Cameron's Elephant Themed First Birthday

I wanted to share this super sweet elephant themed birthday party. The party was for Amber's second son Cameron's first birthday! if you have been following the blog for any amount of time you will know that I have made all of Amber's first sons cakes and so the tradition continues and I could not be happy to be a part of it!

Amber wanted an elephant themed party in light blue, gray and white. She picked the desserts she wanted and allowed me to decorate them in the corresponding theme. I also made the backdrop and hanging tassels for the table.

The cake was buttercream with an edible mini elephant on top.

I made a set of cookies to match the theme.

Cupcakes were made by Amber with cute elephant toppers!

 Other desserts included cake pops, raspberry and pineapple cheesecakes and chocolate covered pretzels. 

Amber always does a fabulous job decorating and adding special touches to her kids parties!

  Happy family!

Happy Birthday Cameron! I hope it was a special one for you! Special thanks to Amber for the pictures and  for letting me be a part of his little mans day!

Racing 40th Birthday

When I was asked by my sister-in-law to make a cake for long-time boyfriend's 40th birthday, I was so excited. The theme for the party was drag racing since that was his hobby, and she wanted the cake to look exactly like the car he currently races. I also wanted to do a dessert table for the event since I knew that a car cake would not feed the 70 people that had RSVP'd to the event.

The cake was pretty much done all by my husband. I know he is so talented isn't he? The photos do not do this cake justice. You cannot see all of the door paneling details and things that he added to really make the car come to life.

The dessert table was a challenge because I did not want to make it to childish but wanted to keep within the theme of racing. I used my more modern cake plates and serving dishes and kept all of the dessert signage as adult-like as possible. I think I achieved a good balance, and was happy with the outcome. For the table, I made chocolate cupcakes, s'more pops, chocolate covered pretzels, cheesecake bites, vanilla/strawberry dessert shooters, and an assortment of cookies and candies for the children. I hope you enjoy the table!

We placed the cake on a wooden crate which, we then covered with a tablecloth so that the cake would not be lost behind all of the desserts.

Awesome cake that read: Happy Birthday 40th Chris! It's all downhill racing from here!

Here is the birthday boy cutting his cake with his daughter and niece watching!

Hope you all enjoyed this party. Let me know what you thought of the dessert table by leaving me some comments. Did I achieve the look I was going for with the table and decorations? I hope Chris had a very Happy Birthday and I enjoyed being a part of it!

Cheesecake Pops

I decided to try my hand at cheesecake pops this past week, and let me say they were amazing! This is my first time making cheesecake but it was super easy and turned out wonderfully.

This is a recipe from Jill O'Connor's book, Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey.

Cheesecake Pops

Makes 30 to 40 pops

Five 8-ounce packages cream cheese, at room temperature

2 cups sugar

¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

5 large eggs

2 egg yolks

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¼ cup heavy cream

Boiling water as needed

30-40 8-inch lollipop sticks

1 pound semisweet-flavored, milk chocolate flavored, or brightly-colored confectionery coating (also known as summer coating or wafer chocolate)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325°F.

In a large bowl, with an electric mixer set a low speed, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth.  Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream. (Make sure you scrape down the bowl during the process to incorporate all the ingredients.)

Lightly grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a spring form pan).  Pour the cheesecake batter into the cake pan and place in a larger roasting pan.  Fill the roasting pan with boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan.  Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.

Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool the room temperature.  Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

(It wasn't that golden it's just a bad lighting.)

When cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.  Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball.  Freeze the pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 to 2 hours.

When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate coating.  Place half of the chocolate wafers in a microwave-safe bowl.  Microwave on high for 30 seconds.  Remove from the microwave and stir.  If the chocolate is not completely melted, microwave for 30-second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Hold the pop over the melted chocolate and shake off any excess. Place the pop in a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set.  Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate wafers as needed. 

Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

I hope that everyone tries this recipe, it is fabulous!