A Cake Backlog. From Baby Showers to 50th Birthday's and everything in between.

Suzy and I have been very busy lately between preparations for the new shop, filling orders, and the school year winding down for our kids. This spring has most definitely been a wild ride. We've had a variety of different cakes over the past several weeks and wanted to share them with you. Hope you enjoy! And stay tuned. Construction has finally started on our new shop and we hope to open for business in June!

Holiday Baking Projects!

The holiday's are always crazy busy at Truly Custom Cakery, LLC. Not just because of the cakes, shopping, and parties, but because of Truly Custom Crunch. It's a good busy and I certainly can't complain. I'd much rather be running in circles with too much work than to not have enough. In this economy, each and every order is a blessing from above.

Each holiday season that goes by, I say things like, "If next year is busier than this year, I don't know what I'm gonna do." And each year, I'm amazed at the volume of orders and the incredible help I receive from my staff, friends, and family. I'd be nothing without them.

This year, I made 39 batches of Truly Custom Crunch. It might not sound like much to you, but when each batch has 2lbs of brown sugar, 1lb of butter, 2 cups of popcorn, and 3 cups of nuts and 3lbs of chocolate, you KNOW that things were crazy around here!

I was amazed that I went through about 125lbs of dark chocolate! My husband liked to joke with me and tell me I needed to join a support group. ha ha I'd agree if I'd have eaten it all!

Anyway, here are some photos of what left my kitchen this holiday season. I have to admit, I was REALLY glad when it ended. BUT despite being busier than I'd ever been, things never went more smoothly!

5oz package of Truly Custom Crunch.

 Truly Custom Crunch comes in 5 sizes and I also offer custom packaging. The little bear is holding the 5oz bag. The packages below are 2.5lbs with a custom label and a special box of dark chocolate snowflake cookies for this custom order. In less than 48 hours I was able to roll, cut, bake, ice, and package more than 800 snowflake cookies. Toward the end I was so batty I was dancing around like a crazy person. It was tedious work!

Icing 800+ cookies in my mini cookie marathon.

This is a custom order of corporate gifts for a local pharmaceutical company.

66 custom packages ready for delivery. My truck never looked so pretty!

While all that Crunch making was going on, I was also filling cake orders. I was a little worried about having to shift gears but in the end, it worked out really well. The change of pace from mass production to focusing on details and "pretty" work, was good for me. Otherwise, I think I might have gone batty. Generally, I worked on Truly Custom Crunch from Sunday through Wednesday/Thursday. And then the other days, I focused on baking, filling, and decorating.

This little Snowbabies 1st Birthday Cake won 2nd place in Cake Central's Hoilday Cake Contest.

 

I think this little Santa is my favorite sculpted figure from the Holiday's. I don't even particularly like Santa stuff but I just LOVE how he turned out.

Baby Shower Cake in a "Nesting" theme.

There were 50 individually wrapped cupcakes for this order. Each cake got its own little box to be used as favors for the shower guests.

Candle Cakes always re-appear during the holiday's. I love this one with the "Snowballs for Sale" theme.

And a more "mature" candle cake for the adult crowd.

My Delorean Cake. I LOVE how well this car turned out. I have to admit I was a little nervous about the doors "shutting" on their own. But they held up to delivery amazingly well

And aside from the cakes and the crunch, I did a few other projects. Call me crazy....

Christmas Cookies

More Christmas Cookies

Every year for Christmas I give out special "treats". This year I made plain pound cakes and blueberry pound cakes in little ceramic loaf pans. Each gift bag included both flavors of pound cake and the Truly Custom Crunch.

Of course I HAD to make melted snowman cookies. I mean... it's tradition at this point! This year I made them on dark chocolate chip cookies.

Homemade Marshmallows! My first time making them and they turned out pretty good! I made 3 flavors. Plain, Rum, and Kahlua. The Kahlua are particularly yummy in hot chocolate!

Cranberry Apple Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes. These were sooooo yummy. I made them for our Christmas Eve Brunch. So glad the holiday's only come around once a year!

The long road to inspiration...

I'm often asked where I get the ideas for my cakes. And sometimes I can give you a very specific answer. Like, the client was very clear, they told me what to do, I followed instructions, and there you have it. Other times, the route to inspiration is anything but direct.

This past spring one of my display cakes was being transported to a show, when the box that held it was picked up by a very disagreeable gust of wind, carried several feet, and thrown to the ground, where it was smashed into an unrecognizable mess. This was a very stressful moment for the caterer that was transporting my displays. (No worries, I didn't yell at him.)

The display cake before the wind took it on a wild ride.

It is moments like these that have a way of forcing your hand. There were no plans for an additional display cake. Over the past 2 months, I'd made six! As far as I was concerned, I was all set. But... ummm... yea, things happen. The smashed cake was the biggest display cake I had. It showed a variety of techniques and well... I figured if I had to remake it, I might as well take it a step further. The whole idea of a display cake is to show potential clients what is possible. For me, it's not about creating a cake that I can copy in the future. I just want them to see what their options are. And with very little time until the next show, I was a little stressed.

And I was quickly reminded that I often do my best work when I'm under the gun. I don't know why. It makes no rational sense... And yet, I was so pleased with the resulting cake, that I was happy the original cake was smashed. In fact, I decided that I no longer liked the original cake. Go figure!

Isn't it pretty!?! I really love it. It's so very romantic and soft looking.

A little later... I had the opportunity to make a baby shower cake for a client's daughter to match the theme of the baby's bedroom.

Isn't it cute!

Fast Forward to this fall... The same client saw that pretty display cake that I had to make under the gun this past spring. Seeing how they love all things super girlie and feminine and of course PINK, she wanted that cake used as the inspiration for the Christening Cake.

So, I was able to adjust the design down a bit to make the perfect Christening Cake for Janel's precious baby girl. I added a little more pink into the mix than the original cake had and we removed a few of the more mature elements. And Voila!




Isn't it interesting how cakes are born? Inspiration comes from all around, and you never know what will inspire you to create something new. Sometimes, even a disaster can result in something amazing.

Happy Baking, Caking, and Decorating!