Chocolate Covered Strawberries

During Christmas time of last year, some of my coworkers and I decided to do a secret Santa for an appreciation dinner that we were going to attend. For my gift for my secret Santa, I wanted to make something yummy to give instead of buying something so I decided to make chocolate covered strawberries. These strawberries are one of my absolute favorite treats to make and to eat so I couldn't think of anything better to give. Plus, I've never met anyone who didn't like chocolate covered strawberries hehe...

I bought these big beautiful strawberries from my local Sam's Club. My Sam's Club has the best produce, especially their strawberries. For the coating, I used Baker's milk and white chocolate that I got from Walmart. Baker's brand chocolate leaves a nice shell coating and tastes really good. I made half of the strawberries milk chocolate dipped with white chocolate drizzle, and the other half white chocolate dipped with milk chocolate drizzle. I was originally going to give my coworker (Sam) 2 dozen strawberries, but 20 was all that I could fit in the container so thats what I gave. I had dipped 24 so my husband and I helped ourselves to the leftover 4 that wouldn't fit :-)

These chocolate covered strawberries were absolutely delicious, and Sam really liked them as well. My secret Santa was a success.

Gabrielle's Hello Kitty Cake

This cake was made for my friend Adonis' daughter Gabrielle for her 5th birthday. I had made a cake for her big sister Sienna for her birthday a few months prior so I thought it was only far that I make one for Gabby too. Plus, I never pass up an opportunity to make a cake hehe. I had been noticing that pink and black were very popular with girls, and I've wanted to make something using those colors so I decided to use them for this cake. I had also seen this stacked floral design on another cake and thought it was really cute so I incorporated that as well. To tie it all together, I added some Hello Kitty rings that I had to the corners. 

To make the flowers for this cake, I used fondant and covered them with disco dust for some sparkle. When making the flowers, I didn't take into consideration the length of Gabby's name and the size of the flowers so I had to lay them in a zigzag type pattern to make it all fit. I could have just put Gabby instead of Gabrielle and it would have fit fine, but with a name as beautiful as hers I wanted to spell the whole thing out.

Aside from the slight technical difficulties with the flower layout, I think the cake came out pretty cute. I love the colors and the sparkly flowers. Plus, I absolutely love Hello Kitty :-)

Sienna's Disney Princess Cake

I made this Disney Princess cake for my good friend Adonis' daughter Sienna for her 7th birthday. I had these really pretty Disney Princess cake placs and rings that I've been dying to use, and I wanted to do something special for Sienna so I decided to make her this cake.

 I chose to do a light blue base with a light pink border and rosebuds to go with some of the colors of the decor. I wish I had made some yellow rosebuds along with the pink ones to match with the yellow rings but I didn't think about it until it was too late. Oh well, next time hehe...

 Here is a close-up of the pretty crown rings that I used which feature 6 different princess in 3 colors. The blue and yellow rings in this picture feature 2 of my favorite princesses - Ariel and Jasmine :-)

Carter's Dinosaur Cake

This cake was made for a regular customer of mine for her son Carter for his 4th birthday. Carter's mom told me that the party had a dinosaur theme, so I decided to make a cake with grass on one side, dirt on the other side, and a river going through the center. For this cake, I used chocolate fudge cake with a light chocolate buttercream icing and decor. For the dirt area, I used crushed Oreos. I like the colors on this cake, and the texture difference between the grassy area, the smooth river, and the rough dirt area.

Since Carter's mom was going to use some dinosaur toys that she had for the cake, she sent me this picture of the cake once the dinosaurs were placed on it.

Austin's Thomas & Friends Cake

This Thomas & Friends cake was made for an old coworker's son Austin for his 4th birthday. Austin's mom told me how much he loves Thomas, and I wanted to make something for him that was colorful and and fun.

I found these Thomas and Percy squeaky bath toys at my local Walmart. I thought they would make cute cake toppers, and give Austin some toys that he could keep afterwards for some bathtime fun.

Brandon's SpongeBob SquarePants Cake

This is a cake that I made for my son Brandon for his 5th birthday. Originally, I had planned on making a decorated half sheet cake with SpongeBob characters on top of the cake. While rushing to helping my son's father set up for the party, I left some important supplies at my mother's house. I had yet to finish the cake and the party was getting ready to start soon so I had to improvise and come up with a new design for the cake. My son's dad suggested to make the cake look like SpongeBob himself so I thought I would give it a try. Mind you, I've never made a cake like this before, I had to take images from the party decorations to help me with SpongeBob's details, and I was rushing to make the cake while the party was already going on and all my family and guests were watching me so I did the best that I could considering the situation. Aside from the bad picture due to the crappy phone camera, and my lack of time and equipment, I thought the cake came out pretty cute. I would like to try this cake again under better circumstances and proper tools hehe...

Rosebud Sugar Cookies

These are some fun sugar cookies that I made at work. With the warmer weather finally approaching and flowers blooming, I wanted to make something pretty to put in our bakery display case. 

I thought these cookies came out really cute, and they sold very quickly so I guess our customers liked them as well :-) hehe. The inspiration for these cookies came from a rose cake that I made with a similar rosebud ring along the border.

Here is a photo of the rose cake that I got the idea for these cookies from.