Baking for our Adoption!

He is Risen cake!

2010-04-03T21:42:00.000-07:00

An old friend from high school recently got back in touch with me on facebook after finding out we were adopting and she made my day because she first told me that since I last knew her in school, she had come to know the Lord! What amazing news that was to hear! She has been so sweet and ordered this three tiered fondant covered cake for easter for her church! She also ordered two coffee cakes to go along with it for her church's "coffee hour" tomorrow! She also asked me to make an adoption poster sheet up to set by the cakes so people can find out about our adoption and the fundraisers and such in case they want to help! What a great heart she has! This is a chocolate and white cake with buttercream icing underneath fondant and buttercream and fondant decorations!

Gavin's mod monkey 1st birthday cake!

2010-04-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

Good friends of our, Chad & Sarah, have an adorable little boy named Gavin! He is turning one and I am making two different birthday cakes in the same theme for two different parties! Below are pictures from the first cake! The second cake I am going to try and get brave and actually hand sculpt a monkey or two for the cake! Stay tuned to see how that turns out! :0) I realized after making the smash cake that my friend is probably going to want to kill me later after Gavin eats it because its blue icing and I can just imagine blue everywhere on little Gavin once he's done eating! :0) Sorry Sarah... :0) heehee

Autumn's birthday cake!

2010-03-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

My niece Autumn LOVES horses and pink so I decided to do a fence around the side and molded a horse out of fondant however it was my first time so it wasn't exactly perfect or the way I wanted it but I think she will still love it. All is buttercream except the horse!

Happy Birthday Autumn!

New Valentines wedding cake!

2010-02-14T11:36:00.000-08:00

This is a cake I made for a friend of a friend who is getting married today, on Valentines day! How cute is that! I believe her colors are red, black and white so she wanted a white fondant covered cake with black swirls on it! I think its beautiful and I hope they all enjoy it at the reception! Congrats Alyssa!

Here's the picture of the cake I took before delivery!

Here's a beautiful picture of the cake that their photographer took...

Its a 3 tiered (6 cakes total) two of them white and one chocolate. Buttercream is in between the layers and underneath the fondant! Swirls and border are hand piped on with buttercream!

Love, april

Fondant cakes!

2010-02-09T17:28:00.000-08:00

A lot of people ask me about Fondant so I thought I would do a post on it!

Fondant is a great icing that is similar to a marshmellow taste. Its in a consistency where you have to roll it out kind of like dough and then place it on top of the cake and smooth it all out! What I LOVE about fondant is that it instantly brings the cake up a notch! You cannot acheive the same smoothness and texture and elegance with buttercream as you can with fondant! What's also great about fondant is even if someone at your party/wedding does not like it, they can tear it off and buttercream is still underneath for them to enjoy the cake!

Lots of people LOVE fondant and some people do not like it! However, I think that you have to have a good fondant in order for it to taste good! I use the same fondant that Duff from Ace of Cakes uses and I LOVE it!

Yes, fondant is a little more expensive but if you have the budget for it, its SO worth it! Below I will post some pictures of all the cakes I have done whether they are big or small that have fondant over top the buttercream!

Twin 1st birthday cake..

2009-12-11T14:55:00.001-08:00

This was probably one of my if not my favorite cake I have ever done! It was for a friend of a friends sisters twin boys first birthday! Brown and blue and white fondant decorations with polka dots and #1 made out of gumpaste and sticking out of the cake with two small 4 inch round smash cakes in buttercream!

Time to upload some more cake photos...

2009-07-16T18:10:00.000-07:00

I have 1 or 2 more photos from Auri & Sam's wedding cake to post and a cake I made for my mother and father in law for their birthdays! The last cake is a one year anniversary cake I made for a couple! It has fondant roses with pearl dust hand-painted on!

Sarah's 10th birthday cake!

2009-07-04T21:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of my niece Sarah's 10th birthday cake! She wanted taylor swift so she got taylor swift! Chocolate cake with buttercream icing, edible image and fondant dots and butterflies!

WooHoo! My cake was published in a magazine!

2009-06-20T10:26:00.001-07:00

Silly me got SO EXCITED this morning because as I opened my new MailBox news issue which comes out every few months, I had a big surprise. I got to a section where they showed various birthday cakes submitted by cake decorators and there it was...the birthday cake I did for my dad two years ago (when I was still very new at this, as you can tell by the AWFUL hand writing)...but I do love this cake because it was so much fun making the tools and designing the measuring tape and letter to dad to look as real as possible. So...here is the page of the magazine...i scanned it so I could put it on here! So excited...i just submitted a whole bunch more photos...who knows...maybe in months to come i can find more of my cakes in the magazine...that would be awesome!

The bottom middle cake is mine and the right middle paragraph is the paragraph about my cake! I wish I could make it bigger...if you want to see a bigger version...email me at aprilcstarkey@gmail.com and I can send you a bigger one where you can see the writing and such!

Love, april

Sam & Auri's wedding cake!

2009-06-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

I had the priveledge of making my brother in law and now my sister in laws wedding cake! He proposed to her with chocolate covered strawberries so they wanted them all over the cake! Their cake turned out very simple, elegant, garden style and beautiful! They picked a good design! I hope they liked it! I believe they did! These are just a few pics, hopefully once they get the professional ones back I can get a copy and post it here as well!

Love, april

Two wedding cakes to post!!!

2009-04-18T18:15:00.000-07:00

Hello! This week I made two wedding cakes! One was a small one tiered buttercream wedding cake with purple flowers on it for my husband's co-worker!

This second one I finished today for a wonderful couple that go to my parents church! They have been married many years with three boys but they never had an official ceremony or reception so they did that today! Here is the cake they had me make for them! Its three tiered fondant covered with fondant daisies and hand pressed diamond cut pattern!

After the topper and flowers were put on and around it that she wanted...

Linda Birthday Cake!

2009-03-05T21:19:00.001-08:00

Hello! This cake below was made for my sister's MIL. Her name is Linda and since she is a mom and a grandma, they had me put all three! I hope she likes it! Its a half sheet WASC cake with vanilla buttercream frosting! YUM! I just drew a whole bunch of vines all over it and swirls and then added some spring like flowers and leaves! To get the circle border in the middle so nice, i used the rim of an 8 inch round pan and pressed gently into the cake and then went around the indentation and filled it in with a border! If I tried to make a circle on my own, it would SO be lopsided! Multiple views below...beware! :0)

Love, april

in the box and ready to go!

Laura's Birthday cake w/ step-by-step photos!

2009-02-18T15:37:00.001-08:00

Hey all! I thought it would be fun to take photos step-by-step of each process of making a cake! From start to finish, I have tried to capture it on camera for you to see. I will post the recipe for the cake and the buttercream in case you all would like to follow these steps and make this cake in the same way or in your own variation!

So here goes...

Its a white almond sour cream cake (basically your normal white cake) with homemade buttercream icing. I was using Dixie's...YUM YUM...but shipping + price was getting too much so I found one that I think I love...because it crusts well so I can smooth it and it tastes pretty good too!

CAKE RECIPE:

1 box white cake mix
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 teas. salt
4 egg whites
1 1/3 cups water
2 Tbls. vegetable oil
1 cup (8 oz.) sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons clear vanilla flavor
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix all dry ingredients first and then add the liquid ingredients and beat on low speed for 2 minutes. This will make two eight inch rounds or nine inch if that's what you have! Also it will make around 24 cupcakes approximately.

BUTTERCREAM RECIPE:

1-1/3 cups Crisco
1/3 to 1/2 cup milk, depending on consistency needed
3 Tbsp powdered Dream Whip (*)
2-3 Tbsp clear vanilla, depending on your personal taste
2 lbs powdered sugar

(*) A powdered whipped topping mix made by Kraft Foods, usually found in the cake/sugar aisle in the grocery.

There is really no wrong way to mix it, but i mix all ingredients minus powdered sugar first and then I add in the powdered sugar slowly. Mix it until the icing becomes smooth! I first put in 1/3 cup of milk and realized the icing was too stiff so I added another 1/4 cup. Just play with it!

PICTURE TIME...

First you want to get all your ingredients together!

You then want to put in all of the dry ingredients and mix to kind of sift it all together!

Then start adding your liquids...right here I am adding the oil!

here I am adding my eggwhites...i just crack open the egg and toss it back and forth between each shell until I separate the yolk from the eggwhite! super easy and fun!

then you add the vanilla! yum yum

here is the sour cream going in...you cannot taste it and it adds GREAT MOISTNESS to the cake!

After all ingredients are in...start mixing on low to medium for about 2 minutes.

while batter is mixing, go ahead and prepare your pans by spraying or lining them or whatever you do.

one great way to get your cakes more even is "bake even strips" by wilton...mine look UGLY because I have used them so much! You soak them and wrap around your pan so the cake bakes more evenly in the oven!

pour in your batter evenly and pop in the oven! Depending on the oven, two eight inch rounds can take anywhere from 35-55 minutes...i checked at 35 and barely moved them and they jiggled so I automatically put it in for another 10 when they jiggle! Tonight i ended up baking them for 50 minutes!

after a few minutes on the cooling rack I take a knife and go around the outside of the cake to separate it from the pan.

I then level the cake by taking a serated knife and cutting off the top part that is a little round!

onto the icing...mix in all ingredients and slowly add powdered sugar as I am doing here...messy but yummy!

here's the icing being mixed! mix it until its smooth!

I put some buttercream in a bag and cut the tip off and am now filling the middle of the cake before I stack the other one on top!

here is the middle filling after I smooth it out...you want to keep away from the edge a little because the weight of the top cake will push it out some!

here are the two rounds stacked on top of eachother!

Have fun with putting on the icing, do not be afraid of putting on too much because you will go back and take lots off when your smoothing it!

here is what it looks like after I roughly put it on....

here it is as I try and smooth it and take some excess icing off with my spatula

here it is after 15-20 minutes...let it crust for 15 minutes or so and then take a paper towel or computer paper and go all around the cake and smooth it with your hand on top of the paper towel....it gets it nice and smooth!

next...get all your cake decorating supplies out! I have my cake turner on the left, my fondant and bags on the right....

in the middle i have my coloring, shapes and spatula that i need!

here is the fondant...you can make your own or buy from wilton or satin ice! if your eating it, buy satin ice, if its just for looks, wilton is fine...reason being is because wilton tastes yucky but works well!

put some color in the fondant and start kneeding it and playing with it to get the color worked through! Have some shortening nearby to keep your hands and the fondant from getting dry/sticky!

roll out the fondant!

have fun...its like play doh for adults...cut out any shapes (cookie cutters are great) that you may have!

lay them somewhere until you put them on the cake!

i decide to write "happy birthday" first so I know where I can put my designs!

here it is as I am getting going on it...

here it is all done...the vines/swirls are buttercream and the border and rest of the decorations are fondant!

some up close shots

some side shots...

Hope you enjoyed coming along on this cake making ride! I hope I inspired you enough to want to try making one on your own...you can do it! If you need any help...just ask me!

Love, april

Baby shower cake!!!

2009-02-14T11:56:00.001-08:00

Today I made a baby shower cake for my sister's friend from church. Their church is having a baby shower for her. My sister wanted a verse on it so I put Psalm 139:13-14, which psalms 139 is one of my FAV chapters in the bible! It was a lot of writing...its not perfectly straight across but I am hoping they wont care! I am so use to doing fondant flowers that it was a challenge for me to make these buttercream flowers, I am not use to using so much buttercream for decoration...however...i must say I LOVED it and had a blast making this cake! I love pink and purple together and I hope they enjoy it! Its a white almond sour cream cake! Very yummy!

I took many views...(just to warn you)

Thanks for looking! If you need a cake (family and friends) just let me know! I love doing this for fun! Next cake is coming next week...its a birthday cake for my cousin Laura! Stay tuned!

Love, april

Elmo Cupcakes!!!

2009-02-13T17:17:00.001-08:00

Tonight we celebrated Preston's 2nd birthday party! He is our good friend's little son! He LOVES elmo so I made him bright blue cupcakes with little elmo heads on top! He LOVED them and had the icing all over his face! It was so cute! Here are the cupcakes...

Love, april

More yummy cupcakes...

2009-02-12T16:16:00.000-08:00

Yummy yummy cupcakes I made last week for a friend's birthday! We had a surprise birthday party for him at our home after church! Taco salad was the meal and cupcakes were the dessert!

These were SUPER easy! Anyone can make them, if you do not have an icing bag and tip, just use a ziplock bag and cut the tip of one corner off, put your icing in and then start on the outside of the cupcake edge and work in making a swirl pattern!

The cupcakes were just a regular yellow cake and then there was vanilla icing and chocolate icing with different sorts of sprinkles for color! The sad part was I could not eat any of them! :0( boohoohoo for me! :0)

some close-ups

i got excited with the sprinkles...lol

Love, april

Tiered cakes...

2009-02-10T18:13:00.000-08:00

Tiered cakes...

Here are my tiered cakes that I have made so far! I have two more coming up in April and May! One is a wedding anniversary renewing of vowels (they did not have a real ceremony the first time) and the other is my bil and soon to be sil's wedding cake! I would have had many more but since i have stopped the business, i have been having to turn away customers a lot lately! Its all worth it though! I want to do it just for fun!

Here is a cake i made for my soon to be SIL's sister's wedding. It was covered in fondant and I made fondant flowers for it!

This was a sweet 16 birthday cake! So cute! Fondant icing, white chocolate seashells and fondant flowers! Icing gel for the waterfall!

a four tiered cake that was covered in fondant with buttercream accents

white fondant covered wedding cake with silk flowers

buttercream wedding cake with silk gerber daisies!

white fondant covered with fondant roses on top

four tiered buttercream wedding cake with fondant roses!

three tiered buttercream wedding cake with fondant roses!

Stay tuned...more to come!

Love, april

the cupcakes.

2009-02-10T18:04:00.000-08:00

and now....the CUPCAKES!!

Here are some of the cupcakes I have made through the past year or so!
Actually these first two pics are of fondant roses that I have made. They are VERY TIME CONSUMING but I find relaxing! I love making them! I just have to make sure I have plenty of time! They take days!

here are some cupcakes I left for my in-laws since they looked after our dog while we were on vacation!

yum yum.... green daisies

i want one now... :0)

happy valentine's day!

mmm...mmm...good!

heavenly pumpkin spice with cream cheese frosting! :0)

how cute are these! snowmen christmas cupcakes I made for our kids at AWANA!

easter cupcakes...chicks and lambs made out of icing!

We surprised Shaun with a little surprise birthday party while we were on vacation in the Smoky Mountains!

Her cupcakes!

Stay tuned...more to come!

Love, april

Some birthday and other types of cakes I have made!!!

2009-02-10T16:53:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the cakes I have done that are birthday or other types of celebratory cakes!

This cake is my nephew James' 7th birthday cake. He wanted it to be star wars so I put on an edible image! Its his favorite, banana cake, with cream cheese icing!

These next two pics were of the cake that I have already showed you above from my nephews party but I didnt have these pics at the time to post...this one is of the little guy himself, James, at his 7th birthday party about to blow out his candle! The one below is just a close-up of the edible image!

This cake I made for my BIL's birthday! It was his 30th! I believe it was a spice cake! My sister threw him a surprise party for him!

This was my niece's 9th birthday party cake...she had a pool/slumber party! I spent the night with them on her and monica's request and we did a fashion show and I did their make-up. We had so much fun! Her cake is Hannah Montana themed with fondant stars and swirls!

This is a VERY CHOCOLATY cake I made for our pastor's birthday!

Here is a fall version of the above cake that I made for my beautiful sister, Monica's birthday!

Here is a cake I made for doctor's office. The problem was my old dog ate the first version of it and I had to create this in like an hour. It was still VERY warm when I delivered it...so I was not happy with how it turned out but I am sure it was VERY YUMMY!

Here are some sheet cakes I have done...

this one was for a friend of the family, Emily's birthday party which was held at a hotel and they were having a pool party! The pool water is icing gel, the towel,slippers and chairs, girl, ball and lifesaver is fondant! I had fun making this!

This was made for Berean Baptist. Jenni Maples ordered it for her church as they were celebrating their volunteers! I made a round cake to come out of the cake like the earth!

The above client ordered two sheet cakes for her sons graduation. He wanted specific things on it, on this one he wanted the bible, chipotle burrito and a guitar. All made out of fondant and other materials!

This one included his sports he played!

Here is my nephew Noah's 4th birthday party cake! Car's theme!

handsome noah!

I surprised Jim this year with a birthday party and this is the cake I made him!

This is a cake I made for our pastor and his wife's anniversary! I felt bad though because I was in a rush so I did not get to do it like I wanted too!

my first and HOPEFULLY last purse cake...i had lots of problems with it but it turned out ok eventually!

my mom/dad asked me to make my grandma rose a birthday cake last year and this is what I came up with! She loved it!

I LOVE PRESENT CAKES! This was for a bridal shower that the lady wanted it to kind of look like a Tiffany's ring box. I love this cake!

This was for a client's little girl who requested a unicorn, butterfly, dragonfly and rainbow to be on her cake! I brought out my inner girly self to do this one, I loved it!

For a cos student who graduated!

Stay tuned! More to come!

love, april

More cakes from the middle stages...

2009-02-10T15:57:00.000-08:00

Here are some of my cakes I made around the middle stages of my classes and such! Enjoy!

This is a cake I made for my dad's birthday. The tools are white chocolate, the paper and tape ruler are fondant! I had SO MUCH FUN making this cake for my dad! It was a banana cake I believe!

another view.

This next cake I made last year for Preston's (our friends son) first birthday! He was into bob the builder at the time! I had so much fun making the little wall of bricks with icing and the clouds! Of course I love anything colorful so i fell in love with this cake!

another view...
another view...

This cake below is a power rangers cake I made for my nephew James' 6th birthday party! It was a banana cake with buttercream frosting! The trees were icecream cones covered in frosting!

I think to this day, this next cake is my favorite cake I have made. I dont know why, maybe the color combo or the little bug on top...but I love it! I made this cake for my cousin's baby girl addison, for her first birthday! Icing is buttercream, bug, number and dots and banner are fondant!

close-up of bug...
addison with her cake

This next cake is the first FONDANT COVERED cake I did! I had a blast and realized how much I love working with fondant!

This is the final cake in my second class. We learned the basketweave and royal icing flowers that get stiff as they dry!

another view
This is a cake I made for my best friend, Cari Wooley for her birthday last year! I had to hurry up and make it while they were at sunday night church...so I had to rush but the plus was it was still warm!

This is an easter cake I made to bring to my family get-together! It had a fruit preserve inside with buttercream frosting underneath the fondant. The flowers were made out of royal icing!

close-up of flowers

This was my final cake in my final cake class! I LOVED the brown/pink color combo! Its fondant icing with buttercream underneath and TONS of homemade fondant roses (that took A LONG TIME)
another view...

here is a cute little cake i made for one of grandma starkey's friends while they were in the hospital! Everything was fondant!

Stay tuned for more cake pics!
Love, april

My first cakes...

2009-02-10T15:26:00.001-08:00

These first set of pictures are from the cakes I did in the beginning of my first class and right after wards last year! I have come a long ways since then in cake decorating and I STILL have a long ways to go!

This was one of the FIRST cakes I made in my class. We learned how to make clowns, they were SUPER easy and SUPER fun!

This was the final cake in my first class. We learned how to make buttercream roses.

I made this cake for both sides of the family for thanksgiving! I had a blast making it! I love FALL!

Here is probably one of the if not the first birthday cake I made after my class or during my class.

Here is the second birthday cake I made for the same lady but different party!

Here is my first christmas cake I made for our church ladies christmas party!

Here is a fun cake I made for my family christmas. I had planned all along to put penguins on it but I did not plan on the slope of the cake. What happened was the cake fell apart while taking it out of the pan, so I adapted and turned it into a slope for the penguins to slide down on! I had a blast making this cake!

This if the FIRST tiered cake I made. I made it before I even knew how to properly support and stack a cake...YIKES! So many imperfections but I do not think my grandparents minded. My mom asked me to make it for their 50th wedding anniversary party! The icing is buttercream, the daisies are fondant and the ribbon is real and the daisies on top are silk and the "50" is gumpaste!

Stay tuned for more pics!

Love, april

The first post...

2009-02-10T14:44:00.000-08:00

Hello all.

I decided to start this cake blog since I have now shut down my cake business site. As mentioned on the side of this blog, I have decided to stop the business part of it because it was getting too busy for me and I want to focus on what matters most to me in my life right now, which is my walk with God, my relationship with my husband, getting healthy and becoming a mommy!

However, friends and family, do not worry because I still want to make cakes for fun and for you!

In the meantime, I will post all the cakes I have done up until now (the ones i have pics of at least) with a little info about each each, why I made it, for whom and little bits about it. I will keep updating this site with each and every new creation I make for my wonderful friends and family! Feel free to check back ANYTIME to see the photos and stories and feel free to leave comments also!

Love,
April