Welcome to the debut of my cake blog! After much demand from friends and family, I am going to make THIS my perfect opportunity to start a cake blog...at last!I have been making cakes for friends and family for eight years now....my first one was my daughter's 1st birthday. I don't consider myself a professional at this point because I've never taken a "real" cake decorating course and I do NOT do this for a living. However, I am slowly working to perfect my skills. I never say no to a cake opportunity and I never do less than my very best. My main reward for making cakes is the joy of artistic expression and the pleasure of seeing a smile on someone else's face when they see their cake for the first time!
When JM announced his holiday-themed baking contest, I seized the opportunity to finally incorporate a decent guitar into a cake. I had been thinking about this for two years. In my world, cake + the holiday season + good music...well, it just doesn't get better than that!
I have been blessed to have made a few wedding cakes for friends and relatives recently which have fully funded my two Mayercraft Carrier cruises and summer concerts, so to finally design a JM Holiday-Inspired cake was incredible. It was like a cake-design obsession/possession that would not subside until the cake was finished! I couldn't be happier with it, and it is without a doubt the coolest cake in my ever-growing portfolio.
My sweet girls hand-rolled all of the colored fondant balls surrounding each tier as they always do to help their mommy! My 8-year-old also assisted with the snowflakes. As a side note, I learned all of my baking skills from my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother...all of whom are still living...so to pass on the skills and tradition to my children is a treasure to me. Check out our five-generation picture of "Cake Ladies" below!
The day after I made the cake, we had a very spontaneous neighborhood party...we invited friends on Facebook and then knocked on all the doors on our street to gather quite a surprised and festive crowd of friends to devour the cake! My husband took huge chunks of it to work the next day, too! I put the top tier in the freezer and saved it for Christmas Day to share with my husband and children.
Bottom Tier: Chocolate cake, shocolate mousse filling, Almond buttercream icing
Middle Tier: White chocolate cake, raspberry filling, cream cheese icing
Top Tier: White cake with lemon buttercream icing
Guitar, Ribbons, Bow, and Tissue paper are made of fondant.
Snow is coconut. Snowflakes are made of white chocolate.
Time Invested: 19 hours
Cost of materials: $150
Neighborhood cake-eating party full of holiday spirit: PRICELESS!!!
And thanks to JM for giving me the inspiration and excuse for doing this cake! Ha! Ha!!
Amanda, I loved your cake and waited anxiously for you to share it with the MSM community and JM fans! My daughter, Kelsey is an aspiring pastry chef and had the same idea for the contest so I guess great minds think alike! She's 16 and has picked out the best college for her to attend and I've shown her the cakes in your signature. She is in awe of your talent! Thanks so much for sharing! What a wonderful tradition to share with your family. Libby
ReplyDeleteThank you, Libby. I remember you mentioning your daughter and I believe I remember her cake, too! That's fantastic that she's an aspiring pastry chef and that she knows what she wants to do at a young age! Cake baking and decorating was a little frustrating the first couple of years that I did it (which was infrequently), but after awhile it became so much fun! It's been amazing watching my girls pick it up, too!
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