Cupcakes Galore

Lately, it seems that all my cake adventures involve cupcakes.  I love the flexibility of cupcakes.  They're quick to bake.  I can pipe the tops lickety-split.  You can easily have multiple flavours available. There are so many pretty wrappers easily available. No need for forks and plates, so they’re fast on clean-up. 

If you’re making the mini ones, they’re adorable just because of their size.   Who can resist things like two-bite brownies or the mini cinnamon rolls.  Mini cupcakes are just the same. Only potential downside, needing to make extras since you know people will want more than one!

It started with Hunter & Chris’s wedding. 

When scheduling craziness meant we didn’t have a large room we could use while we celebrated a co-worker’s upcoming marriage, I decided cupcakes were a good choice for their portability. 

Lemon Nutmeg cupcakes with Blueberry Buttercream was perfect for a bride-to-be who loves lemon and whose wedding colours are dark purple and lime green.  I made my own blueberry syrup and added it to the buttercream along with a little extra colouring to achieve a good purple colour. I  thoroughly enjoyed doodling lime green circles on top for decoration.

I do have to confess to a near transportation disaster.  I was in a rush that day.  I had five extra cupcakes that didn’t fit on the big tray, but I thought I should bring them along just in case. The big tray and the little plate were sitting on the back seat of my car, in what I thought was a reasonable secure fashion.  Not so much!  The first stop the bottom of my hill had me reaching fast to ensure the large tray stayed put, but the little plate … sigh… they became closely acquainted with my floor mat and squeegee brush.  Sad.

Thankfully, the big tray survived; it turned out we didn’t need the extras; and you get to see the really cute cupcake wrappers I found. 

Did I mention that the Lemon Nutmeg cake that I made for Noah’s birthday and then for Hunter & Chris’s wedding have become a family favourite? Thought I’d point that out just in case you missed how often it’s been made lately. You can find the recipe in this post.

When my dad needed dessert for a community group picnic for almost 80 people, cupcakes were the right choice for ease of distribution and consistent portions. Those Lemon Nutmeg cupcakes appeared again, but this time they had Mexican Vanilla Buttercream and coloured sugar sprinkles.  Add gingham print cupcake wrappers and you’ve got picnic perfect.  To give some additional flexibility, I also made some mini cupcakes for those who wanted just a little bite of dessert.

This weekend, I was busy making Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting for a surprise birthday celebration at work.  Have I mentioned how much I like using Wilton’s mini cupcake stand.  It’s so easy to assemble and always looks pretty.

Today’s bonus discovery.  If you freeze the mini Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting (perhaps because you’re desperate to stop the icing from melting in the heart!), they are delicious straight from the freezer.  Because of the small size, they’re not too hard to bite into, and the frozen Cream Cheese Frosting is, well, awesome!

Happy Birthday Train

It’s not sensible, but when someone asks me if I can make a cake for them, my first question is not when they need the cake. That would be the practical question, but it’s not what I need to know to make up my mind. 

My first question … well, actually, two questions … who is it for and what do they want the cake to look like.  That’s what makes the difference to whether or not I want to invest the time and effort in making a cake.  If it’s a cake that I’m intrigued to make or it’s for someone I care about or someone who is important to someone I care about, I’ll figure out a way to make the date work.

When a colleague asked me several months in advance if I’d make a cake for his son’s birthday, I knew I was going to say yes.  His son is adorable and I delight in the pictures his proud dad regularly updates on his computer.  The original idea was for something Max and Ruby related. I’ll admit that wouldn’t have been my favourite option for a design choice, but imagining the delight on a two year old face when his favourite characters were on the cake in front of him completely trumped any hesitation I had about the design.  I was all ready to use my piping gel transfer skills, or maybe even try out a frozen buttercream transfer.

When we confirmed the details a month before the birthday, my co-worker asked if there was any way I could do something train themed. His son had recently become a huge fan of trains.

I started to grin as I calmly asked, “Something flat on a cake or something 3D?” The wheels in my head were already turning.

I debated between carving a train or using the Wilton Choo Choo train pan.  When a flyer from the local craft store arrived with a fabulous coupon, I knew which way I was going. 

My first attempt with the train cake pan was, how shall I put this? … an unmitigated disaster. It is a very bad feeling when you look in the oven window and discover that more than a third of your batter is on the tray outside the cake pan.  ACK! 

I wish I’d thought to take a picture.  Looking back, it was pretty funny. In the moment, I was too busy panicking. After I took a moment to breathe, I looked at the other 3D pans I had and read through their instructions to see what I might have missed.  End result, I tied some butcher cord around the pan to help make sure it didn’t leak.  Second try, perfect … and it even came out of the pan well.

We’d also arranged that I would make some additional cupcakes for to take to his daycare, and some for the party as well, because we couldn’t resist the jungle cupcakes holder and picks.  Did I mention the first batch of chocolate cupcakes were too big to fit in the wrappers?  It was clearly a bad day for baking.  LOL!

The train is made from a very solid chocolate cake that I’ve used before in 3D pans so I knew it would stand up well.  The train car is a yummy lemon nutmeg cake which is particularly amazing when you add chocolate icing. 

While you couldn’t see a lot of it in the finished product, I wanted to include a train track under the cake.  Strips of black fondant with some cookies and cream sprinkles for the gravel worked really well.

To finish things off, I’d originally wanted to make a little fondant boy to peak out the engine window.  There wasn’t a solid way to attach him, so I decided that if a little boy couldn’t be driving the train, he’d want to be riding on top.  From the look on the birthday boy’s face, I know I got it just right.

I couldn’t resist taking one more picture once everything was loaded in my car for delivery.  My new car worked great!

Fizz Candies and a Chocolate Shoe

Some cakes are clearly meant to be made. When all of the little details come together so easily. When you find just the perfect source for the item you need to personalize the cake. When you literally stumble across exactly the right supply that you didn't even realize you were looking for. When the cake turns out better than the one in your imagination. When the look on the face of the recipient is even better than you could have hoped. That's when it's obvious the universe decided to lay a gift right in your hands.

Those are truly special cake adventures. They are so full of joy that you never want to stop decorating. They are precious because they don't come along everyday. Hmm… it’s probably good that they don’t, otherwise I’d never leave my kitchen!

When it was time to celebrate our new manager’s 50th birthday, my co-worker Stacy and I knew there was cake making to be done but the only thing we knew was that it wasn’t time to make another transport truck!  That’s clearly not something you want to repeat a few months later.

Thinking caps on, we decided to go with a Fabulous Fifty idea that included shoes and jewellery. We briefly thought about trying to make our own shoe out of chocolate … we’d made chocolate tires before, why not a shoe?  Then we thought better of that idea when I remembered a fabulous chocolate shoe that I’d seen at Chocolatas on Granville Island.  We made some phone calls, but couldn’t find anything comparable locally, so I placed an order and coordinated a trip over to Vancouver to see Tosca Cafe (which, by the way, was awesome!) with picking up an amazing blue shoe made from white chocolate.

I knew we’d made the right choice as soon as a I saw the shoe.  I took a picture less than 5 minutes later because I had to share my delight.  I really wanted to take the shoe with me to work on the Monday so that Stacy could see it in person, but I knew we’d be caught for sure … we wouldn’t have been able to keep the squeals of glee quiet!

So we had the shoe planned, but we still hadn’t figured out what to do for the jewellery.  Neither of us have any experience with sugar work and it seemed a little late to start learning when the cake was only a week or so away.  We didn’t want to have to use something non-edible. 

While we were still pondering our options, we got to work assembling some goodie bags for a Halloween fundraiser.  Some of the candies were a childhood favourite of mine, Lotsa Fizz. They used to come in a long strip, with individual pouches for the fizzy candy.  For me, they immediately bring back memories of the tuck shop at summer camp. 

Imagine our delight when we discovered two important facts.  One, our manger loves Fizz candies. There was a lot of rejoicing over the fact that they still make them even though they’re now in individual packages and are round instead of their old flat rectangular shape.  And two, the current batch of Fizz Candies?  They also added blue and green coloured candies, that just happen to be prominent colours in our manager’s wardrobe.  We quickly realized we had the perfect “beads” for a chunky bracelet. A little royal icing between to hold the candies together worked as spacers and made for super easy assembly.

We knew we wanted a simple design for covering the cake. We thought about making the fondant look quilted, but decided that would look too busy.  But we needed something to cover a few fondant issues … ever have one of those days when your fondant wrinkles no matter what you try?  Yup, me too! We decided to make our own fondant ribbon skirts for each cake. They helped balance the cake and matched well with the cake plate edge detail too.

Problem was, there was one visible flaw that ended up front and center.  Did I mention how much I love decorating with Stacy?  I came up with the idea of a bow and she came up with the perfect matching hat pin to use for securing the bow the next morning.

Oh, I almost forgot. The cakes were a delicious vanilla with lemon filling for the top cake and a divine chocolate with caramel filling for the bottom.  I need to get Stacy’s recipe for the lemon filling.  Talk about luscious lemon! 

We couldn’t have asked for a better response to the cake.  It was the talk of the office.  The shoe had such rave reviews that I sent a thank you email to Chocolatas.  They asked if they could post the picture and my email to their facebook page.  Of course I said yes!

Sometimes it’s all about finding just the right thing to make the cake perfect. 

Sometimes it’s all about knowing how to turn potential flaws into just the thing to complete the cake.

Sometimes, I’m pretty sure,  it’s also all just about dumb luck =)

Threadcakes 2011 … the rest of the story

 

"You're the cake decorator who said it was possible. I'm the kid with the high hopes. If we don't succeed, it's all on you."

That was my niece's comment when I was practically positive that I'd finally over-reached what I knew how to do with cake. I could easily picture all of our hours of work coming crashing down around us. Who really thought it was a good idea to say yes to making a cake with minimal support structure, that had the largest cake on the top, and that needed to look like the cakes were pointed at the bottom? Seriously, what had I been thinking?

Oh right. I remember. It's for a contest and I didn't what my niece to be disappointed. There's a long history of Aunt Karen making crazy cakes for my nieces' birthdays. I don't get to do it as often any more, but the tradition is still there. How could I not say yes when she took my suggestion seriously that we make her birthday cake together this year and make it an entry for Threadcakes 2011?

If you've never heard of Threadcakes, you should definitely check out the gallery on their website. There are some ridiculously amazing and complicated cakes that have been inspired by on printed Threadless t-shirts. My niece is a huge fan of their t-shirts. There were five new shirts already waiting at our house when she arrived this summer. She'd hunted through their designs, and picked Well Seasoned as her favourite. I knew it would be a challenge, but I had no idea how many hours of work or batches of cake, buttercream, rice krispies and fondant it was going to take.

We'd originally talked about making it on a small scale, but that was before we had figured out what we were going to use for our structure. A trip to the local Michaels store resulted in the purchase of a Wilton stand that used 10, 12 and 14 inch cakes. Suddenly the cake was getting much larger and that meant more rice krispie treats to attach to the bottom. There's no question that decision caused us some issues. I did learn a lot about working with rice krispie treats in cake decorating ... even if most of it was from learning what not to do first. Isn't that how all the best lessons are learned?

It might still be an understatement when I say that both of us were utterly exhausted by the time we were taking the final pictures. I wrote up our entry, sorted through all the pictures we'd taken to find the best ones to show the whole creation and eating process, then it was time to upload our photos and submit our entry. After looking at all the amazing 3D entries for 2011, we didn't think we had a chance of being in the top 5.  We had laughed a bunch along the way that Kerry Vincent (from Food Network Challenge) would not have approved of our technique, but we were proud of what we had accomplished.  If you’re curious, there are about 30 photos and lots more detail about the process in our Threadcakes entry.

After the winners were announced ... including several of our favourites ... they decided that a finalist banner would be added to all entries that had received at least one vote from the judging panel. The eleven judges all submitted a list of their top ten cakes. Imagine our surprise and our joy when we discovered that out of 190 3D entries, our creation was one of 35 3D finalists!

Crazy though it may be, we've already talked about making a Threadcake next year too. What can I say? The adventure was worth the exhaustion and the memories will last a lifetime.

Birthday Celebrations

I first taught myself to decorate cakes from pouring over a 1974 Wilton yearbook that my mom kept on her recipe shelf.  I’m not really sure why she had it.  They got married in 1963 so it wasn’t from deciding on her wedding cake and cake decorating has never really been her “thing”.  Don’t get me wrong, she a fabulous baker and I would have her Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake with Raspberry Jam filling and Apple Icing any day of the week.  Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.  It’s still my only choice for my birthday cake!  Whatever reason caused it to be there, I’m so grateful.  I found that book intriguing.  Back before there were Wilton classes available at the local craft store or before you could purchase any combination of cake decorating supplies and icing in several places in town. I taught myself how to make royal icing and make color-flow pieces to use on cakes.  I even learned how to make fondant from scratch from that yearbook.  Cake decorating was a lot of fun and I even wondered about making it a business.

Then my brother got married and I gained a fabulous niece who was almost two.  Her second birthday party was all about 101 Dalmatians and her Mom decided that she would rent a puppy dog pan and decorate it to look like Lucky, Holly’s favourite puppy.  I volunteered to do the decorating and I remember my brother sneaking quietly into her room late at night to snitch her Lucky stuffie so that we could make sure the spots matched up perfectly.  I haven’t found a picture of that cake.  I’m sure one exists somewhere, but that cake deserves a mention here because Karen’s Cake Adventures wouldn’t exist without it.  The joy that cake brought made me fall in love with cake decorating and started a tradition of Aunt Karen decorating crazy birthday cakes for her two amazing nieces.

It’s hard to believe, but today, Holly turns 21.  I don’t get to see her that often and it’s been a lot of years since I’ve been able to make her birthday cake, but I am super proud of her.  She’s an amazing young woman and she’s worked hard to make her dream of becoming a chef come true. 

It seemed only fitting to dedicate this post to her.  I’ve sprinkled it with old photos of the birthday cakes that followed Lucky: a Carousel ice cream cake for a circus theme birthday party, a puppet theatre cake to match the puppet theatre her Dad and her Poppa made just for her, and a magic pink castle cake for a princess theme. 

By the way, I don’t recommend asking a 6 year old what a castle cake should look like.  I made that “mistake” and was told “It should be pink and sparkly.  There should be a dragon and the queen should be in her garden picking flowers.”  YIKES!  Guess when I learned how to make fondant? 
Looking back at the pictures now, I’ll admit I cringed a bit.  I had so much fun making them, but I was completely self-taught.  I’ve taken 4 Wilton classes since then and decorated a lot more cakes.  My skill level has changed and when I first looked at the pictures I didn’t want to share them.  I could see all the flaws and knew all the things I would now do differently or with more skill. 

But then I looked at my niece’s face she saw the cakes and I remembered the joy of those moments.  That’s the part that matters.  When her eyes would go wide with surprise and I’d get a great big hug because she loved her cake … that’s what makes the time you invest in decorating a cake worth it … that’s why it’s okay to watch it get devoured and to see all the hard work eaten in a matter of moments. 

Those are memories that last a lifetime … and just maybe, they helped her find her path to being a chef.  I’m proud to say that for her seventh birthday I bought Holly her very first decorating set and we used it to make a bear cake together!
Happy Birthday Bear!  I love you forever =)

Cupcake Cakes & a Happy Birthday Panda!

I've decided I'm a big fan of icing a bunch of individual cupcakes like it’s really one large cake. Quick to cool and no crumb coat required – that makes them a perfect option for a cake decorating adventure that fits into a single evening.

 

 

You can go for something straightforward like a circle of cupcakes that becomes a pizza or a truck tire. A few strategically placed Oreo cookies between the Cookies 'n' Cream cupcakes added structure in places where the gap between cupcakes was too wide to ice over. Who’s going to complain about icing on a cookie?  Nobody at my workplace apparently.

While my recent adventure that led to the truck tire reminded me of how much fun cupcake cakes can be, my favourite cupcake adventure is thanks to Grace, the younger of my two nieces, who turns 16 today. Most Julys, she comes to spend the month with us which means I still get to make her a birthday cake.  A couple of years back, she decided that we would make her birthday cake together using a new “toy” from Wilton – Animal Puzzle Cakes Silicone Build-A-Cake Set – that I hadn't been able to resist purchasing.

There was much discussion and planning about what we could create using the three-quarter moon, diamonds, triangles and round silicone cupcake forms. Yoshi was high on the list, but the winner was Rice, an adorable panda created by my friend Christine at Crumpled Paper. Grace's birthday present had included a hand-drawn card and an fabulous blue monster puff that Christine had graciously made.

The basic bear shape was carefully adapted to make a panda and the extras forms became a present.

Only problem, none of us really wanted to eat Rice.

It seemed a little mean ... definitely a potential hazard when a cake takes the shape of a favourite character!  Hmm, …I seem to recall a similar concern when I made a Winnie the Pooh character cake for Grace’s second birthday. =)

Happy Birthday Grace! I can't believe you're already 16 ... and I can't wait till you get here this summer so we can share another cake adventure creating this year's birthday cake.

HUGS =)

Sometimes desperation leads to inspiration

Sometimes inspiration comes from funny places and in little bits at a time. That was the lesson I learned on my most recent cake adventure.

In the middle of post-truck cake exhaustion, it's my mom's birthday. For just about anyone else, I'd have found some way to have someone else make or buy a cake, but it's my mom. What else could I do but make her the chocolate cake that she requested? And really, we're not talking just make a cake and slap some icing on it either. It's my mom and it needs to be special just like she is. But my brain feels like all creativity and potential inspiration have been, well, shall we say run over by a large truck ... that seems about right.

You need to know that my mom collects miniature watering cans. A few weeks before i had picked up a cute little bird holdings blue watering can that I'd planned to wrap up since she already knew about the Riverdance tickets that I'd bought. When still desperately seeking inspiration on the morning of my mom's birthday, I decided that the bird could go on top of the cake in a little nest. It seemed like a good idea that couldn't be too hard to execute.

Time and energy were running short so I quickly ditched the idea of baking my own perfectly shaped macaroon nest and went for picking up some store bought chocolate drizzled macaroons that I knew were soft enough to be shaped a bit and formed into a nest on top of the cake I'd already iced with white buttercream. If you're thinking I may have made a critical error in icing color, you'd be totally correct.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, well apparently it's also the mother of inspiration. The bird's nest looked, well, silly on the white icing. I didn't have enough icing made to re-ice the cake brown to make it look like a tree trunk which would have been the best "thinking ahead" original choice. But I did have enough that I could make some brown and green to make a tree branch across the top of the cake.

I piped the branch and some bonus twigs, started to add some green leaves but it still wasn't looking right. Now the it wasn't just the nest floating on a sea of white, the branch was just laying around with no context. Oh did I mention that my mom was sitting watching TV in the family room attached to the kitchen and she picked that moment to turn around and ask how things were going. Talk about needing to have my brief moments of panic be very quiet along the way.

Next solution, add a tree trunk down one side of the cake and finish adding the leaves, all while keeping my fingers crossed that this was going to be enough. I wrapped the bird's little feet and bottom with plastic wrap since I couldn't guarantee food safety and placed him on the cake thinking that I had no more ideas left and still wasn't convinced it was going to look right.

Much to my surprise, lo and behold, while I wasn't paying attention a rather cute cake emerged that seemed just right. I wish I'd taken pictures along the way when I was panicking because looking at the finished cake makes my stress seem silly. You'd almost think I knew what I was doing when I started... Nope! But thankfully, sometimes it all works out the way it should even when you've totally failed in the planning part.

It’s all about the flavour … Yum!

Surprise birthday parties can be a lot of fun and this cake adventures included a great one.  Not only did we manage to pull off a perfect surprise without giving anything away, but my friend and I managed to come up with an amazing flavour combination for the birthday cake.

The idea started out knowing two things about the type of cake the birthday guy liked, white cake and jelly filling.  My friend who was throwing the party suggested we could make something with an orange, Grand Marnier filling.  I immediately thought of the White Chocolate cake recipe that has become one of my favourites and we were pretty sure we had a winning idea.

The end result was our White Chocolate Grand Marnier Cake.  We made our own orange filling with mandarin oranges, a little frozen mango and about a tablespoon of Grand Marnier.  We also substituted one tablespoon of Grand Marnier for some of the milk in the butter cream frosting.  With some of the filling spread on top of the icing and grated white chocolate around the edge, we had a lovely outside to go with the fabulous flavours inside.

Since our story to have time for baking was that we were trying out cupcake recipes that I might use for their wedding next spring, we made matching cupcakes.  I pretended I was coring a tomato and then scooped out a bit of the cupcake so there was extra space for the orange filling.  There were more of them but I forgot to take a picture until after we eaten the first round. =)

Because we had some extra time,  I  tried out a new recipe for Cookies ‘n’ Cream Cupcakes that I couldn’t resist.  The recipe was easy as could be and really just added some crushed Oreo cookies to a vanilla cupcake and the buttercream. While they might not be quite as pretty, the taste and texture was just right and they have a great chance of making the final cut for wedding cupcakes.

If you want to try it for yourself, you can find my recipe for the White Chocolate Grand Marnier Cake here.  It was yummy enough to deserve it’s own post for the recipe =)

The Little Details Are Worth the Extra Time

I can remember watching an Ace of Cakes episode where Anna made a full Scrabble board for a cake and I thought it was a crazy idea given all of the tiny details.  This week’s cake adventure was all about the tiny details, because my friend Lynn from work asked me to make a cake for surprise 60th birthday party she was helping to plan for her friend.  Guess what game was the inspiration behind the cake … yup, that’s the one!  Scrabble.  Thankfully, I only had space for about a quarter of the board on this cake.

I pulled out some of the fondant tools that I really haven’t needed to use since I took the Wilton class, checked those same class materials to make sure I remembered how to make fondant roses and bought some edible food markers.  The cake underneath is a white chocolate cake that I modified a bit from a cupcake recipe, with a strawberry-lime filling. 

I made my own marshmallow fondant for the main cake covering since I really like how it drapes and I wanted it to be like a tablecloth.  For the other fondant work, I purchased Duff fondant because I wanted something that dried a little firmer.  I loved working with it to make the fondant roses.  It didn’t stick to the sponge mat when I was working with the petals, it held its shape well and it dried with a nice sheen for the  rose petals.  Did I mention it also tastes good … unlike some purchased fondant.  The chocolate fondant really does smell and taste like chocolate, though it was harder to knead when I first started working with it.

To make the cake even more fun, and to make sure the tile usage was following Scrabble rules, the game is already under way and it appears both players can expand some existing words to complete the cake’s message.  The rose colours were requested, yellow for their sorority and red for love.  There was a lot of time that went into this cake, but it made the adventure more fun for me … even if I’m feeling a little short on sleep.  A good adventure is worth a little sleep deprivation. =)

This cake was really all about the details, from making sure the tiles had the right point value on them, to making the tile holders. to painting the bonus point squares, to making the fondant covering look like a tablecloth by cutting the fondant with a ripple edge with an embossed detail, and adding luster dust to the red roses. Those are the things that really made this work. 

Happy Birthday Pat!

Daycare Birthday Fun

  

That was a lot of red food colouring
 to make Elmo the right colour!



A few years ago, I had a lot of fun making birthday cakes and treats for a friend's son.  That little boy is now 6 ... soon to be 7, his birthday is in November ... and he just had some minor surgery today.  It seemed a good reason to add another story to the cake adventures.

 For his second birthday, his mom asked me to make a cake that they could take to his daycare.  I don't use character cake pans very often anymore (making too many stars can make a person a little crazy), but sometimes it's the right choice.  Elmo for a bunch of daycare kids seemed practically perfect.  The cake underneath was my favourite apple spice cake. Since my friend's son is lactose intolerant, I made the icing using vanilla flavoured soy milk.

The next year, the daycare had decided that only Rice Krispie squares were allowed as cakes were apparently too much mess.  Plain Rice Krispie squares seemed like not nearly enough fun to celebrate such a cute little guy's third birthday, so I decided to get a little inventive.  Take some Rice Krispie squares, and some royal icing to act as glue.  Add some brightly coloured fondant to make tires and headlights and a little imagination. I'll let the picture speak for itself... 

I only took pictures so I'd remember how I made them,
hence the fondant mat and icing bag

Since his dad was away serving in the military that year and their only other family lives on another continent, we decided it would be fun to have a big cake to celebrate his birthday with his church family.
  

Did I mention that this was the fall after I took
the 3rd Wilton course and was having a lot of fun
with fondant?

By the time birthday number four came around, the daycare had decided that cupcakes were allowed for birthday treats.  That's the first time I made the cupcake pizza.  I delivered the pizza to their house the night before they were taking it to daycare.  His response when I opened the lid of the pizza box, three simple words:

 

I was so amazed when the local pizza shop
let me have a box for free and didn't think I was
totally crazy when I asked if I could buy one!

"I like that."

The wide eyes of wonder and a few softly spoken words from a normally taciturn child made that pizza one of my favourite decorated cakes ever.

Oh, in case you're wondering what happened to five and six, his dad was transferred to a different base and now they live in another province.  It's a little expensive for daycare treats to figure out how to send them across the country =