Holiday baskets for sale!

I have begun taking orders for my Holiday baskets. Each basket will contain 12 fully decorated sugar cookies, in either snowflake (blue and silver) or Christmas tree (Red and green). It will also contain 12 gingerbread men cookies, fully decorated to coordinate with the sugar cookies. In the center of the display will be 6 fully decorated cupcakes, also coordinated with the color theme. Each basket will be wrapped and sealed with a Christmas ornament.

These baskets make great presents, and can be shipped anywhere in the U.S. I can ship directly to you, or to your gift recipient.

My regular baskets sell for $25 and my extra large baskets sell for $50. The extra large basket include double the cookies, 2 mugs and hot cocoa mix, and also include a gift "in a jar" such as brownies, cookies, cake or soup!

I will upload a picture next week after I make my first baskets!

Well last week was fun. Another 3 cakes! I didn't take pictures of my mom's 50th birthday cake, but it turned out to be pretty cute. I also neglected to take pictures of my first paying order! Which makes me very sad, but oh well .

This cake however I did get good pictures of. This cake was for Barbara's birthday. The tree was royal icing the the little blossoms are gum paste. I really think this one is very pretty, and a lot easier than I expected.

I don't have any more cakes until the end of October, but I might play around a little bit. Halloween is coming, and I've got a gorgeous cake planned for that!!

3 new cakes!

I've been working like a maniac on lots of different projects. I had 3 cakes to get done in one week. Which felt like a lot while already working a day job and being the head of my household, but it was a lot of fun.


To start of we had Dea's birthday. She requested a light, lemony cake. So she got a vanilla lemon cake with a really nice light lemon pastry filling. Some of my favorite gum paste lily/azalea like flowers, and yellow heart accents. This was also my first try using my quilting cutter...and I hate it. I'm gonna have to try something else for larger areas of quilting.




Then i had a small birthday cake for a surgeon who comes in to do our orthopedic repairs. He came in on his birthday to help up fix a lab who fell down the stairs and broke his leg. Jokingly I told him I'd bring him a cake for his trouble and he requested black frosting...because he was old. So I tried. This was the closest I could get to black with what i had...which wasn't much. The candle is made out of gum paste and is inspired by some of Andrea Sullivan's work. I really think her candles are amazing and I figured I'd give it a whirl. A thin bow at the bottom, nothing to girly, and a simple happy birthday finished this quick thank you gift.





Last, but certainly not least I had Lindsay's good-bye cake. Lindsay is an awesome chick who we're gonna miss! She's a goofball too. She requested "fun-fetti"....so after researching WTF "fun-fetti" was. I decided to try my hand at a sculpted cake. So I used a pound cake (with "fun-fetti" in it) and gave it a slightly top-heavy look. Nothing too drastic for my first try. Again, inspired by some of Andrea Sullivan's work, I wanted to do a patchwork look. so blue and white fondant shapes "stitched" together with butter cream icing. Inside, to honor lindsay's inner goofball, I gave it strawberry AND lemon fillings, separated by tiny little butter cream icing dividers. I was really proud of this cake overall and learned even more that store bought icing is not your friend...no matter how yummy.

More cakes coming next week including my very first Paying order!!

Congratulations Nicole and Jon!

First off I'd like to give a great big Congratulations to Nic and Jon who were finally able to get married. They have had about 3 years worth of delays, and had to start their trip on a personal tragedy, but in the end got married on the beach in California. It was a very special day for them and they got married in a fashion that was very personal and individual to them . I hope they have all the happiness they deserve and that they get to start their as Mr. and Mrs. with great luck and love!

I told Nicole that I wanted to make her a small wedding cake as a present to her. So I came up with something simple, but pretty. Nicole is a very down to earth kind of girl and something girly, frilly, or over the top just doesn't fit her style. So I made a marble cake on the bottom layer, and a chocolate cake on the top layer, covered in butter cream. The layers are then covered in white fondant and white gum paste flowers. I wanted the top layer to be pretty much covered and then have the blossoms "spill" down onto the bottom layer. In the end it came out very cute and simple like I had wanted. (but I also learned I really need a cake leveler)

Happy 21st Birthday Brit!

So I've been a busy little bee, inventing reasons to do more cakes. A co-worker of mine hit her 21st birthday so I HAD to make her a present cake.

I seriously underestimated this cake. I would normally have had some things done ahead of time, but my funding didn't allow it. So i did this cake start to finish in one night. I did EVERYTHING, built the cake board, covered it, baked the cakes, covered them, and decorated it.

Of course I had to be a perfectionist and insist on straight edges, and clean lines. I love how it turned out, and it was a huge hit at work. I'm really glad i spent all that time making it look beautiful.

Photos of Sample cakes

This was my final cake for my Wilton Class. I'm pretty proud of it, considering this is only the third cake I've ever done. All the flowers are handmade from gum paste and the cake is covered in my homemade butter cream fondant, which tastes good, but was very hard to work with.

This was also made when the humidity at my house was insanely high. I could not get anything to dry. The flowers that were dry had started to re-soften and everything was sagging. Frustrating doesn't even begin to cover it.

But All-in-All, I'm very proud of it, and I learned a lot from it. It has made me search high and low for a better fondant recipe, one that is easier to work with and doesn't have such a shine on it.



This is the second cake I've EVER decorated. It's covered in a home made chocolate fondant, which tastes like tootsie rolls, but again was VERY difficult to work with. The carnations are gumpaste, and the border and curls are fondant as well. This one was done for fun to bring into my friends at work. It's simple but I think pretty.

Thanks so much for taking the time to look at my work, I hope you see improvements as my posts progress!

See you soon!
Cake It or Leave It Bakery

Under construction

This is just a post to let everyone know that I'm building my website and as I have new cakes I will post. I'm also happy to inform everyone that I will be accepting orders in the New Hampshire area, and feel free to email me at cakeitorleaveitbakery@gmail.com.