Sunday Sweets: Holly & Jolly
December 19, 2010 This week is going to be a hectic hustle for many of us: last minute gifts, travel, and, of course, dealing with the in-laws. So remember: when the stress gets too much, and the urge to throttle a relation becomes a little too overwhelming, just think of today's Sweets. They'll be sure to make you smile.
Or maybe just distract you long enough for your significant other to wrestle the broken gin bottle out of your hand.
Either way: a win, win.
Submitted by Paula J., and made by her husband. (Awww!)Proof that sometimes it's the little things, and that amateur bakers can still rock the house.
Or, for those of you who prefer your holiday eye-candy with a side of creepy, Bleeding Heart Bakery has you covered:
Not that a cake has to be big and sculpted to be a sweet Sweet, of course. Check this little cutie out:
Sub'd by Jennifer M., made by Bird-in-Hand Bake ShopIcing purists, rejoice; it IS still possible to make Sweets fondant-free!
In fact, here's more proof:
Submitted by Tim M., made by Mrs. Maddox Cake Shop
This is such a simple design, but when done on a large scale (just how big is that piping tip??) it's really quite stunning. I also love the detail on the flower's center.
If you don't think "pink" and "Christmas" go together, you may be about to change your mind:
Made by Queene of Tartes
Sub'd by Malerie C., made by Highland Bakery
Made by Cake Lady Cakes
Sub'd by Barbara E., made by Manjares Pasteleria
Made by Cakebox Special Occasion CakesThat snowman's hat. Srsly. SO CUTE.
Made by How Sweet It Is! BakeryBe sure to send your Sweet nominations to Sunday Sweets [at] Cake Wrecks [dot] com.
Reader Comments (45)
FIRST COMMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pretty.
Child's Play is indeed a worthy cause, and if you want another way to donate to them you can right now buy the Humble Indie Bundle and get five different indie games.
The Humble Bundle uses pricing set by you - you are allowed to decide exactly how much or how little you want to pay for the games. You are also able to exactly allocate how much money should go where, splitting your contribution between the game developers, Child's Play, the EFF and an optional tip to the people arranging the bundle.
Last year the bundle offer managed to raise almost $325,000 for charities, and a lot of money to the small indie developers, and I do believe that it will do even better this time.
Check it out at http://www.humblebundle.com/ if you are interested in getting games while contributing.
Wow. The pine cones and the poinsettia are gorgeous. That takes a lot of talent and a steady hand. And decaf.
wv: drionski
No clever ideas, but wanted to share it.
XD I saw cake #2 and thought "wicked cool!" then scrolled down to see the comment about your Mainer hubby. I lol'd and it made my day.
Awwwww :D
I love Christmas so these cakes are particularly awesome sunday cakes to me. LOVE them, damn. I wish I had some of that skill. That big flower cake is amazing.
Love the pink!
And between the Curious George cake and Santa falling headlong down the chimney, all that cuteness made my eyes water.
Totally adorable! Love the pink cake and the George cake.
The pink cake is just so precious!
The tree with the knobby knees...so cool. I don't have an imagination like that, but I'm glad some people do.
Love the pinecones and I'm trying to backward-engineer it to see if I can do the same.
It's strange how wild and wacky color combos actually work on the same cake.
Sharon's Edible Art
That pretty blue cake, I actually gasped outloud when I saw it. I don't think I've seen a more beautiful cake than that one.
The piped pine cones are just awesome! I like to play around with making cakes for family birthdays and such, but I could never do something as nice as that.
Sunday Sweets makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside after a week of horror!
Love the snowy tree with the icicles hanging dow from the layers. Lovely AND clever.
Lawwwwwwfing! That's what you call the reaction to that last cake. Too Fat for the Chimney, indeed.
I was wondering what an Ent had to do with Christmas, and then realized that was a Christmas Tree crowned with lights and surrounded by a gang of ornaments thugs! Though I couldn't tell what the snowglobe in his hand contained.
You were right. The stuck Santa was good for a laugh and a small squee.
I wonder if the pinecones were dry and crunchy like icing roses. If it was dry, you had two options: nibble layer by layer or pop the whole thing in your mouth (say, how big are those things anyway?) and wait for them to melt. Pure sugar.
My Christmas cake is awaiting icing - after seeing these I think I will go and have a little cry, no way is it going to look this good!
as always, lovely and amazing cakes! the last one made me laugh -- nice to see the humor in the holidays! thanks as always....
Oh. My. Gorsh. These are uh-mayzing. I am jonesing to get my bag, tips and icing recipes out after seeing all these :D
Let's here it for New England! Woot!
Maine is wicked awesome, guy.
The blue cake is gorgeous (!), and the Curious George on made me squeal like 4 year old. Too. fracking. cute! But I think I like the first one best - it's so cute, but just a little imperfect - the snowman's eyes are just a tad off, the hat isn't quite perfect, etc. The teensey imperfections make it extra adorable! Love it!
wv: dises. Dises what cakes is 'posed to look like.
When I see "Lawwwwww!" written out, I can only think of this and nothing else:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glUf4PQ-vuU
Wow, love the Bleeding Heart Bakery creepy tree cake. On top of the great decorations, the fact that he's holding a snow globe blows me away. And for those who haven't noticed, you can click on an image to see a (usually) larger picture. Thanks for the great cakes!
Hi Jen,
My family had our Christmas celebration yesterday & I just wanted to tell you that the Cakewrecks calendars were a BIG hit! I got them for all my sibs and they LOL'd, snorted, & wheezed their way thru them. Thanks for giving us all a year of delicious wreckiness!
:-) Hali
Amazingly gorgeous! I often look at your posts via facebook link, though I'm also subscribed to the blog. The posts that make me delve into the older posts are usually the "Sunday Sweets" editions. They also make me check the links to the bakeries you post. FABULOUS collection again! Thank you!
I'm not sure even these beautiful, amazing, adorable, awesome cakes will be able to keep me from wanting to throttle my mother-in-law.....but I'll give it a try. :-)
Merry Christmas, Jen, John, and all the Cake Wrecks staff! You guys rock!
I'm totally in love with cake #2. That is just so cool and unique. I also love cake #7, the blue snow tree one; beyond awesome.
The baker unknown giant flower cake is from Mrs. Maddox. Here is the link:http://www.mrsmaddoxcakeshop.com/christmas_cakes.html
I am more of a cake wreck decorator myself but I LOVE these Christmas cakes! I admire people who have such wonderful talents!
why am I totally NOT surprised that the Amish cake shop is fondant free?? Had to laugh, when I went to visit my folks in Nov. Bird In Hand Bake shop was the first place I found Drages in the store in YEARS!!!
Great stuff! The pine cone is gorgeous, love the Santa-in-a-chimney, the two different sized eyes on the first snowman (awww!) The snowman hat on George's cake! And the frosted tree gave me goosebumps!
I must thank you for introducing us to the Sandra Lee Kwanzaa and Hanukkah cakes btw. What a belly laugh. (The Hanukkah cake got so many complaints they pulled the recipe from the website! could it be the non-kosher marshmallows and non-star of David Star of David? or the choking hazard pearls?)
Have you ever seen her masterpiece, her "Gramma's Heirloom Noel Cake"?
Multiple cake layers, topped by a cupcake, topped by a white chocolate covered ice cream cone. all tinted pale green (took a while to realize this thing is supposed to be a tree). licorice "garland" (I presume), red dots piped on (ornaments? Thank goodness she used icing and not some more inedible choking hazard pearls). Ugly yellow star tip blobs with "noel" (birthday) candles put in them and lit.
She calls her icing between layers (which doesn't even fill between to the edges) "adhesive." And as she shows us 6 cake rounds and a cupcake in chocolate and spice flavors she bought as boxed mixes in the store, "It smells so good in here and I didn't have to bake a THING!" (so how the heck did the boxed mix become cake rounds?)
So Merry Christmas, from Sandra:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW8W48KZ3J0
Meanwhile, this morning I saw her violate a defenseless cupcake. she chopped off the top, scooped out the middle, and filled it with cherry pie filling. then she surrounded it with aluminum foil (for beautiful presentation. foil, really?) then with white icing, star tipped around the perimeter of the cherry mound, sprinkled green sprinkles (so light I didn't even see them at first), then added a fruit roll strip bow with a cinnamon candy in the middle. and she put it on the side. it looked like a face with a mustache to me with the red hot as the nose. sadly, I can't find a picture or video yet...
Let's see... I may have to rethink my opinion of blue icing after seeing that tree cake. It isn't what is in the bag that makes the wreck, it is who is holding the bag. So to speak.
Wow -- edible pine cones. As in 'eating this was a good idea,' not 'my entire digestive tract is going to punish me now and for weeks to come. Thank you very little, Mr. Gibbons.' I think many of us know of someone who might use real pine cones because they happened to be on hand.
Poor Tyler. On the other hand, if your birthday has to be in the shadow of someone else's birthday, what better place to be?
Was this Tyler's 4th or 21st birthday? I'm going with my first hunch and say, 'fourth'.
I LOVE the pink cake! And the one with the monkey!
Awesome Sunday, as usual!
~~~Di
This will be the first Christmas in 21 years without my nephew who passed away in October. He was born with only 3/4 of a heart and had many painful surgeries in his short life. His nickname was *Superman* and he was exactly that: a hero. Many times he went through painful procedures just to increase knowledge on his rare condition to help others.
Needless to say, it has been hard to have any holiday spirit this year. I just can't help but smile, though, every time I look at your site and these Sweets made that tingle in my heart which I have been missing.
So thaks for all you're hard "work"
There's something about the work of Bleeding Heart Bakery that turns me on. It's creative and there's really an element in it that makes it stand out, I just don't know what it is.
I could swear those pine cones looked like real ones and not piped.. wow if only I had skills like that. This post cheered me up big time :) Thank you.
I so look forward to Sunday sweets so much! The armature cake is simply cute, and to be honest the best part is it seems so doable. My favorite has to be the Icy tree cake, it looks so beautiful. While I did find the Santa stuck in a chimney cake was funny, the most hilarious one had to be the elf on top of the tree, considering where the tip of that tree has to be, LOL
Does anyone know what tip was used for the poinsettia cake? That was nice!
I was looking at the post and my daughter kept saying "Awww! That is soooo cute!" Then she had to call her brothers in to see the cakes too!
And the charity is perfect. I delivered the kids in a children's hospital and though it was stressful and awful but wonderful and beautiful to bring 4 healthy babies home. I can't imagine spending Christmas there with the memory walls haunting every hallway of the NICU.
The families there need much more than some presents but if a few toys make the children smile, then I wish my donation had been multiplied by about a million.
Shelley in So. IL
Awwwwww
Lawwwww
Awwwwww
Awwwwww
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Awwwwww
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Awwwwww
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Awwwwww
Lawwwww
Yes, the hat on the Curious George snowman looks like one my son used to wear when he was 3. He would tilt his head from side to side and say "silly hat! silly hat!"
*smile*
wv: vendling: You sure couldn't get these cakes from a vendling machine.
Pink and Christmas go together at my house!
http://shabbyfrenchcottage.blogspot.com/2010/12/pink-wreath.html
Great Cakes! I love the Santa Claus Got Stuck In My Chimney Cake!
How bout hahahawwwing ?!
Santa (#8) is cute, but doesn't it look like he's about to shave?
Now if I can just get Burl Ives to take an 11-month (or longer) break from singing in my head...
There was an article in this Sunday's NY Times called "Brooklyn's Allure? Fancy Cakes Dahling?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/nyregion/19bakeries.html?scp=1&sq=brooklyn%27s%20allure&st=cse
I thought you might want to check it out for your Sunday Sweets.
I love the Sunday Sweets. Thanks for all you do.
Evy
Of course pink and Christmas go together! Someday I hope to have a full size pink Christmas tree with lots of pastel ornaments. I love the pink cake!