I decided to make two small gingerbread houses for a company holiday party. This was my first foray into the art that is gingerbread house decoration, so I decided to keep them small and simple — and try a couple of different things on each house. I’m relatively pleased with how they turned out. Incidentally, the day after I completed these, I watched the gingerbread competition on Food Network Challenge and I realized how impressive and detailed gingerbread houses can get. A larger more intricate gingerbread house may have to be planned for next year (time permitting!)

For Thanksgiving this year, I received an order for a pumpkin cake, like the one I did a couple years ago.

This one was a pumpkin walnut spice cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting on the inside and plain cream cheese frosting on the outside. The stem and leaves were made of marzipan. It was somewhat like a carrot cake — but with pumpkin instead.

I used fresh pumpkins that I bought at Eastern Market in DC to make the puree used in the cake, and since I had leftover puree, I took the opportunity to make a pumpkin pie and pumpkin walnut ring with chocolate drizzle (recipe from The Cake Bible) for my family Thanksgiving:

The pumpkin walnut ring was basically the same recipe as the cake above. However, in order to differentiate it from the pumpkin pie in terms of flavor, I omitted the spices in the cake. It ended up a bit similar to a banana bread as a result. Very interesting — and very yummy!

So, I got married a little over a week ago. It was literally the best day of my life. Things were crazy (as they always seem to be) in the days leading up to the big event, but everything went like clockwork for both the rehearsal and the big day.

Now, to answer the question everyone seems to ask me: Did you make your own cake?? I did not. I like to think this is one of the reasons I still had my sanity on our wedding day :) I did, however, supply a sketch to the caterer (Jeffrey Miller Catering) and they made the cake to my specifications.

Sketches:

Final Product:


The bottom tier of the cake was hazelnut sponge cake with chocolate butter cream and the top tiers were lemon pound cake with a raspberry filling. They were both very delicious and I was happy to say that in the taste department I don’t think I could have done better myself.

(side note: these photos are not the ones taken by my photographer. I will update with the more professional photos once I get them.)

I also baked cookies that were given as favors at the reception:

I wrapped each in a clear plastic bag and tied each with a bow - I am not sure whether I have pictures of that coming to me or not - I know I forgot to take a picture of that myself. I will update the post if one comes my way.

All in all, I was very happy with the baked goods at our wedding :)

For my most recent cake commission, a friend of mine asked that I not only make a cake that they intended on giving to a friend of theirs, but that I let them watch the process and teach them how I do it. It made for a pretty fun evening. Some pictures of the cake making process are below as well as the final product.