Bridal Shows & An Award!

This past weekend was an exciting one for Simply Sweets! First I participated in the WellWed Wedding Affair Event at the Memorial Art Gallery on Saturday Jan. 22nd. I was asked to provide a variety of desserts to be passed around.

I brought a variety of chocolate desserts: truffles, chocolate-covered cookie dough balls, cake balls, chocolate-covered marshmallows, chocolate-covered pretzels, and berry cups.

I also provided 75 mini cupcakes (strawberry, red velvet, vanilla, and chocolate) with buttercream frosting & assorted toppers.

The next day I participated in the Bride's World event at The Marketplace Mall on Jan. 23rd. Here is a view of the whole table set-up (2 chocolate platters, a cupcake tower, and 2 display cakes):

Display cake #1 (8" extended tier & 6" regular tier with buttercream frosting decorated in fabric ribbon & crystal brooches):

Display cake #2 (14", 12", 10", 8" tiers with buttercream frosting decorated in fabric ribbon, fake pearls, and fondant butterflies. Topper made by a friend, Valerie Carlson):

I have a couple of cool announcements! I am participating in another show in February on the 27th at the RIT Inn & Conference Center. Brides, be sure to check us out there!

And finally, I am pleased to announce that I received an award from WeddingWire in the Bride's Choice Awards for 2011. This award recognizes the top 5 percent of local wedding professionals from the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate quality & service excellence in the wedding industry.

Check out my reviews on WeddingWire, and if you are a satisfied client, feel free to post a review as well!

New Year, New Cakes, and New Products!

Happy New Year to everyone! I know 2011 will bring a ton of cakes! I am looking forward to working with the brides who have already booked with me, and for those who will!

If you are wondering about the New Products part, be on the lookout for Italian Cookies coming to Simply Sweets! I have had high demand for these, and finally have decided to slowly add them to my products. Keep checking back either on my blog or my website to see new cookies. As of right now, I am selling Lady Fingers:

And Tiramisu (available in 2 different sizes):

I started off the new year with a wedding on 1/1/11! For this one, I provided only the desserts for their sweets table. I don't usually get pictures of my sweets table weddings, because they aren't usually set up before I leave. But I made a variety of items, including some chocolate-covered fruit platters, chocolate-covered pretzels, and cake balls. I did take a picture of the cake balls, because I thought they were so pretty & sparkly. :) I made 100 of them total, 50 chocolate & 50 vanilla.

Next I made a birthday cake that was marble cake, frosted in buttercream (the one balloon was airbrushed silver). After this, I had a very busy weekend, including 4 cakes... one was for Geva Theatre's "I'll Be Geneseeing You" (although I didn't get a picture of that). The next was for a 50th anniversary, and in addition to the cake I made 50 sugar cookies as well. Bottom tier: 10" chocolate cake, Middle & Top tiers: 8" & 6" vanilla cakes. All with buttercream filling & frosting. Top & bottom tier decorated with diamond press & gold dragees. Fabric ribbon & silk rose.
I then had a cake to make for a little girl's 1st birthday. This cake matched her invites, birthday outfit, and party supplies! The main cake was 9" vanilla cake with strawberry mousse filling & buttercream frosting & a 6" top tier pumpkin chocolate chip cake with cream cheese filling & frosting. All decorations done in fondant. The smash cake was a piece of cake carved from an 8" round, vanilla cake with buttercream frosting & fondant decorations.

I then did a smash cake for a little girl who's birthday cake I'll be doing in February! This is probably my favorite smash cake - so dainty & pretty!! 6" vanilla cake with buttercream frosting. Diamond press & pearl dragees. Fondant plaque, name, and bow topper. 'G' topper provided by mom (my favorite cake topper ever!!).

The next week, I only had one cake to do, but also provided some desserts for Studio 180's Holiday Open House.

The cake was a carved '30' out of cookies & cream cake. Covered in fondant with fondant stars.

For the open house, the theme was "Sweets & Wine". So among a variety of other desserts I provided, I made some mini grape pies!

And there's the past few weeks at Simply Sweets Bakery! This weekend, you can look for my desserts at the WellWed Event at the Memorial Art Gallery, and the Bride's World show at The Marketplace Mall!! I am very excited to have the opportunity to participate in both of these!

46 Dozen Cookies & 3 Birthdays Later...

Yes - that's right - I did say 46 DOZEN cookies!!!! And I don't think I'd care if I never saw another one in my life!!! Here's a few pictures of just some of them:

They are sugar cookies frosted & decorated in royal icing.

I also did manage to fit some birthday cakes somewhere in between all these cookies, though!

The first one I did was for an aunt who loves to play slot machines...

Chocolate & vanilla cake with Bavarian cream filling covered in fondant with fondant details.

Next I made 24 of these adorable alien cupcakes from Toy Story (actually 23... the 24th cupcake had Woody on it for the birthday boy). Confetti cake frosted with buttercream and candy details.

The last one I did was for my sister-in-law's birthday. 10" carrot cake with cream cheese frosting covered in fondant with fondant accents.

Merry Christmas & happy new year everyone!!! :)

Perfect Pies!

Simply Sweets has a new product: mini pies!! The perfect solution to your holiday baking! I not only bake them for you, but you don't have to serve them either!! These come in apple, blueberry, cherry, and pumpkin so far. But if you have any other requests, hit me with them & I'll see what I can do!

Here are some cherry pie pops...

Some mini apple pies... And mini pumpkin pies...
Also, I have some cookie bouquets for sale... perfect for business clients, friends, etc. These ones have decorated sugar cookies, chocolate-covered marshmallows pops, chocolate-covered candy canes, and cake pops in them.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

Lots of News!!

Wow... a lot (well, not a ton, but it feels like a lot!) has happened since my last post. I did a few cakes to finish up the month of October (which really ended at the 10th for me!). First started with a Rice Krispy cake... I offered a discount on this, since I wanted to try one to add to my portfolio...
It's a 1/4 sheet cake with flowers made from Rice Krispies as well. Very cool & unique idea - if you're interested in trying one out, place an order & we can come up with some ideas!!

I then had 300 chocolate-covered strawberries for a wedding the next day. I didn't take a picture of these, since I do so many of them, but boy was it a lot of work!

After that, to finish up my orders for the month, I had a wedding consisting of a cupcake tower... but instead of cupcakes, I made 9 dozen cookies to place on the tower instead! Also an 8" cake on top for cutting. I don't have pictures of it yet, but will get some soon.

On October 20th, I had my baby! :) We named her Vanessa Taylor... she's now a month old (I can't believe it!) and is doing great. I recovered a LOT faster than I did last time, so of course, I wanted to get right back into cakes as soon as I could! I'm not taking a lot of orders yet, but am still taking some... so if you're interested, let me know!
My husband & I are involved in a company called IMS Barter (if you are a business owner, look into it - its awesome!). They have a holiday expo every year, which we were able to be apart of this year! It was our first year doing it, but it went great and we learned a lot of things for next time! I made 200 samples (mini cupcakes) as well as a display (fake) cake for my booth. I decided to go crazy with the cupcake flavors (I couldn't limit myself!) and in the process made up a new, totally delicious flavor - Maple!
There were 9 different flavors: Chocolate chip, Chocolate, Yellow, Carrot, Pumpkin, Maple, Pumpkin chocolate chip, Chocolate peppermint, and Chocolate peanut butter chip. I used chocolate buttercream, vanilla buttercream, and cream cheese frostings. Yeah... I went a little crazy!

For the display cake, I was planning on doing a couple of different things, but got a later start than I wanted, so I ended up only making one. This was a design I'd been dying to try, and I'm really happy with the outcome. 14", 12", 10", and 8" cakes with buttercream frosting. Details done in black royal icing & silver dragees. Silk roses separate the layers.
The next day my booth had already paid off! I had received an order from someone from the YMCA who was at the expo and needed a last minute baker. They needed some desserts for a Euchre tournament. So I ended up making 100 chocolate-covered pretzels and 100 mini cupcakes. I was planning on making them simple, but the more I thought about it, I decided they needed some little cards on top! So I made each cupcake their own little fondant card & wrote on them with edible markers. 50 chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting, and 50 vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting:
I also received a request from my photographer with an order for a smash cake... 6" vanilla square with vanilla frosting. They requested polka dots in baby blue, yellow, and orange. Pics to follow soon!

She (my photographer) also needed a birthday cake for her son, so we picked out something similar to this:
Bottom tier: 9" chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling. Top tier: slice of cake carved from 8" vanilla cake with strawberry filling. Buttercream frosting on both & fondant accents.

The latest thing I've done is these cake pops, which I'll be adding to some cookie bouquets this weekend. The santa hats are chocolate cake mixed with chocolate frosting on the inside, dipped in chocolate with sprinkles on the bottom. The Christmas trees are white cake mixed with vanilla frosting on the inside, dipped in green chocolate with sprinkle "lights" & mini star fondant toppers.

Gorgeous Wedding

This past weekend was a light one, thank God! I can only do some much these days!! I had a wedding cake to make for a longtime friend of my husband's family. On top of that, my kids were in the wedding as well! This wedding was gorgeous!!!! Every single detail was so thought out & everything went perfectly together. They didn't leave one item out either - even the coffee stir sticks had decorations!

Her colors were sage green, ivory, and black (which looked awesome together!). She chose a wedding cake design by Martha Stewart... so beautiful & definitely one of my favorites.

Only the bottom tier & top tier of this cake were real. She had sheet cakes in addition to this to serve to her guests. Bottom tier: 16" almond cake with buttercream filling. Middle tiers: 14", 12", 10", 8" dummy cakes. Top tier: 6" chocolate chip cake with buttercream filling. All tiers were frosted in buttercream with buttercream piping (most of it was freehand).

Company/Birthday Weekend

No weddings this weekend! I had 2 birthdays & cakes for a company picnic to do.

I started out with this 30th birthday cake... The mom ordered this cake for her daughter, who was extremely unhappy about turning 30! 4", 6", 8" white cake offset tiers with chocolate ganache filling and whipped cream frosting. Coffin topper is styrofoam covered in fondant & tombstone is fondant.
Next I made a cake for my husband, whose birthday party was yesterday. It was hard to decide what to do because I love having the ability to be totally creative with it! I decided on a carved handgun, because he loves to go shooting. He loved it. :) Case is chocolate peanut butter chip cake with chocolate buttercream frosting covered in fondant. Handgun is white cake with vanilla buttercream frosting covered in fondant with fondant details. Both cakes are handcarved! Bullseye & bullets are fondant as well. I'd also made about 3 dozen assorted dark & milk chocolate truffles, but they were gone too quickly to get a picture!
Close-up of gun details:The last thing I had to do was a cake & desserts for a company picnic for the hair salon I go to: Attitudes Hair Design & Spa. (FYI - they're amazing!!) I made 80 milk & white chocolate covered strawberries, and 80 milk & white chocolate cookie dough balls (which I didn't get a picture of). I also made this Reese's barrel cakes (one of my favorites!). I absolutely love this one though, I think because it feels so "fall-ish" with the colors of the ribbons! 4", 6", 8" chocolate cakes with chocolate buttercream filling & frosting. Kit-Kats around sides & filled with Reese's Pieces.