Madeleine's Birthday Cake

*UPDATE October 4, 2011*
Madeleine's battle with cancer ended on September 27, 2011. Click here to watch local TV coverage.

For Madeleine's very special 9th birthday, I enlisted the help of some of my best cake friends - Diana, Christina, Ellen, and Kyla, and together we made her a cake to remember. Diana and Christina hand-made the figurines in West Texas and overnighted them to me. Kyla and Ellen came to my house and worked with me from 10 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., nonstep except when we took a short break to eat a Papa Murphy's pizza at lunch time! Ellen wielded the airbrush, and Kyla worked her magic on that magnificent pineapple, the Krabby Patty, and Squidward's house. Me? Well, uh, I supervised. No, I'm kidding, I worked all day long too, making flowers, starfish, seaweed, bubbles, the Krusty Krab, and, well....supervising.

Madeleine and her family were so surprised, and she loved her cake! The first thing she said when she saw it was, "Where's Patrick?" He was up so high, she couldn't see him from her wheelchair! But she knew he had to be there somewhere. She is right on top of things!

For those of you who would like to read more about her progress, here is her Caring Bridge page.

I know you're probably wondering how many that served - the answer is about 15! Only the 8" round tier that says "Madeleine" is real cake. The pineapple on top is a rice krispy treat, and everything else is styrafoam dummies. Jennifer Bartos at the All In One Bake Shop very generously donated all the fondant and styrafoam for this project, and I am extremely grateful to her for that! This was truly a collaborative effort of Texas cakers!

Madeleine's Gift

*UPDATE October 4, 2011*
Madeleine's battle with cancer ended on September 27, 2011. Click here to watch local TV coverage.

*UPDATE September 8, 2011*
Madeleine is gravely ill and hospice has advised her family to be at her side. More information can be found on her Facebook page, Prayers for Chingy.
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I'm going to take a break from blogging about sugar, cookies, and cakes for this post, and talk about a very special little girl.

I'd like you to meet my neighbor, Madeleine. Madeleine is 8 years old, she will be 9 in October. Up until this summer, Madeleine was a normal, happy, active girl who loved Spongebob and riding her bike. Then one day in July, she came inside after riding her bike, and collapsed. Doctors found multiple tumors in her brain. She was diagnosed with Stage IV Glioblastoma.

Madeleine has had brain surgery to remove the two largest tumors, but there are many which are inoperable due to their location. The surgery left her in a wheelchair, unable to move her legs or left arm. She is currently undergoing radiation and chemotherapy.



Madeleine's prognosis is bleak, but her spirits are high. Her life spirit shines brightly despite her grave illness.



Her parents are not able to work, in order to care for her and spend as much time as possible with her. They are faced with numerous unexpected medical expenses.

If you participate in a prayer list, please add Madeleine Frady to your prayers. And if you are able, please consider giving a donation to her family to help them in this terrible time of need. Madeleine's web site with donation information is http://www.madeleinesgift.org/.

Ok, I lied, I'm not taking a complete break from talking about sugar art. This wouldn't be a complete CakeBoss post without some kind of sugar art! I made SpongeBob cookies for Madeleine tonight. I hope they bring a smile to her sweet face.

Marshmallow fondant

CakeBoss shows you how to make easy homemade fondant out of marshmallows and powdered sugar!

Check it out!

CakeBoss coral tutorial

We've just released a new tutorial on how to create realistic-looking coral for ocean or aquarium themed cakes. Check it out!

Mix or Scratch?

CakeBoss weighs in on the mix vs. scratch debate.

CakeBoss Mix Or Scratch Article

CakeBoss 2010 Released!

We are very proud to announce the release of the all new and improved CakeBoss 2010!

The new program was redesigned from the ground up, with easier installation, and many new features and enhancements, including:

Multiple photos attached to orders
Ability to schedule and record multiple payments
New reports like 'Shopping List' which lets you select a date range, and prints out all ingredients and supplies you need for orders in that time frame.
Master 'Material' list to let you enter all your materials like boxes, boards, dowels.
Master 'Ingredient' list with ingredient converter for common baking ingredients. So you enter into CakeBoss that your 5-lb bag of sugar is $4.29, and CakeBoss "knows" how much 1 cup, or 1 ounce, or 1 tbsp costs you.
Expense Book - let you account for ALL expenses, not just the cost of an order. Run reports to break down expenses by category.

Check out these screen shots, and come on over to CakeBoss.com to take the full video tour!


Dashboard shows upcoming orders, and pending and overdue payments.


Pre-loaded with over 100 common baking ingredients. Just enter the size package you buy (metric or imperial) and the price you pay

Anniversary Cake

My husband and I celebrated our 15th anniversary last week, and to commemorate the occasion, I re-made my wedding cake. You see, my wedding cake was bad. Not just "dated" in that 1994 way, but really, really bad. So ugly I was embarrassed to display it.

So, I made it again, only this time I made what I "thought" I was getting. There were rules: It had to be a 6", 8", 10", and it had to be on Wilton crystal-look pillars, just like the original. It had to be all buttercream, it had to have ruffle swags, and it had to have pink buttercream roses.


This is not my dream wedding cake NOW - of course styles have changed and my tastes are much different. But I think the 1994 me would have been pleased with it.





Ok, so I opened the door, what would be my ideal wedding cake now? Argh, I would probably go insane trying to choose just one design, but I do love this Blue Hydrangea cake by Jennifer Dontz. Of course mine would be in pink. Always pink! :)

Sugar Cookie Saturday

My son has a milk allergy, he's highly allergic to anything that comes from a cow's udder - this includes milk, butter, sour cream, cheese, and cream cheese. As you can imagine, this leaves him out of a lot of yummy foods, including desserts. For a family potluck this weekend, I made sugar cookies, using butter-flavored Crisco instead of butter, frosted with royal icing so the little guy could have something for dessert (ever try to find a butter-free dessert?). I think the butter-flavored Crisco tastes weird, but he loves the cookies and doesn't know any different.

I won't lie to you, I love making decorated cookies, but my strategy is to distract the viewer with color so they won't notice that they're terribly, terribly sloppy. I still think they make an impressive presentation - IF you use enough color! It's all about the color! And don't forget the bling - that's edible disco glitter dust sprinkled on them.

My recipe made 24 4-inch cookies which, if I were selling, could potentially sell for $4/each (assuming standard $1/inch pricing). Check out my costs in CakeBoss:

30 cents each! That's some profit margin!

CakeBoss's One-Bowl Lemon Bars

We are lemon lovers at CakeBoss, so on a lazy Saturday I peeked in the fridge, saw lemons, and decided to whip up some lemon bars. This is a variation of a recipe we got out of a Peanuts cookbook for kids that my mom picked up at a garage sale for 5 cents in the 70's. Sometimes I still call them Lucy's Lemon Squares.

I hate to wash dishes, so I make these in my food processor and I use one bowl for the whole thing.

First, start with COLD butter, and fresh lemons. Margarine and bottled lemon juice are not the same thing. Please, for the love of baking, use real butter and fresh squeezed lemons.

I cut up the butter roughly into tablespoon-sized pieces before I chuck them in the food processor.


I throw all the ingredients for the crust into the food processor bowl at the same time. My secret for special crust: zest of 2 lemons. Pulse until the dough comes together. The dough will go through a "sandy" stage.

Then start coming together.

We've arrived. Dump that dough out into an ungreased glass 9x13 dish.
Use your "impeccably clean hands" (as Julia Child might say) to press the dough evenly into the pan. Work fast - you don't want the butter to warm up for two reasons: First, cold butter is essential for flaky pastries. Second, if it gets too warm, the dough will get sticky and stick to your hands when you're working with it. Bake for 20 minutes at 350.

While that's cooking, let's make the filling. Like I said, I hate to wash dishes, so I make the filling in the same bowl that I made the crust in. Nope, I don't even wipe it out first.

This recipe isn't fussy, you just throw all the ingredients into the bowl and blend away. Being lemon lovers, we don't think it's lemony enough until the corner of your eye is twitching, so I put 1/2 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice in, but you can adjust the amount of lemon juice to your family's taste.

Your crust should be about done by now, so at the 20 minute mark pull it out of the oven. It should be lightly browned on the edges.
Give the filling one last whirr to make sure it's combined and nothing has settled. Then pour it over the hot crust.
Return it to the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes at 350. In my oven 22:30 does the trick nicely, but oven temperatures and cooking times do vary. When you remove it, it should not jiggle at all, and should be lightly browned on top.
Now, let it cool completely. No, really. It will just fall apart if you try to cut it now. But no one's looking, and I won't judge if you have to have a taste.

Several hours later.......

Sprinkle with powdered sugar (I use my sieve) and cut into as many pieces as desired. I always run my knife around the edge first, because that's where it wants to stick. To keep your cuts nice and sharp, rinse off your knife after every cut, that will keep it from getting goopy and dragging a lot of gunk around as you cut. I use a fork to remove them from the pan.

Then.... plate artistically and enjoy with a nice hot cup of tea.


Or, eat them straight from the pan with a Diet Coke to cancel the calories. We won't judge you. :)

Now, I'll use CakeBoss to break down my costs:

One 9x13 pan costs a grand total of $3.12 in ingredients, which works out to a whopping $0.26 for one generously sized bar. Last time I checked, one of these at Starbucks runs about $1.95 (and I promise you it's not as good). With my Master Ingredient List already entered, it took less than 2 minutes for me to cost out this recipe. See how I did it by watching the video called How to create a master ingredient list and add a recipe.

This recipe can be found in its entirety on the CakeBoss web site.

Happy (and frugal) Baking!

Priced high, and proud of it.

If you ever feel shy about charging $2, $3, or more per slice of cake, read this wonderful article about a man who charges $5 per slice of pizza - and is proud of it.

New installation package today, hoping to simplify the installation procedure. Microsoft always has some tricks up its sleeve for us!

Indonesian Millionaires

We had to do some bug fixes and publish a new build yesterday due to a user in Indonesia having some problems with invoice formatting and bugs involving the Indonesian currency. According to Google, 1 Indonesian Rupiah equals 1 Indonesian rupiah = 8.5 × 10-5 U.S. dollars. Yes, that's 10 to the negative fifth power. So what this site tells me is that anything over approximately $115 US dollars is more than a million rupiah. Naturally Jon never planned on the prices of baked goods requiring more than 7 figures (!) so this was causing our user problems. We think it's been all fixed now.

I'm still working away on my cake show entry. I've been able to make some good progress, so it looks like I may be done in time!

New Blog

It's a busy time for us at CakeBoss! Jon is hard at work on CakeBoss 2009, rebuilding it from the ground up. We have lots of cool new features planned for the new versionl. So many that I'm still hoping by the time it's released that it's not "CakeBoss 2010". :)

The extremely awesome Austin Cake Show is coming up on February 28, and this year, even with everything else that's going on, I'm hoping to get an entry complete (I never even finished my entry last year). I've bought some cool impression mats and molds, and I actually have some of my dummies covered in fondant. Are any of you going to be there? I will be wearing a "CakeBoss" nametag so please come up and say hi!!!