Candied Orange Wedding Cake

Fall Dessert Buffet

A fall themed dessert buffet with the following items: Salted Caramel mini cupcakes, Chocolate Peanut Butter mini cupcakes, S'mores parfaits, Chocolate Strawberry truffle pops, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough truffle pops, and Raspberry Cheesecake brownie bites. Also featuring new dessert stands in black and gold.  (See "Dessert Buffet" tab for pricing information).

Halloween 40th Birthday Cake

We all know that the big "4-0" can be scary. Especially when it is served up like this. This cake was for our friend and neighbor Darren on his big birthday. The bottom tier was a German chocolate cake with coconut pecan filling. The top tier was vanilla cake with strawberry filling. Both tiers were covered in butter cream icing and wrapped in a coffin of chocolate fondant. On the bottom layer, I added tombstones of marbled fondant and bright fondant pumpkins. I drew on the wording (and the bats) with a food writer marker, then added a little greenery and candy bones to finish it off. For the final touch, I brushed on a coat of luster dust and sprinkled on some edible star glitter for a spooky night sky. On the top tier, I free-hand piped a spooky design in orange frosting and added white chocolate sculls around the sides. For the top of the cake, I crumbled a chocolate cupcake and stuck the crumbs on top with some chocolate frosting. Then I balanced a cupcake on a large flower nail in the middle. To hold the cupcake, I created a skeleton hand poking out of the "dirt". I dipped pretzel twists (and smaller pretzel pieces) in white chocolate and chilled them to harden. Once the chocolate was set, I pieced the pretzel bones into a hand, using melted chocolate to glue the pieces together. (I have to admit, I impressed myself with this idea!) Then I topped the cupcake with chocolate frosting and a big chocolate "4" and "0". I put a few white chocolate bones on top of the dirt and piped on a birthday message to finish my spooky masterpiece. The best part of this project: I actually got to eat a slice! Happy 40th Darren! We'll drink to that! ;)

Halloween Birthday Bat Cake

I can't take credit for this design since a friend of mine sent me a page out of a magazine that spelled out how to make this cute cake, but as always I took some liberties. While the magazine used "snowball" cupcakes from the market for the eyes, I used Oreos dipped in white chocolate. I also added some Oreo ears. I used a dab of icing to stick the cupcakes to the board in hopes that they made it to the party in tact. The cake was vanilla with my chocolate butter cream frosting. I thought it was a cute idea. **A note to any do-it-yourselfers out there: 2 quarter sheet cakes placed side by side will not fit in a standard fridge, so plan accordingly!**

Superhero Halloween Cake

So what do you get when you cross Halloween and boy birthdays? Spooky Superheros! Our birthday boy, who's birthday party was on Halloween this year, was very specific about which superheroes he wanted on his cake: Spider Man, Iron Man, and a Green Power Ranger. So I created this design to encorporate everything for his party. The base cake was a square layer cake (chocolate chocolate chip) covered in chocolate icing and topped with chocolate cookie crumbs to look like dirt. I piped the white iron fence with royal icing. The grass was piped on with regular icing and topped with mallowcreme candy pumpkins. The spooky gingerbread house was actually a cake as well, covered in piped icing, complete with shutters of Fruit Stripe gum, candy corn eaves, and a Necco wafer roof. I hand made each of the superheroes from brightly colored fondant; I drew in details on Spider Man with a food marker and painted the other characters with luster dust. I think it turned out really fun and not too spooky, but still very Halloween-y. Mom loved it - hopefully the birthday boy did too. Hope you had a Super-fun birthday party Ryan!

Spooky Skeleton Cupcakes

Boo! These cupcakes were for a spooky Halloween party. I tried to keep them a little more "grown up" than usual. I used a chocolate mold for the pile of bones, and molded my own chocolate tombstones. The tombstone cupcakes were topped with chocolate cookie crumb "dirt" and the other cupcakes were rolled in different sprinkles The skull faces were also white chocolate which I molded in a cute ice cube tray that I found. The white chocolate was all dusted with cocoa powder to make it a little more spooky and bring out the details of the molds. The cupcakes were chocolate chocolate chip ("devils' food - what else?) and pumpkin pecan. It was really fun to do some different spooky designs this year. Hope they were to "die" for!

Oreo Cookie Pops

For me, October is synonymous with CHOCOLATE! Maybe that's why it's my favorite month. So I thought I would post this little photo. Chocolate dipped treats are a staple in my house, and a really easy project for mass gift giving. I made these pops by dipping oreo cookies (golden oreos and regular) in milk chocolate for a kids' Halloween party we attended. They are delicious, and who doesn't like food on a stick? I was excited this time because I made my own candy decorations out of royal icing this time. I've been known to just use sprinkles in the past, which are cute and easy. But I was in the mood to make spooky candy toppers this year. I was even too lazy to tint the royal icing orange for my candy pumpkins, so I just sprinkled orange sugar on the wet white frosting. It turned out kind of fun. The pumpkin stems and ghost eyes are just jimmies that I stuck into the frosting before it dried. These are great for any holiday or occasion, or a great addition to a dessert buffet. They look adorable with a little cellophane bag and bow. I also do chocolate dipped marshmallows, which are surprisingly addictive. Mmmm...I wonder if I have any left downstairs?

Spookytown!

So I discovered a new talent this year - styrofoam carving! For the past few years, we have been collecting pieces for a miniature Halloween village. On a trip to the Department 56 store in Downtown Disney this fall, we were inspired to create a kick*&$ display like the one they had in the store (did you see it? it was awesome!) So we went dumpster diving to find all the styrofoam (our part in "going green" this year - reuse & recycle!), got a "hot wire" tool for carving, bought some spray paint & went crazy! I created this display which is customized for our particular Spookytown pieces, so in the "grotto" was our mummy and pirate pieces, and on the top level was our "town" pieces (Frankenstein's lab, the cemetary, dead man's mine, haunted houses, etc). The whole thing got several coats of spray paint (I discovered that oil-based spray paint eats away the styrofoam! Actually, it made a really cool "lava rock" type effect). The layers are held together with bamboo skewers. And the bottom level "grotto" got a thin layer of sand glued on. And the water we created by painting the styrofoam, then covering the area with clear caulking and painting the "white caps" with white acrylic paint. The waterfall was a mixture of blue cellophane, clear saran wrap, and hot glue. Topped off with some aquarium gravel rocks and dried moss, Spookytown was quite the holiday display this year. To check out more photos of our Spookytown, you can access the Lemax Spookytown website with the following link:http://www.lemax-spookytown.com/Displays/HalloweenDisplay2008.asp. Look for "Jeremy & Jennifer Stonebarger" towards the bottom of the list and click on our names. The whole thing was quite a project, but alot of fun. So all of you Department 56 or Lemax collectors out there, if you need a custom display built, let me know!!

Pumpkin Party Invitation

My husband and I love Halloween! This was an invitation to our annual Pumpkin Carving Party. The card comes as pictured on the right, a simple black fold over jacket with the party info on the cover. At the top, the tab says "pull". When the invitee pulls the card from the top, another card pops out from the bottom of the invitation as well!(see photo on the left.) My guests were talking about that invitation for weeks! It's a fun idea and can be adapted to any occasion.