Grandpa Turned 90! (March 2013)

My amazing grandpa turned 90 last March.  It's hard to believe I am so behind in posting that he is almost 91 now!  wow!  Since 90 is quite the accomplishment, and we love an excuse to spoil Grandpa, we celebrated with dinner at an Italian restaurant complete with dessert and cake.

A picture of Grandpa and myself from the celebration day!  I'm not sure exactly how old I think he looks, but I'm pretty sure it's some number well under 90!

Happy Birthday to Me! (Belated Post)

Whelp!  It has been a long long time since I last posted.  In fact, there are no posts from 2013 at all, and it's not because there were no cakes to be shared!  So... here I am catching up!  This cake I did not make, but rather my amazing former colleague, Tristan, and his girlfriend, Erin, made it for me.  At that point in time, I was obsessing about my urban garden which *I think* inspired the theme for this cake. :) I'm so impressed still.  Thanks, TD and ES!

Me with my urban garden cake!

The Joy of Cola!

This cake was made for my colleague, Tristan.  Saying that he loves Pepsi is probably the biggest understatement of the year.  If you see Tristan, there is probably a can or a bottle nearby.  It has to be Pepsi, no Coca Cola for this guy (although he is known to enjoy a Boylan cane cola from time to time.)  Happy Birthday, Tristan!  Hope you are enjoying the beach!

Sidebar: Pepsi's old logos are so much better than the more recent redesign!

The Well Dressed Birthday!

A friend reminded me that I'm pretty behind in posting.  Eeep!  Sorry; life has been busy!


This cake was made for my colleague Alan for his birthday about a year ago.  Three things that he loves include: 1) the Phillies, 2) the well dressed burrito (scrumptious somewhat-hidden lunch burrito location downtown), and 3) those candies that look and taste like pepto bismol (I always wondered who liked them; I guess I have now found one data person!).  This cake incorporates all three of these items - the logo from well dressed, Phillies' clothing, and pepto bismol baseballs.

Crossword!

I have a newfound respect for crossword puzzle makers after creating this cake!  This was created for my colleague Noah who, as you might guess, likes crossword puzzles.  I brought in icing tubes and made him fill it out.  Ariella checked it, so he must have done it right.  Unfortunately I forget to take a picture of it after it was filled in!  oops!

...and now for something completely different!

It was Ariella's birthday and sadly I couldn't figure out how to make Mad Men into a cake. But she's pretty logical, so I figured a puzzle could be fun. It was quite amusing watching my colleagues try to sound out the cake, but eventually everyone got it. :D

...it's always a toss-up between taking a picture with or without flash. The flash presents a glare but the no-flash makes the cake look gray instead of purple. oh wells.. just envision a prettier purple!

Central Perk!

This cake was made for my cousin Phyllis. She's a huge fan of Friends (she can do some serious quoting) so naturally this seemed like a good option. Thankfully the recipe is from a box, so there was no Rachel-esque caking disaster (insert Ross saying "This tastes like feet!" in high-pitched voice here. lol)

Fiat 500!

This cake was made for Francesco, a post doc friend of Adam's at Maryland. He's from Italy and took us all around the Napoli area, introduced us to pizzetas, and showed us a good time. This cake was made for his birthday; Adam says the equation is Francesco's favorite.

Anniversaryopoly!

This cake was made for my wonderful grandparents, who celebrated their 65th anniversary this past weekend! (Whoa!) Since the family tends to play games together between dinner and dessert for pretty much any occasion, a board game was in order! The locations represent streets they have lived on, restaurants they have frequented, the kids they had, the hotel they stayed at for their honeymoon, etc. etc. There are two cakes combined - one chocolate and one vanilla. I got the recipes from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, which turned out pretty well. The icing isn't homemade though - Bittman's recipes were too sweet. (Shoutout to my colleagues who taste-tested lots of different cake/icing combinations, and took their job quite seriously!)

Frank Buck!

This cake was made for my colleague, Frank. He's a huge fan of the Office (best show ever!), hence this cake is modeled after Dwight Schrute's motivational tool: Schrute Bucks. (see Season 3, The Job). He's also from Ghana, hence the references (I was going to make it a Ghanaian cedi rather than a dollar, but a cedi has too many pictures on it to put on a cake!)

iphone cake

I think this is now one of my favorite creations. In addition to being obsessed with Stata, my colleague Matt also happens to love apple. This birthday cake is modeled after the iphone (I say this because some colleagues who I will be kind enough not to name did not know what this was!!!). Some highlights: the maps application is a location in Pittsburgh, where Matt is from. And the "free" section is filled with M&Ms, since Matt has a candy jar that we all tap into every once in a while. I think the rest is relatively self-explanatory in that the apps are things Matt likes.

Vote for Me!

So Adam convinced me to enter an instructables contest:
vote for me: http://www.instructables.com/id/Ketchup-Cake/

Rubik's Cube

So yes, I know someone who can solve a rubik's cube in a surprisingly short amount of time... therefore Ariella gets the rubik's cube cake. This is probably the tallest cake I've ever built. ...didn't travel so well though. icing + metro = landslide-esque icing behavior.

Stata Cake

One of my new colleagues deemed himself 'Stata rockstar,' so a Stata birthday cake it was!
(Stata=stats program, like SPSS, SAS, etc. etc.)

Crime Scene Birthday Cake!

This cake was made for Elizabeth.
She likes crime scenes and gore.
And I can handle gore when it's only in icing.

If you get around to reading the text, you might notice it's somewhat odd.
It's taken off of these funny cards some of my colleagues found on the
internet. Below is Elizabeth posing with her cake!

Pilot's License!

So my supercool brother got his pilot's license, and I couldn't resist but make him a cake! The picture is modeled off of a product he helps sell for Dynon Avionics. It's an electronic flight information system (also known as EFIS). Below is him posing with his cake and all of his nerdy airgear.

Punk!

My friend Lara always jokes around about how she wants to be punk. ...except we're still not clear of the definition! Some things so far that have been classified as Lara punk are: fingernails painted black, big bracelets, black eyeliner, and liking Good Charlotte. Since she likes to dance, her cake is a punk ballerina! The first pic is just the cake.



The second pic has flags sticking out with various definitions of the word 'punk'!

The Face!

Cassie is obsessed with this picture of this lady with her hands on her face. So, of course that became her birthday cake! We've actually been trying to figure out if the picture is a sculpture or drawing... and who it's by. If you know anything about this pic, feel free to post.

My first customer!

One of my colleagues requested my services for her sister's birthday cake. They enjoy going to the beach and they tend to drink Mike's hard lime when they are there. Hence, the beach scene with the limey sun. Yay for a satisfied first customer!!

Dr. B

This cake was made for one of my freqy colleagues. He just got his phd... hence the gown. The end.

Superhero Andrea!

This cake was made in appreciation of one of my colleagues, Andrea. Here she's portrayed as the superhero that she is!

Coffee!

This cake was created for my roommate, Michelle. Not only is she obsessed with coffee, but she used to work for Pura Vida Coffee Company. http://www.puravidacoffee.com/ Hence, this cake was created in the style of a bag of Pura Vida Coffee, with a birthday few modifications and 'OR grown' instead of 'shade grown'.

Alpa as a South Park Character...

If Alpa were a South Park character, she would sooo look like this. hehe :).
The thing you need to know about Alpa is that she has a characteristically Alpa sweater that she wears all of the time at work. It is pink, green, black, and white. (made out of jelly bean pieces) You can kind of see it in the back of the next picture.

Flyin' High!

This plane cake was made for my brother after he got a job working for a company that sells a small computer thinger for recreational aircraft. He loves planes, and now he's learning how to fly them!

Disney + FACS

What happens when you combine a girl who worked at Disney Land with the Facial Action Coding System? ... a Disney Action Coding System cake

Ketchup!

...not just any Ketchup, but Heinz. Michele could be the Heinz spokesperson. She loves it and no other ketchup compares. Naturally, a ketchup cake was the only cake that could be made. (disclaimer: there was no ketchup used in the making of this cake). Embellishments include vanilla and juicy pear jelly beans, red sugar crystals, and melted chocolate chips.

Kelly Park

This was inspired by Kelly and the make yourself into a South Park character website: http://spstudio.linda.hosting-friends.de/spstudio.html (a supercool website if you haven't been... I highly recommend it.) This cake features Kelly holding a beer barrel candy in her right hand and a tapeworm in her left. hah

Detective Stabler!

This cake was made for my awesome officemate, Kristi. She is obsessed with Law and Order SVU. She freaked out for this cake. hah.

Hippo Birthday!

This cake was made for a colleague of mine, Derrick. He loves the color green, hippos, and he plays a lot of basketball. Interesting candies used in this cake: the ears and teeth are chiclets, the eyes, nose, and large basketball are M&Ms, and the small basketballs are pumpkin shaped candies upsidedown.

The British & Barbados flags

If you wanted to combine the British and Barbados flags, this is probably what it would look like. This cake was made for Marnina, one of my friends who studied abroad in both England and Barbados.

Monkey Business

This cake was for Steph's birthday. Similar to Carrie, she was also from CA, hence the palm tree. This time we cut the cake out into the shape of a palm tree instead of drawing it on a cake. She also likes monkeys.

CA Beach Scene with Ants

This cake was for Carrie's birthday. Carrie is from CA and she worked in a lab in college for a semester that did some research on ants. I had a lot of help for this cake, from my boyfriend Adam and my friend Paulo. We decided to create a beach scene with a palm tree to remind Carrie of California. We added the ants in for fun. The palm tree trunk is made out of chocolate chips. The rest is vanilla icing dyed using food coloring. We also added in some sugar crystals to create the sun as well as to give the sand some texture.

Bienvenidos!

It all started in August of 2004, when I received a unique cake from my boyfriend Adam for my 21st birthday. It had white icing with a blue trim and was cut out in the shape of an bottle. It was labeled "Absolut Rebecca, 21 proof." Simple and creative.

I have not looked at a cake the same way since. I no longer bake cakes just that say "Congratulations" or "Happy Birthday." Each cake is uniquely designed for a specific recipient. While the themes differ from cake to cake, the cakes' designs usually capture an element of the recipient's personality, a silly trait, an obsession, or a specific characteristic that one would only associate with the recipient.

The following blog is a display of the silly cakes I have made for family, friends, and colleagues. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have enjoyed creating them.