Pretty pattern, flowers, and Anthropologie inspired!

We are so excited that we have more gum paste flowers cake this year. Here are a few that we've done recently for our clients:

Moth Orchids flowers on top of three tier cake. This cake was a surprise for one lady that turned 60 recently. Instead of number "60" on top, the husband especially requested for "The New 40." How sweet is that?

During our meeting he mentioned that he wanted the look to be classy, modern, and elegant.  We threw in some giraffe gold print, antique brooches, and sugar pearls accent for the border. This cake was all gluten free - flavors are blackbottom and strawberries and cream.

 

The next cake was a 6" pink, grey, and silver combination. We meant to make an anemone flower on top of the cake, but due to Austin's humidity the petals weren't dry fast enough. They ended up all breaking :( Instead of making new petals flowers ,we were able to use some rose petals from another project. We are going to call this one fantasy flower cake! It was a strawberry shortcake, vanilla cake with strawberry buttercream and fresh strawberries inside. YUM!

 

I recently took a sewing class at stitch lab . Not only do they offer sewing classes, but they also sell various fun fabrics.  This cake was inspired by one of the fabric patterns that I saw there. The original fabric was green, white, and turquoise. This fabric image was "Free Spirit Anna Maria Horner Little Folks Voile Little Honey Meadow" taken from Stitch Lab flickr page.

We tweaked the color combination and here's what we came up with:

 

Happy 27th Birthday again Erin!

We designed a small cake cutting for Sabrina and Geoffrey at the Allan House a few weeks back. Our inspiration was a tan cardigan from my favorite store, Anthropologie!  We made a 6" lemon and cream cake covered with white fondant and topped it with grey and tan ruffled flowers.  Congratulations Sabrina and Geoffrey!

As always, thank you for stopping by!

Easter Egg, Chicks and Bunnies Cookies

This week, we have cute little Easter eggs, chicks and bunny cookies! We are still taking custom cookie orders for Saturday pick up 04/23. The last day to place custom Easter cookie order is 12PM, Thursday 04/21. 
Happy early Easter!

Edible sugar paper

Oh sugar paper...who doesn't love sugar? I have a love-hate relationship with this wily "creature!"  When it's humid in Austin, I just hate working with sugar paper. It tears apart easily, gets soggy, and won't dry fast enough for cookie production. Yet when it's cool and dry, like the past couple days, I love them. Edible images on sugar paper come in very handy, especially on corporate logo sugar cookies. I can't imagine drawing computer chips like this:

Or writing pretty fonts like on these business cards:

I heart technology - printing with edible food coloring and edible sugar paper make fabulous cookie favors for all types of events!

Spring is Coming!

Well it seems like winter is finally leaving us, thank goodness! We had an order for some Hawaiian sugar cookies this week, reminding us of the warmer weather that is soon to come. The cookies would've been perfect for a luau. We made pretty hibiscus flowers, hula girls/boys, tropical birds, colorful fish, palm trees, Hawaiian shirts, surfboards, flip flops, and coconut drinks with cocktail umbrellas.

Polkadots got political this week, with the creation of a birthday cake ordered for Governor Rick Perry. It featured silhouettes of Texan icons such as the Capitol building, the state flag, pecan trees, windmill, cattle, and a big silver Rice Krispie Treat star on top. The background was meant to be reminiscent of the big Texas sky around dusk. Hopefully the Governor enjoyed his special cake!

We made two unique cakes of similar styles recently - a Gucci purse, and a Hello Kitty lunchbox. The purse had intricate logo and design detailings, with gold fondant-covered Rice Krispie Treat handles, straps, and "hardware". It almost looked real enough to pick up and sling over your shoulder!

The lunchbox cake was covered in multicolored fondant, and featured the Rice Krispie Treat handle as well. Making a cake of this shape is often more difficult to work with than traditional round, square, or sheet cakes.

While we're on the topic of uncommon shapes, we also carved a movie popcorn bucket cake recently. The outside of the bucket was white with vertical red fondant stripes, and the top was coated in black fondant sprinkled with toasted "popcorn" pieces. It also included a Rice Krispie Treat film reel birthday banner as a final touch. Don't forget the butter!

Last but not least!  A birthday cake for a pug lover, Happy Birthday Ali! 

 

What's new?

Yesterday, we held our second cupcake decorating class at the shop. Each student learned how to make basic American buttercream, colored icing with food coloring of their choice, decorate cupcakes using different pastry tips (star, leaf, ribbon, round, etc), and learned basic fondant cut out decorations. The class was two hrs and each student got to take home 12 cupcakes. The class was designed for beginners so just have some fun!

Here are a few snap shots from the class:

Our next cupcake decorating class is March 13, 2011 2PM-4PM. Hope to see you in our next class.

What a week!

It has definitely been a crazy week for us at Polkadots. On Monday our dishwasher sink broke! Of course, the broken part was on back order.  Tuesday went pretty smoothly, then ...

Wednesday morning I went into work and found out that it was pitch black inside, freezing cold in the kitchen. The first thought was perhaps Ben (my husband) forgot to pay electricity bill. Pssst...... It happened before! I called him and he mentioned that he paid the bill last week. I was worried that we would fall behind on our cakes, so I called city of Austin and found  that they were doing mandatory rolling black outs. Oh well! I tried to hang around the kitchen for an hr or so but there was still no power. Guess what I did? I went to get breakfast at Cafe Express. This is very rare occasion that I could sit down and enjoy delicious scrambled eggs. Yummm!

I went back to work after breakfast and found that there still was no power. This was around 10:30AM.  We are usually done baking around this time. I thought I could use a little sunlight to wrap some cookies - to kill time. Thanks to my awesome assistant, Julia. She came and helped me wrap cookies in the dark :) Here are some cookies that we've done this week:

Mini Wedding Cookie favors:

Some more fun valentines cookies:

N housing Corporate sugar cookies - made with edible sugar papers:

 "Will you be my bridesmaid?"  Cookies in teal, yellow, and silver combination:

Some baby boy blue onesies for baby shower gift favors:

Packers and Steelers Helmet sugar cookies for a SUPERBOWL party:

Bridal shower cookies in their wedding  theme color scheme - purple and lime green:

Thursday morning was very cold (18F). This was very rare for Texas! We got to work and found out that city of Austin put a notice that they are going to shut down the water on Friday morning. I guess when it rains it pours! When I got up Friday (2/5) morning, I didn't know that it's been snowing all night. I opened my front door and the streets were covered in snow!

We are thankful that we stayed open and managed to finish all the custom orders this past week - rolling black out, crazy weather, snow, and spotty water availiability during the weekend:)

Here are a few of our fun birthday cakes from this past week:

Disney themed "Tangled" birthday cake

This was a 10" round blackbottom cake, chocolate cake with cream cheese and chocolate chips covered with cream cheese buttercream - serves 30 adults.

Greek Myths Birthday Cake for Hayden: 

First Birthday Boat Cake for Caleb:

Last but not least 2 tiered painted cake:

Two tiered cake - 6" and 8" round

Thanks for stopping by! We are so excited that Valentine's is just around the corner, give us a call at 512-476-3687. We can help you to deliver chocolate covered strawberries, cupcakes, cakes or cookies to your loved ones.