Friendsgiving | Fall Leaves Cake

| For Friends & Family, Holidays

I love it when I’m empowered to “get creative” with it — in this case, to make a Friendsgiving cake with fall-like decor. I reprised the pumpkin cream cheese cake, but this time made a naked cake version with marzipan leaves, acorns and flower.

I meant to take a before and after photo of the marzipan decorations before I airbrushed them, but was so focused on setting up all the airbrush parts that I forgot. Luckily the back of the leaf reveals the starting color, and the front shows the added dimension a couple layers of color can add. This was lots of fun to create!

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Office Bytes | Pumpkin Cream Cheese Cake

| For Friends & Family, Holidays

 

Happy Halloween! New job, new office, new house, new baby. It’s been a busy year, but as we adjust to all the changes, I’m hopeful to begin blogging again, both to catch up on some memorable events of the past year and to get back into the swing of things in the kitchen.

During a couple sleepless nights, I put together this pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese frosting and pie crust crumbs for the office. For those familiar with Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes, you’ll recognize the inspiration for this cake from her Pumpkin Cupcakes (recipe posted online: https://www.marthastewart.com/317069/pumpkin-cupcakes). Instead of making cupcakes, I made an 8″ layer cake, substituting with my preferred cream cheese frosting recipe. In addition to using the frosting for the filling, I also sprinkled each layer with pie crust crumbs (inspiration from Momofuku Milk Bar), with additional crumbs for decor. And finally, a mix of marzipan pumpkins which are always pleasantly quick to make and oh-so-charming.

That’s the extent of our Halloween celebration this year. Time to put the baby to bed!

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Baby Shower | Congrats Vickee & Ian!

| Baby Showers

Back in November, we celebrated the expected arrival of a baby girl for my dear friends Vickee and Ian. I was unfortunately recovering from appendicitis and unable to stay for the baby shower, but was happy to deliver a lavender + bunny themed cake and cookies for the party. The cake itself was a white cake with lemon curd and blackberry Bavarian cream:

For the cookies, we had bunny-shaped iced shortbread cookies and salted chocolate chip cookies:

I love the opportunity to make gumpaste flowers for cakes. While they are a bigger time commitment, they are probably most reflective of my own cake decor aesthetic and I find the process meditative. For this cake, I made lavender buds, a white rose and some white filler flowers. Thank you to Subodh Kolla for sharing these beautiful photos!

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