Some of my First Cakes

A few weeks back I blogged about how I got started into cake decorating and how I wound up where I am today making a living doing something I truly enjoy.  Your comments were all so sweet with many of you expressing that you shared the same dream.

Since I did my buttercream smoothing tutorial I get maybe an e-mail a week from someone who has tried my method and still not happy with the way their cakes look.  I always tell them to keep practicing and keep decorating.  Just like any other artist, you will develop your own methods and your own sense of style over time.  And your cakes WILL get better!

So why am I saying all of this?  Well... I was going through some old photos the other night when I ran across some of the cakes I did when I was first starting out.  Chad and I looked through them and snickered and giggled at each one.  But, I was doing the best I could do at the time and I was really proud of them.

So for the novice bakers out there that see my current cakes and think "Wow, I could never do that", I wanted you to see that I didn't start out doing 5-tiered cakes or flawless buttercream.  Everyone else can just sit back and laugh like Chad and I did!!

Click on the picture for an even better look!

I know the firefly cake was one I recreated (I use the term very loosely) from the Whimsical Bakehouse book.  The rest I probably saw in a Woman's Day magazine or some such place.  That purple two-tiered cake was my Wilton final cake!  These were all giveaways, so luckily none of them should ever wind up on Cake Wrecks!  LOL!

Thanks for visiting!!

Featured on Cake Wrecks Sunday Sweets!

Many of my regular readers remember reading about my Back to the Future DeLorean post, and some may remember the DeLorean in-progress post, but today we were featured on Cake Wrecks as a Sunday Sweet!  Today was a "Back to the Future" post and our little ol' DeLorean cake was featured!

In the 6 years we have been in business, we have won cake decorating contests, voted "Best Dessert" by the local community 2 years running, featured on several other blogs, but this is truly an honor and a red letter day for the entire Cup a Dee Cakes crew!  Thanks Jen and John for selecting us!!!

You all know the Cake Wrecks address, but click here to get directly to their Back to the Future post!

Cake Wrecks Book Giveaway!!

You may not know it, but one my favorite breaks occurs everyday around 9:30am when Cake Wrecks goes live with a new daily blog entry. I stop for a few minutes, have a sip of coffee, and a hearty laugh. Recently they hosted a contest where the people that came up with the best cake one-liner won a free autographed copy of the Cake Wrecks book. And I won!! Well, I already have my own autographed copy, so I thought "Why not pass it along to one of you?"

This brings up one my other favorite daily breaks... spending a few minutes voting for Icing Smiles in the Pepsi Refresh Project. I have blogged about them before, so just to summarize, they are a non-profit organization that brings birthday cakes to critically ill children. They have applied for a grant in the Pepsi Refresh Project. If they are in the top 10 of the popular vote they will receive $25,000 to help their mission. It's something that Chad and I are very, very passionate about.

Yeah, yeah yeah... so what about this giveaway?? OK, the prize is one copy of the Cake Wrecks book, autographed by Jen and John Yates. How do you enter? Do all of the following 3 steps for one entry::

1. Leave a comment on my blog (this post). Just a quick note to say you are voting. I will use this to match up your Pepsi vote.
2. Go to Icing Smiles Pepsi Refresh page, and vote for them.
3. Leave a comment on their Pepsi Refresh page with the wording "Cup a Dee Vote".

You can do the steps above once per day (for up to 7 entries) from now until the contest ends on Thursday August 26th at 5:00pm Eastern. I will randomly pick a winner (OK, Chad will, he's the technical guy) and announce it on on my August 27th blog post.

Have a great weekend and best of luck!

Aug 20 12:30pm UPDATE: Chad says he is seeing people voting on the Pepsi page that are not leaving comments here on my blog. I would still appreciate the comment, but he says he thinks he can work solely off the Pepsi comments page. I just want to make sure that no one loses a vote because of my convoluted rules

Cup a Dee Cakes - Celebrity Edition!

I know it seems like I have been slacking lately, but actually we have been covered up at the bakery! In fact, I can barely find time to hobnob with some of my favorite folks. A few weeks back I spent a couple of days with the Amazing Mike McCarey. Mike opened my eyes to the wonderful world of modeling chocolate! Ever since then I can't seem to keep enough of it made up in the kitchen! Take all the stuff you like about fondant, then subtract most of the stuff you don't like about fondant and you have modeling chocolate! And it even tastes better than fondant. BONUS!

Yesterday, Chad and I took off to Altanta for the day. We visited IKEA, as well as several bakeries. We ended out day up at the Barnes and Noble in Buckhead where we got to meet Jen and John Yates of the oh so wonderfully funny Cake Wrecks! They gave an awesome presentation and slide show. There were several really good wrecklipas there and we really turned the Children's Book Section into a party zone. They were as witty in person as they are on the web, and seemed like such a nice couple.

Well, I must go now; I am preparing for my cake decorating class tonight at Dalton State College. Only 2 more classes and my stint as a teacher will be over I fear. I leave you with a shot of the CakeWrecks crew and the Cup a Dee Cakes crew giving you a big smile that's sure to last all week long!