Hockey Cookies

While the NHL season is currently in doubt, local arenas are abuzz with youngsters of all ages taking to the ice.  These cookies were to celebrate the home opener of the Bradford Bulldogs Minor Midget A boys game last Saturday night.  Personalized for each player, these cookies can easily be adapted for any sports jersey.

Shabby Chic Cake

Please note - I no longer accept cake orders, focusing instead on custom decorated sugar cookies.

Ali is a giver.  I sensed that the minute I met her last year at our planning meeting for her mother's 50th birthday/Mickey Mouse themed party last year.  A detail-oriented organizer, she threw her mother a terrific party, complete with a pretty nice Mickey cake.  (http://www.sweethandmade.blogspot.ca/2011/05/mickey-mouse-cake.html)  She is also a new aunt to twins and is very involved in their lives, despite the fact that these little boys live hours away.  She tends to do for everyone before she does something for herself, but hopefully she knows how important she is to her family and how much they all love her!  Her mom wanted a special cake for her birthday this year, in their favourite flavours - brown sugar marble for the cake and red velvet for the cupcakes.  She loves shabby chic style, so I used that as design style.  Happy birthday Ali!

I love the look of these large flowers and the pearl accents.

My first cakes

As my skills have improved over the years, I thought that today I thought I would share some of my first cakes, not all of them made by me, but some of them downright hilarious! 

Here is my first birthday cake.  I guess my mom wanted to keep it simple, but to me it looks like a store-bought flan with some whipped cream.  This is what you call "semi-homemade".  I'm sure we all enjoyed it, the boy in red sure looks happy about it!

 

By the time I turned six, I had had my share of the cakes my mom could get at the local pastry shops.  Whipped cream, fresh fruit, light sponge cake - yuck!  So, my ingenious mom would get me an ice cream cake.  I think there was some sort of mocha flavour, which I didn't like either!  I don't think she knows that.

 

I still own that tray.

 

Blowing out the candles!  When my mom tells my girls about my desire for ice cream cakes, she always says "ice cake", because in Dutch ice cream is "ijs", so my kids must wonder if she just slapped a icicle on a plate or something!

When I turned nine, this was my cake.  Homemade with whipped cream.  Pretty cute!

Check out the Holly Hobby napkins.

39 cents for a bottle of pop!

This is the cake my mom made for my brother's 13th birthday.  You might have guessed he played the trumpet.  You never know where the inspiration will come from!  Lol! 

This my mom's 50th birthday cake.  I think my sister-in-law made it with my "help".  I think I helped with placing the jujubes.

 

In 1981 I wanted to make my mom's birthday cake.  I had visions of this work of art I was going to carry out - a dark chocolate cake with white frosting.  I turned to my sister-in-law for help, she bought the cake mix and the frosting and let me do all the work in her kitchen.  Except, I forgot to grease the pan, and the cake just fell apart when I tried to remove it from the pan.  I perservered and frosted a crumbly mess.  My SIL had a vanilla cake mix and chocolate frosting in the cupboard and so we made that one too and this time we did grease the pan.



 

Here I am trying to frost the "crumble" cake.



Here are the two finished cakes.

I brought the ugly cake out first and thought my mom would be disappointed.  Nope, she didn't even notice anything was wrong and she loved it because I had made it! 

 

Blowing out the candles on the ugly cake.

Enjoying the beauty of the good cake!

Moving right along, it is now 19 years later and my oldest daughter was turning 4.  For her party, we went with a games theme, inspired by the fabulous Martha Stewart.  Here is the cake Martha made...

 



And here is my version!  Unbelievably horrible!!  I am having a hard time admitting I made this.  But it tasted great, with my first ever lemon curd and Swiss meringue buttercream!  Some of the features I now cringe at are the foil covered cookie sheet, the sloppy edges, the muted colours... wow!

And the photography!  Obviously not my husband's work!

Three years later I made this cake for my youngest.  I use this picture in my desktop slideshow and everytime it comes up and laugh at the lopsided edges and the writing and the colours and bulge between the layers.  The kids are cute, though!

When the sprinkles started to go into the edge of this Tupperware container, I decided to make it part of the decorating design.  Ingenious, I know!

I am pretty sure my skill level has improved.  I certainly have more recipes and tools and knowledge that I can bring to the table!  I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane!