HB 1139 and HB 2084

Can you please spare a moment this morning to email the members of the Public Health Committee? The bill needs to be on the hearing schedule when it comes out tomorrow, or I'm afraid it will die on the calendar again. Emails below:

Lois.Kolkhorst@house.state.tx.us
Elliott.Naishtat@house.state.tx.us
Carol.Alvarado@house.state.tx.us
Garnet.Coleman@house.state.tx.us
Sarah.Davis@house.state.tx.us
...Veronica.Gonzales@house.state.tx.us
Susan.King@house.state.tx.us
Jodie.Laubenberg@house.state.tx.us
Charles.Schwertner@house.state.tx.us
Vicki.Truitt@house.state.tx.us
John.Zerwas@house.state.tx.us

The body of your email can include something like this: "I support the Cottage Food Bills, HB 1139 and HB 2084. Please move these bills forward for a hearing as soon as possible."

Thank you for your support!

Mosaic Cake

Like any one who has a small child, I was easily coerced into seeing the movie Tangled that came out around Thanksgiving. My daughter Charlotte fell in love with the newest Disney princess as did I, but what transfixed me more was the amazing artwork and images that made the movie so prettily breathtaking.

First of all, the color purple was everywhere, in every shade. Rapunzel loved to free hand paint the walls of her tower. Mosaics were throughout the town, and the sun was an especially important theme. And who could forget those pretty lanterns? So of course what this added up to me was how to design a cake around all these images (keep scrolling to see some examples of my inspiration).

Since moving to Colorado, though, I haven't had many excuses for making cakes. Lucky for me, it was time for Sweet Time in the Rockies again. Hooray!

I've always wanted to make a mosaic cake, and that was my jumping off point. The cakes were all covered in fondant as normal, and then I hand cut. each. one. of. those. tiles. and placed them on the cake in different designs. How long did it take, you ask? Centuries. (OK, I estimate around 60 hours from beginning to finish.)

The bottom tier showcases the golden lanterns floating into the sky. I hand painted the lanterns with a mixture of Super Gold dust and vodka. The next tier was a purple, pink and yellow swirl pattern that repeats throughout the movie. The next tier features the sun which you see in the town square, Rapunzel's crib and throughout the palace. I also painted the sun with the Super Gold mixture. And the top tier is the purple, pink and yellow swirls again.

At the top of the cake is Rapunzel's magical golden flower, which gave Rapunzel her golden hair. In the movie, the flower loosely resembles a lily with swirls coming out of it. To make it I used a lily cutter, dusted it gold, and then used Isomalt (Cake Play new Isomalt sticks are awesome!) to make the swirls come out of the top.

Once that was all done the cake looked intricate but flat. So I added on the pink flowers to each tier, with isomalt swirls coming out of them too. Pretty cool cake, I have to say!

It's Here! It's Here! It's Here!

As you can tell, I am very excited that the spring/summer 2010 issue of Bride and Bloom magazine finally made it into the stores!

I feel as though I have been waiting forever to see it, but this afternoon it was sitting on the shelves of our local Borders as I shopped with my children. They have also been anxiously looking for it with me every time we go to the bookstore and were just as happy as I was that is was there.

This is my first time to be featured in a national bridal magazine, and I was given an entire page for my Turquoise Cake with Black Scroll Work. It was one of my very first cakes, and has proven to be popular with clients with lots and lots of requests for it.

Thanks to the Account Executive Richelle Gingerich for noticing my cake and getting it in the magazine for me. I am incredibly honored!

Ni Hao Kai Lan

Today I made a cake for a coworker of my husband. Her daughter was turning 4 and loves Kai Lan (just like my daughter!)

Kai Lan is one of those light hearted cartoons where everything is bright skies and sun, cute animals, lots of flowers and in general happy looking. So that's pretty much where I jumped off.

The background of the sky was made in pale blue, with a border around the bottom to look like rolling green hills. Mr. Sun is front and center, because he is a major character. His face was panted with food coloring, and I also added fluffy white clouds cut from fondant.

All of the figures were hand molded. To add some more color and whimsy, I added on bright fondant flowers to the green hills.

My husband was happy to report to me that his coworker loved the cake. I'm happy to say that I do too!

A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes

This weekend I participated in the Colorado ICES cake show in Denver. It was fun to finally christen my new kitchen with some cakes! I have been really missing decorating, so it was also great to get back.

With my first cake, I bought some stencils that I just adored the designs of. I realized how much the large scroll design looked like Cinderella's carriage one morning when my daughter pointed it out to me. I was practicing the technique and she gasped "that's for Cinderella!" I took a step back and realized she was exactly right. This started me in a whole new direction where I wanted to center the cake around a Cinderella theme. I tried my best to color the cake Cinderella blue and thought a glass slipper for the top would be perfect, along with some gumpaste bows.

The "glass" slipper for the top is white chocolate that I poured into shoe shaped molds along with a heart mold for the accent at the toe. When it was set and I pieced the shoe together, I absolutely slathered it in disco and luster dust.

The rest of the cake was also covered in luster dust to make it glittery and luminescent.

I am thrilled and delighted to say that I received First Place in the Professional Category!

For awhile now I have wanted to make a damask cake and while perusing cake stencils on the internet, came across this set that I decided I could not live without. I had never used cake stencils before, but decided it is always good to learn new techniques.

I chose a square design and I wanted my corners to be super sharp and clean, so I used a technique where I cut out panels for the sides of each tier and their tops out of gumpaste and then allowed them to dry over several days. When they were dry, I took my stencils and used a thick royal icing for the designs. Basically you use an offset spatula to smooth the royal icing over the stencil, and after it is completely covered, you gently pull the stencil off and you have a beautiful design!

There is, of course, some trial and error involved in this. It takes both patience and time. But if you stick with it the work is well worth it.

Black and white damask is rather popular, and it is nearly

always paired with red or pink as an accent. I wanted to try something different and chose yellow anemones to contrast. I love how it looks! Anemones are imperfect flowers with large black centers, and I thought it would contrast with the prim and proper damask. I am really happy with how it turned out.

This cake earned 3rd Place in the Professional Category!

This was a great weekend for me and I had a wonderful time competing!

Announcements

Now that we are settled here in Colorado, I just wanted to let everyone know what is going on with Butterfly Sweets.

Coming up on Valentines weekend, I am entering a cake show in Denver. I am so excited! I have greatly missed decorating cakes. I will be making two cakes and cannot wait to see how they turn out. I will be trying some new techniques I have never used before, and am hoping to make so unique additions to my portfolio.

Also, something I am even happier about is that I have been contacted by The Bride and Bloom magazine, and they will be featuring some of my cakes in their spring issue! This is the first time I have been featured in a bridal magazine. It should be out some time right after Valentine's Day, and I will be posting pictures as soon as I get my hands on a copy.

Lastly, to stave off some of my cake withdrawal, I've started a blog on baking. I decided to make it separate from this blog since this one seems to be focused on decorating. It is at http://butterflysweetsincolorado.blogspot.com/, so please take a look! My first post is a little long, but I plan to start baking tomorrow.

As far as Butterfly Sweets goes, I currently do not have a kitchen to rent, which means that I am not taking orders. Hopefully this will change sometime in the near future.

I know...I know

So I know it's been forever since I have posted, but I have a good excuse, which I will share with you later. :)

I took most of the summer off this year, because it was the last summer I had with my little boy until he started Kindergarten! And then life in general got hectic, so I only made a few cakes for a select group of friends and family.

Earlier this summer, I made a sweet little princess cake for a friend of Nate's. They went to preschool together last year, and I just love her mom! I also made a cake for her last year, my Girly Dinosaur Cake. This year she wanted a pink cake, with some turquoise and purple on it. We decided on polka dots, with a beautiful princess on the front, and a crown on the top.

Once summer began to come to a close, I made this cake for Charlotte! It was her 4th birthday this year, and all she wanted in the world was a Little Mermaid cake. At first she wanted me to make Ariel from fondant (yes, my four year old thoroughly knows what fondant is!) but after a trip to the Disney store, she coerced me into buying a set of figurines that were of Ariel's sisters. Charlotte and I made this cake together, and I am very proud to say that she made all of the starfish. The shells and starfish were liberally doused with disco dust, and the sand is brown sugar.

Soon after that, I entered the Oklahoma State Sugar Art Show again. I wanted to make a cartoon-like cake. The coffee cup on the top was from chocolate fondant mixed with Tylose. The whipped cream is royal icing, and the cherries are fondant. At the last minute I decided to add on the cute little strawberries. This was a super fun cake to make, but it did not place in my division.

Last but not least, I made my son, Nate's, 6th birthday cake. Nate is absolutely Bakugan crazy, and he wasn't too particular with the

design of the cake as long as it had lots and lots of Bakugans on it. I ordered some edible images, and then decorated the border of the cake with Bakugans instead of my regular fondant balls. He was very happy with it!

I have been receiving lots of emails asking why I am not taking orders, and would like to make an announcement regarding this. At the end of October, my family and I moved to the Denver area after my husband was relocated for a job position. We are very excited to start this new chapter

of our lives, but I am sad to leave behind all of my wonderful clients in Dallas. I am hoping to start making cakes in Denver soon!