Chef Gio & the Giant Pizza

Last year Gio was interested in the beach and Guitar Hero. Since then, he's found a new love---cooking! His party was a full blown pizza fest with a local pizza chef coming to teach the kids how to throw authentic Italian pizza.

For the birthday cake, I made a personalized pizza box (yellow cake with cheesecake mousse filling) and a stacked pizza (milk chocolate cake with malted chocolate ganache filling). The cake boards were made to look like an Italian eatery tablecloth and a wooden pizza peel. In addition to the cakes, I added a chef's hat made from Rice Krispie Treats and hand modeled Chef Gio holding a mini pizza. Each cake flavor served 20 comfortably.

All of the pizza decorations--tomatoes, pepperoni, olives, green peppers--are hand modeled fondant. The "cheese" was shaved white chocolate. The "tomato sauce" is red buttercream.

The birthday boy loved the cake and save mini Chef Gio to watch over him in the family kitchen.

Wildcats & Buckeyes!

A young lady, who I first met when she was 18 months old, was graduating from Mayfield High School, home of the Wildcats. She'll be attending The Ohio State University in the Fall, where Buckeyes rule.

She requested a cake for her family graduation party that would represent both schools.

The 11x15, 30 serving, cake was marbled white and green (high school colors) with chocolate raspberry truffle filling. All decorations are handmade fondant. The diploma is fully edible and made using pretzel rods and white chocolate candy clay.

The Art of the Cake Competition Cleveland 2009

The 2nd annual Art of the Cake Competition was held here in Cleveland, OH at the Polaris Career Center the weekend of January 24-25, 2009. I entered the wedding cake competition where cakes were required to include black & white in the color scheme and had to be at least 3 tiers tall.

I took my inspiration from a Christian Dior Haute Couture gown from his 2007 Spring Collection. I titled it, "A-Dior-Able".

The 4 tier cake was covered in turquoise and white fondant with handpainted inset round panels and piped black stitching embellishments. The floral topper is handmade gum paste. The obi separator was fondant covered styrofoam with applied black fondant cording for the bow. The decorative board is covered in fondant with hand painting and coordinating multi-ribbon trim.

In the 23 cake contest, I won "Most Artistic", as judged by 2 Master's of Fine Arts.

You can see all of the cakes in the contest at http://neohiodecorators.tripod.com/id16.html

In addition to the competition, which was open to the public on Saturday for a small admission fee, there were also mini classes in the sugar arts.

It was a wonderful experience and I can't wait until 2010!

On A Snowy Night In Cleveland---A Giant Snowflake!

This giant snowflake cupcake cake and figure skate cookies were made for a birthday party at an ice skating rink. As I was carefully prying individual snowflakes out of their cutters, a beautiful but heavy snow began to fall outside. Thankfully, we were on time for the delivery!

The giant snowflake is made up of 25 individual vanilla buttermilk cupcakes iced with vanilla buttercream. The cupcakes are lightly adhered to the decorative board so that removal is easy. The snowflakes are edible gum paste and the entire cake is pearlized and sprinkled with iridescent cake sparkles.

The figure skate cookies are vanilla butter cookies covered with vanilla fondant, piped royal icing blue laces, and hand painted silver blades. Each cookie bag was decorated with a silver snowflake sticker.

It was a pleasure to make these for 10 year old Jessa--even if the real snowflakes did make delivery "interesting".......

'Tis the Season for saying thank-you!

I donated a certificate for a 50 serving cake to the Epilepsy Foundation and the good folks at the Gebauer Company were the winning bidders. They ordered a chocolate chocolate cake with raspberry filling and chocolate buttercream frosting as a centerpiece cake for their winter holiday party at the Cleveland Skating Club.

The sign is an exact replica of the one that greets visitors to the Gebauer plant complex. It was made out of Rice Krispie Treats, covered in fondant, and scored to replicate the stonework. The logos and address were impressed with an alphabet press and colored with food grade markers. The snow is royal icing. The rocks are marbled fondant and the hand modeled cardinal is the state bird of Ohio.

"Weighty" Birthday Cookies and the World's Smallest Violins

The hexagonal cookies were made for a gentleman celebrating his 45th birthday. He was a power lifter in his teenage years, hence the barbells. Each cookie was individually wrapped because they were going to be shipped. To minimize the possibility of damage to the decoration, the inscription was done using edible food markers. The cookies are vanilla sugar cookies covered in fondant.

The violin cookies were made as favors for a private party honoring a Grammy-nominated violinist hoping to release a solo CD . Each cookie is about 4 inches tall and includes all of the parts of a real violin. The strings are piped from royal icing and the rest of the decoration is hand-cut fondant.

Custom Logo Cookies

These cookies were made using a hand-cut, custom stencil. They're vanilla sugar cookies covered with vanilla rolled fondant.

The background color matches the New York Life logo. The small cookies are marbled fondant with piped royal icing letters.