Well, life has been quite busy for me lately….lots of desserts and lots of business details to deal with! However, last week I had the pleasure of making my little niece, whom I absolutely adore, a birthday cake. She just turned 2 years old and gets cuter and cuter by the day.  I decided I wanted to show off just how cute she is by doing a photo cake, but I didn’t want to do just any photo cake…I wanted to put a modern, girly twist on it. I also decided to put her adorable little face on some sugar cookies because when you are that cute you can’t have enough photos of yourself (at least that’s what her auntie thinks!).  So here is the birthday girl and her cake!

As you can tell from her signature pose, she loves keeping one eye closed when she smiles…I love it!!!  So here is a quick post on how the cake was made.  The cake was a yummy chocolate cake with peanut butter filling.  Then I used chocolate ganache to ice the cake before I covered it in chocolate fondant. 

I then dowelled the cake and covered the second mini tier on top the same way.

Next I cut out fondant circles and printed out edible frosting sheet images of little Kimberly.  I left some fondant circles white, I added the edible images to some circles, and I painted the other circles with a mixture of petal dust, luster dust, and lemon extract (basically an edible painted concoction). 

I then placed the fondant circles on the cake and piped pink royal icing dots around the edges.  And finally I lined the bottom of the cakes with pink ribbon.  

Here are some more photos of the party!

Well, as you can see we had a great night full of fun, family, and yummy food!

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First you need to either cover your cake in fondant or a crusting buttercream.  Let either of them set up a little bit before you use the stencils.  Place the stencil on the spot you want the design at and either hold it carefully or tape it to the cake if you are using fondant…sorry about the bad lighting! 

Next take your royal icing and carefully cover all of the exposed cake/stencil with the icing.  

Then take your small offset spatula, bench scraper, or hemming ruler and scrape off the excess icing.

Then pull off your stencil and look at your masterpiece!  

Then I added a sugar rose to the top corner and called it a day!

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Now onto the next module photos…wedding cakes/specialty cakes!  After just three more classes these are some of the cakes that they designed.  I was so excited to see their finished cakes and thought they did a great job!  The next module is one sculpted specialty cakes!

I just had to put a close up of these adorable fondant love birds!

So drop these ladies a comment and tell them which cake you loved!

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Now onto the last set of San Francisco photos.  These photos are from my trip to I Dream of Cake, which is probably one of the most amazing cake design studios out there.  Definitely stop by and check out their website…it is AMAZING!!!  Also here are some of the photos I took of their storefront.  

The second spot in the day was to Kara’s Cupcakes which is located in Ghirardelli Square. I have read numerous things about Kara’s Cupcakes and couldn’t wait to try them for myself.  

I ordered their Passion Fruit Cupcake & Peanut Butter Milk Chocolate Ganache Cupcake…both were quite delicious!

Definitely a happy day in San Francisco!

I also wanted to say THANK YOU to The Bumbling Baker for my E for Excellent Award and Piece of Cake for my Kreativ Blogger Award!!! Thanks so much ladies!

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Normally I don’t really like most of the breadsticks that restaurants put out at the beginning of the meal, but Citizen Cake changed my mind…these were delicious!

This was AMAZING!!!  Sadly I didn’t get any good photos of the mushroom risotto I had for dinner, but let me tell you…it was one of the best tasting dinners I have had in a while.

Of course I had to get my favorite dinner…A MOJITO!

This dessert was so yummy too!  It was their version of a deconstructed Red Velvet Cake.  

Now onto Tartine…basically the best place for breakfast & dessert at the same time!

Now for a bite of pure heaven order one of those…their Pain Au Chocolate.

Their savory food is just as scrumptious!

And of course we had to buy those two little treats to eat back at the hotel!

Well, I have one more treat in store for you….I also stopped by a local gourmet grocery store since I heard that their homemade ice cream is to die for.   So here it is, the most delicious ice cream I have ever put my lips to from Bi-Rite Creamery!!!

It was soooo good!

I just wish I could’ve tried all of their flavors.

Just so you make sure you get the name…Malted Vanilla with Peanut Brittle and Milk Chocolate!  You have to try it!

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One of the first stops along the way was to Miette Patisserie!  They actually have two different locations and we got a chance to eat at one and at least peer into the other one at night.  Everything we ate there was amazingly delicious and absolutely gorgeous.  

Here is a photo of the confiserie at night.

The next stop in the day was to Recchiuti Confections and Scharffen Berger Chocolate…both extremely yummy!

Next on the list was something a little savory, so we stopped by Acme Bread and The Cowgirl Creamery. Then we went outside and enjoyed the day!

Tim even enjoyed an oyster…something I just couldn’t bring myself to do!

Before leaving we also stopped by Ciao Bella Gelato…one of my favorite gelato places! 

From the photos you can see that we had a day full of fun and lots of food!  Get ready for some more photos!

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