THE SWEET SPOT

Dora the Explorer Shaped Cake , a photo by melissatarun on Flickr.  I have done several variations of Dora the Explorer cakes over the years; my girls, when they were younger, adored her!

Baby Boy's 1st Birthday Cake , a photo by melissatarun on Flickr. Very often I am given a party napkin or invitation as the starting point for one of my cakes. This was one of them--invitations, napkins, plates and favors to match!

Brave Merida 3D Cake , a photo by melissatarun on Flickr. I love how this cake turned out! I also love the character of Merida from Disney's Brave , so it was fun to create this cake. All decor made from fondant or gumpaste.

3D Pirate Cake , a photo by melissatarun on Flickr. A variation on my earlier 3D Pirate Cake, only this one was slightly better. (Got my "sea legs" now!) This was supposed to be the Wiggles' Pirate Ship so I used Wiggles' colors.  

Getting caught up with a couple of years (yes, years) of cake pics that I've been sitting on for a while! Thank goodness for Flickr's sharing options, which makes it possible to post the new(er) pics directly onto this blog as well as my Pinterest and Facebook pages.  Love social media sharing! Unfortunately, getting the pics on my main website will be more time-consuming, but I'm working on it!  Meanwhile, enjoy the slide show above of all the pics or the separate posts about each.

How could I have forgotten to post my last Trick or Treat for October?!  But I did, and then the nation was transfixed by first Hurricane Sandy and then the Elections, so other things were definitely on my mind! So here is October 31's post about my Halloween-themed Spider Treats!  For the first time ever, we went to a party outside of our neighborhood and trick-or-treated with our friends there.  Party was awesome, and our friend Kristine went all out with her Halloween snacks, decor and games!  So impressive! As seen at the party: Ghostly juice boxes  Spider and Eyeball Eggs Breadstick Bones  Spider cupcakes were my contribution! My little Japanese Geisha Girl and her Strawberry Shortcake BFF who hosted the party! Until 2013, saying goodbye to our first ever 31 Days of Tricks & Treats!  Hope you enjoyed it!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Just in case you didn't know, yesterday , the day before Halloween, was National Candy Corn Day.  I hate the taste of candy corn; it's just too sickeningly sweet.  However, I love the colors and shape of candy corn!  It's the perfect Halloween/Fall symbol and I love decorating with it.  I've glued it onto picture frames, and filled vases with it.  However, I've never really used them in my cooking or baking until this week. I bought a bag of candy corn for our pre-Halloween party to use as a "garnish" on our homemade caramel apples.  They were the right size for embellishing the apples, along with mini marshmallows, mini M&Ms, mini chocolate chips, nuts and coconut flakes.  It was a big bag, so I was inspired to also try something that I've always loved as a child--Jello Parfait! What child of the 70s didn't admire the beauty of this Jello creation in Mom's Ladies Home Journal magazines?  Simply layers of Jello an...