Zombie Walk 2010

Yesterday was Asbury Park's Zombie Walk in which Vivacious Cakes was a vendor!!! It was one of THE BEST times that we had! Let me first start off by saying, I love this time of year and Halloween is my favorite holiday!!!
Vivacious Cakes was part of the Zombie-Con which began before the walk was set to begin! We served up some gruesome treats such as hearts, eye balls, brains and bags of bones. The most common response from Zombies passing our table was, "OH MY GOD that looks gross!" This might be the only time that I could say "THANK YOU!" as it was a great compliment! Many stopped to take pictures, which made me proud!

At the last minute we decided to add the Bleeding Hearts to our list of offerings. We combined red velvet cake with cream cheese icing and sculpted the shape of a heart. Then we covered them with a marshmallow fondant and added some veins to them.

After making the hearts, I thought hmmm these definitely need something else to give it a pop! So I added a little glaze and viola! The most spectacularly, make you want to vomit in your mouth, but in a good way Bleeding Hearts! We couldn't keep the hearts in stock! They were a crowd favorite!!!

What do you think? Gruesome enough?

I added some maggots to the brains, I mean come on what Zombie in their right mind doesn't like a little maggot here and there!! Some of the cupcakes looked so realistic that passers by picked them up thinking they were candles!!! Zombies who chose the brains got a pleasant surprise once they took a bite! We filled the vanilla cupcakes with a raspberry filling!

Zombie treats wouldn't be complete of course without eye balls!!! YUM!That's right we included cake pops in red velvet and chocolate!!

At the end of the day we had the best time!!! We met some amazing and creative people! I loved all of the Zombies! One of the goals of the walk was to beat to the Guinness World record, previously held by Seattle. Not sure if it's been confirmed or not, hopefully it was! We are so looking forward to next years Zombie Walk!! We are already trying to think of other gruesome treats that we can serve up! More hearts, maybe some kidneys, a lung? We shall see! A big big thanks to my helpers! My Mom and Danny!!! You guys are the best!!!

Events and off key topics...

This past week we were honored to join a great group of restaurants to help support the Wellness Community "Celebration of Life" event. The Wellness Community helps to provide residents of Monmouth and Ocean Counties with cancer education, support and most of all, hope.

Vivacious Cakes, LLC. donated over 300 assorted mini-cupcakes. The flavors included pumpkin minis with cream cheese icing, chocolate minis with vanilla or chocolate buttercream and vanilla minis with vanilla or chocolate buttercream.

Our table set up!!!

Many people were coming back to our table for 2nds and 3rds!! Before I knew it, all of the mini cupcakes were gone!!! I love the look on peoples face when then taste our cakes! The smiles and enjoyment is one of the best feelings that one could ever have!

It was one of the best experiences we had! We met with great people all around!

Being a part of this event really meant a lot to me. Cancer has affect my family as well as many others. Both of my parents were affected by cancer...

My Mom was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer about 25 years ago, and thank God, she is in Remission!!

Two years ago, my father succumbed the Bladder cancer. I miss him dearly! At times he was a quiet guy but most of the time he had an infectious laugh that cracked you up. There are days where I wonder if he would be proud of me and my caking adventures...I know he would be. I wish he was around to see some of my creations. When I have my moments of doubt in what I'm doing, I wish I had him there to listen to me and say "keep going, this is your dream, it's gonna be hard...it's tough out there." I wish that I had him here to give me pointers in constructing some designs that include using handy man tools! My dad was a great builder, may have taken him a while to figure out how to build a cabinet, but when he did it was awesome!!! Every day I wish he was here! When he came into the house he would sing an off key song that was just on the radio. I miss him so... A few weeks ago on the Grilled Cheesus episode of Glee, Kurt sang a song to his Dad that made me think of my dad, check it out below:

The Adventure Continues!!!

Wow! It really has been a while since I've posted something to my blog. I do have good intentions on posting my thoughts, feelings and adventures on here as frequently as possible, however, sometimes that just isn't the case. I can be in the middle of something and think "Hmm, that's a good idea for a blog post!" By the time I get home, I forgot what I wanted to say!

Since my last blog post the cake biz has been a fun fun ride! I recently put in a application for a new Cake Boss reality show competition. When I sent the application in, I didn't think anyone would even respond to it! Well, I was wrong!!! I was asked to move on to the next step in the casting process, which was to create a video and answer a few questions. So my camera man and I (Mr. B. Keating) filmed all day and even went on the road; OK we only went to Asbury Park, NJ. It was a fun time and interesting to put together. I even went to a psychic to see if she could predict if I would get on the show. $5 and many failed attempts to get me to upgrade on her services, Madame Marie said I would get on the show...

Sorry to say that I didn't make it to the next round. I was sad, but I must say I had a blast putting everything together! This is furthest that I ever thought that I would get, so perhaps next season, I'll make it!!! Some might say, you're a loser for even writing about this...to be honest, I really don't care what you nay sayers have to say.
The big question is: will I watch the new show when it airs? Of course!!! Should there be any doubt?

If you are interested, feel free to check out my videos, click here

That was the end of my summer... Can I just say that I can't believe it's October? Where did September go??? I really can't remember much, except that it was MY BIRTHDAY!!!! Good Times. Now we are here in October, my favorite of all months!!!! Well, besides my birthday month.

I'm calling this Exposure Month! Why you may ask? Vivacious Cakes, LLC. will be at about 3 events getting in front of people I would never be able to reach on my own.

Last week, we were at the American Heart Association Trunk Show. It was great! A lot of fun and great exposure. It was also in an historic Victorian home, which was beautiful I might add! We donated a cake for the event and had cake pops and cupcakes on sale! This was out lovely table:

The cake was a chocolate lovers dream!! Chocolate cake with chocolate filling! All of the guests enjoyed the cake and some took some delicious cupcakes and cake pops home to enjoy!!!

Our next event will be for The Wellness Community of the Jersey Shore!!! We will be donating mini cupcakes for their upcoming event. I'm so exciting to be donating to a great cause!!!

Our final event for October is ending with a dead bang....We will be vendors at the Zombie Walk in Asbury Park, NJ!!! We will be selling Eye balls on a stick, some bones in a bag and some marshmallow rats =)

Well that's it for now, but I will keep you posted on our next adventures!!!! Stay tuned!!!

Vivacious Cakes: Stories Behind the Pictures Part 1

I know, I know, it's been a while since I've blogged!!! I do realize that to keep you guys engaged and enthralled with me I have to blog A LOT more than what I have. And for that I apologize... And now on with the show :)
July has been an ultra cool month! I got to create some cool cakes and even held a World Cup Cake Pop Competition!

To begin with I created a carnival themed 16th birthday cake! I really enjoyed making it, especially the popcorn!!
Of Course, the true test came when delivering the cake! For starters, it was pretty hot out!! Yeah yeah I know, it's summer! Of course it's going to be hot! But it felt like the surface of the sun! I had to cool off my car (obviously) before putting the cake in for delivery. I didn't have far to go, the location was maybe 15 minutes away, and boy was it the longest 15 minutes of my life!!!
I had to have another person sit in the back seat of the car and babysit the cake, for my own neurotic purposes. I always fear that something might go wrong with the cake! Everything was going fine until we hit the Garden State Parkway. I thought it would be faster to go that way for one exit than to take the bumpy back roads...I thought WRONG! I totally forgot about the shore traffic! And for some reason in NJ I think the use of the blinker signal has become of thing of the past and NO ONE USES THEM!!! I can't tell you how many times in the span of a mile we were cut off!! And to top it off I had my hazards on so people might stay away from me!!! Each time I jammed on my breaks I would hear a yelp from the back that would make me freak because I thought something happened to the cake! Needless to say, we arrived at our destination and the clients loved the cake!!!

Now, as you may recall back in June we did a little cake pop giveaway down in Ocean Grove, NJ to let people sample some of my yummy-licious cakes! As it turns out, people really liked the cakes pops! It didn't occur to me that people might order them! I was quite excited about it! It was fun to make some for the 4th of July, I provided the pops and the client provided the holders for them:

What we found funny was, the cake pops were ordered for the kids and it turned out the only 1 kid got them...The rest were eaten by the adults!

How many of you followed the World Cup? It was pretty good, lots of drama and theatrics, most of all bad calls from the Refs!! I digress, if you followed you would have heard the news about Paulie the Octopus (it's really Paul the Octopus, but I think Paulie is better) from Germany. Basically he was a clairvoyant of the world cup soccer games! To celebrate the games we held a competition to see if Paulie the Octopus was right. If they contestants guessed the winner of the World Cup Final the top 3 contestants would win a dozen free cake pops. Turns out all but 2 entrants guessed correctly!!! In case you were wondering, Spain won and Paulie the Octopus was RIGHT!!! So I made some cake pops using the color of Spain's national flag:

Well my vivacious cakers that's all for now! I will blog more later in the week! Enjoy your week and remember to enjoy a sweet or two!!

Building a Cake Empire

To build an empire, especially a cake empire one must get their name out there. So with a few cake pops in hand, myself and a few volunteers went on down to Ocean Grove, NJ. Every year Ocean Grove has a GIANT spring flea market in the ocean pathway. People from all walks of life are in the area.

What a better time to do this!!! Well, yes and no... Yes, because it was packed with people and no because it was hot as HADES!!!!Not good for cake pops,(MELTING ISSUES) but we pressed on!!!

The purpose of this mission was to get myself out there and let people get a little taste of what I can do! I was very nervous and hesitant about it. I thought what if people look at me and run! What if someone throws the cake pop back at me!!! Umm yeah, none of that happened.

Well, all my nerves were quelled once we started! Of course there were some rejections, but overall it was an awesome experience!! We offered the choice of chocolate and vanilla cake pops. People were VERY receptive to the cake pops and the fact that I'm starting a business! One cake lover applauded my entrepreneurship! It really was great!

Kristen handing out cake pops!

I have to thank my friends that came out to help me! They sweated their bums off! I truly truly appreciated it!

The Vivacious Cakes Crew! From left to right:
Me, Shawn, Amy and Kristin!

Cake what???

So the new rage going on in cake land is...Cake Pops!!! What are these lovely doohickey's? Well they are cake balls on a stick covered in chocolate. They are very delightful!! So I decided that I needed to get the word out about my awesome work!!!
This coming Saturday, myself and a few special friends will be at the Ocean Grove Flea market handing out some cake pops. They come in chocolate or vanilla...keeping it simple!!!
Stay tuned to see what happens!!!

Purse Creations and Other Adventures!!

So this past weekend I created a coach purse cake for a friend. I was supper stoked to do it!
The sugar paste roses are hand made too!!! The only thing that took a while was the making hand painting of the Coach "C", but I must say that I enjoyed doing it :)
In the past few weeks I have been checking into additional kitchen spaces to possibly rent. I find it interesting that when I inquired about this space, the person offering the space made it seem like I was taking up too much of their time. PS...the phone conversation last a little over 1 minute!!! hmmm, maybe not the best choice!
This weekend, I will be experimenting with cake pops...What are cake pops? Well, they are basically cakes balls on a stick! That's the simplest way to explain it. So stay tuned and find out what all the hub-bub is about!

Welcome to my Blog!!!

Hi everyone! I just wanted to take this moment to welcome you to Vivacious Cakes! I’m Melissa, I’m the creator of the cakes that you will be seeing around the blog. Feel free to follow my blog posts, you will see some pretty cool cake designs.

You will get a glimpse into the life of an entrepreneur building a cake empire That's right I said it, cake empire! As I build my business, I'm inviting you on my journey. About 10 years ago I graduated from Baltimore International Culinary College. I continued to work in the culinary industry honing my skills and decided one day that I wanted to my own business. I decided to go back to school for business. Along the way I continued to create cakes and learn new techniques. Now here I am building my business.

I'm open to any thoughts, ideas or suggestions you may have for me in regards to building my business!! SO STAY TUNED!

In the words of the late great Julia Child: "No matter what happens in the kitchen, never apologize." And I intend NOT to.

Enjoy your day!!!