Carson's Birthday Cake

In October I took a break from my wedding planning to make a surprise birthday cake for a sweet gal by the name of Carson. Her mom ordered up a girl cake with peace signs but since Carson hates chocolate, to we went with a vanilla cake with a raspberry buttercream frosting, covered in fondant. Ta-Da... she was excited and loved her cake- yay!

I'm baaaaack!

Ok, so since I got married just under a month ago I've got this great cake plate (thanks Elaine!!) that I feel the need to keep stocked for my hubby. Here's a picture of what it looks like right now...


These are chocolate chip-oatmeal-raisin-cranberry cookies from a whole batch I made. Yesterday. I made them yesterday and there's 6 cookies left! I guess that's a good thing, but it also means I need to get baking tomorrow! Since we've gotten married I've also stocked it with a spice cake with cream cheese frosting and chocolate chip banana muffins. I'm off to look for a new recipe...

More Yo Gabba Gabba Cookies.

So I have baked lately, just not new stuff. Here's another batch of Yo Gabba Gabba cookies that I made for a birthday party a couple weeks ago. I think they look great tied up with the ribbon!

Disneyland Sweets Fun

Ok, so I haven't baked in like... forever, but I did visit Disneyland this past summer and used up half a memory card on pictures of all their cute sweets, candies, cookies, etc. Here's a little collage of some of my favorites.

The pretzel in the bottom right corner doesn't look like much, but it was filled with cream cheese and was a-m-a-z-i-n-g! Seriously the best pretzel I've ever had. I think Gregory and I had like 4 of them over the 2 days we went. I would seriously go back just for the pretzels... and maybe a ride or two on Space Mountain.

Cranberry Orange Scones

I was inspired by my friend over at Occasional Sugar because she bakes something new at least once a week! I cheated though and made these scones out of some scone mix from Oregon. Since I was taking them to the park for a playdate with some of my son's friends and their mommies, I shaped them into cute little stars and sprinkled some raw sugar on top. Pretty yummy!

Bright Flower Cookies

I made a few of these cookies as "thank you" cookies and a few more as a snack for a friend who was having a photo shoot done. Another pink & green combination that I love! Apparently I haven't been baking nearly enough because once I started decorating these I couldn't stop and I ended up staying up pretty late just decorating cookies!

Sugar cookies with lemon royal icing and sugar sprinkles :)

Decorating tunes were mostly Kris Allen with a few Adam Lambert songs sneaking in and giving him a run for his money.

First person to comment and correctly tell me who I honestly thought was going to win American Idol this past season will get my 3 extra cookies!

Simple Wedding Cake

Sorry not much business lately! Here's a wedding cake I did for the same Lake Tahoe wedding a couple weeks ago. The bride just wanted a small, simple cake for her and her husband. It looked great with her cake topper but unfortunately I didn't get any pictures with it. It was a vanilla cake with a raspberry and custard filling, vanilla buttercream frosting and pink fondant pearls and sugar decorating it.

Flippie-Floppies

Here are some pastel flip flop cookies I did for a wedding up in Lake Tahoe earlier this month. They were for a casual wedding and the bride wanted to hand out cookies instead of cake to her guests because she said they tasted better than cake! She chose different pastel colors for the cookies to go along with all the colors in her wedding. They were sugar cookies with royal icing and sugar sprinkles.

Kuhn Rikon Mouse Measuring Cup Set

I'm going to start highlighting all the cool new kitchen gadgets I'm slowly acquiring because I love them all! I love having fun stuff when I'm baking and I've found that the best way to do that is to get products that are made for kids. I especially love kids cookbooks because they're always so bright and colorful with TONS of pictures!

So one of my latest purchase came from Sur La Table at The Grove on our recent vacation to Los Angeles. I found this Kids Kinderkitchen Mouse Measuring Cup Set by some Swiss company and fell in love with the colors. One of my favorite kitchen tools are these measuring spoons that are just plastic, but they're all a different color, which for some reason makes it easier for me. I also got some Le Cruset pinch bowls (green and red ones) and a Le Cruset Turquoise spatual, but those aren't quite as exciting (but they are colorful!). Ok, ok, ok here're pictures...

4th of July Cupcakes

Here are some chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting I made for a 4th of July party. I like the ones with the little star sprinkles better than the glitter ones, but they all tasted yummy!

Yo Gabba Gabba

Hello Monday! Hope everyone had a great weekend, I know I was super busy this past weekend. Here are some Yo Gabba Gabba cookies I did for a birthday party last Friday. They were fairly big at 4" and looked great with all the characters together. I only made a dozen, but whew- they were time consuming! Worth it though, since they turned out way cuter that I'd imagined!

Here's a close up of Brobee and more pictures can be found on my flickr.

For those of you not following the tv woes of the preschool crowd, here's a picture of the characters.

Decorating tunes this time came from the local country radio station.
-J

Happy Father's Day!

I let go of the reigns for Father's Day and let Christopher decorate some cookies for his Daddy. He picked out the rainbow sprinkles and said he wanted to decorate with blue frosting. The end result were some yummy cookies that spelled out "Daddy" along with a fish cookie, since he fishes. Yummmm:

Ok, do I didn't completely let go of the reigns. I figured Gregory already had enough cookies with the one's Christopher made him, but a friend asked me to make her a neck tie cookie for her dad. Here's what I came up with, all sugar cookies with royal icing and sugar (and sprinkles!):


Happy Father's Day honey!
-J

Karate Cookies

The woman who reads the stories at a local story-time that I take Christopher to asked if I could do some special cookies for her daughter's 7th birthday party. Her daughter, Charlie, was having her birthday party at a Karate studio and wanted karate people made out of chocolate chip cookies with a yellow belt and yellow m&m's. I did the m&m's as belt accents and they turned out really cute! These were fun to decorate but were a little harder to keep together than sugar cookies.

Decorating tunes were a mix of 90's songs like The Wallflowers, Savage Garden and No Doubt.

-J

So I'm more into making cupcakes and cookies, but ever since I started working with fondant (which was what, a good week ago?) I've been wanting to try covering a cake with fondant. This past weekend a good friend asked if I'd make a cake for her and her husband's 5th wedding anniversary so I took on the fondant challenge!

She just wanted a small cake that at least sort of resembled her wedding cake but she wasn't picky at all and would have gone for either fondant or icing. That was nice because I wasn't sure how the fondant was going to turn out since I'd never covered a cake in fondant before. I figured if I tried it and it didn't work, I'd just use white buttercream. Her original wedding cake was white fondant-covered tiers with pink ribbon, draped fondant and some piping. She provided the ribbon and the flowers and the rest was up to me.

The tiers didn't come out perfectly smooth but I was pleasantly surprised with how nice the draped fondant looked, especially since I hadn't originally planned on doing that. I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and try some more! So here is the cake...


This was a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream filling and vanilla fondant. No chocolate because her daughter does NOT like chocolate!

Decorating tunes were mostly nothing this time, but I turned on a few Hanson songs towards the end.

-J

Chocolate & Carrot Cake

Here are some cupcakes I did for a baby shower this weekend. They were chocolate and carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Blue & yellow fondant flowers to celebrate the mom and her baby boy on the way!



I finally got around to listening to Hanson for my decorating tunes, so it was their album "The Walk" for these cupcakes.

-J

Flickr

Lunch Box Lane is now on Flickr! For additional pictures of cupcakes, cakes, and cookies check it out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/LunchBoxLane/

Harlow's Hairbows

I took a break from the baking craziness to make a few more bows for Harlow's Hairbows and they've just been picked up by the East Sac children's boutique, Koukla Kids! It's so exciting, I feel all professional and all now! So you can either buy my hairbows directly from me or stop in at Koukla and purchase them there. The store is SO stinkin' adorable! Here's a couple pictures of the store. That's Christopher and his friend Peter hanging out on the couch (and little Katie on the floor).

Polka Dot Baby Shower Cake

This past weekend I made a polka dot cake for a baby shower! Chocolate cake with raspberry whipped cream filling, vanilla whipped cream frosting and pink, green, and yellow polka dots (I just love that color combination, especially for summer!). So yummy! I think it looked so adorable with the writing, but looking back at it, I think I wish I'd done the writing in a little bit brighter pink. I don't know, I do kind of liked the contrast though.

Decorating tunes were some random iPod selections, mostly Jonas Brother's album from last year, I think "A Little Bit Longer."

-J

Preschool Cupcakes

My son's last day of preschool for the semester was last Thursday, so I took in cupcakes for all the kids (and parents!). I decorated them with sprinkles and little fondant elephants and giraffes, but I think they would look great for a baby shower too! They were vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting. Oh, and hint of orange thrown in there too!


Here's the giraffe cupcakes. His name is Sprinkles, name by my son.

And here's the elephant! And is name is Sprinkles 2, also named by my son.

Decorating tunes... I think were a random mix of songs from the laptop. I don't have much music on here since we had to get it fixed last month, so I think it was a mix of oldies including "Teach Your Children" by Crosby Stills Nash & Young.

-J

M Corp

Logo Cupcakes: $2.50 each
Flower cupcakes: $2.50 each

Company logo and springtime cupcakes for an open house. Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting, vanilla fondant flowers and the logo in royal icing.

Birthday Cake Cookie

My birthday and my sister's are 6 days apart. So since we spent my birthday together in San Francisco this past weekend I made her a special birthday cake cookie as an early birthday present. Next I think I want to try making one with sanding sugar. Or little decorations to make it look like a real cake!

-J

St. Mary's College Cookies

So my baby sister graduated from St. Mary's College this weekend. So for goody bags I made some cookies with the St. Mary's logo on them. The "G" stands for the Gaels, which is their mascot and are apparently knights... not birds like I thought, haha.

Decorating tunes included Justin Timberlake (first album!) and a couple random New Kids on the Block songs, like "Cover Girl" and "Tonight."

-J

Abby's Cookies

I made some favor bags of cookies for a little girl named Abby who turned 1 a week ago. Her mom, Jen, picked the perfect color combination of light pink, light green and yellow and the cookies looked beautiful together! "A" and "1" sugar cookies with lemon icing and sprinkles. Check out Abby's birthday party on Jen's blog here - so sweet!


And since I wanted to try out some techniques I made her a special little birthday cake cookie as well. It turned out so cute that I made another one for my sister for her birthday!

Decorating tunes had to be Taylor Swift's song "Fifteen" (and the rest of the "Fearless" album) because it's about her best friend Abigail and these were for a little girl named Abby!

-J

Chocolate Cake

Happy Birthday Sue cake! Chocolate cake with chocolate whipped cream filling and chocolate ganache frosting. Oh, and cream cheese frosting accents. A chocolate-lovers dream!

Chocolate Cake

Not a whole lot can beat chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Unless you add raspberry whipped cream filling! (Plus the sugar stars don't hurt). I made this for a friend's "Going Back to Work" party last year. Mmmmmm, now I'm craving it!

Spiderman Cupcakes

Spiderman Themed Cupcakes for a 4-year-old boy's birthday party. The party was great too- nice and laid back and I relaxed the whole time! More pictures can be found here.

Simple Cupcakes

Chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Simple and yummy! I think I did these on the fly, so there were no decorating tunes :(

-J

Pretty Liners

I recently bought these beautiful cupcake liners from Bake It Pretty. Hmmm... what should I bake in them? I'm leaning towards some fancy muffins with a huge dollop of cream cheese frosting up on top. What do you think?