Kennedy's 4th Birthday!

Last weekend was my niece Kenndey's 4th Birthday Party. It was a disney princess theme. After having the oven on for six hours in one day all the cakes were baked. My sister Sarah came over to help frost and cover the cakes with fondant. Then we added details to look like the dolls dress bottoms. We used the disney princess dolls and wrapped the bottoms of their dresses in plastic wrap then inserted them into the decorated cake bottoms. I used the Wilton doll cake mold plus one 8" round on the bottom to give it more height so the dolls would fit. Kennedy loved them!! And there was sooo much cake to go around. One would have been enough, but we needed four, because she is four!! lol. 

This was the table setting at the party. We also did cupcakes with disney princess liners.

My Final Cake

This was my final cake. I used white marshmallow fondant and piped lavender buttercream on the sides. It was a lot of piping but I was happy with the way it turned out. I made different shades of purple roses for the top of the cake. I piped them on to small sheets of parchment paper the day before and then let them sit out over night to dry. They were easy to handle and I could move them around to find the right position on the top of the cake.

Spring Flowers

This is a simple white covered fondant cake with purple ribbon fondant with intricate cut outs around the bottom edge. I used a flower cutter to cut out the flowers and used a ball tipped tool to make dents in the pedals. I used small yellow balls that I flattened for the flower centers.

Pretty Plaid

This cake was based off of a place setting that my teacher brought into class. It was a plaid napkin, a green hummingbird plate, and flower napkin rings. We covered this cake in rolled butter cream. I was surprised how easy it was to use. I did a painting technique with food coloring to give it that brushed effect. I loved the plaid napkin so I made it my central focus. I used one of the flowers from the napkin rings and modeled it out of rolled butter cream.

The Starry Night

This cake was based off "The Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh. I loved this cake! I loved how free and artistic it was to create. I just smeared different colors with an off set spatula to give it a painted look.

Ganache Covered Cake

Sorry for the poor picture quality but this cake was practicing the technique of covering cakes in ganache. It was really easy! We applied the ganache from a squirt bottle and covered the entire top of the cake letting it drip down the sides. We got to decorate the cake how ever we wanted so I thought a bee might look nice and i'm very ready for Spring :)

Happy Anniversary!

This cake was for my midterm. The criteria was have three roses to represent three different children of Pat and Joe, have at least three other types of buttercream flowers, have a basket weave on the sides of the cake, use a reverse shell border somewhere on the cake, and have the writing Happy 50th Anniversary Pat and Joe. I don't like how the writing turned out but I did enjoy making the flowers and doing the basket weave.

Princess Cake

Todays cake was a cake designed for a child. I decided that I wanted to do a princess cake. I used two different colors of pink with accents of white to create the design. On this cake I got 19/20! YAY!

Sports Cake

Todays cake was a sports theme cake. I chose football! The football was actually 3-D and I made the shaggy grass using the wilton grass tip. The design of the goal post, grass, and the sky were continued onto the sides of the cake. This cake got an 18/20 :)

Basket Cake

Day 2: The Basket Weave
I thought I did an excellent job on the basket. We had limited time to do flowers, but if I could, I would add a lot more flowers to fill the basket. I loved the easter colors on this cake. It's a cute and fun idea!

Thank You Cake

This was my first cake from Basic Cake Decorating class! It received a 17/20. Not bad! 

Daniel's Birthday Cake

This is my best friends brothers birthday cake. His only requests were to be marble, red, and blue. I love how this cake turned out! The stripes look amazing and everyone loved it!

Valentines Day Cake Balls

This Valentines day I got a cake ball order from my mom's boss. She wanted to send them off to her kids at college. I decided to get a little creative and dress them up a bit for Valentines day of course. I just used a simple yellow and chocolate cake and covered all the cake balls with light cocoa melting chocolate. I used a squirt bottle to make the swirls on top. I found this technique a lot easier than just the 'flicking the fork' method or a pastry bag. I found the bottles in the candy making isle at Hobby Lobby. I used pink colored chocolate (already colored) to drizzle on top. I put each cake ball in a small liner and fit as many in the tin as I could. She said they looked beautiful and would be easy to ship along with a few other things for her kids. I highly suggest using the tins if you want to ship cake balls in another box, they fit in there perfectly and have little room to slide around and break.

Ella's Princess Cake

This cake my sister helped me make because I was very busy with school. So she baked it and then together we both decorated it. My uncles girlfriends daughter was having her 7th birthday. Ella loved princesses and decided to have a princess birthday party. I knew I wanted to put a huge sparkley princess crown on the top so I decided to go with light pink and light purple. I did a diamond pattern on the bottom to give it that puffy tucked look and also added shimmer dust to both tiers. I lined the bottom of each cake with a white woven ribbon and found little heart jewels that I attached to floral wire to come shooting out the sides along with some gum paste stars. I got great feedback on this cake that a lot of 7-year-olds loved it!

Wilton Cake Decorating Class

I took a Wilton cake decorating class at a Hobby Lobby here in town. It was a set of 4 or 5 classes where it taught the basic skills and techniques of cake decorating. this particular cake was practicing flowers. I discovered that I was the best at making the star-dropped flours. I also had a leaf tip that I used to add more color. And I used a small tip with white frosting to make the centers of the flowers.

Super Bowl Cake Balls

Well this was my first attempt at cake pops. My boyfriend got me this really neat cake pop book for my birthday and I thought that the super bowl would be the perfect opportunity to try them out. I really enjoyed making them. They were a bit more challenging than regular cake balls which I had made in the past. But I think they turned out pretty good. Everyone enjoyed them. And I made the foot ball field out of Styrofoam and paper :)

Chocolate Mousse Tower

This is a chocolate mousse cake I made for my boyfriends mom, Sally. It was delicious!! Chocolate mousse is my favorite! I kept it cold until we served it so it was really good! The only downfall was that it was soooo tall. It was four layers and very unstable, although it did make it just fine.

Carrot Cake

This is a carrot cake I made in my baking class. We learned basic cake decorating skills and techniques. I used a grass tip to create the fluffy leaves on the carrot and must a plan tip for the carrot part. I thought it was cute! And the hotel actually chose it to sell at dinner that night. Each slice had a carrot on top. It tasted really good!

Simple Elegance

These were some simple but pretty cupcakes that I made for a friends wedding shower. I made a vanilla buttercream to swirl on top to give it some height. Her wedding colors were orange and green. I made some gumpaste flowers and added shimmer dust to them. I also stuck some round pearls to the center of the flowers. I got great comments on the cupcakes. They all enjoyed them!

Kennedy's 3rd Birthday!

This was my first stacked/layered cake. It was a vanilla cake with delicious buttercream frosting. My niece, Kennedy, loves Dora the Explorer and she wanted me to make her a cake. I decided to go a bit above and beyond for this cake and have it truly wow people! I picked the colors according to the cardboard cutouts that I found at the local craft store. I made the flowers and circles out of gumpaste. But the rest of the cake was covered in the same marshmallow fondant that I've used previously. This cake was a huge hit! Everyone thought it tasted delicious! I thought it looked great and matched the decor perfectly.

Graduation Party Fun!

These cupcakes were made for my graduation party. My theme colors were green and pink, as you can very well see. I made a wide variety of cupcakes. They all had either vanilla or chocolate frosting. I got this idea to color my own sugar and then dip this tops of the cupcakes in the different colors! It worked great! I also cut our fondant butterflies and flowers for added detail. Every one loved them and I got many requests for friends birthday parties.

I wanted to have the effect of different layers and heights of stands for the cupcakes. I ended up finding many different tiers for cupcakes and decided to use all of them to get just the right effect!

First Try At Homemade Fondant

This cake was something I made for a make up day at school. I used a recipe for the marshmallow fondant and it worked pretty well. But let me tell you, making it wasn't the smoothest thing. It was definitely hard to make alone. It was a total sticky mess! But I think it turned out great. And the inside of the cake was a vanilla cake with raspberry cream filling which was a thumbs up in my class! I used cookie cutters to cut the shapes out to stick on the sides and I brushed the whole outside with water and a little shimmer dust to add character.

Rainbow Easter Cake

This is a cake I made a year ago...
It is a vanilla cake that has been dyed the colors of the rainbow.
The frosting was made from whipped cream and vanilla pudding powder. Very tasty!
It was very vibrant and a big hit at my family's Easter.

The start of something new...

Hi. My name is Rachael Pedrick. I'm 19 and I live in the growing town of North Liberty, Iowa.  I've always had an interest in the cooking and baking field. In the fall of 2010, I started my journey by enrolling in the Culinary Arts program at Kirkwood Community College. For about two years now, I've been practicing my baking skills. I've decided that I really enjoy the whole atmosphere of cakes and cake decorating. Yes, I do watch all the shows on tv and I have decided that I want to open my own bakery here in town. I know this is a very large dream, and will be reached quite a few years down the road but for now my small kitchen at home will work just great. I've been asking many family members and friends for their business. My skills and techniques have improved greatly and I really enjoy learning new things. I'm going to use this blog to post my portfolio and hopefully get my name out there.