My Gabe

Well...I have done something about each of my other babies so without further ado.....

The one my mother always said I would have....("you just wait!  You will have one JUST LIKE YOU!!!")

He was Harry Potter for Halloween although his hair is more Malfoyish

He is very dramatic.....

And makes wonderful facial expressions & poses....

He has the prettiest eyes (but don't tell him I said that.....he already says "Mom, I have puppy dog eyes!"

He is very very very very busy but we love him very much!  By the way, no matter how many times I wipe his face he seems to have the "old food " goatee going on.....

Thanks for looking!

Love,

Bronwyn

p.s.  have 3 cake projects coming up!!! So stay tuned

Walk for Autism

This is my Jake.....

He was Batman here, come to save the day......

The outfit....completely his idea (my favorite part is the forks for ears!!)

When he was little he was late meeting his developmental milestones, including speech.

I remember saying, "he's my third child, if he's a little quiet then that's a blessing".......this people is called DENIAL!

He was examined by Infants and Toddlers, diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Delay, not otherwise specified...(PDD-NOS) and received services through them until he was 3.  (PDD-NOS by the way is part of the Autism Spectrum).   After he turned 3 he went to our zoned school,  Lansdowne Elementary and had an awesome teacher and speech therapist..... actually everyone there is pretty wonderful.

This year we decided to walk as a family in support of Autism

We raised some money as Team Jacob :)

and had a great time walking around the Ravens (M&T) Stadium and the Orioles (Camden Yards) Stadium.  The walk occurred the day before Halloween so the kids, and some adults (and dogs) dressed up.....

We had a great time for an awesome cause!

Thanks to all who supported Team Jacob!!!

Love

Bronwyn

A Tale of 2 Cakes

This past week was a busy one.  I had 2 cakes to make, the Autism walk and Halloween.....not to mention school projects.....

The Walk for Autism was great and I will share pics of that next time......

OK so now to the cakes. 

Both cakes represent "firsts" for me.

My friend wanted a cake in the shape of a bottle of Henessey and a can of redbull (his favorite drink  mixture I think)

So I had to carve a cake.......never done that before.

I am sorry I have no pics of the process......my hands were busy :)

But here is the finished product.......

(I have tried in vain to turn the pic the right way!!!  Sorry.....) 

It turned out ok I guess.....

Now to my second "first"....a Halloween Topsy-turvy cake!!!!!!

I've always liked the way topsy-turvy cakes look but never tried one before.....I was nervous....
But.....I love the way this turned out!

The cake was inspired by a lot of cakes on cakecentral.com .....

Thanks for looking!

Happy Halloween!

love,

Bronwyn

Soccer

Went to see my boy Drew play soccer last night. I really enjoyed myself.....

Here he is....my baby...

Haven't been able to see many of his games because of other commitments so I was especially pleased to go....with camera in hand.

Now these pics have been edited on http://www.picnik.com/ because my computer has died and with it my photoshop.... crying here.....

But...Picnik is fun and free so thought I would give it a shot...

Hope you like these as much as I do.....

            Thanks for looking.....

Have a great Day!!

Love,

Bronwyn

Funny 50th Birthday Cake

Yesterday I decorated a cake for a 50th birthday party.
The cake was (of course) pound cake with a revised buttercream icing....

I have been having trouble with my basic buttercream keeping its shape and not 'melting'
The basic recipe is yummy....

2 sticks butter ( I use salted)
2 lbs confectioner sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp butter flavoring
and milk to get desired consistency.....
I added 1 cup butter flavor crisco  to the above and it held up wonderfully!
(Usually I would notice a separation in the color and sugar......so the color would look grainy)
But in adding the crisco it held the color and shape wonderfully!!!

So here is the pic.....

I was thrilled with the final product!  Finally got the buttercream to look smooth which is a HUGE accomplishment for me!!

Let me know what you think!!  Oh by the way, the idea for cake was inspired by a cake I saw on http://www.cakecentral.com/   made by aliciawilliams!  That is an awesome website by the way and free to join!  Cake decorators range in experience from newbies to pros and everyone shares tips and techniques!! 

p.s. this is not a paid advertisement :)  

Thanks for looking!!!

Love,

Bronwyn 

Pound Cake recipe.....YUM

I am, again, making a cake for this weekend.  This cake is for a 50th birthday party and I hope to post pics Saturday of the finished product.
As I sit here typing my house smells like baking pound cake....I think you can actually gain weight from the smell!
So I thought I would share my recipe.
This is the cake my mom (Alice) would bake for all of the party's......
So I named it after her even though I think someone gave her the recipe some 30 years ago ......

Alice's Pound Cake

Ingredients
3 cups sugar
2 sticks butter (softened)
1/2 cup shortening (I use the butter flavored Crisco)
1 tsp Vanilla extract
6 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup milk

Directions:
grease and flour cake pan.  Cream together sugar, butter, shortening and vanilla.  Add eggs one at a time until mixed well. Add flour and milk in 3rds and mix until batter is nice and creamy.  Place batter in prepared cake pan and stick it in cold oven (just don't preheat)......
Turn oven to 325 degrees and bake for 90 minutes or until cake passes the toothpick/fork test

This cake tastes awesome alone or you can frost it with any icing......I have been using the decorators cream cheese icing from the previous post. 

Hope you enjoy!!! 

Happy Birthday Cake for Peyton

My cousins daughter Peyton is turning 5 and her dad asked me to make the cake

I made the pound cake (yum) and a new icing....cream cheese decorator icing.
I am hoping it holds together better than the buttercream icing I make.

There was no theme for the birthday so I was free to do my own thing....  uhoh!
I like having some idea of what to do.....
So I googled some birthday invitations and was inspired by one invite....it was of a pink and yellow flower

I changed the colors because they seemed spring/summery to me and this is the end product.....
To make the flowers I made a frozen buttercream transfer

I had a drawing of the flowers and secured a piece of wax paper over my drawing.  I piped the icing to color in the design.  First I did the brown and then the blue or pink.  When that was done, I filled in with the white and then covered the entire design in white and smoothed it down.  Then place in freezer for about an hour and a half.....or up to 24 hrs. 
I found a great tutorial on  this process if you have ???'s  google frozen buttercream transfer.....there is an article from cakecentral.com that covers this process with pics.....
I didn't take pics of this because honestly I didn't think about it.....maybe next time
Here's a closer picture of the buttercream transfers.....

The icing recipe I also found on cake central but I will list it here too.....it's yummy!!

Decorators Cream Cheese Icing

8oz block of cream cheese (room temp)
1 stick butter (room temp.)
1/2 cup shortening
1 Tbsp vanilla
2 pounds confectioner sugar
1/2 tsp salt

.....I also added 1 tsp butter flavor just because I like it......
.....It was very thick without milk so I added a little of that as well.....

Cream together first 4 ingredients (and butter flavor if you so choose) and then add sugar and salt.....Add milk slowly until desired consistency....

Hope you enjoy this as much as I do....Its a little sweet but yummy and so far, holds up very well.

Thanks for looking and let me know what you think!
Love,
Bronwyn