HOLY COW!! Hadn't been able to access my blog other than to look at it in ages!! SO sorry, I haven't forgotten you all. Google just made it in accessible forever, so sad. I have many cakes to post. I do them mostly for family now as my arthritis in my hands doesn't let me do many long term detailed projects anymore. Covid also had my eyesight do some wonderful things for quite sometime. I still have a heck of a time seeing small detailed things without taking off my glasses, makes me think I need bifocals, but the optometrist insists I do not - "I'm too young". Does anyone really blog anymore? I noticed some that I followed hadn't posted in at least five years as well. I will have to back up quite a bit with projects, but I will leave you with this Creeper cake I just did recently for my daughter's 15th birthday.

Slap My Hand

I'm sorry I haven't been doing so well at keeping my projects posted as of late. Been working much more. So here goes. This is the cake I did for our 10 Year Anniversary in August. Our theme was black and red; went funky. I stuck to the original - white cake w. strawberry preserves and whip cream filling, vanilla icing w. white chocolate shavings, and I put together a simple gerbra daisy topper. This was Madison's 5th Birthday Cake from September - Dora theme. We did a strawberry cake; turned out pretty good; with strawberry cream cheese filling. This was Stirling's Birthday Cake from November - Johnny Test theme. This was chocolate all around. This Christmas the kids did a lot of the decorating for the sugar cookies - didn't they do a great job? Hope you like sprinkles. The kids and dad made me a cake for my birthday in December too; not bad decorating for a 5 and 8 year old. I did my usual cookies for the classes for Valentine's Day but didn't take a picture as they really look the same every year. I chose a cake for us from the front of the Kraft magazine. I did; however, make everything from scratch and used their recipe really just for the idea. This was a devil's food cake w. cream cheese icing filling and iced w. the same; it has chocolate ganache on top with a few white chocolate shavings for decor. It tasted great and didn't have the enormous amounts of icing sugar or cream cheese they called for in the original recipe. I have a few more people that won gift certificates at the last Christmas concert and hope to book them soon so I can fit them into my tight schedule. I'm still trying to teach Wilton classes at a local community hall, but have had no interest to date.

Union Jack Cake

Worked on a fun little project for last years certificate winner from Stirling's Christmas concert. I think it turned out well. I don't use piping gel to do my designs typically, but thought this would be the best way to ensure the intense colour I was looking for on a small 8" cake.

Can anyone tell me why it keeps rotating my pictures as of late?? And doesn't seem to center it as I tell it to :o( Anyhow; this was one of my delicious white cakes with a simple whipped cream filling at my client's request. Still a very light and airy cake and any filling would compliment it well. I went for a very tiny shell-like border with a 3 tip. Looks off in the picture at an angle but looked great over-all and the client loved it!

CVF 25th Anniversary Cake

Well; River City Treats is becoming more of a catering business with my main focus being on cakes. I've been coming up with a lot of good recipes lately and pulled a Bettany Frankel. I just wish it came with endorsements from Jim Bean :oP I've come up with a very tasty lemonade and am in the process of working on a proposal to supply it on a regular basis to at least one bar! It's a start and tastes great with an ounce of Tequila too (completely optional) - please Jose Cuervo please send your endorsements this way :o) It's even hand squeezed! Good workout for a refreshing result. The last few days I have been working on an anniversary cake for another one of my mom's walking club associations. My third order of the year; I've just been too busy to do much in the line of promos. I think its my best 12X18 cake yet! I even managed to incorporate two recipes to come up with a marble cake. I'm back to using flour and butter to prep my pan and you know what it works; I didn't have enough of the Cake Release I always tout about, but it really worked well, so well I might switch back. Certainly costs pennies versus the container from the store. I made the cake in two batches so the process pretty much took up a good portion of yesterday. I did all the icing and decorating today and only did a buttercream transfer on the Maple Leaf and used gold sparkle gel for the IVV portion. I did, however, try to do something a little different with the 25TH portion that didn't go so well, but I didn't think the sparkle gel alone would show up on the red and thought it would have stood out and wanted something more three-dimensional. Note to self is to not do that again. If it had been hideable I think I would have scraped it off and done somthing completely different with the number. Gold was a key factor in the IVV - I just couldn't get my colours to look gold enough and the other alternative would have been way too much gold edible sparkles - that were the size of raw sugar crystals at the least; I didn't want to cause toothaches and send anyone to have to get dental work after. I know my teeth hurt just looking at them. So yes as I said it was a marble cake and I made fresh chocolate pudding from scratch for the filling. Just a simple buttercream icing with shell border. I had to fix some holes in the transfer and mucked it up when I tried to smooth it out, wasn't such an easy fix afterall it stuck to the gel like mad! I also should have outlined the IVV with some like-colour so it didn't run into a few nooks and crannies where it didn't belong.

All in all I think it turned out well and my mom was quite pleased I would say. I can't wait to hear feedback on the cake. I used my white cake recipe instead of the yellow. The yellow can be very dense and dry sometimes. The white has 8 egg whites so if it isn't moist and fluffy I'll kick myself. I haven't had a dry one yet.

Valentine's and Grammy's 70th Cake

So far I've done a few baking projects for us, but I've been lax in documenting them and I'm sure you're getting board with seeing the same projects repeated every year. Here are some of the baking I've done as well as my latest paying project.

My annual Valentine cookies just get simpler to do every year. Here is a pic of the way I sent them to school.


This is the cake I made for us for Valentine's Day. I almost thought I had another baking item go missing, then I remembered I lent my heart pan to a friend a few years ago, glad I didn't totally lose it. Mmmm; chocolate, cherries and cream cheese; my cake version of a cherry cheese cake, it was delicious.

This is the cake I made for the family for Easter. I made a white cake with lemon curd, a nice way to make Easter a little less cold and pretend Spring is really here. :oP

The cake that began as a large slab cake with a crossword puzzle theme for a huge bash that was booked in January ended up as an 8" square for a much smaller swuaree by April. I just did this one this past weekend for a fellow board member at my daughter's playschool. She was able to get a sample of my baking when I did all the catering goodies for their annual Christmas Concert. I had great visions for the original cake, but I think the end product turned out alright. The cake was a french vanilla (which was a new recipe) with fresh strawberries and whipped cream filling on two layers; making it a three layer cake. I wasn't thrilled by the smoothness of my buttercream icing when I tried to smooth it out with waxed paper and my fondant smoother, maybe it was too cold. I was really trying to stretch the icing to cover the cake so I only had to make extra for the decor.

Christmas Projects

The past few months have been a blur for me. I've been so busy with trying to find a job outside of teaching and have had some luck finally this month. I've only done one paid project so far this year (just this past weekend) and I haven't been doing as many "demos" either. I've had no luck trying to move my teaching onto the community side of things and am still trying to pull together students for a first course, so I can carry them through the four. I have only one student who seems serious for Course 4, the newest from Wilton, but with a store no longer paying me an hourly wage, whatever I make from my students is what I make minus 10% for the community league, which is alright. I get a free listing in the community league newspaper, but it's not driving marketing like I though it would.
Now that I've taken on contracts with some merchandising companies my schedule will be all over the place. I'm also waiting to hear back on a third interview for a full time tech rep position, which would entail a lot more commitment from many.
Here are some pics to get things up to date:

Stirling's Birthday - just a simple chocolate slab; we were starting to have problems with our camera then; so by the time we got one on hubby's work camera I had already cut into it and removed the candles.

These two are pics from our Christmas Open House; things you can use your cookie cutters for - cucumber "gingerbread" men, made great garnishes for many of my platters.


This was the Christmas cookie venture I did for the kids for school this year, I made these a couple years ago, went much smoother this time.

I made my gingerbread for the house from scratch this year, my Joy of Cooking cookbook has templates for it and everything. I had many Wilton bits put away from last Christmas (2010) that never got used, the kids got to decorate it with a little help from me, but not too much.
Stay tuned for 2012 baking...

Final Cakes for Fondant & Gum Paste Sept 28

I tried to get all these posted the end of September, but was having issues with this blogger.
I apologize in the delay as I love to showcase the accomplishments of my students. I had two students finish the Fondant & Gum Paste Course 3 the end of September. Here is there finished products. I was very impressed by their talents. Can't wait to see them in February when Wilton allows us to start Course 4.

Baby Shower Cake Take 2 Oct 1

I got an order for a baby shower cake for the exact cake I made her for her baby shower almost two years ago! It was that much of a hit! This one was for her friend. I felt much more confident making it this time, being able to utilize all the right tools and having the template for the carriage sure helped a bunch. Last time I free handed it all. I had a little trouble doing the lettering as my chocolate icing was too hard. I was also able to make this a two layer cake as I had the correct pan. This was a chocolate cake with raspberry flavoured fresh whipped cream filling and raspberry buttercream, topped with baby pink fondant and chocolate fondant accents. I heard it was a great hit. The baby had already been born - I've noted Madison has become very popular, as it has it these days. What a great name. What can I say it was a very busy week for baking.

Birthday Party

Madison really couldn't make up her mind and she was still on her orange kick for icing when I decorated this cake for her birthday party. I made a yellow cake with an orange creamcheese/buttercream filling w. orange flavoured buttercream. Turned out really nice; she wanted Hello Kitty again at the last minute, hence the candle. We've been having camera issues off and on all year and I didn't get a picture before the party and made sure to get D to take one before it got cut. It's better than your typical slab cake, that was for sure; especially all homemade of course.

Birthday Cupcakes

Miss M's birthday was on the 22nd of September; these were the cupcakes I made for her preschool class to share. She wanted cupcakes with pink icing and heart shaped cookies, so I incorporated the two. Except near the end she decided to have orange icing so I flavoured the buttercream orange too and it made a yummy cupcake. I redeemed myself on the confetti angel food I did in June for her yearend. I managed to find a confetti cake mix this time. If it weren't for having to make another birthday item for the Sunday I would have spent the time to make this one from scratch, but I'm not sure what would be the best "confetti".

Marketing Poster??

I haven't completely abandoned my business this year. I have been working on ways to market my work better. I have also been looking into launching myself as a Community-based instructor as well. Not sure how that will pan out so I am working on teaching at Michael's again in September in the meantime; here is a look at what I've worked on.

((insert word file here--Does anyone know how to make a word file a file that will work on here??)) Stay tuned for picture :o(

Right now I think it's too much and I haven't done much with it. I was thinking of emailing this to all my clients in hopes of generating more business; but not sure how that will pan out. Here's to hoping.

For my clients stay-tuned to your emails as it will be out soon. :o)

Home Made Jelly Roll - August 22

As I mentioned before my blended jam turned out very well, but there was a reason behind making more even though the first batch hadn't been eaten up yet.
The weekend before last we had bought a jelly roll from the local grocery chain. Some prepackaged jelly-like roll with ingredients and a flavour I couldn't quite wrap my head around. It reminded me almost of a Twinkie or a pink sno-ball (I'm sure that's not what it's called); except the cream filling was off in the odd spot. I hadn't even finished a bite when we both decided I could make better. So the following day I proceeded to make my own. I made the cake portion in my 12 x 18; jelly roll style and pretty close to the same size. I really should pay attention when the recipe asks for wax or parchment paper; I thought my Wilton Cake Release would be sufficient to get the 3/4" cake out of the pan. Not so much; so unfortunately without being able to peel the wax paper away eliminating the "film" from the bottom of the cake; it was garbage. I wasted almost a dozen eggs that morning. I hadn't felt defeated as I already knew what I had done wrong. After lunch, my second attempt was a success! A lot in preparing the baked cake, but well worth the effort.



As the cake cooled I prepared my jam, strawberry/raspberry for the filling. I also whipped fresh cream and spread that on the jam on the cake. How do you keep the cream from squishing out the direction you are rolling? I had at least half of a cup I scooped off of the foil once I rolled it. I really need to work on my rolling skills. I need to sit and read that section a little more thoroughly in my Joy of Cooking cookbook. I only skimmed through the "Tips on how to roll the perfect jelly roll". Once it was chilled it held together quite well; and my rolling wasn't so imperfect as I had imagined it looking like. It was delicious sprinkled with icing sugar. As it sat in the fridge over a few days the icing sugar almost became a sugary crust on the cake making it even tastier. You know that old saying; gets better with age - this applies here as well.


(I apologize for the not-so-fancy tinfoil.)

It sliced very nicely showing all the layers perfectly; the end didn't do it justice.

Red Berry Pie - August 16

I have had so many raspberries this summer. I found this lovely little recipe in the Kraft What's Cooking Magazine Summer 2011 issue. I was also able to get some really great deals on strawberries at my local grocery store this summer. 50% off 2lbs. - and I was able to take advantage of this sale twice; yey.



I made my rich & flaky pie crust from my Five Roses and used the remainder of the recipe from the magazine. I think it turned out quite well; those raspberries couldn't have a fuller fresher flavour; I wish this were scratch n' sniff blogger :oP I still chose to serve this with Cool Whip as I thought it was just synonomis with the raspberry jello. I think I could do this even more justice and change the jello to a regular glaze and use whipping cream; the grown-up version.

2-tiered Dolce de Leche Chocolate Baby Shower Cake - Aug 7

My one true project so far this year was for my $50 Voucher winner from my son's Christmas Concert winner from December. So really I have yet to make any real income this year. Oh well; too much stuff going on in our lives, hopefully will die down and I can focus on it more soon. This cake was probably closer to the $75 range but whatever, it's all good. My client requested Dolce de Leche filling; I had never made it before. I didn't even realize I didn't have a recipe for it until I needed it of course. Good old Internet, you can find anything on there these days. Very simple to make, but I messed it up right away, forgetting to cover the baking pan...I peeled off the gooey de leche that had formed on top (which I sampled until all gone, yum) and continued baking it with the foil on.



It turned out wonderfully anyhow, but I couldn't for the life of me keep it in the cake once I iced it. My icing dam didn't help; I even kept putting it in the fridge in between icing to make the surface hard and it still kept springing leaks in my fridge. I only had the top tier do a little leaking and it fixed up after I added another layer of icing after being chilled. The bottom 10" layer, would not cooperate; I just warned the client the dolce de leche was trying to escape as it was just too yummy to contain :oP It stopped leaking long enough to drop it off, but I mucked it putting it on the table a little; I'm sure it was a hit. I was invited to stay but we had some personal issues going on at the time too that needed to take precedence, unfortunately.

Raspberries the size of Strawberries!

My raspberries put both the store bought clam shells and the strawberries to shame this year. I've never seen them strawberry size in my life! We've had this bush growing only for a few years and last years shoots were abundant with large berries this season.

(Note this is my husband's large hand; very big berries!)
I took off at least ten cups worth over the summer so far. I tried for the first time in my life to do some canning. You certainly can't eat all of them I suppose. I tried a recipe from Martha Stewart's cookbook of using just fruit and sugar. What a very simple method, and no weird ingredients. It was unfortunate that I scalded the jam as I was getting my jars out of the canner. Doh! I still thought it tasted fine as the it had only just started to, but I hadn't realized until the next day that it had solidified! Ack! Note scalding bad, even in the least. It is a delicious jam but requires a little heating in the microwave to get it out of the jar. I have two jars of it. :o(
I have since made another jar which I chose to do half raspberries and half strawberries that I didn't over cook and turned out quite lovely. Tastes wonderful on toast.

Confetti Angel Food Cupcakes - June 23

I completely forgot to take a picture of this one. It turned out to be a very interesting concoction; especially for the icing lovers in the crowd. I wanted to make a confetti style cake and use it for cupcakes. I was thinking of modifying one of my cake recipes, but couldn't decide the best tidbit to use for the "confetti". I left to the last minute and decided to cheat, but the only mix I could find was a confetti angel food cake mix. This baked up nicely in the pretty pink, yellow, purple, blue cupcake wrappers; although no matter how many times I tell myself; you still can't tell what the wrappers design or colour is by the end of baking, I still pick the cutsie stuff.



These were topped with pink buttercream icing as per my daughter's request. They were quite interesting once finished. Biting into it compacted the angel food cake making it almost taste like icing. At least my icing tastes good, and it was perfect for the all the preschooler's as that is their favourite part. You'll have to picture them with there little pretty pink swirls of icing ( I use a large rosebud style) with the pretty baby colours of pink, purple, yellow, blue wrappers. I really need to work on a recipe of my own for the cake, icing isn't my big draw when it comes to cakes.

Happy Birthday Pie ~ June 17

This year my husband wanted the ultimate chocolate lover's pie. All made to his specifications; with a little fresh whipped cream to decorate it. I made this chocolate mousse pie from scratch with a graham crust. It was so heavenly. He had other choices for pies as well, but this was his first.



I've made many pies this year; especially when my raspberry bush was in full swing this summer. Try the the Red Berry Pie in the latest Kraft's What's Cooking Magazine it's not bad; it gives you something else to do with your raspberries. I have also taken up canning this year and must say I'm getting better by the moment.

Chocolate "Cause I'm Desparate" Cake ~ May 28

I have done a whole lot of nothing this year as you can tell. Personally my family and I have been swamped with so many things.
I haven't documented my baking projects as well this year either.
In March I did my usual St. Patrick's Day Shamrock Sugar Cookies for the schools, always a hit.
I did another project in April for both my son's and daughter's classes for Easter. -I sent decorated sugar cookie eggs all individually wrapped. For Madison's I sent undecorated and sent all the Easter colours (2 of each) in buttercream from for her and her classmates to decorate and take home to their families (if they didn't eat them first :oP) They all loved it.

The end of May I made a cake just cause I'm so bored :oP. I used my decorating triangle. Not bad for a first. I made chocolate pudding for the filling, my usuals, for the ultimate chocolate fix . It was a tasty cake. I made many other things between pictures, but regular baking isn't always ahh inspiring for photographs. Although I suppose this one isn't really either, lol.

Course 2 Final Projects - January 25

I do apologize for my lack of updates on my website as of late. You wouldn't believe that I just spent most of my morning trying to get pictures off of my blackberry so I can post them. We have been having camera problems off and on this year among other things.
There should have been an insert for my students from my last class before the Valentine's Day blog entry and I do apologize in my tardiness. I took a little break from teaching after my class finished in January with the intent that my students would complete Course 3 back in March. It is now August and I will be teaching Course 3 in September, which I'm sure will make my Supervisor out in Ontario very happy.
I only had two students in Course 2 ~ Flowers and Cake Design; my devotees that have waited all this time to take the third course; I love their determination and can't wait until Course 4 is officially released as well.





I really enjoyed working with these ladies and can't wait to see the projects they produce next month for Gum Paste and Fondant.

Valentine's 2010

What a busy weekend it was, kind of glad Valentine's has come and gone. I made my heart shaped sugar cookies with red poured cookie icing. The icing needs to dry for better than a day before writing on them. I personalized them all - twenty for Stirling's class party for Monday and fifteen for Madison's on Tuesday. The kids really love them, although with the grade ones reading I think I should have printed their names as some of them didn't recognize the written forms of their names, which is to be expected - they are only six and seven. :o) I had frozen icing I used up first, but had to make new for Madison's. I made it a little on the thin side and was still not completely hard by Monday afternoon, so wrote on them anyway. I would hate to see Wilton's idea of a thick FoodWriter, I found it difficult to not have fat letters with the softer icing. Still had a couple dozen for us to munch on, beginning Saturday, I baked them all Saturday evening and started icing them Sunday morning (just for those of you who might think we ate them in one day, lol)- they didn't last long - kids ate the last one yesterday, lol.


I also spent Monday making our cake for the family. We are on a tight budget right now, its funny how with nothing really to eat in the house I can still bake! Wow! I officially used up my butter with this cake. It didn't need egg yolks so I used Meringue powder for the 8 whites it needed. It is a delicious moist white cake. I used up the last of the frozen Europe's best blueberries I had leftover in the freezer from Declan's cake in November. Defrosted them slowly and added some Knox gelatin and a bit of sugar. How do I avoid my gelatin being grainy? Anyone know? Is it best to dissolve it in choice 1 or 2 on the package? Choice 1 seems not to fair so well on two occasions now. Didn't notice texture while eating the cake and it all came together well with simple buttercream icing. I'm having issues with my apple blossoms lately too, for some reason I'm getting peeks at the centers of my flowers, maybe I'm turning my bag the wrong direction...hmmm. It was a really yummy cake - looking forward to another piece after lunch.

See my writing is getting better too :o)