FDNY Firetruck Cake

I got an order for a 5th Birthday - apparently, the birthday boy LOVES firetrucks so his aunt wanted to get him a firetruck cake for his birthday.

Iced it...


Smooth'd it out...


Elevated it and covered it in fondant...


And here we are. 13+ hours later ( :





This weekend... a cake for a golf lover...

M&M Bridal Shower Cake, Fisherman's Cake and Teeth Cake for a Dentist...

Man, I've been so tired these days, I haven't been able to do anything else besides work, work and work.. First and foremost, Happy V-Day everyone. ( : This holiday is pretty irrelevent to me, not to mention quite annoying... Every place you go to is totally mobbed this day - and who wants to go eat at a restaurant? It's all pre-fixed menus and there's always a wait - even if you make reservations. I think V-Day meant more to me when I was just dating because you don't really "know" how much the guy likes you and when he does something special ON V-Day, you know he's into you. Kinda nice. But now that I'm married, everyday should be like V-Day, not just ON that day. Like I said, irrelevant.

Anyhoo... I made a bridal shower cake - they wanted an M&M because the bride's name started with an "M." Her favorite color is eggplant purple so we changed up the green to purple. And they wanted the m&m dolled up - long lush lashes, a veil with drop earrings - the whole shabang. They also wanted the m&m to sit on a box so I thought HEY! Why not an engagement ring box! It sound easy enough in theory but of course it was a pain in the a**. I couldn't position the m&m OR the ring so it didn't get in the way of each other. If the m&m didn't block the ring, the ring blocked the m&m. So I had to shave down the engagement ring, which I REALLY did not want to do. I wanted the ring to be like BAM! RING! But it turned out nice anyway and the customer loved it - which is the most important.





Afterwards, I got a last minute order for a man who was turning 68 and having a big party at a nursing home.. He used to be a fisherman so the theme was "fishing." I was told his favorite color was blue so I thought to myself GREAT - I'll do like a water/fish themed cake. So I drew up a couple of sketches and here's what I got.






Delivered it to the nursing home and I was MOBBED by all the nurses and patients. I started getting panic attacks! It was crazy! And best of all, the birthday boy was in tears... how sweet. He asked me to stay and have a slice of cake with him but I had to run so I took a raincheck. Haha...

And finally, the Teeth Cake. I love love love how this cake turned out. It was for my dentist - I've been going to him since 1997. Geez... that's a loooong time. Can I just say that he is the BEST dentist I've ever been to? He is such a perfectionist - so well trained and just... just a great dentist. And it helps that he's a nice person too ( :
Anyways, it was his birthday last month but I didn't have an appointment with him until this month. He asked for cupcakes and I thought that was a bit boring so I made him... a TEETH CAKE! ( : At first, I didn't know whether I should make a whole grill or just a big-ass tooth. I decided to go with the grill. Then the teeth looked lonely... so I added a toothbrush... Then it didn't look even, so I added the toothpaste. I actually wanted the toothpaste to be squirting out toothpaste but it was 5AM and I was shot... so we stuck with a regular toothpaste. In the end, I loved it and my dentist got a good laugh out of it.





This week - I got a fireman truck for a little boy's birthday - - I can't wait! : D

Yankees Cap Cake, Beer Barrel/Buffalo Wings Cake and S.K.'s Wedding...

WHAT a weekend... I had a couple of cakes on order and a friend's wedding. Monday morning - I am SHOT.

A co-worker asked me to make her a cake for 4 people. I usually don't make such small cakes but I thought of a great idea when she said that the person she wanted to give the cake to was a Yankees fan.

I thought of a Yankees Cap!





Thankfully, this cake only took about 3-4 hours to assemble and decorate. Not too bad.

And THEN... came the monster. I've been stressed out about this cake since the day I got the order. The Beer Barrel/Buffalo Wings cake... Because her expectations were SO high and because she herself is a perfectionist, I have to be honest, I was quite scared and nervous to make this cake... Not to mention that I've never done anything like this. She wanted ICE.. (of course she wanted it to look like REAL ice without it actually BEING ice...) - she wanted buffalo wings.. she wanted all these things that made me scratch my head... I wasn't going to stress myself out the day of - so I practiced early. At first I was thinking of making the ice out of jello but wasn't too crazy about the idea because it sloshes around and jiggles - and when I went to the supermarket, all they had were colored jellos - so that idea was out. SO, I decided to go with a sugar recipe I found online and it seemed like a good recipe to try. It said to cook to 320 degrees - which I double checked with my french culinary recipe.


OBVIOUSLY, 320 was too HOT, which I couldn't understand because we cooked it to 320 when we were in school. I did NOT remember it coming out so dark...


but stupid me... for some strange unknown reason, I decided to make the same stupid mistake again, except THIS TIME, using the french culinary recipe...
I made another batch of poured sugar and cooked it to 320 degrees AGAIN.


After I screwed up THAT batch, I made another batch of poured sugar - YET AGAIN to the same temperature but THIS time, retarded Christine thought she was being smart and said to herself, "I KNOW WHAT I SHOULD DO... I'll put some white coloring into the sugar and COLOR it white..." -_- Stupid stupid stupid... Anyways, this is what I got after my GREAT idea...


I was REAL frustrated at this point and wanted to pull my friggin' hair out... WHY wasn't this working? WHY WHY WHY?? So I went online to research WHAT the problem was. THE PROBLEM WAS... I wasn't supposed to cook it to 320. I was supposed to cook it to 280. DUH CHRISTINE...


Okay, so the sugar situation is solved. Next came stacking the cake...


I filled, carved and crumb coated the cake, secured the structure with bi-level dowels, crumb coated it and covered it with fondant. Then I carved some more cake into the shape of 1/2 beer bottles, crumb coated and covered it in fondant...


And then I secured it on top of the other cake... But... it just didn't look right. These supposed "beer bottles" were going to be sitting in a bucket of ice so shouldn't the beer be icy too?


So I cooked some more sugar and attached it to the beer bottles.


Then I carved, filled, crumbcoated and covered the wings paper plate...



And then I added the "ice."



15+ hours later -> Wa-La, there you have it. This cake was so top heavy and moist that I was scared it was going to either fall over or collapse. I KEPT opening the fridge door to make sure it was okay...


Another happy customer ( :




I had yet another cake order for that night so I couldn't stay for the party but I was so late delivering that cake I didn't have time to take pictures. Hopefully, the customer will email some pictures of the cake.

DIRECTLY after, I had to go to my girl S.K.'s wedding @ Jericho Terrace. She looked absolutely stunning. I was so happy for her - I swear I felt a tear when she entered to walk down the aisle. ( *: Me and my husband got married here too so it was nice to be a guest and enjoy what we couldn't on our own wedding day.




Reception was in the Penthouse Suite. My reception was originally supposed to be in this room but we had to change rooms because they were going to renovate. So when we heard she was having the reception in this room, we were really excited...



Centerpieces made by White Collections



Sorry, these are the only 2 pictures I remembered to take of the delicious food we ate.





All in all we had so much fun. It was really great seeing old friends and making new. I haven't been to a wedding where I had so much fun.

Violin Cake & Bridal Shower Cake

People ask me all the time if I love what I do - how I do it - plan it, construct it. I can't emphasize to people how much I love my job - cake making that is. I love love love and have so much dedication making and decorating cakes, it really boggles me. I've never liked anything, let alone love it... A lot of people mistaken my love for cake making as being something glamorous, fun and being very "lucky." Don't get me wrong, I consider myself lucky because I found my nitch but in no way is it a glamorous job. Fun? I guess sometimes but definitely stressful, long - back aching hours and lots of cuts, burns and dirty farmer looking hands. There were times where I would throw my hands up in the air and want to quit doing this completely. There were times I needed to take a time-out and just leave to get some fresh air so I wouldn't demolish my whole kitchen and throw the cake against the wall. But I must say, at the end of the day, I am proud of what I do and simply put - I love it. That's why I don't charge and arm and a leg for my cakes - because I want everyone to have a nice cake for their party and partially because I look forward to making them? I can't tell you how many times people tell me that my cakes are SO much cheaper than other specialty cake stores and JUST as nice. I can't see ripping people off. Although I must say, I make all my cakes solo so I guess I am able to charge less - because I don't have a staff, right?

When it comes to cakes, I will sit there with a pen and notepad for hours on end.. days even - - trying to come up with a design, scribbling, doodling, then re-doodling until I get the PERFECT design.

And when I'm actually constructing the cake, I'll stand there for hours and hours, trying to get that perfect cake that I will be proud of. Stand there staring at it... And even after I'm done with it and put it in the refrigerator, I'll wake up out of a dead sleep and run back to the fridge, open the door, close the door, open the door, close the door - "Do I love it? Would I be in complete jaw opening awe if I was the client?.. Does this cake make me want to scream - OMG?! Am I proud to present this? Or is this just an Eh cake? Will I be embarrassed to deliver this cake?..." These are all questions I ask myself when I plan, prepare and make my cakes. Not only does it have to LOOK good. It has taste DAM good.

I love how my cakes make people happy, and I love how excited they get when they see my cake.

This past weekend, I made 2 cakes. One was a violin cake someone ordered for their girlfriend - she's a violinist. I was nervous at first but then got REALLY excited.

My notes... and googles of the perfect violin.






It was a surprise party. I hear she was very surprised and pleased. ( :






I had a cake directly after for my friend Sun. It was her bridal/bachelorette party and I made her a cake, which was all left up to me. I got to design whatever I wanted. So I decided to use her wedding invitations as well as her actual weddding dress. So I went to White collections to see what her dress looked like.

I started making her cake but when it came to the actual dress making, I thought maybe she wouldn't want people to see her dress before the wedding. So I just made a generic wedding dress.