Happy Halloween

Wishing everyone a Happy Halloween.

This was my son's first year trick or treating. At first he wasn't sure what was going on but loved all the excited of kids running all dressed up - but after a few houses he quickly caught on that all he had to do was hold out his bucket at each house and it got filled with candy!

I love making Halloween treats - orange just pops on a chocolate background. These were ordered by Mariter of Daniela Jay Boutique as give-aways for their Halloween costume contest. If you haven't visted this boutique tucked in the Happy Valley/67th Ave shopping center you must check it out!

its pink! 2 tiered baby shower cake

This pink baby shower cake was delivered to the Palm Valley golf course in Goodyear. This two-tiered cake is a 10 inch and 6 inch round - the top tier is double chocolate sour cream with chocolate mousse filling and the bottom tier is white sour cream with raspberry mousse filling. Decorations are fondant and gumpaste. One great thing about tiered cakes is that you can order 2 different flavors!

75th birthday party - purple, yellow and green

This cake was order by a family planning a surprise party for their mother's 75 birthday. They wanted the cake white with purple, yellow and green accents - my favorite part of this cake is the multi-colored bow (its made from fondant). This two-tiered cake is an 8 inch and 10 inch cake which serves approximately 45. They also ordered chocolate dipped pretzels drizzled with white chocolate tinted purple, yellow, and green and 4 dozen San Francisco Chocolate Factory chocolate dipped strawberries. San Francisco Chocolate Factory treats can be added to Simply Sweets orders for no additional delivey charge - this includes strawberries, caramel apples and fudge, yum!

mummy cupcakes

These mummy cupcakes were part of the Simply Sweets Halloween special - we will be sending out more seasonal promotional emails filled with ideas of Simply Sweet treats that are prefect for your celebration or for gift giving. We often book up for custom cakes on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays but as long as you order these a few days in advance, these treats will be available. If you aren't receiving our specials and Sweet Talk newsletter, sign up for our mailing list.

chocolate boxes

Chocolate boxes are my favorite gift item - they are great for hostess gifts or when you want to give something small but sweet to neighbors or coworkers. The box is made entirely of chocolate and can be filled with chocolates that coordinate with the box theme or your recipient's favorite candy. I also have some love and valentine themed boxes that you could place some jewelry inside for the ultimate surprise.

One of my favorite boxes is the lips chocolate box that is perfect for Valentine's day - the box inside is filled with little chocolate Xs and Os. For the holidays this year I will be offering these in many designs include snowflake, angel, Christmas tree, and packages.

The package box comes in many different sizes - the small one shown here is about 3 inches by 3 inches and the larger one is about 3 inches by 5 inches.

First birthday

This two tiered cake was ordered for a large first birthday celebration. The cake is an 8 inch top tier and 10 inch bottom tier which serves approximately 45. Cake is chocolate sourcream, chocolate mousse, chocolate buttercream with fondant accents.

This cake was based on a design I did for my son when he turned 1 but the colors were changed to green, brown, and cream.

original cake:

Halloween-themed baby shower

This cake was ordered for a Halloween-themed baby shower - orange for Halloween and pink for a baby girl. The design is Sassy Circles, our most popular design. The shoes are hand molded using gumpaste. Cake is white sourcream, vanilla mousse, chocolate buttercream with fondant accents. The message reads "congratulations on the new addition to the pumkin patch".

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month so I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about a few things related to this topic. First I'll start with a photo of a cake that I'm often asked about:

This cake was done a few years ago for a former boss of mine. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through treatment and reconstruction and she told me when she came back to work she wanted a cake to celebrate her survival. This is the cake I designed for her and we presented to her at her welcome back lunch.

For those of you who haven't heard yet, Simply Sweets is proud to announce that we are an affiliate for Design-her-gals! Design-her-gals is a fun web-based business where you can design your own gal (or guy or children) with the latest fashions. Then have your gal printed on stationary, party invitations and even clothing. A portion of every sale goes to the Gal to Gal foundation which raises money for stage 4 breast cancer patients. This month you can sign up for a virtual walk to raise money for the Gal to Gal Foundation.


The Beautiful Garden Boutique is donating 10% of all sales this month to the Susan G. Komen foundation. Trisha, the owner of the Beautiful Garden Boutique is a member of my networking group, Swanky Moms Across Arizona - all local businesses started by moms. On Friday, October 26th, 2007 she will be hosting a pre-holiday shopping event from 5pm-8pm at the San Palacio Clubhouse, a Mark Taylor Apartment Complex. Do a little early holiday shopping or treat yourself to something special.

MOMs club raffle basket

I'm a member of the Phoenix-Happy Valley MOMS club which is part of the international MOMS club. Every year the Arizona chapters get together for a luncheon and each chapter puts together a basket for the raffle. This year's theme is "A Mother's Love is Sweeter than Chocolate" - I donated 3 baskets of chocolate and a Simply Sweets gift certificate. All of the items will be combined with all the other donations from our members and put together in a huge basket for the raffle. All money raised from the raffle goes to the Mother-to-mother fund. The Halloween themed basket contains chocolate dipped pretzels, chocolate dipped chocolate sandwich cookies with pumpkins, BOO chocolate sandwich cookies and white chocolate ghost and tombstone suckers. The Halloween takeout container contains Halloween bark. The third basket has a white chocolate flower pretzel and dark chocolate shoes and purses.

Halloween Bunco

These chocolate treats where ordered by a friend of mine for her Halloween-themed bunco night. Dark and white chocolate chocolate sandwich cookies with white chocolate dice and dark and milk chocolate dipped pretzels with Halloween quinns.

Golf themed cupcake

How about some golf-themed cupcakes? The grass is made from buttercream icing and the golf ball is white chocolate.

Back from Kansas

I'm back from my trip to Kansas. Rebecca's class was great and the project cake was an adorable 1st birthday cake with lots of whimsical flowers, pearls, a bow and a little girl. The class was held in a very small town at a place called Rosie's cabin which is often used to host weddings and other celebrations. Rebecca cooked us wonderful food everday (and the beef was from her own farm) and it was great to meet cake decorators from different parts of the country. Uniontown, Kansas is the smalled town I've ever been to - when I arrived Sunday evening at 7 and wanted to get something to eat, I had to drive 20 minutes back to Fort Scott to a minimart for snacks.

Pond outside Rosie's Cabin:

project cake

off to Kansas

Simply Sweets will be closed October 15th and 16th.

I'm off to Kansas to take a 2 day cake decorating class from Rebecca Sutterby of Sugar Creations. Rebecca is a very talented cake decorated and I have admired her work for years so I am so excited to go and take a class from her. Rebecca was a winner of a past Food network challenge and she has been featured in many publications. Check out her amazing creations on her website, sugarcreations.com.

Unicorn cake for Olivia

This cake was made for a little girl turning 5 who asked for a unicorn cake. The cake is double chocolate sour cream, chocolate mousse filling and American buttercream icing. The rocks along the stream are chocolate and candy rocks. The bridge and flowers are made from fondant.

pink package cake for a baptism

This cake was ordered by a family who lives in San Diego and were coming to Phoenix for their daughter's baptism. The package cake is white almond sour cream cake, white chocolate mousse filling, chocolate buttercream with fondant accents.

October Family Fun Fest

This Saturday, October 13th from 10am - 2 pm, Simply Sweets will be one of the vendor tables at the RidgeCrest Healthcare's Family Fun Fest. Proceeds from this event support the Scottsdale/Paradise Valley YMCA's "Parenting from the heart: Right from the start" program. The fun fest includes a kids zone, food court, raffle, and vendor tables.

Come check it out and stop by our booth to say "hi". We will have Simply Sweets Halloween treats for sale.

Ridgecrest Healthcare
16640 North 38th Street
Phoenix, Arizona 85032

Halloween treats

These Halloween treats (chocolate sandwich cookies dipped in dark and white chocolate) where ordered by Becci to hand out as Halloween gifts during this month's Swanky Moms Across Arizona meeting. Becci is the owner of Something2BragAbout.com which specializes in mothers bracelets and brag bags - check out her site for great gift ideas! Swanky Moms Across Arizona is a networking group from moms who own their own businesses started by Becci and Rebecca of Quote the Walls.

I donated this box of Halloween Bark as a door prize - Halloween bark is a very addicting treat made with white chocolate, pieces of chocolate sandwich cookies, candy corn and sprinkled with pumpkin quinns. Karin, of My Strawbabies was the winner. Congrats Karin!

gothic themed 16th birthday

This cake was made for Jade's 16th birthday - her mom asked me to incorporate her interests which include goth, tattoos, purple, black and gray stripes, Halloween, and the color Halloween green. The cake is an 8 inch round double chocolate sourcream, chocolate mousse, American buttercream icing with fondant accents. The birthday message is printed in "tattoo font" using an edible image. The Halloween cupcakes are decorated with molded chocolates.

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