Coconut Wedding Cake

Ready for a surprise? I'm the one who got married! The food at my wedding was also special because my family and friends made it. ALL of it. I am the luckiest girl I know.

One of the wonderful women who helped pull this all together was Peggy Nelson. You can find her blog here. I was planning on making both the wedding cake and groom's cake, but as I should have guessed, time ran out! Peggy and my sister came to the rescue by frosting and decorating the groom's cake... didn't it turn out wonderfully? She also made the beautiful mexican wedding cookies in the pictures above. She and her family have been good friends of ours for years, and I was incredibly grateful for the help.

The wedding cake was five layers, each with a different flavor: carrot, spice, vanilla with raspberry, coconut, and plain vanilla. All of it was covered with cream cheese frosting and coconut. It was certainly a labor of love, but it was fun to try something new (and saved us a lot of money!).

The pictures above are all from Tami Shellenburg. Remember Tami? I did her wedding cake last year when she was married. Her photography business is thriving and you can find her website here. It's so great to have talented friends!

And.... here is a picture of my new husband! We obviously both liked the cake. Isn't he cute?

May Weddings, Part 1

Here are some pictures of the wedding cakes I've been making this month. One was for my dear friend Karen, and the other was for her sister-in-law, Lauren. The bottom cake was made with Swiss Meringue Buttercream (Recipe coming soon). May has been busy! Get ready for a posting of two more cakes in the next week! :)

Becca's Wedding

First off, my apologies for the poor quality on these pictures. I'm not sure why they look a little bit grainy. I really need some help when it comes to the technology department. Anyway, My cute friend Becca was married a couple of weeks ago and I was lucky enough to make her cake! Becca has a really fun and bubbly personality which was definitely reflected in the type of cake she asked for. It was made of 350 cupcakes! This idea has become really popular in the area lately. Becca's wedding colors were based off of bright gerber daisies so we had lots of oranges and pinks included in the fondant flowers. Like me, Becca does not particularly like chocolate cake so we did them all vanilla with cream cheese frosting. There was only one actual cake layer that sat atop the cupcake display so that she could still have the traditional "cutting of the cake". While cupcakes may seem simple (they did to me), this cake took SO LONG to make. See the stand they are all sitting on? It's made out of cardboard boxes that my kind mother and I measured, cut, taped, and covered in two layers of fabric. Luckily that was a one time project and I now have a cupcake tower that I can use for more weddings! Also, fondant takes forever to work with. I ended up just buying a pasta machine to make the rolling-out process go faster... but it was a great learning opportunity!

P.S. Special Thanks to my wonderful friend Breanna who helped me transport the cake and set it all up. It is quite the adventure to transport 350 frosted cupcakes on a hot August day. I couldn't have done this without her help!

Tami's Wedding Cake

WHY do I love baking so much? After pouring cup after cup of batter into pans and waiting hours for all of the layers to be done, and after getting flour and powdered sugar and cream cheese all over my clothes and hair... you would think I would be sick of cake. But I'm not! I would gladly start it all up again tomorrow morning if given the chance. Seriously. This is so funny to me but I'm glad I have found something I'm so passionate about! I can't wait to do Becca's wedding in a couple of weeks. This cake was vanilla with raspberry filling and cream cheese frosting. I loved it. Tami and I definitely have similar taste preferences when it comes to dessert. Can I tell you a secret though? This cake was flavored with vanilla, almond, and lemon. I totally messed up one of the layers and put PEPPERMINT in instead of lemon! Haha I couldn't believe it but when I tasted it afterwards it wasn't half bad, so I went with it. I'm sure some people were very confused if they were lucky enough to get one of the random minty pieces, but I actually thought it was a nice addition! Who knows... maybe I have created a new favorite. Just don't tell Tam Tam.

Tami also wanted 250 cupcakes in varying flavors to go along with her cake (she had a dessert bar for her reception), so I got to decorate all of the cupcakes on Friday with one of my best friends. Luckily I didn't have to do it all alone-- Tami's sisters and cousin offered to bake a lot of them. We had chocolate, pumpkin, oreo, vanilla, and coconut. I should have taken more pictures before the crowd showed up, but here is one:

I've never had Oreo cupcakes before so I had to just invent a random Oreo recipe. It's not hard and they turned out to be my favorite flavor!

Oreo Cupcakes

1 white cake mix

1 small box vanilla instant pudding

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup oil

4 eggs

5 Tbs cocoa powder

6-8 Oreo cookies, crushed

Mix all ingredients well. Fill cupcakes 2/3 full (I found that the perfect amount was 2 Tbs plus 1 tsp.... or one ice cream scoop in my case). Place in a 350 degree oven for 12-15 minutes or until the cupcakes spring back when lightly touched.

We served these with Oreo cream cheese frosting and a mini Oreo placed on top.