Happy Ruffly Pink Weekend!

This cake reminds me of a ruffle-puff pink bathing cap that perhaps a lovely, languid synchronized swimmer would wear gliding her way through a flowery water dance, or a cute little furry pillbox hat on top of a stylish head of sleek hair. There was a time when I used to dress crazier than I do now. Now my style is much more mellow. I think I will dress crazy one day again - when I'm an old Chinese lady with silvery white grey hair cut into an angular haircut, wearing a giant avant-garde blazer and a super weird and expensive pair of interesting Italian-made eyeglasses. That's how I've always imagined I would look when I'm old. But hey, maybe I'll just be wearing green flannelette jogging pants and a really comfortable, warm sweater with an even warmer, more comfortable sweater vest on top of that.

Back to the cake - I love this cake!! A 9 inch round beauty, with tinted-pink interior vanilla cake layers, raspberry jam and light pink buttercream exterior. Doug ordered this for his girlfriend Azita's 26th birthday... pretty great!

Happy Birthday Azita! Hope you loved your ruffle cake.

Next Stop on the Coco Cake Express! River's Cutie Train Birthday

Lookit this cutie pie train cake I made for River's 5th birthday party! I have been so lucky to make many delightful cakes and cupcakes for this lovely family's birthday parties. This might be on of my favourites thusfar though... I think it's due to the cute little faces on the engine and the caboose, and the cute red, blue, brown and white colour theme!

Dark chocolate cupcakes and Berry Good cupcakes with fresh raspberries, the cupcakes all scooched up together in rows, made up the train body.

I'm Mr. Happy Caboose Face! Look at my cute little cupcake train wheels!

This engine's been up all night, his eyes are baggy from too much choo-choo-ing...

Happy Birthday River! Custom flag I made!

Choo choo chee choo!

And sweet little vintage-looking gingham cupcake liners too.

Side view! Train cake attack!

And the cutest River in front of his special cake... Happy Birthday, River! And thank you Sarah for the fun order!

xo Lyndsay

Leftover Cake Parfait and Family Memories

My grandpa (who we called Gonge-gonge) was very tall for a Chinese man, over 6 feet tall and movie-star handsome, to boot! He had a wonderful, good-natured charm and a hilarious sense of humour. I remembered him as pretty quiet, always happy and putting Ketchup on absolutely everything he ate. Every year for Christmas I would try and buy him the most ridiculous gift possible, such as a toilet paper roll holder that tinkled out a tinny version of "Greensleeves" every time you reached for a few sheets. When we were kids we got to go for nice dinners at the golf club in which my grandfather belonged. Crisp iceberg lettuce salad bar with croutons, glasses of soda and endless baskets of buttery, parsley-speckled garlic bread, our favourite. For dinner, sometimes it was prime rib with a perfect puff of Yorkshire pudding, and for dessert - the coveted creme de menthe ice cream parfait! Layers of bright green minty syrup and vanilla ice cream, a crisp-thin triangle wafer cookie tucked into a top layer of whipped cream, then topped with a shiny maraschino cherry.

We had our friend Marc over for dinner last week - I made a butternut squash and roasted cauliflower Rogan Josh curry served with cold plain yogurt and toasted salty cashews. For dessert, the three of us shared a leftover chocolate cake parfait topped with a fresh raspberry. While it wasn't quite prime rib buffet at the golf club in 1987, it did quite nicely, and reminded me of my beloved Gonge-gonge.

xo

Stella The Pup & Her Frogcakes

Pink frogs and lilypads on Brown Velour cupcakes!

These froggy eyes are smilin'... those lilypads remind me of green Pac-mans with flowers.

Happy Birthday Stella the pup!

Stella at her birthday party, with her cupcakes! Heehee!

I know I say this often but I really have the coolest customers. Some of those cool customers have some super cool dogs, dogs they love so much that they hold BIRTHDAY PARTIES FOR THEM! Yes!!! I have been feeling a bit dog-crazy lately. Like every time I see a dog on the street I have to stop and look and marvel at their cuteness or hilarious-ness. Rich and I recently went on a youtube link labyrinth of dog insanity, watching video after video of different dog breeds. I think my favourite dog after watching those videos was one of those giant brown fluffy Newfoundlanders! They seem so sweet and friendly, and they are "perfect companions" for kids! Although they would also be the craziest dog to own because they are HUGE and they slobber like crazy. Plus, larger dogs tend to have shorter life spans, which already pre-breaks my heart thinking about my (non-existent-but-what-if) Newfoundlander leaving this world and passing on to doggie heaven. Rich thinks they're cool because they're awesome swimmers and he could take one sailing and "it would totally save you if you were drowning!" this is true... If I got a Newfoundlander I think I would name him... Coco. HAHA!

Okay, major aside there. Denise has both a cousin and a DOG named Stella... and she has ordered cupcakes for both Stellas in ther life! I love it! She thinks her supercute French bullldog Stella looks like a froggy, and even has a Tshirt for her - ! I got to meet Stella when Denise came to pick up the cakes! Holy cuteness! Stella the dog did in fact eat the frosting and fondant, but avoided the dark chocolate cupcake underneath... smart pup!!!

Anyone else out there have birthday parties for their pets? TELL ME EVERYTHING, please! I would totally have a birthday party for my future Newfoundlander named Coco. Oh boy.

Happy birthday Stella!! Thanks Denise for the fun order!

Lyndsay ^__^

Pinky The Pupcake for Design*Sponge party!

Woof! Pink shaggy pupcake - dark chocolate cake with pink vanilla buttercream and fondant accents. I could just hug this guy!! Except I hate getting food on my face or body or clothes! But seriously if a friendly lifesized shaggy Pinky the pup just cruised through the door whistling a hilarious tune, would I be scared, or delighted??

Lookit that crazy pink shaggy face. Pinky the pupcake! I brought him to the Design*Sponge book signing party here in Vancouver and his little cake face was enjoyed by many stylish, artful and crafty ladies! Gosh, Vancouver has a lot of cool and talented ladies. We're a lucky city.

Bonnie the Design*Sponge cutetastic guru, Amy the managing editor, Coco Cake lady with Coco Cake pupcake, my sis Leanne! Photo by the lovely Janis Nicolay!