What a Girl Wants

This was the 4th year of What a Girl Wants (a fabulous fundraiser for the Lois Hole Women's Hospital). This year's theme was your inner shopaholic, so we decided this year's dessert stage should be fashion inspired. It's always been fun creating the dessert tables for this event...this year was the best so far! Shout out to our friend Katherine (owner of Elegant Touches) for allowing me to use her wares to display our goodies on...the fabulous feather balls are also from ET.

Our Lady Gaga inspired cake table included chocolate mousse shooter cups, vanilla meringue kisses, chocolate and coconut mini cupcakes.

Purple is a big colour this year...my second table was inspired from the Red Carpet. A Givenchy creation worn by Zoe Saldana. On this table: vanilla bean macarons, lollipop black and white raspberry cake, mini chocolate chip brownies, Callebaut chocolate chunk cookies, chocolate cake truffle pops, white chocolate mousse cherry shots.

Here are few other randon sweets we created: purse and stiletto sugar cookies, petit fours (made by our creative intern MP, chocolate macrons, mini cupcakes and more chocolate cake truffle pops.



It was sweet sugar coma for all who attended!!!

Styling Sweets!

Sometimes we get time to work on wonderfully sweet side projects...we get to play with desserts other than cakes and cupcakes (though they are never ignored) and get to put together cute little displays.
I decided that we should offer these to clients more...so, if you are hosting an occasion and want something fun, just ask and we'd love to theme something for you!

These were from our baby shower sweet table that I put together last August (just 4 days before our baby Kenna was born)! We knew we were having a girl, hence all the PINK!

The table included mini cupcakes, sugar cookie onsies, chocolate cake truffles, strawberries, cherries, assorted candies, cream puffs and pink coconut macaroons dipped in chocolate.

This table was created for Kenna's Christening in September. The lavender cake was our centerpiece. Guest Favour were ceramic baby carriages filled with yogurt raisins. Also on the table: mini vanilla sandwich cookies, coconut cupcakes, vanilla meringue cookies, white chocolate pretzels, white chocolate almonds, a Filipino rice and coconut dessert and cross shaped sugar cookies.

For her first Halloween, we invited some of our friends and family and they got to enjoy some creepy Halloween eats! (Yes, Kenna was only 2 1/2 months old and couldn't eat sweets..still can't...but her friends and cousins could!) Her costume was from a hand sewn costum of Max from Where the Wild Things Are.

We made candied apples, skeleton sugar cookies, red velvet sandwich cookies, creepy cupcakes, assorted cookies, candies and chocolates and a giant cupcake centerpiece cake.

Stay tuned for more! Just think, our little Kenna will be 1 year old in a few months...just image what that sweet table will look like!!!! I have so many ideas I don't even know how I will choose!

Grand Opening!

Wow! I wish I took a photo of our sample table. On Saturday we gave out samples of our black and white skor cake; black and white raspberry cake; brookies and chocolate cake truffles (which were the hit of the party)! But, here are the boys handing out our cake lollipops on the sidewalk!
We can't thank you all enough for your support and excitement about the new space. It is always wonderful to see familiar faces and to be able to meet so many new people! The clientele at Garneau has been amazing. We are so pleasantly overwhelmed by the warm welcome from the neighbourhood. So far, we're loving Garneau.

Here we are with our staff (and our boss, baby Kenna)! I'm so blessed to have a wonderful family who help us out and help grow our business. This is a ridiculously fun group of people to be around on a daily basis and I thank them for putting up with my mini (and sometimes not so mini) dramas (which may or may not be cake related)!!! We always say that we're ready for our own daytime drama...more on that VERY SOON...

A big shout out to my mom (Ofelia) and dad (Arturo) who many of our market customers know. From the get go of Whimsical, they have helped in every aspect...whether it be icing cupcakes, washing dishes (oh so many dishes), mopping floors, greet customers, standing in the cold on some market days and being stellar grandparents to Kenna on a daily basis. Without them I would be a total mess!!!

Here is another picture of mom and dad that I sneaked from Sharon's blog: Only Here for the Food.

Alice in Whimsical-land

Alice in Wonderland is one of my favourite stories. From the mad hatter to that crazy Queen...it's all so fantastical! We have created many different Alice in Wonderland themed cakes over the years and they just keep getting better and better! So, if anyone wants to challenge us with a 3D bust of the Mad Hatter, we're all for it!!!

Spectacular tiered Birthday cakes (this first one was inspired by another cake decorator whose name I will reference as soon as I found out who s/he is...our client brought us a photo they found online).

3D Story Book cakes


Inspired from the cartoon version...several cakes created for the Books 2 Eat fundraiser for the Edmonton Public Library


Tim Burton's Mad Hatter's Hat (I think we liked it better without the fondant figures)...and I probably could have made more hat pins, though there are some fondant feathers as well.

...and of cousre the Chesire cat in 3D created by 2 of our Whimsical Designers (Aislinn and Heather)...sometimes I swear some of our cakes look like they're about to talk!


If you haven't seen the movie yet, you must! Simply for Helena Bonham Carter portrayal of the Red Queen. "Where are my fat boys? You must meet them. Fat boooys!....I love my fat boys. Now get out."

Super Mario, take 5?

Seriously...I can't count the number of super mario cakes we've created. Mini versions, torso up versions, fondant figures....if we never see a Super Mario cake again, I think we'd be okay with that.

Just to make things more interesting, we gave this cake order to Ken. He's on this new kick of building custom stands. I think he found his niche in the studio. He's all game for more challenges, so bring it!!!

Here is Mario pre-fondant stage
Here is standing with all his mario-glory. Did we mention we totally undercharged for this 2 day project? Even though we totally gave Ken a hard time about over "tanning" Mario and giving him an oversized "snout"! haha.

Here is another custom cake that Ken made...with custom stand to boot. Eat that Ace of Cakes! Just kidding. We totally love Ace of Cakes.

Cake Decorating for YOU!

Our new space allows us to teach classes more proficiently! The response to our classes has been fantastic. So much so that we have waiting lists for a few of them. If you are interested in joining one of our classes be sure check out out website for the list of dates. We definitely look forward to offering more classes.

Here are some of the ladies with their purse cakes from a class held in our old Riverbend Studio. I enjoyed this class and look forward to teaching more purse sculpting! Although it is for beginners a knowledge or previous experience covering cakes would be helpful for you.

Over the past few weeks we've been able to host a few classes in the new space. Over spring break I taught a group of girls how to decorate cupcakes and cookies. This has been by far the most colourful class I've taught. I really enjoyed teaching this class and I got great feedback from the kids and their parents, so we'll definitely come up with more classes for them!

More recently is a photo of our basics to buttercream class. These ladies were very creative and many have a natural talent for decorating cakes. I always have my eyes open to new talent :)


Our basics to fondant class was also lots of fun. This was the first time I had a man in the class! Thanks, Brad! Hope your family enjoyed your cake!

Our New Studio

So much to update...I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'll start with the move to the new location! We packed up our Riverbend Studio on a Saturday afternoon...the movers came on Sunday morning and we were ready to open by Tuesday! It was awesome!

The new studio is totally open. This has some pros and cons. Pros are that everything is more accessible to the bakers and the cake designers and clients have a great visual of the cakes we are working on. The only real con, I guess, is that you can see our mess! Cake making is a messy business...as you'll soon see in many upcoming photos.