25th Anniversary Cake

My parents 25th Anniversary....

I'm so proud of the example my parents have left my siblings and I! We celebrated by throwing a suprise party for them.

Cruise Desserts

We got back from our 7 day Southern Carribean cruise with our best friends Matthew and Lindsay 2 weeks ago and I can still smell the amazing desserts! I am always so impressed with the desserts on cruises! No boxed cake mixes or tub icings... just wonderful scratch made desserts. Working in this industry I have gotten quite spoiled.... so I went having pretty high expectations. Our Cruise did NOT dissapoint me, in the least!

These are just a few of the reasons why we all gained a couple pounds........

My hubby's apple dessert, he loves apple and cinnamon!





Warm Chocolate Melting Cake.... Classic! My Favorite!!!

 They ate ice cream a couple times a day

Dessert buffet.... yep that's my plate :)

Swan Cream Puff

                                                                      Dessert Buffet 

                                                                                             

My brother is in Medical School on St. Kitt's island, so we got to spend all day with him. That was my favorite thing about the cruise! He took us to this little cafe. It was very neat to see a different cultures take on pastries!                

A few of highlights of our cruise....

St. Kitts (One of the most Beautiful views we've ever seen)



With my brother Ricky

All this = The time of our lives!!!



Yeah... we work out :)

Elle the Elephant

  So I really gave my little sister Maranda high expectations when I made my other sister, Leah, a shaped Lady bug (leah-bug) cake for her birthday. So Maranda says to me, "I want an elephant cake for my birthday!" So here it is.....

My little sister Maranda's 14th birthday cake

                          Beautiful little sister Maranda

                   All edible fondant



The legs were rice krispie treats 



My mom couldn't bear 2 let me cut the head :)



          

                                       

Happy Birthday to my beautiful blue-eyed sister Maranda! I LOVE YOU!

Desserts... Chocolate, Chocolate, and more Chocolate

Chocolate Showpiece in my college Chocolate's Class

M <3 J     :)

Chocolate's at schoolThe brown and white were dolce de leche chocolate's

Chocolate "Sushi"

Chocolate dessert in college Plated Desserts class

My Chocolate butler

Yep, that's a WHITE Chocolate  swan :)

Chocolate

cakes with chocolate ganache for the church bake sale

 

RECIPE FOR EXTRA CAKE TRIMMINGS

 Trifle: Alternating layers of

Chocolate cake trimmings (cut into squares),

Real whipped Cream,

Vanilla Pudding,

 and

Toffee Crunch

(I'm not gonna lie, it was Awesome!) :)

Chocolate dipped pretzels

Chocolate cake with chocolate ganache

 

My Hubby's Birthday.... and a cake on a budget

Just recently celebrated St. Patrick's Day with my hubby by participating in the St. Louis Dogtown Parade. Yep... he's a March baby!




  So the story of his birthday cake starts out like this........

 Jeremy- "I don't want you spending any money on me a birthday cake!"
  Me- "What, how am I gonna do that?!" 
 Jeremy- "We are over budget this month, so just make me something with stuff you already have here at the house."

We have been successfully doing the Dave Ramsey money makeover for about a year and a half now and have a budget every month.
 (A small note that is has been so Wonderful for us! We now only owe money on school loans and our house. No other debt!!! In the first year we started it, we paid off almost $10,000 of debt, included in that were our cars. Yay for no car payments!!!)

Needless to say our paychecks were a little smaller this month..... so that is no bueno! So I was stuck to using only what I had in the house!

My mind started running and this is what I was able to come up with.....

I didn't have quite enough ingredients to make the cake or buttecream from scratch, so I used a box of devils food cake mix that has been sitting in my pantry for quite some time now, as well as a tub of premade white icing. I had cream and chocolate so I was able to make ganache. You can pretty much make anything taste good by slathering some ganache on it! Yumm!

 Jeremy's favorite colors... BLUE and ORANGE

A Happy Happy Birthday wish to my hubby and the LOVE of my life, Jeremy! <3

The In Laws .... and my true feelings

The In Laws....... 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

 Yeah, I guess that could be a touchy subject for some people ..... but it's NOT for me...... because I LOVE them SO much! :) Love you all!!!

 

I HAD to put this in here, because I think it will give my father-in-law, Randy, a good laugh! hahaha!

I made this cake for Randy's (my father-in-law) Surprise 50th birthday party held at our house. It was fun to work on and I got to use my cricut cake for the first time while making it!! Yipee!! When I was thinking about what kind of cake to make him I immediately had so many ideas come to mind..... because..... HE LOVES SO MANY THINGS!! haha! So I said to my hubby, "What about doing a cake with several different things that he's really into combined onto it?" He loved the idea.......... and this is what I came up with........ 

                Mizzou...

                                                                 Cardinals...

                                                                         And... Hunting

*This was one of my favorite aspects! :)

A Happy Happy 50th Birthday Wish to my father-in-law Randy!

HAHA! Love You! :)