Ava's Cheerleading Birthday Party

Oh how delighted I am to share photos from Ava's 6th birthday party! Isn't it just delightful? Ava's theme was cheerleading and some cheerleaders from the local high school came to teach all the party guests some cheer fundamentals. Several of the girls dressed in the most adorable little cheerleading outfits. Pink is Ava's favorite color so everything was pink, pink and more pink! I made pink funfetti cake (pink cake with red, white and pink sprinkles), pink raspberry French macaroons and of course pink cake pops, each adorned in a various shades of pink sugar and sprinkles.  I think Ava's mom did a supreme job decorating! It felt as though I was on a set of a magazine shoot.

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Konrad's Biplane Birthday

I've gotten a bit behind on my blog posts. I hope you can forgive me! I was going through my photos, when I realized that I never posted this charmer.  Last year on an extremely warm and sunny Seattle summer day, I had the honor of baking Konrad's first birthday cake, complete with a kitschy banner tolling biplane. 

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The Serendipitous Proposal

In the spring of 2010, I was visiting San Francisco for the first time. I only had three days in the city and I made the most out of every single second I was there. I have a lot of tremendous memories of that trip, but this particular moment was ranked highest among them.  I was walking through a little park on Baker Street,  on my way to the Palace of Fine Arts.  I was in a bit of a hurry, but I couldn't help but notice a couple sitting in the grass, each painting on canvases.

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Chocolate Glazed Hazelnut Espresso Cake

I spoiled my coworkers with a choice of six Bundt cakes to help make a mundane meeting taste a little sweeter. Out of the six cakes that I made, this one was devoured the fastest. Folks made a bee-line directly for it. I think the lusciously thick chocolate glaze that graced the top of this cake was just too difficult to ignore. Moreover, the classic combination of chocolate, hazelnut and coffee was just too  hard to resist too. This cake is a trifecta of awesomeness.

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Mikey's Monster 1st Birthday: Vegan Banana Apple Cake & Vegan Buttercream

Monsters have invaded my kitchen but don't worry, they don't bite. Instead you get to bite them!  Last year I was asked to make a baby shower cake, cupcakes and cake pops for Mikey's parents, eagerly anticipating Mikey's arrival. Now, a little over a year later , I was asked to help with another big event: Mikey's very first birthday.  It's such an honor!

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Linkyn's Stacky Ring Cake: Yellow Sour Cream Butter Layer Cake

I've wanted to make this cake for a very long time. One afternoon while I was shopping for  for a baby shower gift basket I was putting together, I grabbed a ring stack toy (officially it's called a Rock-A-Stack) and tossed it into my cart. As it sailed through the air and joined the other gifts it occurred to me that this iconic toy's shape and color scheme would make the perfect cake. It was all there, just begging to be "cake-ified", complete with its individual ring layers and bright happy colors.

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Those Sound Sweet! Cracker Cookies

A few weeks ago I was contacted by the great people over at Solo Foods to enter their Sweetest 16 Baking Recipe Contest. They sent me a box chock full of almond paste and several of their pastry and pie fillings and asked me to come up with an original recipe. I pondered over this for a while before I began to bake. I wanted to make something different and not the typical macaroon or almond cake. I almost entered my recipe for The King of Cakes: Baumkuchen but decided to think a bit outside of the box.

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Pumpkin Spice Latte Cake: Browned Butter Pumpkin Cake with Vanilla Latte Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Doesn't it seem like pumpkin is everywhere? It's as though the clock strikes midnight on October first and all references to summer suddenly shift to pumpkin. Not only are pumpkins literally outside the door of every grocery store in town, they are downright trendy. There's a pumpkin flavored version of just about everything, including beer, Oreos, and even ravioli!

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Beverly Hills Birthday

My neighbor Tracy ordered these fancy schmancy cupcakes for our neighbor Cindy who loves Beverly Hills.She especially adores Tom Ford the designer. The black and gold zipper, the brown purse and the lipstick are all replicas of things he is known for. The rest of the cupcakes are fairly self explanatory except for two: The teal belt above the Happy Birthday cupcake is for the brand Pop Mollywho is known for their belts and purses and the second is the zebra one to the left of the big red heart. Let me explain...

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Easy Peasy Reese's Pieces Blondies

Several years ago, back when I first started blogging, I came up with a recipe for Snickerdoodle Blondies for one of my coworkers. This little recipe has been one of the my most popular, only second to my Better Than Starbucks Lemon Poundcake, and has a bit of a cult following. There are so many reasons to love this recipe: they take almost no time to make, their taste and texture appeals to the pickiest of palettes, they are inexpensive to make, they smell amazing when they are baking.. I could go on and on! Not only that but you probably have the ingredients for them in your kitchen right now. No pomp or circumstance needed! Just real butter, please but that should go without saying.

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Say Hi to Vera!

By the way, have you noticed my new logo on the site?  I call her Vera and I just adore her! She was conceived and designed by the incredibly talented Jon Stapp of ATOMICvibe.  He is one of *the* most amazing art directors and graphic designers in the universe, maybe even the galaxy.

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Oh, Baby! Oh, Otomi!

This past Saturday I attended a baby shower for my dear friend Noella. It seems like it was just last month that she went to Kaua'i for vacation and came back married to her best friend John. My how time flies! She's pregnant with her first child, a baby girl and is due in a few short weeks. I've been anticipating making this cake since I found out she was pregnant. I just couldn't wait to celebrate this big event in her life.

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