In Loving Memory

Mrs. Dunnam was a dear lady that had a love for the Lord and a desire to serve others. She was also passionate about making cakes. She made numerous wedding cakes, as well as cakes for other occasions. We would find ourselves going to her with questions in our newfound love of cake making. She provided very useful advice and we often found ourselves saying, "Duh!" :o)

Two weeks ago she went home to be with the Lord after battling cancer for 14 years. In honor of her passion, the family asked us to make a cake for the memorial service. What an honor!

With this cake we had the shortest amount of notice, spent the least amount of time, had no disasters and it was the easiest. We feel this has been our best one! How appropriate that our best cake so far was in honor of her!

Romans 8:28
And we know that all things work together for good
to them that love God, to them
who are the called according to his purpose.

Our First Wedding Cake!

We planned on posting this right away, but life gets busy so here it is a month later.

Once upon a time, we were planning for the graduation cake when Kali's cousin got engaged. We decided that we would offer our cake services, if they were willing to have amateurs. :) They readily agreed, and the planning began!

Not only was this our first wedding cake, but it was also in a different town. A ferry ride + an hour away. After we knew what the cake would look like, we began to plan how we would transport it and how much of it would be done before we got there. We would be getting in the evening before the wedding and wanted to have as much done as possible, so we made all of the cakes, filling and frosting and packed them up for the car ride. It can be very tedious transporting cake. You want to prepared for the worst. It took us a while to try and get things situated in the back of our car to ensure that things wouldn't be sliding around or that we wouldn't end up with a destroyed cake! All of our planning and preparation paid off and all that we had to do when we got there was frost and assemble. It was going so smoothly!

We got the cake decorated and assembled in record time, but here came the stressful part. It had to be transported one more time!! Dun dun dunnnn! The drive to the reception hall contained many hills. It was going so well until the dreaded hill...ahhhh! Our hearts probably stopped for a split second as we realized that our cake was sliding and was about to be destroyed. Alyssa & Maggie were sitting in the back with the cake and dove to save it. Alyssa's arm went into the cake, taking out a corner. We finally made it to the reception and in an effort to get the cake out of the car we almost lost it AGAIN! *sigh*

Praise the Lord it was buttercream frosting and NOT fondant, because you can fix buttercream! And that's just what we did. We were prepared with extra frosting and all the tools necessary. Lesson: Always be prepared for the worst!

Overall, the cake was a success. We received many compliments, not only in looks but in taste as well. There's nothing better than a cake that tastes as good as it looks!

It was a stressful, yet rewarding experience. In the end, they all lived...

Happily Ever After!

Grad Cake Part 3 -- The Finale!

I think we've held you in suspense long enough about our bleeding cake. However, you'll have to wait just a little longer.

Before graduation was even near, we hoped to have the opportunity to make the cake and even had an idea of how we wanted to do it. We were adventurous and decided to try fondant. It looks so cool and easy...however, we beg to differ! Ignorance in this situation is NOT bliss. We now have a love-hate relationship with fondant. Love the way it looks (when it's done right)....HATE making it.

There were 3 graduates so we wanted to have 3 tiers, each dedicated to one of the graduates. They chose the cake flavor, filling & color of their tier. All-in-all, it was a success. Everyone loved it!

As far as the bleeding, we learned that you never put a cake in front of a window! Even if the room is dark and cold...WINDOWS...NOT GOOD! So, basically the middle cake (red velvet) got too warm and started bleeding through the fondant onto the lower tier. After a phone call, we figured out the problem, got the cake in a refrigerator and tried to clean up the cake as much as possible. Lesson learned! Actually, we learned ALOT this time around. :)

3 nights + 15 hours + 4 trips for ingredients + 1 large pizza = 3 exhausted girls

Grad Cake Pt. 2

For those of you who are just dying to know what's going on...the cake is done! After 8 long hours on Monday, we finally went home around 1:30 AM!! Talk about a few exhausted girls! Graduation is tonight and then we'll be sure to get some pics posted and share some stories, as well as revelations. I'll leave you with this piece of info just so you'll come back to read more...

When I went to work this morning, I decided to go check on the cake. No real reason, just wanted to look at it. I walked into the room and...

THE CAKE WAS BLEEDING!!!

Grad Cake In the Making Pt. 1

Shannon's Farewell Luncheon

Finished with one occasion, on to the next! Our next assignment was Shannon's farewell luncheon. This one we found to be exciting because it was a way we could display our love to Shannon. However, we had far less time to prepare and plan than we did for the Sweetheart's Banquet. Immediately we began to formulate an idea. Did we want a tiered cake? Or a sheet cake? We both agreed that a sheet cake would be best. (We made a chocolate cake and a white cake then put them together and decorated it as one big sheet cake.) Did we want to do a Texas theme? (that could have been fun!) Or a more elegant, floral theme? We went with floral.

Then came the cake making night. Or should I say nights! The luncheon was to be on Saturday and it just happened to be on the week of Bible Institute. There went our evenings!! So we planned to bake the cakes on Thursday night and frost them on Friday night. Seemed like a plan!

So usually when you are preparing to make a cake you make sure you have all the ingredients BEFORE you start. That seems to be our weak area. I KNEW we had oil, or so I thought. So here it was, 10:30 pm and I had to run to the store for oil before we could bake our second cake. AHHH talk about frustrating! But we did it! Finishing around 1AM. We also made the flowers with royal icing so we could just stick them on the cake on Friday.

Then came Friday. Bible Institute let out a little early giving us a head start on our decorating. Once again, the weakness came through and we were found at Albertsons buying more powdered sugar and butter. I am sure by now the folks at Albertsons know us very well! Who knows how many bags of powdered sugar we have gone through in the past few months. So we finally make it back to the house. Full speed ahead!! Between the two of us we were able to get the frosting quickly made and onto the cake. About 11PM we had the layer of frosting on and could begin the actual decorating. What a team we made! I think I could still use a little help with my writing :-) The flower unintentionally ended up being a beautiful blue, purple, and white hydrangea!

While we have yet a lot to learn about the art of cake decorating I would say this occasion was another success!

Sweetheart Banquet 2009

As mentioned in the Once Upon a Time post, the SB was where it all started. With each creation, we hope to give you the 'inside scoop' on our adventure. Hopefully this won't deter anyone from asking us to do their cake. :)

We knew we wanted something that would resemble a wedding cake. After all, the banquet theme was that of replicating a wedding ceremony/reception. This was something we had never done before, so it was a bit nerve-racking, but we had high hopes that all would turn out well.

We spent many evenings together, looking at pictures of various cakes, trying different frostings & fillings, making test cakes and ultimately getting our game plan together as to how we would accomplish making the cake we envisioned.

Everything went well, until it was time to make the real thing! The bottom layer was our problem child. With our first attempt in making it, one of the cakes cracked right down the middle...so I made another. Great...no big deal. But then it happened!! I had all of the cakes indivually wrapped in plastic wrap until we were ready to 'build our cake'. I was going to take them to the church and put them in the freezer so they would keep. On one of my trips out to my car I saw our dog, Max, with his head in my car. He was licking the cakes!!!! I couldn't believe my eyes. I decided to go ahead to the church and inspect the damage there. In my exhausted state of mind, I contemplated using the cakes. After all, there was plastic wrap on them. :0) But, my mind kept going to the night of the banquet. I could just imagine myself standing there, as people were about to take a bite, screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! Don't eat it!" So, to put to rest the minds of those who ate the cake...Yes, I made a brand new cake. You did not eat cake that had been licked by Max. ;0)

The night had come. It was time to decorate. It was a long night, but a fun one. We made quite the mess. There were pieces of cake on the floor, clouds of powdered sugar in the air (because someone put the mixer on high...ahem...it was me :-D) and I'm sure other things that I don't even remember. As we added each layer, it felt like such an accomplishment. It was finally coming together! The Hallelujah Chorus played each time we finished...literally! (I have it as my ringtone.) We were very tired after we finally got the cakes frosted and decorated, but it looked great! The day of the banquet all that was needed was a few touchups, oh and the middle tier still needed to be decorated because our original plan fell through. So, thanks to the wonderful inventions of stencils it was done in no time.

All in all, it was a success and everyone loved it. People were pretty shocked when they found out who made it. :0)

Once Upon A Time...

Two girls were tasked with the job of making a 'wedding cake' for a Valentines Banquet. They spent hours preparing themselves for the task and came out with not only a beautiful cake, but inspiration to learn more about cake decorating at every chance they got. The goal of this blog is to document their journey through the world of cake decorating.