Ryan's cake (by Amanda)

The same weekend as Bridget's baby shower cake, my mom wanted me to make a cake for my brother.  It was the weekend before he moved to Arizona for school, as well as the weekend before his 30th birthday.  Since I had to bake 2 cakes in 2 days, I suggested to my mom that she help me decorate my brother's cake, and she was happy to help.  So, after the baby shower, I went home and baked a carrot cake and then drove it 2 hours to my mom's house along with a duffle bag full of cake decorating tools.  It was my mom's first time using fondant, so I taught her what I knew and she was a pro off the bat.  We collaborated on ideas, and came up with the cake below.  My brother loved it and even said that it was the best carrot cake he's ever had!

Pink Ladybug Baby Shower (by Amanda)

My co-worker, Bridget, asked me if I would make a small cake for her baby shower.  The only specifications she gave were that it be strawberry cake, had the colors brown, pink and blue, and that it had pink lady bugs on it.  So, I made a 6" strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting and covered in chocolate fondant.  The blue fondant flowers have sugar pearls in the middle, and the pink lady bugs are fondant as well.  Here is the finished result:

Happy Halloween

Halloween was just around the corner so we gathered up some friends for a pumpkin carving potluck. We of course brought along something baked... this time we tried something new-- sugar cookies. These were really fun to make and even more fun to eat!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Pumpkin Cake

Fall's here and has brought with it fall flavors. For my mom's birthday cake I decided to try something a little different and tested out a recipe for a pumpkin cake which I found in Cooking Light (with a few ingredient modifications). The cake was topped with orange cream cheese frosting, pomegranate seeds and mandarin oranges--- sounds odd but the flavors and textures were amazing.

Hamburger Cupcakes (by Amanda)

Three of our guy friends moved into an apartment together and they were throwing a housewarming party. Tina asked me if I was going to the party, and I said yes. Since Tina was also planning on going, she said, "We should have made them a cake." To this I replied, "It's not too late."

Since we decided to make them a cake last minute, we felt that cupcakes would be the quicker and easier treat to make. However, most of the decorations we had on hand were flowers and hearts, so we weren't quite sure how we were going to decorate them for a group of guys.

For no real reason other than that they weren't too girly, we decided to make cupcakes that looked like hamburgers. They were fairly simple to make. The "buns" are the tops and bottoms of white cupcakes. The "patties" are the bottom parts of chocolate cupcakes. The "mayonnaise" is coconut cream cheese frosting. The "lettuce" is dyed green coconut shreds. The "ketchup and mustard" is dyed red and yellow coconut cream cheese frosting. We stuck the traditional hamburger toothpick through them and then dotted the top "bun" with coconut cream cheese frosting to make the "sesame seeds."

The party seemed to really enjoy them, and Tina and I were really happy with how they turned out!

Vegan

These tasty treats were a new challenge... they were vegan! I have to admit I was nervous that they would turn out terrible. I thought how can a cupcake bake up moist and delicious without eggs, butter or milk, but they turned out fantastic! They had a moist, tender crumb and tasted delicious.

Our First Wedding!!!

On Sunday we had our very first wedding cake/cupcakes that we needed to make. The wedding colors were brown and pink, and the flower of choice was cherry blossom.

The top cake was Devil's Food Chocolate with Buttercream frosting.In order to try and please everyone, the bride and groom decided that they wanted 3 flavors of cupcakes with 3 flavors of frosting. We had Red Velvet cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting, White Chocolate cupcakes, half with Buttercream frosting and half with Raspberry Buttercream frosting, and Devil's Food Chocolate cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream frosting. So, half of the cupcakes were pink and the other half were white.The wedding was at the Japanese Gardens in Balboa Park, and it was so beautiful! After we set up our cupcake stand the wedding coordinator added flowers and candle decorations to the table, and it ended up looking so great! At night when the candles were lit up, it was even more pretty.

Our first wedding was a smashing success!

Wedding shower!

This weekend was full of wedding related cakes. Saturday we made 25 cupcakes for a wedding shower in Orange County. The theme was pink, brown and daisies. We put together these white chocolate and lemon cupcakes and topped them with vanilla and strawberry buttercream.

Summer fun

When a friend called to let us know about a fundraising event she was putting on for the San Diego Chapter of Dress for Success, we quickly jumped at the opportunity to donate a cake for the event.

The cake was a scrumptious lemon cake filled with raspberry, and covered in buttercream and graham crackers.

Fourth of July!

This year we had a chance to make a surprise birthday cake for the Fourth of July. The cake had a huge twist.. they wanted it to be green (birthday boy's favorite color). So we went to work and came up with this festive creation.

This was our first attempt at a carrot cake and it was delicious! It was covered and filled with cream cheese frosting and had little fondant stars shooting off on wires.

Twilight

Tina’s boss asked Tina if we could make a birthday cake for her teenage daughter. She wanted the cake to be “Twilight” themed. For those readers who don’t know, “Twilight” is the first in a series of books about teenage vampires, and it was recently turned into a movie. At first, Tina’s boss wanted the cake to be pink and sparkly which made the two of us really tap into our creative side. The theme of the books is red, black, and white, so we did a lot of research to see how we could incorporate those colors with the “Twilight” theme. Before we came up with any solid ideas, however, Tina’s boss changed her mind and requested that the cake decorations be based on the covers of the books, which look like this:

Tina’s boss requested a White Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Mousse filling, which turned out to be delicious! Here is the finished product:

Flowers for a Housewarming

What better way to liven up a new home than with flowers... with fondant flowers of course! A co-worker of mine had a fantastic summer BBQ housewarming party to start off the summer and celebrate moving into her new home. Instead of bringing a bouquet of flowers, I decided to bring a summery daisy covered cake. Amanda and I went to work to create a delicious cake creation.

This was a chocolate cake with white chocolate mouse covered in buttercream and fondant.

We even made matching champagne cupcakes with strawberry whip cream and tiny fondant daisies.

Baby Cakes!

After Tina and I decided that we were going to go into this baking business together, our first "job" was to make a cake and cupcakes for a dual baby shower at Tina's work. There were two women celebrating their baby showers together, and one was having a girl while the other was having a boy.

Since there were going to be more people there than at a normal baby shower, Tina decided that we should make both cupcakes and a regular cake.

The cupcakes were chocolate and were decorated to look like baby carriages.

Here's an up close picture of each:

Then we made the cake. The woman who was having a baby girl was not a fan of traditional "girl" colors, so we decided to leave the pinks and purples off of our cake. It was a white chocolate cake with raspberry jam filling, then covered with buttercream with fondant paisleys.

Tina said that everything was a big hit at the baby shower. Everything tasted great and looked pretty darn good, especially considering it was our very first baking experience together!

Bringing up the Past

So this blog got me to thinking about the cakes I've made over the past year. While some were not entirely impressive, quite a few were successes. To show where we have come from, I thought this would be a great opportunity to share some of my past cakes.

This was one of my first cakes...

I made this 3 tier wedding cake with my mom last year. It was a delicious chocolate cake with dark chocolate mousse covered in whip cream and chocolate shells!

This was my first successful fondant covered cake- white chocolate with raspberry filling.

The butterflies on this cake were hand painted purple and gold, each with a different pattern-- took a long time to finish, but it was definitely worth it! This was also my first banana cake, yum!

Can't wait to share our newest creations!

Happy Tiers

Welcome to the Happy Tiers Bakery blog! We're Tina and Amanda, two young professionals with a passion for baking. Our dream is to one day start a bakery focusing on custom cakes, although we love baking just about anything!

My (Amanda's) great grandparents owned a German bakery, so you could say that the baking genes run in my blood. I grew up baking with my family, and would love to one day turn it into a career. Tina and I met in college and became good friends. One day while talking, I found out that the first job Tina truly enjoyed was as a baker for a local retirement home. Although her current job has taken her down a different path, baking has remained a passion and hobby ever since. We recently decided that it was time to follow our hearts and start working towards owning our own bakery. We've since taken several baking, cake decorating and business classes.

We're just starting out, so we'll be posting pictures and stories of our creations (hopefully no disasters). Let us know what you think, and definitely let us know if you need a cake!