BroBro turns 3! My nephew Brody's birthday!

Brody! You turned 3 years old! What the heck! And you love fishies, and underwater stuff, and anything to do with the ocean and the aquarium!! So Auntie Coco Cake made you a fish themed vanilla birthday cake and matching vanilla and chocolate cupcakes in a yellow and blue stripey motif! And you had a blast and a half at your birthday partying it up in the gymnasium, ripping around in mini cars and climbing over jungle gyms and crawling through makeshift tunnels made of puffy oversized coloured blocks, then eating up your cheese and crackers and pieces of apple and carrots and stuff. And then the whole room sang Happy Birthday to you and you smiled, blew out the candles (sort of) and licked the frosting off a vanilla buttercream topped cupcake and it made Auntie Coco Cake very happy!

Happy Birthday to my little BroBro! Love you lots!

Gone Fishin'

Sweet Cynthia phoned me about a month ago with a hilarious request: make a giant, "80's tight and bright" themed fish made out of cupcakes for her boyfriend's 30th birthday 80's themed bash. Let me tell ya, Cynthia and her crew know how to party-- Cynthia rented out a little bar in North Vancouver and ordered not only the fish cupcakes cake (from here on to be known as FishMan) but also matching clownfish cupcakes in the adorable "Nemo" style.

Coco Cake had yet to make a FishMan, and even though I was already swamped over that particular weekend with orders, I just couldn't say no to FishMan. FishMan ended up being pretty big-- RichMan and I delivered FishMan to his final destination, where FishMan no doubt partied it up with the rest of the 80s party-goers dancing to the live band and drinking... like a Fish.

Allergic To Fish Fish Cake!

Super cute Adele from Dace (incidentally one of my favorite Vancouver clothing brands) ordered a hilarious cake for her boyfriend Ryan's birthday bash: a fish cake on a platter complete with lettuce and tomatoes, as Ryan is very allergic to the real thing! This fish cake stressed me out beyond mental reason-- I think I worried about it for two weeks straight, and could not sleep the night before the beginning of Fogerty the Fish's production, this being my very first fish cake. I drew out my design and tried to think like a little cake engineer: how would I make this large sheet cake look like a ridiculously adorable fish about to be eaten for dinner??

Thanks to my husband and jack of all trades Richie for helping me carve my fish Fogerty into a nice fish shape! And of course for helping me "lay down the roof tiling" on my little fishy's scales. You are the best RT!!!

Here is the "making of" of Fogerty the Fish. Enjoy!!

Pre-Fogerty: diagrams, diagrams help me lots.

First, a giant sheet cake! Eggless chocolate cake, with vanilla buttercream.

"The first trim is the deepest"

The second trim is much better: Rich Trawick to the rescue! Master Carver!

Delightful carved away cake, to be eaten at a later time by probably Rich Trawick

Freshly frosted once again, post-carve!

Two different colors of green fondant later, the cake is covered, with fins intact...

Much later: the finished product!! Tomatoes and lettuce, and Rich helped perfect the scales!

"Le Poisson, le poisson... Hee hee hee haw haw haw!"

Close-up of my cute little tomatoes and veined lettuce.

"Qui, moi, Fogerty??" looking sad with his gift for Ryan, the tomato topped cupcake.

Adele, hope Ryan had a great birthday party!!! Til next time blog world,

xo