We're off...

I have already failed on my New Year's resolution to write more frequent blog postings but I have a good excuse. My assistant Lauren and I are off to Denver, Colorado tomorrow to participate in one of the biggest Food Network Challenges ever! I can't really tell you too much more then that but you will have to catch it on the Food Network when it airs this spring.

In the meantime besides shipping A LOT of cake and all of our equipment out to Denver we were busy do a demo at ICE, completing cakes and teaching too. I also had a chance to kick-off the Lower East Side Girls Club cupcake-of-the-month. Last week I headed down to The Sweet Things Bakeshop and we created a snowball cupcake for the month of January.


The last cake we did went out yesterday for a little boy's first birthday party. The theme of the party was from the movie Finding Nemo and the cake was created using some of our favorite cake recipes, Red Velvet Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream and Banana Cake filled with Chocolate Ganache.



I am also excited to tell you about two upcoming classes. I am spending a weekend in Austin, Texas the end of February as a judge and teacher at That Takes The Cake, Sugar Art Show and Cake Competition. I'll be teaching how to make our sushi cake and demoing a gift box cake.

In May I will be flying to Toronto to teach a class at Flour Confections. You can sign up here.

So we are off, wish us luck!

Buzz

December is a crazy month for just about everyone, except Cake Designers. I mean if you have a retail bakery then of course you will be very busy with holiday orders but usually cake designers are not driven by holiday traffic, when people are baking at home they don't get married or have an elaborate cake at their family event, so we have our share of work to do but we are not "crazed with cakes." And although that is generally true, I have certainly done my share of Christmas present cakes and even a dreidel cake for Hanukkah. But when you run a small business I can say without hesitation you are ALWAYS busy. The end of the year brings a fervor of cleaning, book signings, photoshoots, planning for next year and year-end accounting (I love that quick books), not to mention celebrating! We had our Confetti Cakes Holiday party last week and then I was at Ron Ben-Israel's home (a.k.a. The King of Cakes) on Sunday making Latkes with my friend Zac Young (Executive Pastry Chef at Butter).

But of course when my friend called me up from Sports Illustrated Kids and said they needed a cake to celebrate their 20th Anniversary how could I say no? (Well, quite honestly I don't know how to say "No" and that is why I usually do not answer the phone!) So we replicated their mascot Buzz Beamer popping out of our delicious Chocolate cake. You will have to check out the issue in 2009, Buzz will be featured on the contents page.


So we all know what my new year's resolution is right? To write a more consistent blog...and to win the next challenge on the Food Network :-). The last one I did will air on Dec, 26th.
Happy Holidays to all!

The Style Network

One of the three wedding cakes I made for my very own wedding

Am I the world's worst blogger? I know it! Trust me I am always filled with TONS of ideas to write about on the blog...I even keep a list of things I want to talk about! Somehow I just never find the time to sit down and write it.

So here is a good excuse...we will be featured on The Style Network tomorrow, Tuesday 12/16 evening at 9pm/8 central. The Show is, Martha Stewart Living: "The Art of Cakes II" A Wedding Special.


The awesome producers over at Martha Stewart Weddings came to the bakery and filmed us and sat me down for an interview over at the MS Headquarters. They also took the DVD and photographs from my very own wedding to incorporate into the show. They wanted to show what a cake designer, someone who is in the industry and designs wedding cakes for a living did for her own wedding. So check it out and see for yourselves.

Me and my hubby, October 6, 2007. Photo by Jamie Watts

Leaving on a Jet Plane.....

That's right I am off to Savannah, Georgia on Monday to teach a class at Minette Rushing's. I'm very excited to meet all my students and to make one of my favorite cakes from our new book, the Safari Gift Box Cake. Last time I was in Savannah I was on Paula Deen's Show and I had to carry a huge sculpted disco ball and decorated sugar cookies, so I am happy to say that I am traveling a lot lighter this time. I have been so busy that I didn't even have time to write a blog entry but yep, our newest book, Confetti Cakes for Kids, came out last week on November 5th.

We have had a lot of events going on besides our usual cake orders so it was especially busy. We had one press event last Tuesday at Dylan's Candy Bar. We were lucky enough to have Rachel from the awesome blog Cupcakestakesthecake attend and she took lots of great photos.

Thursday I was talking with Mario Bosquez the host of Living Today on Martha Stewart Radio about baking secrets. I even brought him some of our cupcakes made with Brown Sugar Buttercream swirls on top...yum!

Then Martha Stewart Television is working on a special that will air on the Style Network December 16th so they came to visit us in the bakery. I've been lucky enough to be interviewed by many blogs recently so just in case I haven't had a chance to mention them before here are a few:
Cupcaketakethecake.com
Alistbaby.net
Cakelava.com

And of course I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the cakes we had this week too. We created a bottle of Champagne made out of chocolate cake and vanilla buttercream, standing on a silver platter, with grapes and a napkin all made out of sugar. Today we had a cake go out to celebrate a 70th birthday, how exciting! I wonder what I will be doing at 70? Probably still baking!

Coming up:
Tomorrow, Nov.16th we have a recipe in PARADE
Cake Classes, Dec. 4th (sold out) and Dec. 6th
Book Signing in CT, Dec. 7th

Happy Halloween

We have these little pumpkin cakes from our new book. I think they look like mini pumpkins with funny faces just like Mr. Potato Head.

I love Halloween! When I was a little girl I used to spend a lot of time planning my costume and then proceed to complain to my mom if she made me put a coat on to cover it up.

Well, yesterday was a lot of fun and a really hectic day. I started out at the Today Show in the morning, showing Kathie Lee and Hoda some of our cookie lollipops from our new book, Confetti Cakes for Kids. Instead of making them in the design of candy lollipops we created ghosts, pumpkins and witch hats. (kinda like we did in our first book, The Confetti Cakes Cookbook, but less fashion focused.Watch it here and click here for the recipe.

Everyone at the Today show was so nice to work with, it takes so much behind-the-scenes preparation for just a four minute segment! We had brought along a few cakes too but we ran out of time.

We made this Witch Hat cake especially for the show but I don't think anyone could see it!

After that show I ran over to Martha Stewart to shoot a segment for a wedding special on The Style Network. I'll let you know when that airs.

Well, we have a jam packed couple of days with more classes today and next week, while we work on sugar decorations for our upcoming cakes and start making cookie dough for our next big event! And the Food Network just called for a HUGE challenge....

Batman Lego Video

Cake is covered in rolled fondant marked with rolling pins to create brick effect

Remember a few weeks ago I told you that we were working on another video? Well it's finally done. It's of the Batman Lego Cake we made for the launch of the new Batman Lego Video.
The video is an abbreviated version of the process for making the cake and all the figurines but I hope it will give you a sense of it all. My friend, Lisa Stock, the amazing filmmaker edited down over ten hours of video tape and that was with stopping the camera every few minutes or else she would've had over 12 days worth of footage. The cake took about twice as long since we had all those stops but I hope you think it is worth it, see the video here. Here are some more still photos of the process.

Cake is airbrushed

I was hoping to get to my computer to write more but between cakes, classes, interviews and the release of our new book, Confetti Cakes for Kids, there has not been one extra second (or at least that is what I tell myself and thus the reason I have been avoiding the gym too.) Just to prove it to you (or me as the case may be) here are two great blog postings from two of my students from the last two weeks (I actually taught over eight private classes and four more this week too!) Tessa came from California and Bettinia came from Germany!

Just starting to decorate with the windows

Lastly, this Thursday morning I will be on the Today Show! I'll be on with the two hosts, Kathie Lee and Hoda around 10AM EST. So we are frantically trying to get all the cakes and cookies finished for that segment. I have a rehearsal the Wednesday night before so everything must be finished by tomorrow night...o.k. Bye!

Back of Cake

It's LIVE!

Here's the cake Michelle made to surprise her College friends on "Rach to the Rescue"

After many, many months our brand new website is up and running! The new site will allow you to see some new cakes, link directly to our videos and pre-order our new book, Confetti Cakes for Kids, directly from us or Amazon. This is all thanks to countless hours from our amazing web designer Kristin Schreiber who is so creative and efficient and this all happened as she became a new mom! I swear she took less then two weeks off. So if you haven't seen the new website check it out here.

Behind-the-scenes at Michelle's beautiful house.

The last few weeks have been so busy and besides finishing up the site: we had three beautiful cakes go out, the segment of me on Rachel Ray aired (which I never got to talk about so here are some behind-the-scene photos), I did another segment on the show ABC News Now, and we were featured today on one of my favorite blogs, cakewrecks.com.

Delicious chocolate cake and swiss meringue buttercream!

Our Batman LEGO cake has gotten so much press I can hardly wait until our video comes out. I am meeting with the producer tomorrow to see the first cut so I'll keep you posted.

Michelle was a great sport and she received the VERY first copy of Confetti Cakes for Kids! The entire segment came together because of the two awesome producers Cara and Wes!