Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Groom's Cake

A couple of weeks ago, we did a wedding and groom's cake at Sweetwater Branch Inn in Gainesville. And now that I think of it, I can't remember what the wedding cake looked like for the life of me! Whoops!

That's ok though. The star of this blog post is the groom's cake. If you follow Mel's Cake Walk on Facebook, this cake will look familiar. I posted a very similar cake by Cup a Dee Cakes almost a year ago as a "Friday Feature."

This bride and groom wanted a close representation of that cake. If you do a google image search for Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cake, you'll find a bazillion of them. Apparently, there are quite a few Reese's fanatics out there!

For this cake, we created a Reese's Peanut Butter Cups package and left one cup peeking out the opened end of the package. Here's a shot of the cake just after completion in the bakery:


At Sweetwater Branch Inn, the bride left a LOT of Reese's cups for me to spread around the cake. I have to admit that the cups really completed the look of the cake. And they really smelled delicious, but by the time I opened my 200th Reese's cup, I was sick of them! Of course, I still ate the 2 damaged cups on the way back to the bakery...but that's besides the point...

Teddy Bear Baby Shower Cake

This is one of my favorite recent cakes because it was done for a friend. Karen, a good family friend, contacted me and asked me to make a cake for her daughter's baby shower. Of course, everything had to go through Ms Debbie's Sugar Art, but we were thrilled to do the cake!

Karen sent me this photo of the bedspread they're using in the nursery:


How cute is that?! She left the cake design totally up to me and just asked that I use the bedspread as inspiration.

A few days before I made the cake, I created the teddy bear topper out of gum paste. I was so excited with how it turned out that I sent this photo to Karen from the bakery. It's poor quality because I took it on my non-smart, horribly annoying phone...but I think can see the bear pretty well.


And here's the finished cake!


Karen picked up the cake in Gainesville and drove it all the way to Tampa (without incident) for the baby shower. Thank you for letting me do the cake! I really enjoyed it!

Cake for a Hair Stylist

Last week, we created a cake for a hair stylist. The customer brought in a picture of the cake and asked for an exact replica. No problem!

We carved the blow dryer out of a chunk of cake and covered it with red fondant. Then we used black airbrush color to add dimension and shadowing to the blow dryer. And, finally, we added the stripes, personalized "B", and the power cord.


And all the accessories around the hair dryer were made of gum paste by yours truly.


That reminds me, I'm due for a hair cut! *wink*

2011 Florida ICED Cake Competition - Finally Over!

Well, it's been a long time coming, but the Florida ICED Cake Competition has finally come and gone! Lisa & I began planning the competition about a year ago so it was awesome to see it finally become a reality.

I'm posting about 200 photos taken by our Show Photographer, Elise Kersey, on Picasa so I thought for this blog post, I'd show you some behind the scenes and sometimes goofy stuff.

To give you an idea of the size of the competition, we had 111 pre-registered competition entries. Of course, a few didn't show up the day-of the event, but we also had a few extras show up with cakes to be entered! Lisa & I were expecting between 200 and 300 people to attend the show so we had 300 programs printed. The doors opened to the public at noon and we ran out of those puppies around 1:30pm! We also had over 300 chairs brought in for the awards ceremony, and there was still standing room only! Needless to say, it was a MUCH bigger event that Lisa & I ever dreamed!


Now, sure, Lisa and I had planned the event as well as we could, but there are always hiccups. Even if you've only thrown a birthday party for your kiddo, you know things always come up to throw you for a loop! So when you're dealing with 100 competition entries sometimes not so patiently waiting to be checked in, people trying to purchase demo tickets at the last second, and probably about 500 people from the public just hoping to gawk at and eat some cake...those little hurdles turn into mountains that must be conquered immediately to keep everyone happy!

That's when you turn to your right- and left-hand man/woman for help. My right-hand woman is my Mommy, who flew all the way from TX just to help with the show! Isn't she amazing?! Afterward, she said she'd never worked that hard in her life...and, believe me, she wasn't exaggerating! I had her running all over the place!


And my left-hand man is my adorable hubs, Adam. (I put him on my left because that's the side that wears the wedding ring...makes sense, right??) I had him running all over the place too, including a lunch run to Burger King. In fact, that's him, below, taking lunch orders from a few volunteers.


We had over 30 volunteers at the show, and it really wouldn't have been a success without them. Lisa & I were being pulled in so many different directions that I'd often tell someone quickly how/what to do and then run off to take care of something else. I didn't even have time to check on them to see if I'd made sense or if they were doing it correctly. And for the record, there was no need because they were all awesome!

We had 3 teams of judges. The first team was comprised of Mercedes Strachwsky of Bake Me a Cake in Orlando, FL, Edna de la Cruz of Design Me a Cake in Orlando, FL, and Rebecca Sutterby of Sugar Creations in Savonburg, KS.


The second team was Susan Clippinger of Sweet Designs Kitchens in Orlando, FL, Debbie Busser of Ms Debbie's Sugar Art in Newberry, FL (and my boss!), and Grace Jones of Frosting on the Cake in Orlando, FL.


And the 3rd team, judging the cupcakes, was Cindy Morales of Sweet Stop Bakery in Ocala, FL, Cindy Dinges of Decadence a la Carte in Ocala, FL, and Kathy Wyatt of A Wedding & Catering by Kathy in Daytona Beach, FL.


In fact, one of the cupcake entries was by one of my Wilton students, Candace Palmer!


She didn't get any awards at the competition, but I'm so proud of her for entering! Way to go! It's hard work to enter a competition! And, look, Elise captured a photo of Candy (in purple) and another student Michelle! (There was a 3rd student, Allison, next to Michelle but you can't see her from this angle.) Hello, ladies!


So anyway, the day was crazy. People were in and out all day long, and the seats we had set up for the awards ceremony filled up fast! Some people were sitting in seats as early as 11am! We kicked them out because competitors were still trying to set up their entries then...but I guess people really wanted a good seat for the awards ceremony.


In the midst of the chaos, Lisa and I were interviewed for the 11 o'clock news. What, you missed it? Yea, I was sleeping by then too. But here's the video on YouTube.


People told us all day how impressed they were with how organized the show was, but I think the look on my face in this picture captures how I was really feeling:


"YIKES!" And notice Debbie behind me just giggling away!

But when it's all said and done, it was a fun day! We raised about $4000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Central & Northern Florida so all the hard work was worth it.


Want to see more about the competition? Check out these links:
Our official website: www.floridaiced.com
Our Facebook fan page: http://www.facebook.com/FloridaICED
Our Shutterfly online album: https://picasaweb.google.com/mjudge83/2011FloridaICEDCakeCompetition#
The Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3_Kqlm6F3w
A blog post on The Little Kitchen: http://www.thelittlekitchen.net/2011/03/29/2011-florida-iced-cake-competition-ocala-florida/
A blog post on Love & Sugar Kisses: http://lovesugarkisses.blogspot.com/2011/03/florida-iced-cake-competition.html#comment-form
A blog post on The Cake Engineer: http://www.cakesbyroxanne.com/2011/03/wedding-gum-paste-stilettos.html
A 2nd blog post on The Cake Engineer: http://www.cakesbyroxanne.com/2011/03/romantic-wedding-dress-cake.html
A blog post by Ms Debbie's Sugar Art: http://sayitsweetly2.blogspot.com/2011/03/florida-iced-cake-competition-held-in.html

Ice Cream Cone Cookies

I'm so tired of cold weather...can we all pretend it's summer already??? I love the feel of the sun on your skin, especially while you're licking an ice cream cone!

I actually decorated these cookies back in December (I live for the summer) but I've been waiting to post them until the weather was at least a little bit warm.


Yummmm....double and triple decker ice cream cones!

Ladybug 1st Birthday Cake

Here's a sweet little cake we made for Maddie's first birthday.


The cake was iced in light green buttercream and was decorated with buttercream grass and white gum paste daisies. And the ladybug topper was made of Rice Krispies Treats and covered with fondant.

Debbie gave me artistic freedom on the ladybug so instead of going juvenile with the face, I went a little more adult. I tried to make her look like a sweet little lady - one Maddie might see in one of her storybooks.

Happy Birthday, Maddie!

Ketchup Bottle Groom's Cake

Here's a groom's cake that's close to my heart. Growing up, my best friend Amy put ketchup on everything - even potato chips! She was a definitely ketchup lover!

So I totally understood when a bride & groom came in to order a cake that looked like an old-fashioned ketchup bottle. The groom is apparently a ketchup fanatic too!


The cake was hand-carved and covered with red fondant. And, when we delivered it, the groom oohed and awed over it! So here's to you Amy and Mr. Ketchup Groom!

Calphalon 7 Quart Digital Slow Cooker WINNER!

The wait is finally over! The winner has been chosen!

Tamara B. said... 41

Follower GFC
(tamaraben)
tamben7996(at)aol(dot)com

February 22, 2011 10:50 PM

Congrats, Tamara! I have emailed you! You have 48 hours to respond to the email or another winner will be chosen. Thanks to all who entered and to Calphalon for sponsoring the giveaway!

Panhandle Cake CRUMBS - LIVE 1-Tip Contest!

During the 2011 Panhandle Cake CRUMBS Competition, they have a couple of live mini-competitions to keep the crowds entertained. Susan, show chairman, asked me to participate in the 1-tip competition. The idea is that 3 different cake decorators are given all the supplies they need to decorate a cake - spatulas, icing, piping bags, colors, etc. - and only ONE decorating tip. The decorating tip is kept a mystery until just before the competition. So, you can pretty much expect to see some crazy tip that no one ever uses anymore!

Well, I'm a nerd at heart so I brought a few cake decorating books in the car with me. I was hoping to study up on some of the weird tips. I mean, we had a 5.5 hour drive to the competition so I might as well use my time wisely, right? Well, it didn't help because the tip we were given was not in any of my books! Bummer!

We were given tip 100:

...Ready? ...Set?...Go!


I started the competition by dropping one of my spatulas on the ground. Whoops! Luckily, they gave us a bunch so I didn't have to use the dirty one. Then I colored my icing yellow to add a pop of color to the cake.


I think this is about the time Susan (on the far right) asked me if I'd ever used that tip before. "No ma'am, never seen the dang thing in my life!"


After I got my cake iced, I colored the rest of my icing 5 different colors. I figured, I'll get the mixing overwith so all I have to do is decorate! Did I mention we had 30 minutes to complete our cakes? Yea, that's pretty fast. After I mixed all 5 colors, I realized we only had 3 piping bags.

Me: "Susan, are we only allowed to have 3 piping bags?"
Susan: "Yup!"
Me: "Fabulous!"

So I loaded 2 colors in one bag. If you look really closely in the picture below, you can see the pink on the bottom of the bag and the orange on the top. It created a pretty cool effect on the cake when I piped the border.


Then, I taped off half of the tip, loaded a bag with blue icing, and piped stringwork around the outsides. Now, of course, I did this part in about 5 minutes so it's not even or consistent. But I had to do stringwork - it's become sort of like my signature at competitions lately.

And you can't tell from any of the pictures Adam took, but I also piped flowers and polka dots on top of the cake. Oh, and the word "groovy" since it is a 1960s-themed cake competition!


Now to present our cakes to the audience!

Here's Rhonda Motley's (Did I get her name right? Oh, I'm so bad with names!):


Here's mine:


And here's Sandy Bishop's:


Of course, I have to mention that Rhonda and I are professional cake decorators and Sandy is not. But she had plenty of personality to make up for her lack of experience. *wink*

And the winner? Surprisingly enough, me! Susan said the judges (those people hovering in the background of the pictures above) chose the winner based on the creativity of using the tip, the overall design, and the relevance to the competition theme.

I'm sorry that we didn't get a better close-up of all the entries, but trust me when I say they were all great! So different and so creative!

Calphalon 7 Quart Digital Slow Cooker Review & Giveaway

I am a slow cooker addict. There, I said it. I'm not seeking an intervention, though. Instead, I want to convert you to a slow cooker lover if you're not one already!

I mean, what's better than coming home after a long day at work (and they're all long, aren't they?) and having dinner already cooked and smelling delicious?! I use my slow cooker almost every week for at least one meal, and then the following evening we have leftovers for dinner. So when Calphalon offered to let me try out their brand new 7 Quart Digital Slow Cooker and do a review, I was jumping up and down in my chair. And, best of all, they're going to give one away to a lucky reader! That's a $149.95 value! Aren't you excited?!?!

I'll get to the giveaway in a minute, but first I have to talk about the slow cooker itself. It's fabulous! The sleek stainless steel and black design would look good in just about any kitchen. My husband loves it because the crock fits easily in the sink for washing. And I haven't even told him it can go in the dishwasher! *evil laugh*

The digital display is so easy to operate. I usually read the instructions before I start using anything electronic...but this was just too easy. Just dump your food in, click a couple of things on the digital display, and head to work! It's got 4 mode settings - auto (cooks 2 hours on high and then the rest of the time on low), high, medium, and low, and it's equipped with Calphalon's exclusive Opti-Heat system that helps distribute heat so the food cooks evenly. The timer can be set for up to 24 hours - perfect for the best fall-off-the bone BBQ short ribs!

Since I use a slow cooker all the time, I wanted to try a new recipe for the review. Ever made a cake in a slow cooker? Sounds perfect, right? You have company coming over for dinner so you're bogged down with all the food preparations. Who has the time or effort to make an amazing dessert too? Ahhhhh, let the slow cooker do it! I made a Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cake using a recipe I found on about.com. I set the cake to bake while we ate dinner and it was ready shortly afterwards! Spoon a little vanilla ice cream on top of the warm, molten cake and drizzle some chocolate or caramel over the top...pure bliss...

And for a quality control test, I also made my favorite slow cooker pot roast dinner in the Calphalon 7 Quart Digital Slow Cooker. YUM! Perfection! And if you're curious, it's my favorite recipe because I just throw whatever I want into the crock and it's always delicious. Here's a list of what I add if I have it on hand:
1 boneless pot roast
1 chopped yellow onion
1 can diced tomatoes (undrained)
1 small can tomato paste
1 garlic clove, minced
1 can low sodium chicken broth
petite red potatoes, quartered
sliced carrots
pinch of dried rosemary, basil, oregano
1 bay leaf

I think that's it. But if I don't have something, it doesn't go in! No biggie! It's always yummy, and no one ever notices the missing ingredient.

And now on to the part you've been waiting for! The giveaway! Calphalon is giving away 1 7 Quart Digital Slow Cooker (US residents only, 18 years and older, please) to one of you! For a chance to win, visit Calphalon's website and leave a comment telling me what else you'd like to have in your kitchen. Note: This part is mandatory and must be completed before extra entries can be awarded.

Extra entries:
1 entry - Be a Cake Walk follower on Google Friend Connect (in the left sidebar).
1 entry - Subscribe to Cake Walk's RSS feed.
1 entry - Like Mel's Cake Walk on Facebook.
1 entry - Add the Cake Walk button to your blog.
1 entry - Follow @MelsCakeWalk on Twitter.
1 entry - Retweet the giveaway. (Use the Retweet button at the top of this post. You can do this 2 times/day; leave a comment here each time.)
3 entries - Make a post about this giveaway on your own blog. (Leave 3 comments here to get credit.)

Leave one comment per entry please. If you already do any of the above, please say so in a comment to get credit for the extra entry. This contest is open to adult US residents only. The giveaway will end Sunday, March 6, 2011 at midnight eastern time. Good luck!

*And after you've entered this giveaway, head over to thelittlekitchen.net to enter her Calphalon 2-Slot Toaster giveaway!