Where's My Ben? I can't find him!

My good friend Julius turned 4 this year so I was commissioned to do another cake. His ratatouille cake I made last year was part of my "coming out" as a cake baker to the world. This year we decided to do a cake based off of his favorite book, Firefighters to the Rescue! In the book a little boy's dog is lost and found in the fire so I made sure Ben was also part of the cake. I did vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream, just in case any of the 30 children decided to test out Carrington's stain resistant carpet!

Monkey Business

I have had a great start to my new year and hope you have as well. Here are some of my January Creations. Enjoy!

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing and Burnt Sugar
Vanilla andChocolate Buttercream Cupcakes with handmade paci's, bows and baby pins.

Vanilla cake with Chocolate Buttercream and handmade bananas.

Ice This at Little Spouts!

Ice This Cakes will have a booth set up at the Little Spouts Sale next month in Franklin! I will have free samples and a give away prize! The dates are February 13-15, 2009. For more information go to www.littlesproutssale.com. See you soon!

Holiday Wrap Up

Here is some of my work from December. I had a busy month with birthdays and other special events! Enjoy

Real Fresh

I like pink. I am a girl, what can I say? But after spending hours on end looking at several cake related websites for the Nashville area I have decided that being part of that select group of people must require you to have a pink web page. So, for this new year I decided to change my page to something other then pink. I had to. It is like purchasing wall paper out of a book at Home Depot. I can't do that. I can't be a creative thinker in my kitchen when I know that 10,000 others are standing in their kitchens with the same images of apples or fruit just below their crown molding. It's like showing up to prom in the same dress as someone else. Therefore, Ice This has a new face for 2009. I hope you enjoy.

2008 was a crazy year for me and my family! We had many major life changes, some great and some not as great. But for Ice This is was an overall great year! I think I put out about 75 creations this past year and I was recognized twice by the Nashville Scene! Isn't that amazing?! I have my Best Of award hanging in my dining room and it is all I can do not to call the local electrician to add some fancy lighting.

I have had a busy past couple of months and hope to post pictures soon. I have been really bad about taking pictures of cakes! You would think with as much time as I spend creating and carving I would quickly grab my camera. Oh well. But, I have several pictures that have just arrived from some of my clients so I will post pictures soon. Promise.

2009 will start off with some really fun events for Ice This. I plan to participate in the Nashville Cake show at the end of February at Sweet Wise. The theme for the show is "Love Affair with Music City" so if you have any great ideas, please pass them along. I have come up with a design but it is always subject to change. My best friend is also getting married in March and in addition to being the mother of the ring bearer and a brides maid I will also be making the cake. I can't wait!! I did a taste test with her this past week and we all had a hard time not licking the platter! I think it might become a signature flavor in the near future! I will also be doing a few baby showers soon and birthday celebration cakes. It looks like it is going to be another great year.

Warm wishes to all of you for a happy new year! Let's all eat cake!

Jingle Bell Rock

It's my favorite time of the year! The air is crisp and family is at the forefront my mind. I have so many wonderful memories associated with the fall and winter and each year I look forward to pulling out my James Taylor, October Road album and going down memory lane to each song.

Last year I came up with a few of my favorite holiday flavors for cakes to share with friends and family. I have added to my selection this year but will be bringing back the originals. Here is a sneak peak at the 2008 Ice This Holiday Favorites! Seasons Greetings and Happy Eatings!

Peppermint Patty: This delightful combination of chocolate cake, dark chocolate peppermint filling and light pink peppermint frosting is sure to put you on the naughty list!

Merry Mayflower: Perfect pumpkin pie spice cake layered in cinnamon laced white chocolate ganache and surrounded in brown sugar buttercream– no need for turkey and trimmings!

Rock the Halls: Yummy Southern Red Velvet laced with white chocolate ganache and surrounded in cream cheese buttercream– this will get any party started!

Winter Wonderland: Fresh coconut cake filled with dark chocolate ganache, surrounded in creamy coconut buttercream and topped with toasted coconut– It’s a beautiful site!

Pep Rally

For anyone that knows me, it is no secret that sports are not my spiritual gift. Yes, I happen to have a child named after a baseball field but that was my husbands doing that Isomehow agreed to! It is funny to me how much I have learned about sports since I started doing cakes. I had never heard of people like "Bear" or thought twice about the UK cat until I had to reproduce such images out of sugar! Here are a few pictures of my ESPN collection.

Favorites

Here are some of my favorites that I have done over the past year. Enjoy!

This was done for an engagement party. The "diamond" was a hand carved pineapple hard candy sitting in a sugar box!
I did this cake for a woman who was expecting twins later in life. She deserved a BIG celebration!

This is the cake that started it all. I did this cake for my friend Julius. It was a Ratatouille cake that included buttercream pasta, chocolate covered rice crispy "meatballs", white chocolate ganache "marinara" and shaved "Parmesan" chocolate!

I did this Radio Flyercake for my dear friend Laura. This wagon was chocolate cake with gooey caramel buttercream! The birthday boy Owen went straight for the bumble bees!

This was by first experience with sugar flowers! I really didn't know what I was getting in to when I planned this cake but I quickly found out that sugar flowers are a lot of work! It turned out great and the bride loved it which is really all that matters!

Best Of

What an exciting past month this has been for me! My good friend, Carrington Fox contacted me in late September and asked if I was still doing cakes as she wanted to put my name in for Best Of. I told her yes but then didn't give it a second thought. A week later the art director of the Nashville Scene contacted me and said they wanted me to come in for a photo shoot with a cake related to their theme this year since I had won my category of Best Of for Kids Birthday-Cakes. I was blown away!! Of corse he called while I was just about to serve my eight, three year olds morning snack! I laughed and asked what the qualifications were to win and explained that I am a teacher by day and baker by night.

A week later I went in with my Matisse themed cake. Needless to say, they really liked it, and I am sure the chocolate peanutbutter cupcakes I took with me for the staff didn't hurt either. I believe the people at the Scene were expecting a sheet cake of some sort with maybe some piping but when I arrived I quickly explained that I don't really do those kind of cakes. A week later I picked up my copy of the paper and was quickly scanning to find my 1x1'' picture. When I arrived at page 96 and discovered that they had donated a whole page to me I started screaming in my car! I got on the phone and called everyone I knew. I recieved my certificate and was contemplating purchaing a banner to hang over my front door! A dear friend of mine posted a very sweet comment online about my write-up and to my surprise they posted his comment and another large picture of my cake in Scene the following week!

It is amazing how God has blessed me with talents that were beyond my imagination! He has placed amazing people in my life and I am so glad I have been able to share a bit of my heart and kitchen with all of them! Thank you Carrington for believing in me and thanks to my many friends and family who have supported me on this wild journey! I hope to outgrow my kitchen soon and set up a sugar shop in the near future.

To see my article, check out http://www.nashvillescene.com/bestof/2008/award/best-kids-birthday-cake-designer-87630/

Confection Frenzy!

Well, I am just now catching my breath after what as been the busiest week to date for me with baking. This past week I had seven different orders ranging from a dummy cake for an auction to a 3D red wagon filled with cake shaped creations. I feel as though I need to get a power hose to spray down every inch of my house from the nice layer of sugar, flour and whatever else Wrigley threw around. It is funny because in all of this time I have been doing cakes and working in front of my son he has always come to the table to join me and watch me work. I have been working with Fondant as a medium for cakes since the beginning and until two weeks ago he had no idea that it was really not play dough. While I was busy working on a shower cake I gave Wrigs a small piece of fondant to roll and play with to help distract him for a moment so I could work in peace. Next thing I know he put the fondant to his mouth, took one nice lick...and it was then that he knew his life would never be the same. I use a really nice high quality fondant for my cakes that doesn't taste like hard cardboard covering it so when Wrigley realized what it was he was playing with he immediately was trying to sit on the table and grab every piece he could find! After working on one cake for four hours I finally had to throw in the towel because it was hard to get much done with him grabbing everything in site from the fondant to the exacto knife...anything to get my eyes to look away so he could have another small taste of heaven. I am now going to have to start planning out my cake work time a bit better to try to keep little fingers away!! But, with all of this is was a fun and challenging past week. I hope that there will be many more like that to come!