Dace 10th Anniversary Cupcakes!

Dace is one of my favourite Vancouver designers... her clothes are often described as "effortlessly chic", which I think is a pretty darn good description. Throw on anything Dace and suddenly your outfit is much cooler than it was before. Simple, but with beautiful "interest" accents such as a puff sleeve there, a drape here or a dart there, suddenly you're looking much more Euro/fashionable/minimalist edgy. Spring 2011 is looking very gorgeous with pale peach tones, light blues and lots of silk/cotton mixes.

Dace has been around for ten years too... I think this is an incredible milestone, especially in the fickle and scary fashion world! And the line continues to grow and mature, maintaining that nicely designed sophistication, that effortless chic, throw-on-and-go appeal.

Coco Cake did 200 mini cupcakes for the Dace 10th Anniversary/Spring 2011 preview party here in Vancouver. 200 mini boxes each packed with a cute little vanilla mini cupcake and a "10" flag. It was a fun party with so many lovely looking people swarming about. And wouldn't those adorable boxed cupcakes make the cutest little wedding favour ever? ;)

Congrats to Dace and all of her hardworking beauties! Here's to many more years of your lovely designs!

xo Lyndsay

Truman The French Bulldog Cake!

Scott secretly ordered this Truman dog faced cake for his wife Bobbi's bowling birthday party... a rated-G affair, pizza and bowling, as Bobbi is pregnant and due this summer! So cute! Bowling and pizza was my number one fave birthday activity when I was a kid... can't even remember the number of times I did that for my birthday party... Old Orchard Lanes 5-pin followed by Me n Ed's at Middlegate mall, crisp pizza served on giant tin pans, and a wide window into the kitchen so you could watch your pizza being finger-handled by a pimply teen in a tomato-sauce covered apron, while we sipped on plastic opaque glasses of orange fountain soda on ice!

The Truman cake was coconut cake made with pure vanilla extract, shredded coconut, a touch of almond extract, some vanilla almond syrup, vanilla almond buttercream and toasted coconut in the middle!

Bobbi loved the cake... and you know a woman is well-loved when her husband surprises her with such a sweet and thoughtful and hilarious gift!

Facts known about Truman the French bulldog:

Truman enjoys standing in the shower.
Truman lives with some very cute cats who beat on him senselessly if he sleeps near them.
Truman enjoys "swimming" across the carpet to Bobbi and Scott each morning.
Truman often rolls on his back barking at himself and pushes off the walls in the hallway.
Truman is ridiculously cute.

Happy Birthday Bobbi! Such an exciting year to come!

xo Lyndsay

Coco Cake Party Jams - Children's Cake Round-up!

Oh to Childrenland we go!

I would say Coco Cake's orders are a good 50% children's birthday parties... which I love. I teach kids art, I adore kids and find them hilarious... so I'm always super stoked to make something for a little cutie-pie maniac kid or that softspoken shy kid or that inquisitive, funny and always-holding-a-book kid... any kid, really.

So here are a few of Coco Cake's latest creations for kids! Enjoy!

Rosanna requested a special Sesame Street-ish birthday flag for her son's birthday cake...

Cookie Monster! Happy Birthday Daniel!

Dimithra ordered this 2 tiered cake for both her daughters' Fancy Nancy Valentines themed birthday party! Coco Cake's first tiered cake!

Super sweet and simple pink fondant heart topped cupcake to go with cake.

Happy Birthday Sapphira and Nyla! And thanks to my cake buddies April and Jennifer for their advice on making the two-tiered cake!

Last minute order from Christina for a monster-sized DRAGON CAKE for William's birthday!
I put the striped cupcake liners in the pic for size comparison. This guy was very heavy and time-consuming! But I thought he turned out pretty cute!!

Cute little stripey Happy Birthday William flag!

Scalloped fondant scales covered his whole body...
inside was vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream.

Hoot hoot! An owl, star, moon and clouds cake for Kaiden's birthday!
With mini cupcakes to match!

I love that little star with the face on it. Too cute! A special star cupcake for Kaiden.

Cake side view. Inside was chocolate cake, chocolate ganache and chocolate buttercream...
//////////////////////////////////////////////////

Crazy fun times in Coco Cake Land. Thank you to Rosanna, Dimithra, Christina and Peggy for these fun children's cake orders!

More posts to come... stay tuned...

xo Lyndsay

xo Lyndsay

Burger Heaven: Burger Cake, Fries 'n Soda!

Man oh man. If there's one cake I don't mind doing over again it's the Hamburger Cake Classique. It kills me every time!

Marissa asked me if I could do a burger cake for her husband Steve's birthday... her excitement and enthusiasm for the cake was matched by my own hyperness -- I love the magic of cake! Colour some buttercream, trick the eye with squiggles of "mustard" and leaves of fresh green "lettuce" and blobs of "ketchup." Roll out orangey fondant super thin and cut into squares then triangles, and you've got a cheeseburger! Personally I like my burgers a little more rare than charred... but you can blame the rich dark cocoa powder I used for the burger patty cake layer... ^__^

The cutesville kicker on this cake -- SODA AND FRIES! I was just going to make the soda and fries for display and for photos... but they turned out so cute I turned them into their own flags and poked them in to the top of the cake. I did a stripey cake board and matching flag. The cake itself was vanilla cake and chocolate cake, and between the layers of cake there was dark chocolate ganache...

I got a really cute email from Marissa the next day:

"I had to really be careful to preserve as much of its cuteness as possible when cutting it. The first cut was, indeed, the deepest."

CUTE!!!

I know how much I loved this cake because this was the last cake I made over a painful/delightful/extremely tiring weekend of pure cakeing... but I had so much energy in creating it because I was seriously so stoked on it.

Happy Birthday Steve! You've got a super cool wife! ^__^

Misfits Cake -- Maki Cake!

This is a sneaky thing to post on Valentines Day but it was ordered with love, and made with love and care by little old me... !

Ever-tall and ever-cool Sacha ordered this excellent cake for Maki on her birthday... ! I had to push the boundaries of my usual kawaii-cute cakeing style with this Misfits themed cake. Punk and metal isn't too far of a stretch for Coco Cake sole proprietor L.K.S. I've had a rock music past, and in fact I've just started an excellent new band with my buddies Christa, Andrea and Heather! I think we'll be ready to play in 2012, heh heh.

Anyhoo... this Misfits cake's insides features vanilla cake, matcha green tea buttercream and a red bean anko filling... ! I used an exacto knife to cut the Misfits logo in white fondant and to render the "Maki" lettering. ^__^

Happy Birthday Maki! xo

I Heart Cake! I Heart You!

Happy Friday everyone! and happy weekend of Valentine's Day-ish love. Love comes in many forms... relationships, friends, family... so treasure those who are close to you. I'm sending posi-love-rays through the internet to you all right now... and with this cake!

I love this cake! Elle Girl Korea contacted little old Coco Cake to make a super cute cake for their 8th anniversary issue, along with a little mini spread on Coco Cake's cake work. Kinda crazy and kinda cool right! Will be the first time I'll see my cakes in a glossy magazine. Ooooh I can't wait to get it in the mail! I'll be monitoring the mailbox come March! And of course I also have my doubts that it will even make it into the magazine?? The cruel hard world of publishing... ^__^ Even if it doesn't make the cut, I still have these ADORABLE pictures to show you!

Since I was making this cake for a photoshoot, I had to give it away ... and what better place to give it away to than my other place of work, Arts Umbrella... where I teach art to crazy little kiddies! Fun! Let's just say surprise cake in the afternoon was received rather well... !

The cake was vanilla with raspberry syrup, and vanilla buttercream. I felt compelled to make the layers different shades of pink... I love the surprise of a white cake, and inside a gorgeous colour spectrum! Going to experiment with some natural colouring ideas. My fellow cakers/readers out there, anyone have any suggestions? Beet juice? Raspberry puree? Anyone had any luck with these?

Happy Weekend to you all! And to local Vancouverites, there's still time to order a special little party box of cupcake delights for your loved ones -- email lyndsay@cococake.com!

xo Lyndsay

Lovepup & Dog Cake - Nuts About Pups

Haha... Some dog themes going down at Coco Cake HQ lately. First, an invitation from Chatelaine.com to create a "Valentine's themed" cupcake for their 14 Days of Valentines Cupcakes feature. Forgoing the usual hearts and flowers route, I made a funny little dog-faced lovepup cupcake. Say that five times! Pretty darn fun feature idea, over 14 days they reveal a new "cupcake" as created by one of 14 bakers across Canada. Fun to see all the other creations! Coco Cake's lovepup was revealed on Day 2!

Along with the lovepup, I also recently made a dark chocolate mocha woofer cake for the lovely Nishidha, wife of Sandeep, to celebrate her birthday! Sandeep told me she wants a dog so this was his way of appeasing her wishes... ! Rich dark chocolate ganache filling and chocolate mocha buttercream piped hairy-style all over!

And on a final doggish/ridiculous note, as my family and some friends will remember, Coco Cake sole proprietor and boss hog LKS has a real thing for Pound Puppies. This video makes me laugh so hard... I'm ridiculous. I think it's the extra funky bassline and the dog panting sounds. But I do remember watching this cartoon on Saturday mornings surrounded by my Pound Puppies!!!