A Little About Me

After growing up making all the sweets at every family gathering and holiday, I fell in love with desserts. I chose to attend the Culinary Arts program at Brigham Young University Idaho. After graduating I have worked at various jobs making cakes and other goodies. The most recent being the Pastry Chef for the Oxford University Club, Taylor Grocery Special Events Catering in Oxford, Mississippi, and now my mom's farm-Fiddlin Rooster Farm- in Water Valley, MS. I have many family recipes and several of my own that I enjoy making and would love to make them for you.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

more pictures!

Here are some more pictures of the cakes I worked on in July!






Thank you Megan!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Super Mario!

My sister made this awesome cake for her son's 8Th birthday and let me help with some of the decorations for it! We had so much fun reminiscing of playing this game growing up! And singing the famous song! Jamie it looked amazing and tasted just as wonderful!

She let her son pick the flavor which was interesting but actually worked! It was a chocolate blueberry cake! Yes I said blue berry with chocolate! She used a red velvet cake and mixed in blue berries and used a cream cheese filling and frosting! Nice combination!
I made the mushroom men, the rock edging, and the clouds. Then helped make the hat for Mario which was a collaboration between mom and Jamie. But the rest was all Jamie! How cool is that man eating plant!



I loved working on this, Thank you Jamie!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Hoggard-Doggett Wedding!

I had the opportunity to work on a wedding this past week in Oxford Mississippi. I made a 4 tier wedding cake, groom's cake, and dessert bar. It turned out beautiful even after a few stressful moments when we realized we had run out of fondant. But my wonderful sister Christie drove down from Memphis to bring us some and help with all the Alabama A's. Thank you mom and Christie for all your support and hard work in helping me get this delivered on time.

The wedding cake layers were strawberry, white, and Italian cream. It was iced in butter cream frosting with fresh flowers on top. As for the groom's cake and table it was all golf and Alabama themed! He chose a banana cake with cream cheese icing. We made sugar cookies, strawberry pecan coconut, and lemon mini pies, cake lollies, and petit fours.

The groom's mom did a wonderful job of decorating the table for the groom's cake and the dessert display. I love the candles with the golf balls and tee's in it.







Yes, these are real petite fours! Not what most people consider them to be. They are made from my petit four cake recipe out of my pastry chef book that mom has swiped! They are two to three layers depending upon size and have an apricot filling. I have made them with chocolate which is really good, but these were the normal ones. To top them off they have a layer of marzipan and are iced in a white chocolate glaze. Yummie! I had several while making them!

Thank you again Megan and Patrick for trusting me with your desserts on such a special day!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Cup Cake wedding!

This was a very cute wedding that my mom and I worked on for the last weekend in May. Instead of a large cake or dessert bar they chose different cupcakes.
The reception was held at the Big Truck Theatre in Taylor, Mississippi.
We made one big coconut cup cake for the bride and groom. The butterflies are made out of gum paste.


My favorite part was the names of each cup cake. We made snow white, Irish divinity, sugar baby's, summer breeze, and PMS special.
And If you're wondering how we transported that many cup cakes well this is how!

Monday, June 7, 2010

Bread!

So my mom is making bread for a new grocery store in down town Water Valley, Mississippi. Each day she makes 12 loaves of wheat, 8 loaves of white, 15 cookies, and 12 breakfast pastries of her choice. So for the past 2 weeks I have been working with her and helping with the orders. Here are some pictures of what all we made!

In the gift shop we displayed some of the bread and croutons for guests to purchase.

We made Italian, plain, and ranch flavored croutons. They were so yummie!
Doug and Mom bagging and labeling the bread
With some of the extra dough mom wanted to play around so she braided this loaf.

All the bread had to completely cool before being bagged, so it wouldn't get soggy from the steam.
We discovered that our wheat recipe had to be slashed on top not just to make it look nice but also to prevent a bubble from forming directly under the crust!

We made cinnamon rolls, scones, crescents, fruit pastries, and lots of bread and cookies! I ate fresh bread all week! It was so yummie!

Cakes and Pies Galore!

I spent the last 2 weeks at my mom's farm helping her with 2 weddings and her daily bread deliveries. Here are the desserts from one of the weddings. I will post the bread later and the other wedding as well.

I went to the farmer's market Saturday morning and lucked out on this bag full of fresh Blackberries for only 7 dollars! So I made the pie above for our family and I used some in one of the cakes below. They were so delicious!
This was the wedding cake for the Barn Dance reception held on the 5th at the farm. It was a 6 layer chocolate cake!
My mom and I combined our efforts to make all the desserts in the display so that it wasn't empty during the reception. Since she is shut down during the summer with the exception of special orders and events.
I had the cake in the fridge because our kitchen was so hot while the oven was running. So if you look close the cake started to sweat from the temperature change! It was 93 outside!
We made peach, blue berry, and chocolate cobbler for the guests to enjoy with a scoop of ice cream!
Below are close ups of the cakes in the display. I didn't have time to take pictures so I gave the camera to someone to take some for me. She did her best without opening the glass. Unfortunately there is a slight glare on a few. I need to get better about taking the pictures before putting them in the case!