Yesterday my son turned 8 years old! So my boyfriend and I wanted to surprise him with a special evening. We took him out to dinner at a local place called Bogey Macaws in York PA.
Let me just say that if you live in the area you must go to Bogey's! The food was amazing and so was the service that we recieved. I had never been there before and was not sure what to expect. I was able to make reservations the day before and we were sat as soon as we arrived. After going over the 4 page menu and ordering our food I sent my son and our friend's daughter into the arcade to have some fun. The arcade was far enough away from the dining room that we didnt' hear it at all, and it was big enough that the kids were not bored at all. It was refreshing in a way because so many arcades are loud and obnoxious! The kids had a blast. Once the food came we all sat down to eat.
The next surprise I had in store for him was a special birthday cake. One of our all time favorite movies is Despicable Me! We just love the minions hehe and my son loves Oreos. So I spent all day while he was in school baking and decorating the cake. The finished product was a 10 inch round 4 layer Cookies n Cream cake with Cookies n Cream frosting for the minion and a Deep Chocolate cake with Cookies n Cream frosting for the minion's birthday cake. Both of the cakes were covered with my homemade Marshmallow Fondant. And while I didn't have time to do exactly what I wanted (yet again) I was able to finish it on time and make it look great. So good in fact that patrons and employees at Bogey Macaws would stop to look at and admire my cake. A few of them even walked away with my business card.  
The cake in the picture above is what I was aiming for. But as I said I did not have enough time to do all of the details that I would have liked. So the product below is what I accomplished.
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This is what was left of the cake after everyone had a piece.

 
Anyone who is lives near Hershey PA has heard about Chocolatefest. It is an event centered around...you guessed it, Chocolate! Students and Professionals have the opportunity to enter a cake into the competition. This year I was able to enter a cake into the student competition, so I made the time to do just that. It took me days to complete my cake and I grant you I was ambitious and my
finished product was not exactly what I had in mind but I was still proud of it! 

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  Every year Chocolatefest has a theme. Two years ago the theme was Jamaica, this year the theme was Winter Wonderland. So I got to thinking about what I wanted to do. First was to plan the flavor of the cake. So the first thing that came to mind was Starbucks Peppermint Mocha. I made an experimental cake and to my dissapointment I could barely taste the mocha. After that I changed my flavor to a Peppermint Hot Chocolate cake. I used Hershey's Perfect Chocolate Cake recipe (can be found online) and added some peppermint extract. The cake tasted phenomenal!
Next step was the design of my cake. When you think winter what do you think of?? I think of snow, skiing, penguins, polar bears etc. So I came up with a Penguin Playground for my cake. One of my elements that I didn't get to make was a gum paste slide for the penguins. But overall I was very happy with my finished cake.

Below are just some of the other cakes that were at Chocolatefest 2013. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!