After my six month break, I'm gradually getting back up to speed on this blogging thing, catching you up on the troubles I've been getting myself into. I went through a little cake baking phase and did two weddings and two birthdays, all for friends and family. Here's the quick recap:

Rochelle and Thomas's Wedding: Chocolate chocolate, chocolate vanilla, vanilla vanilla and vanilla chocolate Cupcakes
Count: 12 dozen

Yes, the cupcake sweatshop is at it again. But honestly, it's never work when you're doing it for friends! The flowers were purchased from Sugarcraft and the flags were purchased by Rochelle on Etsy. I also used my fake calligraphy skills and did up their name cards, too.

Ria and Gui's Wedding: Two-layer wedding cake and mini red velvet cupcakes
Count: 1 cake, 4 dozen mini-cupcakes

B's cousin's wedding cake was my first foray into fondant (the Domo cake doesn't count) and it was a bit stressful. If you click through to the photo, you'll see that the fondant is less than perfect (the top layer is 239403 times better than the bottom layer). Lessons learned: 1) practice once before you do it for real. My practice run was my "for real" run. I ended up with an excess "flap" of fondant that I had to creatively fold into itself to hide it (of which I didn't do a good job of). 2) Use only a thin layer of frosting. The more frosting you use, the less smooth the fondant will be (unless you have the skills to frost a cake smoothly and perfectly). 3) Watch videos! There are a ton of online resources to help you out.

B's Birthday: Snickers Ice Cream Cake

Here's quick low-down on this gem to get people drooling and asking for more:

1. Bake this cake in a 9-inch springform pan. Cool and split into two layers.
   
2. Make the caramel glaze.
   
3. Place one of the cooled layers back into the cleaned springform pan and spread with half of the caramel glaze and sprinkle with chopped peanuts. Place in freezer to cool and set. Meanwhile, set out a quart of chocolate ice cream to soften (You want it to be soft and spreadable, not soupy).
   
4. Spread the chocolate ice cream evenly over the cooled caramel peanut cake layer about 1 inch thick.
   
5. Place the second cake layer on top of the ice cream layer and pour the remaining caramel glaze on top of the second layer. Loosely cover with plastic wrap and freeze for 2-4 hours.
   
6. Make your favorite chocolate frosting (I used a basic ganache)
   
7. Remove the cake from the freezer and release the side of the springform pan. Frost the cake and sprinkle the top with peanuts. If not serving immediately, return to freezer and remove it about 30 minutes before serving.

Make sure the ice cream is nearly frozen again before you frost it, otherwise it will ruin your frosting experience. See my drippy edges, that's the result of still melted ice cream. Learn from my mistakes!

BFF's Birthday: Snickers (not ice cream) Cake

It was like deja vous for my BFF's birthday cake. Follow the same general idea as above except make two 9-inch layers. You'll want these layers to be thicker to make up for the missing ice cream layer. I'm generally getting better at frosting cakes, especially when I can cover the sides with peanuts. I just need to make sure that the sides are perpendicular to the plate, oops.

And then I ended the year with two fabulous cheesecakes, none of which I took photos of (gasp) but that you'll have to take my word for.. Smitten Kitchen's Cappuccino Fudge Cheesecake and Pioneer Women's Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake.

Up next, a Yo Gabba Gabba cake for my goddaughter's 2nd birthday in February.