CINCO DAY JAE-JAE !!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Today is my daughter Jaelyn's 5th Birthday!!! Although she had her family party at home today, over the weekend she celebrated with her friends. After two consecutive years of partying at Chuck. E . Cheese ( yes TWO!) Jaelyn finally decided on another fabulous location to host her 5th Birthday Party which was the bowling alley. After months and months of probing Jaelyn about exactly what kind of cake she wanted for this party, the answer remained the same " A chocolate cake with gummy bears and candy all around it " Would you like anything else a little more fancy ? I would ask her, "Nope !" she would say "Just all chocolate with gummy bears" So here you have it

Jaelyn's Candy Mountain Cake !

This is a chocolate cake filled with chocolate butter cream and sprinkled with ghiradelli chocolate chips. I then iced the cake in alternating layers of chocolate butter cream and rich chocolate ganache. The cupcakes are swirled with Mexican vanilla butter cream and are topped with marshmallow fondant cherries and strawberry-lemon marshmallow twists. The cake is adorned with various sweet candies hand picked by Jaelyn herself, some of her favorites include swedish fish, red hot dollars, dots and of course one of her top favorites Gumballs.

When your mommy bakes just one cake won't due, so I made Jaelyn her own personal cake which was cascaded with more of her favorite goodies.

To go along with the candy theme of the cake I made two baskets filled with sweet candy kabobs along with cupcake candy favors filled with m&m's topped off with more of those marshmallow fondant cherries. Both of these goodies were later packaged with soda pop bubbles for all of her friends to take home !! It was a sweet ending for a sweet little five-year old girl !

Uptown Teal Wedding Gown !

I made 45 of these cupcakes to be given away as favors for a bridal shower. The flavor was a variation of "Uptown Cupcake Brown" which is a chocolate cake filled with raspberry jam, dipped in a smooth chocolate-raspberry ganache. The cupcake is then swirled with a rich white chocolate buttercream sprinkled with white chocolate chips then drizzled with a double dose of raspberry and chocolate sauce and chocolate shavings. The cupcakes that I made for the bridal shower were exactly the same but the client decided that she would like the frosting to match the wedding colors which was a teal blue and to add just a simple sprinkle of chocolate shavings to add a slight more elegance. The transformation of the cupcake required a new name which I lovingly decided to call " Uptown Teal Wedding Gown ".

ROWEN LOVES MICKEY !!

The same day I had to make another celebration cake for a little boy named Rowen's 3rd birthday. This one was a replica of the clubhouse from the television cartoon, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Everything from the top of Mickey's head all the way down to his feet were completely edible !

Green Day !!!

At least that's what my daughter Jaelyn was calling the Irish heritage celebration better known by many including my well versed kindergartener Bianca. as St. Patrick's Day Jaelyn was convinced that since all the stores, candy clothes and toys were all decked out in "green" that "Green Day" was indeed the name of this holiday. Bianca on the other hand knew better, as she recently learned all about the meaning of St Patrick's day in Mrs. Anderson's kindergarten class and had been telling me every since the week before that " Tuesday is St. Patrick's Day Mommy" and that I had better not even attempt to put anything green near her body before Tuesday, because she was saving her absolute favorite green dress shirt for that day.

Of course because she had already picked out a perfect outfit I couldn't see sending her to school without a sweet accessory!!!

Bianca's Go Green!! and Sweet!! Marshmallow Kabobs!

We scoured our local grocery store for all candies coming in green, although we didn't find a lot of candy dedicated specifically to St. Patrick's Day we did find a bulk candy bin section in the grocery store. I must confess it took almost 20 minutes to sort through 4 0r 5 bins of assorted color gummy candies but we eventually were successful! We didn't even have any run-ins with grocery store employees telling us that we couldn't pick out the colors we liked, but we needed to purchase all colors. Yea!!!

In the end we used alternating candies including (mint milkyways, green gummy bears, green swedish fish (yum!), green chick peeps,green gumdrops and we topped each kabob off with little green gummy hats. I later learned from reading the label that these gummies were appropriately called " Mexican Hats".

We tied ribbons on the bottoms of each skewer, stuck them in a lime green bucket and another holiday bit the leprechaun dust!!!

Happy, Happy Day of Love!!

Well Valentine's Day has come and gone yet these sweet goodies have been trapped in my camera. These are Valentine's Day candy cups made soley for a special little Kindergarten class.

I used little plastic cocktail cups and filled them with all different kinds of Valentine's day candies (m&m's, cinnamon sugar jelly hearts and swedish fish). I decided not to bake for this holiday but decided that chocolate would be more appropriate, so I melted red, white, pink and of course milk chocolate and poured them into my "grande" hershey kiss molds. I mixed different chocolate combinations for each mold so that every child got their own personal multi-colored kiss.

Spanish Honor Society Bake Sale

I am currently the standing Vice-President for the Spanish Honor Society Sorority at my school.

Although I was unable to man the table at the bake sale (hmmm...I was too busy making history at the Presedential Inauguration for Barack Obama in Washington D.C.!!!!, a difficult sacrifice I know !)

Well for the sale I made jumbo chocolate chip cookies and jumbo butterscotch chocolate chip cookies, a variety of cupcakes to adorn the table. (Coco Cabana-coconut, The Mambo-Tango- orange creamsicle, Chocolate Barcelona-snickers cupcake and Chocolate Chip Chihuahua-a chocolate cookie dough stuffed cupcake and Latin Elvis-a peanut butter dulce de leche and banana cupcake.Since it was a bake sale for a Spanish club I figured I should make something with a fun FIESTA!! feel.....so this is what I came up with. White chocolate tacos filled with chocolate cake (meat). Then topped with a vanilla cream cheese buttercream (sour cream) sprinkled with chopped Swedish fish (tomatoes) orange and green shreds of marshmallow fondant (cheese and lettuce). Still haven't heard the official word on the outcome of the sale, but I did do a little product quality control check while baking these yummies!! (u have to stay on top of your product! hahaha..) They seemed to be bake sale hits!

I have to give extra special thanks to my Mom for grabbing the wheel of the Chica Chocolatina xpress and delivering these goodies for me while I was busy celebrating victory in our nations capital. VIVA OBAMA!!

Gym Class Hero

Although the holidays have come to an end and many are preparing to take down their Christmas tree and other Santa Claus decorations the spirit of giving could not be lost in my little Bianca just because the official Christmas date had passed us. One day back in October I believe it was Bianca and I were discussing the upcoming holiday and I had mentioned to her that I wanted to give Mr Degnan her gym teacher a present (she is in Kindergarten) and if you can believe this Mr. Degnan was my gym teacher also!! And he has got to be the greatest gym teacher of ALL TIMES!! Well at least the two of us and every other kid who has been in his gym class and been present on the day he brought the PARACHUTES!!! Thinks so!!

Well anyway we decided that we wanted to make him a special treat for Christmas, but I have to take the blame and say I became too busy and never did get a chance to make his special treat. Well my Bianca upon coming upon her return to school from her Christmas vacation said " We can't forget Mr. Degnan's present! she said I wouldn't want him to think we remembered Mrs. Anderson (her Kindergarten teacher) and forgot about him. She decided her special treat to him would be chocolate-caramel covered candy apples and she requested to be able to decorate them herself and also send him a special card and that is exactly what I allowed her to do. She let me know that I could write her message to Mr. Degnan in the card but "she really really wanted to make sure she signed her own name.

After listening to what she wanted to write in the card my heart melted with her thoughtfulness and sensitivity at age 5 and I am going to secretly share what she wrote with you....shhhh don't tell her I told you.

Well here it is.

To, Mr. Degnan

I made you these candy apples, I made them out of love. I hope you like them and I hope you had a Happy Holiday!

Love, Bianca

I couldn't have said it better myself!

Feliz Ano Nuevo!

Feliz Ano Nuevo or Happy New Year for whichever way you call the start of 2009!! I am off to a good start, it was a very cold New Year's Eve and although I must say I was tempted to accept the last minute invite I received to ring in the new year at one of the "Hot Latin Clubs" in the area, I graciously declined because after my long shift at work (yes! I worked on New Year's Eve, until 9:30 p.m. to be exact.) I knew I had made a promise to 3 special people of a late night date starting around 11:59 p.m. which included- snuggly pajamas, fuzzy slippers, a great big bowl of fresh popped popcorn and a great BIG BOTTLE OF KIDS CHAMPAGNE!!!

There was NO Way I was going to disappoint and in the end, we had the time of our lives. We ate, We drank, We danced and were merry all the way into the wee night hours of 1:00 a.m. It was at this hour in which I returned from the kitchen with more kids champagne for everyone!! And realized that my 3 late night party dates had fallen fast Asleep! We were all safe, secure and together ready to take on whatever 2009 had in store for us