idea of the colors and type of design she would want. We felt confident by the end of the night that she would be pleased with our creation. We surely were!

No strict guidelines were given for the second cake... we had a vague idea of what we wanted, but ultimately decided to "go with the flow." Needless to say, we were nervous! With several new supplies, we tried a few things until we came up with an idea that worked (we think) very well! As Laura said, "It looks like a REAL baby gift!"

By the end of the night we were talking about how much we ADORE making cakes for baby showers! There are endless possibilities for sweet designs!!!

-Mallory