So I've been up to some pretty fun cake decorating projects in the past few months--all for some pretty cool guys who happen to be friends with an insane girl who loves crazy projects and big messes. It all goes back to the Crawfest Cake and the ridiculous Goonies creation. Once the guys in our group realized I'd be up for just about anything they could throw at me, the project line started...so here's a little update on what I've been working on.

I think Kevin put in his order for his groom's cake before they even had a date set! It seems like ages ago when we first talked about it so I had plenty of time to think about how I was going to pull it all together. I busted out my Nintendo NES and favorite video game of all time--Tetris--to do a bit of research and just have some fun. It was a yellow cake base with chocolate buttercream frosting and 100% cake and I'm always excited I'm able to make it work without using rice krispie treats...I always feel like that's cheating.

All of the labels and writing was hand-painted, which let me tell you took quite a bit of time a patience, but in the end I think they looked really impressive. I used my marshmallow fondant and Wilton's Sugar Sheets Edible Decorating Paper, and for the most part everything went smoothly. One of the early snafus was forgetting to order this Chefsmaster colored spray like I used for the Crawfest silver pot. Of course the shipping time would have taken too long to arrive by the time I remembered to order it, so the helpful folks at Shop Bakers Nook pointed me to this gold glaze instead. It all worked out great thanks to them, but I found I really like Duff Goldman's line much better. The colors really pop, the coverage is excellent, and they even sell it at my neighborhood grocery store now!!

As always, when it comes to projects like this, it's the details that really sell the project. The labels may have took a bit of time, but they looked really great and I spent who knows how long painting the Nintendo logo on the front of the console, but in the end I think that's what made it so awesome. Also, I collect interesting candies whenever I find them and catalog them mentally if I ever have use for them in decorating projects. Haribo licorice wheels came in quite handy for the controller cords because they had the perfect shiny gloss finish that made it look authentic.

A few notes on the Wilton sugar sheets:

• Painting the sheets with gel food coloring diluted with alcohol worked fabulously and I was able to do much of this in the week before the wedding. Being able to do this in advance was critical because it took so much attention to detail that I needed to be able to do it without the pressure of having to do the rest of the baking and building at the same time. 
• Always remember that its easy to paint dark colors over lighter colors but not not so much the other way around. 
• The sheets peel away from the plastic backing fairly easily at room temperature, but if it's hot and humid (hello, New Orleans!) well, its much harder to make them cooperate. Also if you heavily paint them, they can be a bit more fragile and delicate to handle. The easiest quick fix I found was to throw it in the freezer for about 30-60 seconds and it should come off much easier. I also found having an exacto knife near by was very helpful to get the corners started if its being stubborn.

Thanks to Kevin and Blake for being the cool cats they are and letting me make this very awesome Nintendo cake for them...and giving me the honor of making the one of a kind headpiece I whipped up for the bride.  and I couldn't be more excited to have been a part of such a legen---wait for it---dairy night.

Despite my ever expanding waistband, I had one of the best chocolate cupcakes I've had in a while from the Cake Cafe. I also had one of the most disappointing chocolate cupcakes from an un-named cupcake company that recently opened up in Nola. Cake Cafe's is everything you expect in a chocolate cupcake from Grandmaw's house--unassuming and completely delicious with an awesome fudgey icing that just screams homey old school greatness. The later was modernly styled and packaged and pretty to look at but completely and utterly disappointing. Even I couldn't pin point exactly what it was I didn't like about it but it was dry and awkward and made me wonder how this place is in business--and also that I could make a much better cupcake.

This chocolate fudge cake is one of my favorite go-to chocolate cake recipes. It doesn't have the complexity of Ina Garten's Beatty's Chocolate Cake, but it's fudgey, moist and chocolatey with out being too expensive to make. I usually pair it with a swiss chocolate buttercream and they are truly magnificent together. I'd say it's a bit different combo together than Cake Cafe's fudgey frosting, but I like them both equally, which means they're both awesome. :)

It's also a great sturdy cake that I use all the time when I'm doing intricate cake designs and it works great as either a cake or cupcakes. This past weekend, I made it into chocolate cowardly lion cupcakes to bring to the Finn's cook the competition challenge...but unfortunately came in a close second. How can you beat the combination of adorable AND delicious?? ....with pork and bacon apparently. Its all good though because my Saints won and you'll all love this recipe no matter how you decorate it. :)

As I was slapping together the cake to take to this year's double whammy awesomeness annual Halloween party/Saints game madness, I realized that a year ago I was making my first decorated cake. I mean yes, there were cakes before last year, but that Nightmare Before Christmas cake marked a turning point when I actually put pen to paper and drafted up a sketch of one of the many crazy ideas flying around in my head and challenged myself to make it look the way I envisioned.

I look back on the past year and all of the late nights, crazy plans and disastrous messes with great fondness. It is so exciting to think about how quickly a year flies by and how we spend our time and who we share it with. It also makes me laugh at my own insanity and appreciate my husband so much more for putting up with me.

On more than one occasion, I've had someone feel bad when they picked up the cake and after the initial awestruck I can't believe you made this moment passes and they ask, "How late did you stay up working on this?" ....yea... Let me just put everyone at ease. While I can be an irrational and quite unpleasant person when I don't get my beauty rest, I'm actually part insomniac/total procrastinator and get some of my best work done under pressure at two in the morning.

Please enjoy this recap of some of the craziness I've whipped up in the middle of the night with the dog and cat watching and wondering what the hell daddy's going think when he wakes up and sees this mess... And make sure to check Crumby out on Facebook to keep up with what I'm working on.

So my friends and I annually overindulge ourselves in the bliss that comes every spring in New Orleans--Crawfish Season. What better accompaniment than an overindulgent, overambitious 7 layered chocolate cake? According to everyone in attendance, none! It was the hit of the party, which made me feel oh so much better about spending 2 weeks of planning and 1 week of production on this bad boy.

Complete with fondant crawfish popping out the pot and completely edible fixins including meringue mushrooms, marzipan potatoes and fondant lemons and even served on a newspaper wrapped board, I spared no expense in making sure all the details were accounted for, even if I did get a bit lazy and never made it around to making the ears of corn on the cob that were in the initial plan.

Here's how it all played out (yes go ahead and call me crazy now for even thinking I had any business trying to pull this off):

I hadn't really decided what I wanted the cake to look like. I had originally wanted something kind of art deco-ish but with time usually not running in my favor before a party, I didn't want to give myself something too complicated. I was inspired by the candle ring holder I used as a cake topper because it looked like a vine of flowers ready to bloom and thought it would fit in nicely with the theme. With time running out the day of the party, I slapped some vines onto the side that would coordinate with the topper and this is what I ended up with. Not exactly what I was looking for...but what do I expect considering I really don't have the steadiest hands. I did want them to be twisted and curly like grape vines...but still not exactly what I wanted. Also, I worked on this green for ages trying to get it the color I wanted before I gave up and realized how much will it really matter anyway? Its my cake, and at that point I really couldn't care what shade of green it was!

As much as I adore cake, I've never been particularly good at baking them or decorating them for that matter. My expertise is definitely more in the pastry and cheesecake area and my previous exploits in cake making for the most part have been a disaster. I've had an idea for my birthday cake swimming around in my head for a while, but since I was not so confident in my ability to actually make it happen, I decided to use Halloween and my dear friends as guinea pigs for some decoration and icing experimentation.

I had a vision of what my Nightmare Before Christmas cake should look like, but I was pretty undecided what it should taste like. My emphasis here was most definitely more on looks than taste, so I ended up modifying a cake mix (Gasp!) with some white chocolate and Kahlua to give it a little flavor, but that's about all. Here's what I ended up with: