And here is the final cake! 

The original concept was, of course, to donate this cake to the staff at a local recycling center.  Current circumstances are making that a bit difficult, but I"m on the hunt today for deserving stewards of the planet of ours.  

And last, but certainly not least -- if you haven't checked out the Sustainable Travel Store you're missing out!  The store is the brainchild of one of my best friends and amazing boss-babe.  She has a passion for sustainability, so much so that she left the security of her corporate job to dedicate her time to making this planet better for us all by giving travelers the tools to travel sustainably!  And then Covid-19 happened.  Supporting small businesses - and supporting our planet - is more important than ever right now.  I know you're at home reading this ... because there is nowhere else to be, so check it out!  Here are a few favorites ...

Naturally Clean Hands Kit - I bought this to support my friend, AND because finding hand sanitizer was as hard as finding toilet paper.  I love the hand sanitizer and I use it every time I get in and out of my car.  The big surprise for me was the Green Goo Skin Repair.  I used it on my lips which had gotten horribly chapped and cracked.  After days of using regular chapstick I saw this in my purse and tried it.  Within one day my lips were healed.  LOVE IT!

Foldable Water Bottle - I got this for my sister who is a busy mom of two young boys and is constantly on-the-go.  She loves how lightweight it is and so easy to store in her diaper bag. 

Happy Earth Day to you all!
​- Holly

It all started with a bit of a time warp, but as they say, they house has good bones.  See below for a little trip back to the 1970 in the "before" photos ... 

I'm working with an amazing contractor, if you're considering any work on your house I would give Neighbors Construction my highest recommendation!  It has been an overwhelming and surreal and exciting process redesigning this house, I keep having to pinch myself.  I'm living in a construction zone right now, but this is how it's coming along!

Construction should be done in a couple weeks, I'll post the final photos when that happens! Until then, stay tuned :) 

To be even more clear, I reserve the right to refuse any order that in any way glamorizes violence​, including video games such as Call of Duty and Fortnite.  What constitutes "glamorizing violence" is 100% my discretion.  

I got into cake decorating to make people happy, to bring joy.  That is what I remain committed to.  If my "no gun zone" policy offends you, I'm not sorry.  

 I got a lot of questions so I thought I'd share a look behind-the scenes.  Here's how it was done. 

It all started with a an outline of a guitar that I found online and printed it to the exact final size of the cake. From there, my amazing handy-dad used the template to trace the shape onto a piece of wood and meticulously cut out the shape into what becomes a wooden template followed by several more hours of cutting and filing and shaping and perfecting.  

And finally, it's a guitar!

Next the "shelves" for the cake are added and it's screwed onto the cake board and it's ready for cake! (almost, I did wrap the wood in foil to make it food safe, and the wood cake board was covered in fondant, textured and painted to look like, well, wood - haha!). 

So that's how it's done!  Thank yo so much to my dad for making this cake possible. And for also being my delivery assistant (sitting in the back of his own car) for a very scary drive from Long Beach to Orange on a hot fall day!

One last thing, the design of the cake - for those of you who weren't teenagers in the 90's - is inspired by Excalibur - a "'64 Fender Stratocaster in classic white, with triple single-coil pickups and a whammy bar." If anyone is feeling saucy and wants to purchase this cake, I accept cash (cha-ching!) 

My inspiration for this year's entry was the royal wedding - Meghan and Harry.  I wanted to create a cake for them as if I had the honor of doing so.   I wanted to incorporate some non-traditional design elements - since they are the royal rule-breakers - but I still wanted it to have a nod to tradition.   Finally, I wanted to include the Pantone color of the year, Ultraviolet.  

So this is what I came up with.  The top and bottom tier are made of wafer paper, which edible paper that is made of either rice or potato.  It's one of my absolute favorite mediums to use. The second tier down features a floral bas relief texture.  I'm obsessed with textures and this is one of my favorite.  The third tier down is a custom mixture of colored rock candy, jimmies and drages.  Again - I'm obsessed with texture - and I wanted a super dark tier to contrast the crisp pure white of the wafer paper.  

Finally, the sugar flowers.  This was the scary/pushing myself aspect of the cake.  I've made many sugar flowers before, but I had yet to make a giant cascading spray down the side of a cake.   I was up for the challenge.  Included in the spray are seven English Roses, three Casa Blanca Lilies and a handful of flowers that frankly, I made up.  Haha!  

I absolutely adore this cake, I hope you do too.  

And a big huge thank you to Nola Fontez Photography for these amazing photos.  ​

So here is the lesson.  ALWAYS TAKE YOUR PHOTOS BEFORE THE KIDS ARRIVE! You're never going to stop kid fingers from finding cake (again, they are magnets).  But you can take photos of the cake before the two collide.  You're welcome.

I love me some mid-century modern (in fact that was my theme for my 2016 Orange County Fair cake decorating competition entry).  So I was thrilled with I met with Becky & Sue for their tasting and they told me this was their wedding theme.  The orange ombre was such a cool and bold choice and it perfectly complimented the venue (The Modern). The starburst was an important feature to them, as it was on their wedding invitations, and proved to be a fun challenge for me to figure out 1) how to make it, and 2) how to affix it to the cake.  This cake required careful precision ... no boo-boos allowed as there were no flowers, no decor, no nothing to cover up any imperfections.  Often, "simple" cakes are more work and take more time than highly detailed cakes.  Simplicity is not so simple, or as I always tell clients who ask for a "simple" cake .... simplicity is in the eye of the beholder.)  But in this case, the final product was simply stunning.  

Combed and textured buttercream wedding cakes are a big trend right now - giving off a simple, rustic, elegant vibe.  Applying the texture to the buttercream is done freehand and is a nice change of pace from the fine precision of a fondant cake.  Each one comes out differently, they are like snowflakes, no two can be exactly alike.  And then there are the sugar flowers.  I LOVE making flowers.  This cake has three types: rose, ranunculus and peony.  Roses are the easiest & fastest for me to make.  Peonies require a lot of practice, and patience.  A very thin wire gets threaded through each very thin petal, and if I've done my job right, you can't see that darn wire!  The ranunculus is a beast of a project.  Each petal is individually cut, cupped and placed.  But they are gorgeous.  

I always put the sugar flowers on the cake when I arrive at the venue, never before.  So it's a special treat for me to finally see the finished cake.  I was so happy with how this cake turned out. And once the amazingly talented Megan Papageorge of Sweet Peach Planning finished setting up the dessert bar around the cake, I was in love.  

I'm totally biased here, I can't lie.  There is one little kid I love more than all the other little kids in the world, my nephew Lars. So I can't help but love his cake the most!! For his second birthday, my sister requested a cake with his two favorite things: 1. Trains (or choo-choos) and 2. Cats (or nanos, yes, he called them nanos) - this a train with Cutians cat passengers.  Lars' birthday comes at a particularly busy time of year - July.  That is smack dab in the middle of wedding season and it's also when my OC Fair cake competition entry is always due.  Before even starting his cake, I was already burnt out.  May and June had been particularly busy months.  July was even busier, and I was no where close to being done with my OC Fair entry (which was due in 3 days).  I knew I needed to muster up the energy to do right by my favorite little dude - knowing I had some long days and late nights of work ahead.  

The hard work paid off (as it always does).  But this cake was particularly satisfying since I got to see the reaction - my favorite part!  After singing Happy Birthday, I had a brief moment of horror as I watched my nephew reach out and grab one of the cats off the cake.  It's my natural reaction - don't touch the cake!  But two seconds later I realized he was PLAYING with the cat and the train.  It made my heart melt and re-energized me.  It was just the thing I needed, and bonus, we got it on video!! 

This cake was a beast.  On the bottom is a 14" round cake that stands 5" tall.  On top of that are not one, but TWO 12" round cakes stacked on top of each other (this is called a double-barrel cake) to make one extra tall tier.  I called her the big-mama.  On top of her was a 10" round cake and a 6" square cake.  Not to mention the gravity-defying syrup pour effect.  All told, the cake was over 3 feet tall.  There were so many challenges with this cake.  Just the sheer size of bottom two tiers required a lot of pre-planning in regards to the construction of the cake to make sure it would be stable & secure when stacked.  This is something people don't think of when ordering a wedding or special event cake and wonder why the price is "so high." Construction time and materials aren't the most glamorous part of the cake order, but it's absolutely necessary.  A cake isn't just flour and butter, it's an engineering project.  

I had been dying to try this scallop technique (middle tier), so I was super excited when Debbie & Jon picked this design from the options I presented.  I knew it was going to be a time-consuming technique and I did my best to estimate my time.  But holy moly was I way off.  Each scallop has 8 individually cut and cupped petals.  Then each petal is glued and stacked to create one scallop.  There are at least 30 scallops on this cake, so that's 240 individually cut and cupped and stacked petals.  Even with help, I was way past the time I estimated.  But with the last scallop in place, I did a little happy dance.  It was gorgeous!! 

This category is a tie.  There was no way I could break it.  

I regularly get requests for several, ahem, "exotic" cakes (and I've made a couple).  Those are always funny phone calls.  But one Saturday afternoon I got a call from a mother looking for cake in the shape of ... an ear.  I advised her that while I've never done and ear cake (because, who has!), I was certain I was up for the job.  Then she told me the story - that her beautiful 8 year old girl was born without an ear, and she was throwing an Ear Party to celebrate the surgery she just had to construct her new ear.  Yes, you heard that right, an Ear Party!  I loved it.  Life isn't always roses and butterflies (surprise!), but if you can find a way to have fun and laugh through the tough times, it's so much easier.  I loved being a part of this fun and quirky celebration.  

I just couldn't leave this one out.  This cake made me so happy to make.  I got an email from a gal who said she was just coming out of a tough time personally, and was throwing herself a party to celebrate the beginning of a new chapter in life.  I thought that was so amazing and beautiful.  So often we are our own worst critics, we say things to ourselves that we would never in a million years say about our friends and loved ones.  I just felt this was such a special celebration and I was honored to help make it festive.  

I've done it a million times - watched an online tutorial on a new technique and executed it with little to no problems.  I had every expectation that this would be no different.  I was wrong.  To make these bubbles, you blow up a bunch of water balloons in various sizes.  Then each balloon is coated in shortening and dipped in a colored gelatin mixture.  Once the gelatin hardens, you pop the balloon and pull it out.  And voila!  You're left with a perfect bubble shell.  Sounded a bit time-consuming with lots of steps, but generally easy enough.  The bubbles you see on this cake were my third batch.  The first batch I didn't put enough shortening on the balloons, so they didn't detach from the gelatin when the balloon was popped.  The second batch I popped too early and the "bubbles" looked more like raisins.  I wanted to scream! I probably did.  Finally, third time was a charm! 

The cake they featured was one I had done for a wedding in April at the Long Beach Museum of Art.  Fittingly, the bride wanted an artsy watercolor cake to compliment the venue.   This is also a big trend so I was delighted to add this to my portfolio.