Above are the “pre” presents. I didn’t know how many I would eventually need or want, so I just kept making them while watching The Great British Baking Show for overall baking inspiration.

Creating Courtney

It took me a long time to figure out how to make a tiny “lifelike” version of Courtney. Let it be known, my first iteration looked like this (see below). Not *terrible*, but far from great. And definitely at least 3x as large as it needed to be. I also had no plan for how to create Courtney’s delicate face, so I followed along with a YouTube tutorial. After about ~5 tries, I came up with something loosely resembling a real person.

Then I moved on to baking and frosting the cakes. Here I am deep in thought trying to remember how to cold carve buttercream. Tricky, to say the least. And it’s not the most flattering shot of me, but, I suppose this *is* what I look like. So be it.

The “18” topper was also made from fondant

The Aftermath….

December 2023

My daughter is a December baby and I’ve always been very careful to separate her birthday from Christmas. But this year, she was game to embrace the month and go full bore with a Christmas cake and a gingerbread house decorating bonanza.

The trickiest part for me was to figure out how to make the climbing Santa… especially a climbing Santa carrying a tree. Looking at the cake now, it seems like Santa could have really used a longer ladder. It kinda seems like he’s looking up, wide eyed, at the ladder thinking “How in the world am I supposed to get up to and ON the dang thing?!”

October 2022

My daughter turned 18 this year. I felt like she needed a more mature cake, so I decided on a triple layer chocolate ganache filled layer cake — topped with fresh flowers from her grandma’s beautiful garden.

Still need to practice how to attach sprinkles to a tall cake. Clearly, I winged it, which is pretty much what I do with every cake I make and decorate, even after all these years. Winging it is my superpower.

December 2022

This year, my daughter wanted to have a roller skating party. We went to the Church of 8 Wheels in San Francisco, which is just like it sounds…. an abandoned church that has been converted into a roller rink.

Everyone was a bit wobbly on their skates so there was lots of skating in groups and holding hands. Which also meant there was a lot of “If you’re going down, I’m going down too.”

DECEMBER 2021

I was feeling particular homesick so this seemed like an appropriate theme for my daughter’s 15th birthday.  Both of my kids feel like Hawaii is their second home and love it as much as I do.

We talked about all of the things we love and the first things we do when we get there. It’s always:  Beach, Willow Tree Kalbi for dinner, Agnes’ malasadas for breakfast.

Work in progress:

The shell was the first thing I made because I knew it was going to be the most difficult. And I was right.  The shape, the pointy bits, the ridged interior…. I almost feel like the success of this shell was kind of an accident.  Below is  a photo of the inspiration.  My dad found it somewhere in the waters of the South Pacific and now it sits on a shelf in my house.

Plumeria

Malasadas. Basically donuts,  but not really. I’m not a donut fan, but these Portuguese donuts are magical. And a tradition.  I would never consider eating three glazed donuts in one sitting, but I think nothing of it when it’s a malasada.  It’s the same way I think about cookie dough. I’d NEVER eat eight cookies in one sitting, but when it’s dough??? I easily have 4 giant spoonfuls of dough each time and could  likely eat the whole batch and never get ’em in the oven. I made up the term  “Cookie Doughn’t Count” to explain this phenomenon.

Manoa Chocolate. We are obsessed with this chocolate and are members of their monthly subscription club which means each member get three bars delivered every month.

Willow Tree Kalbi with rice and kimchee.  Our first night tradition. Always.

Shave Ice.  I *think* this one is my favorite. The ice is colored sanding sugar and the straw is a toothpick I colored with a red Sharpie.

Requisite Palm Tree. This involved a lot of wire and time as I had to wait for everything to dry before I could assemble it.  And of course, one of the palm fronds cracked in half so I “glued” it back together with royal icing.

Finished products, different angle.

One very very happy birthday girl.

October 2021

The idea started brewing (no pun intended) when I saw the witch legs sticking out of a neighbor’s front hedge.

How cute, I thought, if those were sticking out of the top of a cake.  But then I thought, if the witch had accidentally nose-dived into the cake, what would be happening to her broomstick or whatever she was carrying?

And thus, the idea was born.  And my mind kept thinking, “Oh! and I could do this. And that… ! And how cute would it be if…”    Hence a cake with eyeballs, spiders, webs, and of course, a giant candy sack and of course… candy.

I’ll admit I got a bit carried away with the candy…

I also got a bit carried away with the cake part. I found two chocolate cake recipes – one from The Violet Bakery Cookbook and one from Luscious Chocolate Desserts. One called for dutched cocoa and the other for natural cocoa.  Hmmmmmmmm.  I decided this would be a good opportunity for a taste test, although I’ll be honest: I still have no idea which one I prefer.  I’m going to have to make them again to be sure.

Regardless, I ended up with a 4 layer cake and covered it in black buttercream, then marshmallow webs.

Then the fun part:  decorating.  And going overboard with the candy, as I’ve already said.  Hence the name, Halloween Cake Cakeophony.

The cake was a huge hit and as always, I’ve come away from the experience with a lot of “Next time, I’ll try this…”