Dad is great, gives us some chocolate cake!

Happy Friday!  So I have chocolate cake on the brain today.  Every time I hear chocolate cake I think about the Bill Cosby Himself stand-up routine when he sings that song..."Dad is great, gives us some chocolate cake"!  Love it!  I've been searching and searching for some great scratch cake recipes over the last few weeks without much success.  The great thing about this industry is that everyone is so willing to share and give reviews of different recipes and techniques.  As I was stalking all of my favorite cake blogs the other day I ran across this recipe titled Best Chocolate Cake by Amanda of iambaker...um, yes please!  It's a recipe that was originally Ina Garten's of Barefoot Contessa fame. 

So off I went to try another cake and I must say that this one is definitely a keeper, so rich and moist and chocolatey and fabulous and...ok, ok, I'm back.   The hubby tried it and was impressed too, the problem is now that I can't keep myself from "testing" the flavor, i.e., it's disappearing very quickly.   Thanks again to Amanda for sharing!!

 I wanted to include a few more pictures of what I've been working on lately.  I've included links to other blogs that have great tutorials!  Did I mention how nice everyone is??

 I love this little guy!  I worked off a tutorial by LilaLoa here.  So cute and creative.

 Hello, Kitty:)

 I love the little hill.  I got the idea from this picture.  I'm not sure who the cake artist is so I apologize but here is the link: Thomas Cake

Enjoy and happy weekend to everyone!

 

Happy Birthday to G

Last weekend we went to Chicago for my cousin's daughter's 1st birthday party.  I come from a fairly large Italian family so there was a lot of food, love and fun!  Food is love, right?  Maybe that's my problem, I love too much!

On to the 1st birthday party.  My cousin, who is very fashionable, beautiful and knows just what she wants, knows how to throw a party!  Her gorgeous little girl "G"'s bedroom is based off this painting that her very talented father recreated just for her:  Bird & Cherry Blossom painting

My cousin wanted "G"'s 1st Birthday party to be based off this painting, which is beautiful!  We were talking one day about the party and I said I would love to make her cake, smash cake and cookies as her present for her special day.  So we got started on ideas and this is what we came up with.

 Cherry Blossom Cake for the princess!  This is based not only off of the painting by by one of my favorite cake artist's Pink Cake Box

Here is the smash cake based off a cake by the very talented Small Things Iced

 Birthday Banner and paper decor by Toadally Cute

 Here is the sweetie with her smash cake!

We were so happy to be able to celebrate her special day with her and the rest of our family!