Today was my third gumpaste flower class and we did peonies... which are probably my favorite of the flowers I am learning to make! Peonies can have up to 40+ petals on each flower so needless to say, they take awhile to make!

I made the peony with white gumpaste and did the color using three shades of pink petal dust. The next class is only a few days away and I'll be learning daffodils, tulips, lilies and irises - can't wait!

This weekend, I took a course on making gumpaste roses. In the course of a day, we finished a red specimen rose and a Harrison yellow rose with their respective leaves.

I think the yellow rose is my favorite of the two... so pretty!

Although, the red specimen rose is also beautiful. The leaves on this one gave me some problems as they cracked in the back where the wire was making it difficult to tape the spray together.

I am very happy with how they turned out. Next weekend is a class on peonies.... stay tuned!

These goodies were made to celebrate an upcoming retirement. There are lemon cupcakes with lemon meringue buttercream and white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. I arranged them on a four-tier tower that I recently received as a gift. 

The recipe for the lemon cupcakes was one I have tried before with a different icing. The lemon meringue buttercream was a new recipe and one that I'll definitely be doing again! It involved making a homemade lemon curd that you mix into an Italian meringue buttercream. The final step of making the buttercream was adding Framboise, which I questioned initially.... why add raspberry liqueur to lemon buttercream? Well, it definitely made the icing better... if anything it tasted more lemony after adding the liqueur.  

There were both regular-size and mini cupcakes. For the cookies, I used a cookie recipe I've done many times before and substituted white chocolate and macadamia nuts for the chocolate chips I usually use. They were delicious and disappeared VERY quickly! And now I'm off to make gumpaste flowers... I just had an order of supplies come in from the UK and I need to put them to good use!

This cake is pretty simple in appearance...  but would I ever like to have had a slice of it?! This was a sour cream chocolate cake with Irish Cream mousseline buttercream. Irish Cream buttercream has been on the "to try" list for awhile for me and from the little taste I got (to make sure it was adequate to give to someone else), it certainly was! Count on it that this flavor pairing will be happening again sometime when I'm going to get
some of the cake! :-)

The Montréal logo was done with fondant as was the lettering. The borders are buttercream (blue) and piping gel (red). This cake was done for a last minute surprise birthday party that I think was a much a surprise for the guests as it was for the birthday boy! Although it is simple, I was happy with the finished product and I hope the people at the party liked Irish Cream buttercream as much as I did!

It's very unusual for me but this is actually a cake I have made before. I can't figure out exactly why but I like this one better than the one I did a few years ago, although they are quite similar. This is a black and white chocolate cake modified slightly to work with the cake design. The cake layers are vanilla buttermilk cake and are filled with alternating layers of dark chocolate pastry cream and white chocolate mousseline buttercream. The original recipe calls for a white chocolate whipped cream which is delicious but wouldn't work well with the basketweave.

The hood of the bassinet is made with fondant and the cake is covered in a two-tone buttercream basketweave.

The teddy bear, blanket and pillow are made with fondant, as is the lettering on the cake board.

I really didn't know what to call this one but the bright colors and fun design basically make me think of a party in a cake. The cake was three separate 6" cakes stacked. All of the cakes and cupcakes were carrot cake with vanilla cream cheese icing and the cake was covered in butter pecan-flavored fondant.

The candles are made with fondant covered wooden dowels topped with a fondant star on a piece of florist wire. The cake was wrapped in patterned fondant swags and each cupcake was topped with a patterned fondant piece. 

The cupcakes were in hot pink silicone wrappers which added yet a little bit more color to this fun cake! I must say that walking down the street carrying this cake into a restaurant certainly attracted a bit of attention from people walking by!