Anniversary Cake For Erin & Lenny

Erin and Lenny are two lovely people who celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary recently... and Erin requested a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting. I never keep peanut butter around because I am a horrible little peanut butter fiend. I could eat it with a spoon until the jar is empty and my jeans no longer fit. (This has happened, and it takes many hours at the gym to sweat this out.) Any kind of peanut butter -- natural, smooth, natural crunchy, Squirrel brand with the peanut on top (seriously such a genius little marketing touch, as I still remember that from my childhood and still look for it today)... and especially Kraft's evil and delicious smooth peanut butter (made with icing sugar-- true, and brutally delicious). Any and all peanut butter I will devour.

And peanut butter and chocolate together -- sheer diet-wrecking insanity. Not that I'm ever on a diet... I have never been able to diet in my life, because I love eating too much. I'd rather pound the pavement in runners and a baggy old tshirt burning calories, or do power yoga, and be able to eat most anything I like... though I do still eat fairly healthily, an attitude instilled by my mom when we were growing up, ie "one Oreo cookie wrapped in saran wrap" for a treat in my lunchbag or a handful of seaweed-based "gummy" bears in natural fruit flavours.

Anyhoo... I made this cute little peanut butter buttercream-frosted dark chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache filling, and a delightful little pool of chocolate on top. Let me tell ya, it was pretty hard not to just dig right into the cake with a spoon. :)

Happy Anniversary Erin & Lenny! Here's to many more years of love, fun travel, good food and happiness!

xo Lyndsay

Richard Scarry-Inspired Sneaker Car Cake!

The very excellent Robin emailed me with a request: a special cake for her little cutie Henry (also known as Auggie) who was turning 1, and for her hubby Brady, who was turning 40. But she couldn't decide on lion themed (Leo birthdays!), or shoe themed -- because Henry adores shoelaces. We also threw around the idea of having a Richard Scarry themed shoe car. So we came up with a compromise -- a shoe cake that was also a CAR with two little lions driving it! Perfect!

I think I ground my teeth on this idea from the minute the sneaker car cake was decided upon. I'd never made a shoe cake before, but I had a vision in my mind of what I wanted it to look like. My intention was to work on it way before the deadline, but of course orders pile up and suddenly the day is upon me!!

I made the cake using three large vanilla sheet cakes and 1 7 inch round vanilla cake. I had it all piled up on top of each other with the layers frosted in between and holding my serrated knife, I said out loud... "Now what!" I realized that my particular design sense could come into play here and I could create something that was much more cartoon-like than super realistic. So I started carving something that looked sort of like a shoe and sort of like a car... haha... I was sweatin' it big time. It was only after I had finished frosting the entire thing a few times with buttercream and had rolled out and adhered the massive piece of hand-tinted blue fondant to it that I let out a little yelp of glee -- I could really see it coming together at that point... but too bad I only had 2 hours left to work on it... !!

Details I loved: the exhaust pipe puffing out black exhaust, the shoelaces flying to the side (they're going fast! - my husband's idea!) and the stripe motif -- if I had had more time, I would've made the lion outfits stripey. :)

Haha. I loved how it all turned out in the end... the cake was pretty huge actually, 40 pounds and probably could feed 50 guests! The cake was so cute it made me laugh and I didn't want to give it up, I wanted to keep it an shellac it -- always a good sign for me. And how cute is freakin' Henry... he looks like a perfect blond German baby from the 1950s, I think. For some reason he looks like a baby from olden times.

Happy Birthday Auggie and Brady! :)

Kai & Xian's Toy Story & Sanrio Birthdays!

Corrine contacted me nice and early with a request for her two cuties' double birthday bash: A Toy Story themed cake and matching cupcakes for Kai, and Sanrio themed cupcakes for Xian! Coco Cake enjoys a creative challenge so of course I said "sure!!!" and... I adore Sanrio characters, as I've mentioned many times before on my blog... having grown up with all the old-school characters, such as Little Twin Stars, My Melody, Hello Kitty (of course!) and my personal fave, Tuxedo Sam (the penguin)!

Then, the kicker - I got the CUTEST card in the mail from Kai and Xian. It murdered me with its cuteness. So with each passing hour as I slaved away (heehee!) on the fondant cupcake toppers, I thought of that little card and got excited to make these kids the cutest cakes ever...

Thanks Corrine for the fun order, and great to meet Kai and Xian in person! :)

Jen & Ben's Super Cute & Crafty Wedding!

The darling Jen and scholarly Ben got hitched in a whimsically craft-ful swirl of coloured bunting, gingham tablecloths, typewriters, ice cream and red stripey old-timey straws. Coco Cake Weddings Department (heh heh) was on hand to provide a triple threat of delicious cupcake trouble -- pink rosette buttercream frosted Berry Good (vanilla cake with fresh raspberry and swirled jam), vegan dark chocolate Coco Ganache (gluten free even, to boot!) and Lemon Frill (lemon cake with lemon creamcheese frosting!).

In addition to the cupcakes, I also made a sweet little buttercream frosted, fresh-raspberry filled cutting cake for the top tier of the cupcakes, dozens of pretty little mini flags, and, as requested by the bride, two handmade bunting(s?), one large and one mini! Ahhhdorable!

Sweet details made this party super cute: red and white stripey straws, oodles of ice cream and the cutest cake toppers I've yet to see, emulating the bride and groom exactly!

Thank you Jen & Ben, for having Coco Cake be a part of it all! And mega congrats to you both!

xo Lyndsay

photos of the bride and groom: Jen's friend Camille made the collage out of sideline snapshots; bottom pic also taken by a pal at the wedding!

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

What a seriously beautiful song. Judy Garland singing it, only, from the amazing movie The Wizard of Oz! The song makes me think of hope and love and compassion, and making dreams come true. Pretty lovely!

Sweet Claire ordered from afar a delightful gift for her friends Tara and Elladee's housewarming: rainbow cupcakes! These cupcakes are sheer magic -- only when you bake that multicolored batter in the oven, and hear the timer go off, and you peak into the oven do you get to see how the cupcakes decided to turn out! Blobs of neon colours make up these rainbow vanilla cupcakes, which I topped off with a swirl of pretty pink, blue and purple vanilla buttercream.