Everyday I'm Hustling!

I am in full blown 'wedding' mode in preparation for Sunday's big wedding photo shoot!! This picture for sale on Brickyard Buffalo is too perfect and so true!

by Abide With Me

Stay tuned for pictures this weekend!

Exciting news!

I am excited to finally announce some exciting news for jem cakes! I have teamed up with three other fabulous ladies to do a mock wedding! We'll be featuring cakes and desserts (of course!), hair, make-up, styling, event planning and photography. This beautiful event will be held at the breathtaking Nature Pointe in the mountains east of Albuquerque.

Michelle Halusco approached me with this great idea of a mock wedding to help all of us newbies launch and broaden our businesses. Michelle is one talented lady working her magic in hair and makeup as owner of Femme Chic. Michelle will be providing hair and makeup for the bride and wedding party. We can hardly wait to see what she comes up with!

Soon after I initially met with Michelle, I immediately thought of calling Holly Siebert who does wedding planning and coordination at Nature Pointe. This multitasking lady is also starting up her wedding and event planning business at Save the Date New Mexico. Not only does Holly have amazing taste, ideas and styling, she also has an awesome connection to Nature Pointe where she's busy on the weekends running their weddings.

Nature Pointe is a gated community just outside of Albuquerque in the beautiful east mountains. The wedding will be held on the breathtaking patios and the reception will take place within the banquet room amidst wood vigas and a stone fireplace. They have graciously donated their venue and all that comes with it for our use.! This beautiful spot is the perfect place to showcase all our talents!

Photo by Christine Massey Photos

Holly and I have also been working fervently on decorations and styling for the shoot. We are really striving for unique and beautiful decorations to help make this a very memorable event.

This amazing event will all be captured by the talented Saada Howard of SHtography. She'll be following our every move, coordinating shots and snapping that perfect picture to showcase all our efforts. We're so excited to see what her amazing talent captures!

We have been fortunate enough to have some great sponsors come forward too. Brides by Demetrios will be supplying the brides maids dresses and accessories. Mr. Tux will help our male models look as dapper as ever. Nicole's Boutique will be outfitting our bride for the wedding with accessories. They'll also be providing a dress for a little engagement shoot we have planned.

Last, but not least, jem cakes will be providing a plethora of yummy desserts. We have a special engagement shoot with some 'save the date' goodness. The big show will be the wedding dessert table! We're talking cakes, donuts, macaroons, oh my! I'm so excited!

We have less than a week until 'the BIG day'! I am bursting at the seams with excitement to see all our ideas come to fruition! Stay tuned to see pictures of the finished product!

Not your typical graduation cake

My fiances cousin, Julianna graduated recently and had her party this past weekend. They asked me to do her cake and cupcakes to feed 150! Yikes! That's my largest order to date!

She wanted the cake a little less traditional and more unique. We went with a black, white and pink zebra theme.

The cake was marble with champagne buttercream and fondant. The cupcakes were a variety of chocolate, white and grapefruit with champagne buttercream. Now for the final product...

An Elopement Cake

Thursday night I finished this Hawaiian themed cake for an elopement party the next night. I'm not a huge fan of cascading flowers and what you might think of as a Hawaiian cake. I took my idea of a tropical cake and deconstructed it. I used the ocean and some of the native flowers as my inspiration. I ended up creating 'waves' out of fondant and a gumpaste orchid. I wanted the colors to be soft and elegant in an ivory and sage green. The elopement party was held at Los Poblanos Historic Inn and Organic Farm which is absolutely breathtaking. Although it was a Hawaiian themed cake, I also wanted it to have the same feel of the romantic Los Poblanos.

The cake was a lemon cake, lemon curd filling and a champagne lemon buttercream. The flavor of the cake was soft and elegent, married with a slightly tart curd filling and finished with a buttery smooth lemon buttercream with that kick of champagne.

I had so much fun making this cake and wish all my clients were like this one who let me have free reign to run with my ideas!

Planning a 'Maui'd' Elopement Cake

So maybe not your oh so traditional wedding, but it's right up my alley so of course I love it! Who doesn't want to skip all the craziness of a traditional wedding and hop right to the honeymoon phase and get married in Maui instead?! I think it's a brilliant idea!

Anyhow, I was asked to do an elopement cake with a modern-Hawaiian theme. Of course this sent me over the moon, especially because I have the liberty to do what I want. What?! So exciting!

Whenever I'm first asked to do a cake, I get all the nitty gritty details taken care of first...how many servings, flavors, size, etc. If there is a theme in mind or color scheme, I usually start to research pertinent cakes, colors, shapes, pinterest, my favorite cake blogs, etc. I like to look at other cakes, specifically, because I see what worked well and what didn't, techniques I liked, color combos, etc. I use this research as a jumping off point which then sparks my own ideas.

Here are some of the inspiration cakes I'm looking at...

From there, I start to do some sketching either of the whole cake, a component of the cake or even my cake shopping list, just to get the creative juices flowing


I really didn't want a cheesy Hawaii cake with cascading flowers. Not my thing. I like my cakes simple and elegant. I've finally settled on an abstract wave out of fondant and a beautiful Hawaiian poppy flower made from gumpaste. The cake will be lemon with a lemon-champagne buttercream and a lemon filling (the bride loves lemon). My mouth is drooling now. Mmmmmm.

I was also asked to do a giveaway for a local golf tournament, Associated Builders and Contractors Golf Tournament, this Friday too. I may have lost my mind when I agreed to it! But I'm making it easier on myself and am just making an extra batch while I do the cake so I can have a dozen cupcakes for the giveaway. I'll also be giving out a gift certificate for some more goodies. This will be a great marketing opportunity for me so of course I couldn't turn it down!

I've got an extra busy week ahead! I'm looking forward to the final product of the cake and cupcakes. Stay tuned for final pictures later this week! Happy Monday!

Mustache Baby Shower Cake!

I had SO much fun making this cake! I think this goes in my top 3 favorite cakes I've made. The theme was absolutely gorgeous and the Mama-to-be had a graphic designer make her a whole slew of decorations in her theme. They were all so awesome!

The cake was a white bottom tier with raspberry filling, almond buttercream and fondant. The top tier was chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and fondant. The cupcakes were half chocolate with cream cheese frosting and half grapefruit with champagne buttercream. Decadent? Yes, yes it was!

This picture convinces me I NEED a storefront!

Custom made flags were so adorable!

Black and White Cake

OK, so not exactly black and white so much as chocolate and white, but you get the idea. This weekend I made this half-n-half wedding cake. The bottom layer was chocolate with strawberry filling and the top two layers were white with strawberry filling. The cake was frosted with half white buttercream and half chocolate buttercream. There were also tuxedo dressed chocolate covered strawberries (which I forgot to photograph!).

This cake was really challenging for several reasons. The first, the client wanted to pick the cake up themselves so I had to make sure it was structurally very sound. This meant lots of dowels! It was also challenging because of the half and half component. This required a lot of forethought and planning. The chocolate ganache drizzle on the outside was also a bit difficult. I had to make sure it fell just right and was worried it would melt the buttercream. But everything turned out great!

All in all, I was very happy with the outcome of the cake and most importantly, so was the client! Onto the next one for this weekend...I'm seeing mustaches, blue and chevron patterns everywhere!

Here are some process pictures...