Smitten With This Kitchen!

Happy Sunday everyone! As the new week approaches we are a few steps closer to our official opening. We have a kichen to rent finally and we got a GREAT deal on it, I couldn't be any happier about it and thought I'd share a few photos with you all. This kitchen belongs to a local church in my area and is actually only about 5 minutes from my home, can you believe it?
Check it out...
Check out all the oven space!
This is just one of many workspaces




It goes on and on and is perfect for our needs! Next step is food certification and kitchen inspection, then we're in business! Don is scheduled for his food class on the 29th and we'll be requesting the inspection around that time as well. EXCITED!


On another note, I've been businer this past week than I think I ever have before. Lots of friends having cake-occassions, so I got a LOT of cake-hours in for practice.


Josh, at work, asked me for the most unique request I've had so far. Broccoli, in cake form. Broccoli... in cake form. Roll that one around a few times and see what you come up with! I thought about it and thought about it and all I had in my mind was a big fat head of broccoli laying on a plate. How un-appetizing! This was for his girlfriend who apparantly was a big fan of the green stuff and I just couldn't give her a hunk of broccoli on a plate! So... this is what I came up with, MUCH cuter I think...
I made the florets from Laffy Taffy and nonpails with a little green colored cany melts. Pretty realistic, huh? And yes, we did taste test them... it's pretty funny to bite into something that looks so much like a veggie and have it taste like watermelon!


The bowl is made od red velvet cake with a very vanilla frosting, vanilla fondant and accents, topped off with a yellow fondant butter pat!


Next was Sonia's blingy birthday cake and Seronda's Gucci Bag.
To round out the week, 2 baby showers, both for the same time and same time! UGH, if there was ever a need to be cloned, this was it! Unfortunately I didn't get to go to either shower, but I was there in cake form! Dee and Jennifer were both on my work team a little more than a year ago and both asked me to create their shower cakes... I was more than happy to do it for them.


Dee's shower was a Noah's Ark theme as well as the baby's name. I knew her cake would be a 3d ark, complete with animals 2x2. This is what I came up with...
Layers of fresh strawberry and vanilla cake covered in fresh strawberry frosting. Animals are made from fondant and the entired cake is edible.
Now, with Jennifer's cake, I decided to experiment. I wanted to do something different, I just didn't know what. She provided me a photo of one of the blankets in the baby's room to use as inspiration.
OK, so without knowing exactly what design I was going to do, I started making fondant teddy bears...
OK, cute, but how to incorporate that blanket and Kaleb's dad's favorite teams, the Lakers and Jaguars...
Keeping in mind, amongst all this mountain of cake this week, I also work a regular job! I'm running on about 20 hours sleep for the week and in my delirium, it hits me! I had an idea and it was something I had never tried and nothing I had seen before... I was going to wallpaper this cake! I printed out multiple pages of swatches from the blanket along with some I dowloaded and I staerted printing.
As a side note, I have to say that my edible image printer is probably one of my best investments ever!
Here's the final product, what do you think? I LOVE it...
Now, anyone that knows me, knows I am a Rays fan and I definately am NOT a Yankees fan. I took some liberties with the bear at the bottom in honor of The Rays win after Derek's attempt at a very un-sportmanlike move... he actually fakes like he was hit with a pitch in order to make it to base on a free walk... not a great move AND they lost... HA! lol
Let's go to the tape, shall we? lol

Well, that was my week, today I've been a total couch potato, gearing up for a new work week and vowing never to take on so much again!
Until next time, folks... LET'S GO RAYS!