Monday, July 27, 2009

How It All Began...

Here is the story of Sugar Bites:

Ever since I was a kid, I totally looked up to my Aunt Pat who lives in the states because she always made beautiful and yummy cakes. Every time I got to go to a cousin's wedding, I always loved the cakes and couldn't believe that someone I knew made them! I always thought it would be so much fun to make pretty cakes like that.

During church camp one year, I was very excited to find that cake decorating was a class I could take! Not very "outdoorsy" for camp, but very exciting. I learned how to make borders and roses and all kinds of yummy fun stuff!

When I was done high school, I took a break from schooling because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. During that time, I secretly toyed with the idea of moving to the states and getting a job...and secretly thought it would be really cool to work with or at least live near my Aunt Pat so I could learn how to make those beautiful cakes. But I ended up staying in Saskatoon and taking office administration instead. Exciting.....

Every office job that I have had, I've always brought in baking treats. Because I've always loved to bake, but I can't possibly eat everything that I bake or I'd be 600 pounds! I've always gotten compliments for my baking.

Last year, my friend and co-worker Jackie got engaged and sort of half-jokingly asked me to make her wedding cake because she loved my baking. I gave this some serious thought. It was always something I was interested in....why not?

So I signed up for cake decorating classes at Michaels and took all of them except for the first one (since I knew the basics from camp). I accumulated all kinds of fun supplies and tips and tricks and techniques and had a fantastic teacher.

Then I just started making cakes for friends and family and slowly more and more people started asking for cakes. I posted pictures on Facebook and on this blog and between that and word of mouth, I've kept really busy

And so everything is coming full circle this week as Jackie's wedding is on Saturday! I can't believe it's this weekend already! Stay tuned for pictures of Jackie's wedding cake coming next week! I took the whole week off of cakes so I can give it all of my attention. Can't wait for the wedding!

Piano Cake II

I got a request for a second piano cake from a guest at the party where I brought the first piano cake. This guy actually figured out that it was "Happy Birthday" piped on the side! He asked for the same cake for his birthday party and I was more than happy to oblige.

I made it basically the same. It is still a white chocolate cake with semi-sweet ganache filling and iced with buttercream. The bottom tier is covered in white fondant, then has "Happy Birthday" piped around it. The top tier is covered in black fondant, then has black and white fondant piano keys on it.

I made it a bit different with the flowers. Dale found a beautiful bouquet out at Costco when he was doing some shopping. It had some really cool big yellow flowers in it that I just loved. And the client made the cake his own by bringing a toy grand piano to sit as a topper with the flowers.


These yellow flowers were very striking with the black and white!

The piano was a perfect touch!

And the piping even turned out better than the first piano cake because I had a better grasp of how to lay it out.


This cake turned out just as beautiful as the first piano cake!

Birthstone Wedding Cake

A former co-worker of mine got married in Calgary this past weekend. She sent me a message asking if I could do up a cake for her at the last minute since she was having problems with her local baker. I said I would do it and she came up with a bottom tier of "citrine" and a top tier of "topaz" for her and her husband's birthstones. Then emerald green swirls for her son's birthstone.



Since her family was transporting the cake to Calgary, I shipped it with them unassembled. Plus they were going to put some flowers on the cake. So I have yet to see the cake completely assembled! I can't wait to get some pictures and hear how everything went!

The following photos are of the completed cake. The photographer was Urban Obscure



Hammy Cake


This was a fairly simple, but really cute cake. A friend requested a "Hammy" cake from the movie "Over the Hedge". After looking at the pictures of Hammy, I was freaking out about how to make him look good in icing. He's such a strange shape and very detailed and I wasn't sure what to do! So I decided to take the easy route and got an edible icing image printed up and just used that. It turned out really great! And all still edible.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Princess Cake

I think this is the first time I have been able to do a really girly cake! It was rather exciting. I love doing the sports cakes and stuff, but it's nice to do something girly now and then.

A co-worker ordered a princess cake for his granddaughter's 4th birthday. A fellow cake decorator had posted some photos of a royal icing tiara and I was dying to try it out, so this was the perfect opportunity!

I used an emptied and cleaned sour cream container, taped a design on it, then taped some wax paper on top of that. Then I piped the design and let it dry before adding some additional decorations of heart sprinkles and sparkly pink sprinkles.


I also made a wand out of royal icing. The cake itself is white cake iced and filled with white buttercream then covered in cute pink fondant. The string work, lettering and pearl border are all in royal icing.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

New Logo!

My husband went to a charity breakfast and silent auction a while back and he bid on a corporate logo design....and he won it! So I got a great new professional logo for a VERY low price.

The logo was created by Laconic Design in Medicine Hat, Alberta. They were amazing to work with! The whole process was really smooth. I ended up sending Travis a whole bunch of thoughts, colours, ideas and existing logos that I liked and he took all of my random bits of information and formed them into 4 really fantastic first drafts. From there I picked my favorite and he tweaked it into 4 more specific designs. Then from there I picked my favorite, tweaked it a bit, and we ended up with what you see at the top of the page.

I couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out! It's simple and cute, but slightly edgy and fun at the same time. And it's simple enough that I can re-create it in icing, which was one of my suggestions.

If you're ever looking for a great logo design, I highly recommend these guys!

Laconic Design
"Design that defines."
www.laconicdesign.net
403-928-0797
Medicine Hat, Alberta


They were great to work with and came up with a fantastic design! Check them out for all of your design needs!


*If you're reading this in a reader, make sure to come to my actual page to see the awesome new logo!

Tim Hortons Coffee Cup Cake

A client of mine asked for a Tim Hortons themed cake for his wife since she ordered him a golf ball cake for his birthday. He asked for a Tim Hortons cup and an eclair with eclair filling. He also requested a gum paste figure of his wife for something extra special.

The cup cake is 4 layers of 6" round devils food chocolate cake carved to the shape of the cup. It was filled with swiss meringue buttercream then iced in buttercream and covered in white fondant. I hand painted the logo and the reddish brown colour with gel food colouring. The lid and the figure are both gum paste.

The "eclair" was made out of white cake, filled with eclair pastry filling and topped with melted ganache. The cake was left un-iced to look more like an eclair.




Soccer Cake

Our friends who ordered the Super Six Cake, the Football Cake and the Daisy Cake ordered a soccer cake for their son's birthday this year. Last year he got the Super 6 cake, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do his cake this year!

I modeled this cake similar to my Golf Ball Cake. The base of the cake is deep dark moist chocolate cake filled and iced with creamy semi-sweet ganache. The grass is buttercream.

The ball is white chocolate cake filled and iced with white buttercream icing and covered in fondant. The black pentagons are also fondant and the "stitching" was made with a notched wheel.