This is it.  These are the final cakes of 2007, I am telling you!  Even Jesus will not be getting a "Happy Birthday to You Cake" from me this year and I think He is happy to allow me that! 

Each year when the kids were little, we acknowledged Christ's birth with a red and green jello-infused white cake topped with whipped cream confection.  Though that "tradition" became more sporadic as they got older, it has not been unusual to have one of them ask yearly if I'll be making one.  I am planning to resurrect it with vigor for the grandbabies, but not in 2007.  OK?  OK.

However, for Jovan's baby shower last week, I made a cake at her request.  The thing about Jovan is first, she actually LOVES cake!  Second she loves to dream up fancy cakes so she is challenging me, pulling me in deeper to a land of flour-and-eggs-and-sugar-and-buttercream-and-extra-ordinary-flavors-and-extracts-and-exotic-fillings I never knew existed.  So, for sweet Jovan, whether I feel I can do it or not – I try and she rewards me with oohs and aahs and "I love it"s and so I attempt again, even though right in the middle of the process I am always wondering what am I doing????, to create the cake she has envisioned!

This one was much smaller than the wedding cake from the previous week.  It was a 10" lemon-poppyseed with lemon-curd filling and an 8" chocolate butter cake with fudge filling. 

The whole shower, thrown by her mom and sisters, was pink and brown and polka-dots at Jovan's parent's home in Frederick.  It was "Jovan!" through and through.

This other cake was actually Tara's brainchild.  Her good friend, Marianna from Brazil (www.thewakefields.wordpress.com ), who moved here in the spring when she married a worship pastor from Northern Hills Christian Church, was having a birthday and Tara decided to honor her with a cake of her homeland.  Tara drew Brazil on foamcore, cut it out and covered it in foil.  Then she baked a 16" x 16" chocolate-swiss cake (3 augmented Duncan Hines mixes).  After it cooled, we placed it on the "Brazil-board" and cut the cake in the shape of the country.  It was iced in the colors of the Brazillian flag and a replication of the flag was done on top in tiny stars.  We wrote Marianna's name on the flag in place of the word that is usually there and Tara presented it to her, a cake that could have fed 36 people, for Marianna's and Dan's own quiet celebration.  Yowzers!

I hope Duff from Ace of Cakes is happily busy while I am semi-cake-retired…until the New Year!…Jeanie

This was Guini's "cupcake tower" when she turned 2 in July.  Stormie and I just went wild with color and stacked a bunch of dishes, including a martini glass on which to pile the mini-cakes.  I know they sell those plastic cupcake holders now, but I hate buying something I will probably never use again. Her party invites had cupcakes on them, so we definitely had a theme going.

It's been a cake-crazed few months!!!    See previous!

I'm such an amateur, but it's pretty fun!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: Finish up wedding cake strategy for Audrey's cake and order the pans…find out what Jovan is wanting for her shower?…hmmmm….

So here is the thing.  I don’t really like cake and I cannot bake very well (I can bake bread and I can cook at least 3 or 4 fabulous meals, but baking sweets?  No.).

Somehow, though, this trend is developing (is it because I am mad about Duff, The Ace of Cakes king???) and here I am, baking cakes and decorating them, by request.  I made a joke about Barbie Doll cakes once.  My mom’s one experience in trying to become a cake decorator was when a church lady taught her to make a Barbie cake and she made it for my 13th birthday.  I hadn’t played with Barbies since I was 4 (because my mom threw them away since they were always lying around naked) and I wasn’t too happy about having to pose with it so I was making jokes about Barbie cakes. But Jovan said, “I want one.”

So she got one.  I couldn’t find one with her coloring with blue eyes (Barbies are a very limited breed), but this one had her hair color and skin color and blue eye shadow so it looked the closest.

I wanted a pink gown, but had forgotten that every last drop of red food color went into Hunter’s firetruck a few weeks ago.  So I had to use white and blue and green and when Dave came home, he brought red so I could create a few pink flowers and trim.

I used 2 cake mixes, Betty Crocker Funfetti and a couple of recipes of my famous almond-infused buttercream icing.  I baked 3- 8″, 1- 6″ layer and used a small stainless steel bowl to bake the little mound for the top.  I stacked them with icing in between on a 10″ crystal cake stand then I took a knife and “carved” a skirt from the cake pile.

It turned out to be the easiest to make so far.  It was also much smaller than most of the recent cake attempts, but 13 people still ate less than half.  I am glad Jovan made me do it.  Now I know why my mom felt so proud and why she made me pose with it – as I made Jovan pose with this one!

Ken cake, anyone?…Jeanie

Pictured:  Barbie getting her “crumb-coat.”  Barbie, rear-side view; front-side view; and Barbie with Jovan, the inspiration.

NOTE TO SELF: If there is a next time, perhaps create an “undergarment” for Barbie so as not to traumatize the children as the dress is cut away.

Check out my Ace of Cakes (www.charmcitycakes.com) obsession and previous cakes here…here…and here…and here.  Hmmm…we did a cupcake tower for Guini…who has those photos???