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!!!