1st customer

I had the honor of making a cake for a very special girl's 4th birthday. It was the first cake I did for someone outside of the family (although they are practically family). The cake was strawberry and chocolate with butter cream icing. The icing was appropriately dyed pink and was decorated with dots, pink and silver sprinkles, and a tiara, of course. I know I have a ways to go to get to that professional level, but for someone who is thus far self taught I thought it turned out pretty good. It was definitely tasty! I cannot thank Beau and Angie enough for this experience. I am truly loving everything about this process. I'm finding myself somewhat obsessed with coming up with new ideas and excuses to practice them. In fact, I already have my next ideas. I'm going to practice on my mom's bunco group next, and then something special for my sister's 40th birthday. I can hardly wait!
Oh yes, I almost forgot. Not only has Angie been so supportive of my hopes to turn this into a business, but she actually came up with a potential name for my business, Bourne to Bake! I'd love to hear what you think about it. :)

Vegan!

More and more kids seem to have food allergies these days. It's really not fair that they miss out on the yummy goodness of cakes and cupcakes. A friend of a friend has a son that is allergic to milk and eggs(among other things), so I decided to do a little research to see what I could find. There are recipes out there for vegan cakes and cupcakes, along with icing recipes. For those of you who don't know what vegan is (I was one of them), it is recipes that do not use dairy products. So I decided to try one of these recipes out today. It was very tasty and very easy to make. My kids tried them and didn't notice a difference. So I am excited to say that I can now add vegan chocolate cupcakes to my repertoire.

Adventures in cake baking...

So I have my first "job" as a cake baker/decorator! I'm so excited and thankful that a good friend of mine has so generously allowed me to make the cake for her daughter's birthday, who just so happens to be Emma's BFF. She has requested a chocolate and strawberry cake. It just so happens I've never done either of these cakes from scratch before, so what is one to do? Try them out of course! I got very lucky on the chocolate cake and found a delicious recipe on the first try. In Emma's words "this is yummy yummy, the best cake I've ever had!" For the strawberry cake I had my friend over to taste the cake and for us to decide on how to decorate.
After 2 takes on the strawberry cake I am happy to say I now have a good recipe for that as well. Decorating for a 4 year old girl is simple, you make sure as much as possible is pink, then you add sparkles, and top it off with a tiara of course! I can't wait for the big day to see how it all comes together. Pictures will be posted.
I've really learned a lot this week, and it continues to excite me about the possibilities.

So it begins...

Well here I am, joining the wonderful world of blogging. I have debated this for some time now, but quite honestly never felt I was interesting enough to follow. So what has changed my mind? I am a mom of 3 kids, ages 10, 3, and 5 months, and for anyone who has kids you know that there is always something to talk about with them. I find myself wanting to share the funny things they say, the accomplishments they've made, and the things that drive me crazy about them (not my kids!) And while I love being a stay at home mom I have found that I've lost myself and am looking to find an interest that is about me and makes me happy. I think I have found this in cake/cupcake baking and decorating. I've never really been a baker, but have always loved the thought of decorating cakes. Last Christmas my mil remembered me remarking on this and for Christmas gave me a lot of cake decorating tools to get me started. I have been teaching myself from the books she had given me by practicing on family. For every one's birthday I try something different, and have found myself loving it, loving it so much that I would like to turn it into a business. Of course, I need some more work, maybe even take some classes. I thought I could blog about my adventures in learning this new trait, post some pictures of my successes, and tell of my disasters. So there it is. I hope you enjoy reading about my adventures of a mother and a wanna be cake baker and decorator. If not, at least this gives me a chance to get my thoughts out of my head. :)