Happy birthday, Nick!

It wouldn't be fair for a man who makes cakes for others to make his own birthday cake, would it? Zandy took matters into her own hands to insure that Nick's paintball themed birthday party ended on a sweet note.

No in-the-making pictures of this one --it was a surprise, and a race against time to make sure everything was perfect before the guests arrived. The "paintballs" were gumballs, so every last bit of this cake was consumed!

Every princess deserves a (cup)cake!

What little girl doesn't pretend she's a princess? Brianna got a cake fit for a princess for her 3rd birthday, made entirely out of cupcakes.

Yellow cake and chocolate fudgey cupcakes were split to make every princess and prince happy! The adorable cup cake papers were chosen by Brianna's mom.

Underneath all the frosting! A lot of work and rearranging went into making this the perfect 3.

The cake was a huge hit with all the kids! It was so big, however, that Nick had to construct the box by hand out of poster board. Talk about a Jack-of-All-Trades. The cake consisted of almost 50 cupcakes. Thank you for letting us be a part of your special day, Brianna!

Cake, Bats and Penguins, oh my!

I'm very happy to report that since my last posting, we have had the opportunity to create 3 birthday cakes. All three have been quite different, and each an exciting creative challenge.

This cake was created for two girls very close to us -- they decided to have a joint birthday party. The party was held at a martial arts studio, which inspired the yin yang style of the cake.

The girls both requested their favorite animals to be present on the cake, so we aimed for a black vs white approach, keeping the snowy penguins on the vanilla half of the yin yang, and the spooky bats on the chocolate half.

The finished product was simply adorable!

It was also a HUGE hit -- can you tell?

XBox Groom's Cake

As promised, pictures of last night's groom's cake. Chris has been Nick's best friend for years, and we were flattered when his lovely bride, Diana, asked us to make his surprise cake for their rehearsal dinner. The cake incorporated different features that showed stages of their relationship -- the xbox for their love of gaming, their two football teams as stickers on the xbox (mimicking Diana's own xbox), their favorite movie in game form, topping the stack of a few other notable games. The cake was chocolate, with a chocolate ganache filling and vanilla buttercream underneath the fondant.

The games were rice crispy treats covered in buttercream frosting. We were able to purchase a sugar paper printout of the game cover from a local ice cream shop. Just wait until we get our own sugar paper printer!

Everything about this cake except the board it was sitting on was eatable.

The final product!

Introduction

What do all these tools have in common? They all have taken part in the creation of a Groom's Cake that we're working on for a rehearsal dinner tonight! More pictures will come soon -- but for now, this sneak peak serves as an introduction to us and our cakes.

Nick is the mastermind behind the cakes here in our kitchen, whipping up creative genius, coupled with delicious recipes to satisfy all palates. His wife, Zandy, is his assistant. Together we make up Nick's Cakes.

Recently married, Zandy is a banker and Nick manages a restaurant. Both love the process of making desserts of all kinds, but the affinity for cake making developed slowly over the past two years. We hope you enjoy watching us develop our skills through this blog, as much as we love practicing (and eating any failed practice attempt)!

Some neon green buttercream has been whipped up, our fondant cutouts are resting before being added to the cake... we look forward to showing you our final product in our next post!