This little cake was a gift for some very special people who are in the midst of heavy home renovations.  So, to celebrate the completion of their extensive landscaping work, I brought this garden cake 500 miles from Los Angeles, California to Incline Village, Nevada. This wins the prize for the longest drive to deliver a cake, ever.

The fence was a bit worse for wear in the end, but overall this delivery was a success.
Let's have a closeup :)

All the little veggies and bunnies were hand sculpted from fondant and nestled in a cookie crumb garden.

So I was going to make a genoise this morning. I followed all the directions in my cool British cookbook but i ended up with these flat ugly discs, not a beautiful sponge cake. French cooking is really tricky...

So what do you do when your cake is flat as a biscuit?

Pour tons of whipped cream and fresh strawberries all over it, call it a shortcake and invite all your friends to come eat it!

All's well that ends well :)

YUM!

Chocolate stout cupcakes with vanilla buttercream icing and fondant Wall E and Eve.

Sorry for the low photo quality! My camera seems to be hiding at the moment.  Also, there's been some bad news in the family lately so you'll have to excuse my brevity.

More birthdays are coming up this week so stay tuned for more birthday cakes!

Next stop on The Great LA Cupcake Map was Jamaica’s Cakes, also on Pico Blvd.

Erika, the salesperson, was also very friendly and knowledgeable and told me a lot about their company. Jamaica Crist opened the bakery 4 years ago in December.  Their main business comes from custom orders but they also operate a full store front with a beautiful display case of fresh pastries. Something that makes them unique from their competition is that all of their cakes are fresh and never frozen, and also they have a wide range of delicious vegan products in addition to non vegan fare. In my experience, most bakeries are either exclusively vegan, offer no vegan products, or offer a small range of vegan products that are not as delicious as their standard offerings. Jamaica’s Cakes is an exception.

Here is a picture of the vegan red velvet cupcake I had. 

It was fantastic. The cake was fresh and moist and not overly saturated with red food coloring. The frosting was rich and smooth and did not overpower the flavor of the cake. If I didn’t know it was vegan I would have never guessed. It was rich, moist, delicious, and had no strange taste or aftertaste.  As a former vegan, I know how difficult vegan baking can be, and this was fantastic by anyone’s standards. I would love to sample more from both their vegan and non-vegan menus another day. Jamaica’s Cakes specializes in custom and wedding cakes that can be made vegan upon request.  The sample cakes that adorned the store were beautiful and showed off the craftsmanship of the decorators. 

 

Jamaica herself was not in when I visited but I would love to meet with her and talk about how she started this amazing bakery.  She did an excellent job training her staff because Erika was able to give me a lot of good information about their business.

 

Check out Jamaica’s Cakes! I highly recommend them!

 

Jamaica’s Cakes

11511 W. Pico Blvd.

Los Angeles CA 90064

www.Jamaicascakes.com

[email protected]