We have a Winner!!! Congratulations Cindy! You've won a Custom Cake valued at $200.00!

Congratulations to Cindy!!! You've won a custom cake valued at $200.00!

- Winner MUST schedule the Custom Cake 2 months in advance.
- You will have until September 30,2012 to claim your prize.
- The Custom Cake created for the winner can not break any copyright laws.
- You may choose to upgrade the servings on your cake at our regular rates.
- The Winning Cake does NOT include delivery. You must be able to pick up your cake at our location in Warminster, PA 18974 (Bucks County, PA). Should you choose to get your cake delivered, regular rates will apply.

Hey Locals!!! Win a Custom Cake from Truly Custom Cakery, LLC!

Have a special event coming up over the next year? Want a Custom Cake to help celebrate? Well, we're giving one away!!! One Lucky Fan will win a two tier, twenty five serving, custom cake valued at $200.00!


How to enter:

Mandatory Entry:
1. Post a comment below telling us how much you like CAKE. Include an e-mail address so we can contact you if you win. This will earn you ONE entry.

Additional Entries:
2. Go to our Facebook Page and become a fan. Then come back here and make a second comment telling us you are a fan on Facebook. This will be your 2nd entry.

3. Share a contest with your friends/followers/readers/family either on your blog, facebook, twitter, website, etc. Come back here and make a third comment, that includes the link to where you shared our contest. This will be your 3rd entry.

4. IF you have additional Social Media Sites and you share in more than one location, you can earn additional entries. BUT you MUST make an additional post HERE sharing that location.

(THIS IS IMPORTANT! EACH COMMENT = 1 ENTRY. If you clump the steps into 1 comment, you are only entering 1 time!)


Rules:
- The contest will end Saturday, June 25, 2011 at 12am EST.
- Maximum of 6 entries per person.
- MUST be 18 or older to enter.
- Winner MUST schedule the Custom Cake 2 months in advance. NO EXCEPTIONS!
- You will have until September 30,2012 to claim your prize.
- The Custom Cake created for the winner can not break any copyright laws.
- You may choose to upgrade the servings on your cake at our regular rates.
- This contest is being hosted solely by Truly Custom Cakery, LLC.
- The Winning Cake does NOT include delivery. You must be able to pick up your cake at our location in Warminster, PA 18974 (Bucks County, PA). Should you choose to get your cake delivered, regular rates will apply.

This contest is in no way affiliated with Facebook/Twitter/Blogger or any other company, social networking site, etc.

From Graduations to Weddings... it must be June!

I had a typical June week last week. A Graduation Cake, Wedding Cake, Birthday Cake, Tasting Cake, Wedding Cake Tasting, and Truly Custom Crunch Orders. It doesn't get any more "June" than that!

Here they are! And stay tuned I'm announcing an AMAZING contest for local cake lovers very soon!

The first is an all buttercream wedding cake for the Lambertville Inn. I've done so much fondant lately that it was kind of a treat to do a cake with all buttercream icing and flowers.


This one is a chocolate buttercream cake using my own chocolate buttecream recipe. The flowers are a combination of buttercream and gumpaste.

And this one is a Graduation Cake. This particular graduate attended many different schools on his journey to his High School Graduation so they asked that all the schools be represented on the cake. The topper is the College he will attend.

Frugally Fabulous Cupcake Flower Pot Teacher Gift Tutorial

This is the Guest Blog Post I did for Mama Cheaps on June 8th. Enjoy!

The school year is coming to a close and this year I dragged the kids into helping create a gift for their teachers. It's inexpensive, pretty, and tasty! And I'm going to show you step by step how to make your own. Use them for teachers, the bus driver, Mother's Day, Birthday's, or any other special occasion when you want to give a gift from the heart that makes the tummy smile. The best part is that I put these gifts together for less than $5.00 each!





First you'll need to assemble your supplies:

1. Flower Pot
2. Scrapbook Paper or Construction Paper
3. Narrow Ribbon
4. Wax Paper
5. Lollipops (DumDums or small Charms)
6. Supplies for making Cupcakes (see recipe below)
7. Icing
8. Fill for your Flower Pot. (Easter Basket Grass, Shredded Craft Paper, Tissue Paper, etc.)
9. Large Cellophane Candy/Cookie Bags from the Candy Aisle at the Craft Store and either ribbon to tie shut or a twist tie.

We made three gifts so I picked up these three flower pots at my local craft store. Each pot cost less than $3.00. You want to stick with smaller pots that a standard size cupcake can fit inside.


Print out this pattern page. (Click to open it in a new window for printing). Then use the patterns to trace your flowers onto construction paper, scrapbooking paper, or poster paper. Cut your flowers out, curl the flower petals around your finger as seen below, and punch holes in the centers.



Once your petals are curled and your holes punched, you are ready to start assembling. Take your lollipop, unwrap, and slide the center, small petals, medium petals, and large petals onto the stick.


Then you can take your narrow ribbon and tie a small bow to secure your flower petals. They might slide a bit but that's okay because when you put the flower down into the cupcake, it won't go anywhere.


You'll also need to bake some cupcakes. And despite what many people think, it's okay to use a box mix. As long as you know how to tweak it, you'll get great results every time. Ignore the directions on the box and add the following ingredients instead.

1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup water
1 standard package of pudding (flavor to match cake mix)
1 cup sour cream
4 eggs

Bake as directed on box. You will end up with deliciously moist cupcakes. If you don't have time to bake or you are a disaster in the kitchen, pick up a 6 pack of cupcakes from your favorite bakery. (We won't tell!)


Prepare your icing by putting it into either a piping bag with a tip or a zipper bag and cut the corner out. Swirl some icing onto the top of the cupcake. This doesn't have to be perfect because you're going to hide the icing when you place the flower. If you don't like icing bags, just use a spatula.


Now you'll need to cut a small disc of wax paper to put at the base of your flower. This will just protect your flower from the icing and protect the icing from the dyes in the paper.


Slide your flower down into your cupcake.


Now that your Lollipop Cupcake Flower is finished, you need to package it up to give it away. I like using the larger cellophane candy/cookie bags that you can purchase in the Cake Decorating/Candy Making Aisle of your local Craft Store. Just set your flower pot down into the bag and either tie a ribbon at the top to seal it or use a twist tie.




For more recipes and tutorials, find us at http://www.trulycustomcakery.com
Find us on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/trulycustom
Visit our blog at http://www.StaceysSweetShop.com

Cake Cake Cake! A busy couple of weeks...

After 3 weeks of 2 or 3 cakes per week plus tastings, projects, and kids winding down the school year, I think I need a nap! Seems I go to bed after midnight more often than not and still get up at 7:30am most mornings to get my son off to school. Some days, it's all about coffee, good music, and focus! A good friend of mine likes to say that she's "putting her energy pants on". It's something that struck a chord with me. Because there are many days when I have to work up the energy and sort of "put on a new attitude" to force myself to push through.

I like to imagine myself literally stepping into my energy pants and pulling them up. And then plastering a smile on my face and just moving. Generally it requires a cup of coffee and a cry to God to give me strength. And then, I start moving. Once I fall into the decorating groove it's amazing what happens. I do have to give complete credit to God though. Without the talents and gifts He's given me, I wouldn't have anything to show you. I feel thoroughly blessed. ...Tired, but blessed.

So here are the cakes from the last two weeks. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed creating them.


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This first one is called "Fifty Different Flowers". I love when cakes have a story and this one certainly does.


It's an Anniversary cake for a couple celebrating their 50th Anniversary. What makes it special, is the tradition that has surrounded every Anniversary they've celebrated. The husband buys his wife a different flower for every year they've been married and presents her with the flowers on their Anniversary. So for their first Anniversary she got a single flower, for the 5th Anniversary, she received 5 different flowers. and last year for the 49th Anniversary, he gave her a bouquet with 49 different flowers in it.

So the kids asked that the cake be a representation of their father's annual Anniversary gift to their mother. So, this cake literally has 50 different varieties of gumpaste flowers on it. Isn't he romantic!?!!




And in the end, what makes my chaotic life so worthwhile? Happy Customer's of course!


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This next one is a Wedding Cake that I delivered to Waynesborough Country Club. It is covered in fondant with a painted pearl ribbon at the base of each tier. I met the florist at the Country Club and arranged the flowers on site. This was one of those times when I wish I'd have taken some photos of the rest of the ballroom so you could see how beautifully decorated it was.





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This one is a Christening Cake that went to Philadelphia Country Club. It's my most popular design. Since I try very hard not to recreate a design, I change little things about each cake. The feel is always the same, but the flowers may change a bit, the piping on the top tier changes, and of course, each baby girl gets her OWN pair of shoes! That way the cake is unique even if it is a little similar.




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This is a cake for a young lady celebrating her 18th Birthday and her High School Graduation. She was having a Tropical Theme Party and asked that her cake reflect the theme. She chose the elements she wanted me to include and chose offset squares for her tiers. She didn't mention anything about her Graduation, but I stuck a little cap on the 18 because we couldn't overlook her big accomplishment.




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This was my final project for this past weekend. It was actually ordered by my sister-in-law for a colleagues 30th Birthday. Her friend is a huge fan of travel to tropical beaches and her two pugs. So with that in mind, Michelle ordered a cake for her that reflected two of Stephanie's favorite things. She asked that it include a palm tree, some waves, sand, and of course, the two pugs.


My favorite thing about this cake is the palm tree. When I first started decorating, getting things to have shape when they were sort of "up in the air" was a real challenge. So it was a mini hurdle for me to make a palm tree that didn't look like a wilted mushroom. Sometimes, it really is the little things that make me smile.



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I hope you enjoyed looking at the cakes! I know I've been slacking a bit with my blog posts (hence the doubling up). If you are impatient and want to see the cakes as they are completed, I generally post them on Facebook once they've been picked up or delivered. You are welcome to join TCC's Fanpage and see all the cakes as they go out.

Sweetly,