These are my first sugar flowers! I was aiming for something autumnal, but more in a more sophisticated color palette than traditional bright reds/oranges/yellows. I'm happy with the flowers (especially that white wild peony!) and with the way this whole cake came together.

Tropical greenery with splashes of vibrant pink, to celebrate the arrival of summer!

I created this for a couple's joint 70th birthday party, following the event colors of white, ivory, and gold. The general direction I was given was "champagne decor," which I chose to evoke using a zillion hand-piped effervescent little dots. I crafted the dahlia from wafer paper.

My favorite part of this cake is how much of my learning it shows. Two years ago, I could never have confidently sent a tiered cake home in someone else's car, or made a paper flower, or even trusted my cakes to be neat and flat enough to stack properly.

I took this chance to experiment with subtle texturing and bright colors for someone who let me have full freedom of design. It’s still one of my favorite creations, with my favorite bits being the dark turquoise texturing along the carved edges.

This cake is topped with my first wafer paper lily, and I’m so proud of it! The leaves are edible wafer paper, and the anthers are gum paste. I had started playing more with palette knife painting when I made this cake, too, which shows on the side.

This painted beauty is for the 50th birthday of a ski enthusiast. Fresh tracks for a fresh decade of life!

I sketched this design as an option for a wedding client last summer, in pale pink and blush. We ended up going in a different direction for the wedding, but I’ve wanted to actually make this design ever since. I switched it to a blue/gray scheme for winter. With the concrete gray sides, it ended up reminiscent of moonlight.

I was asked to make a birthday cake for a kid who loves snails, and this was what I came up with. I had such fun crafting and coloring the little gum paste snails (with antennae made from tiny candy cane sprinkles)! This cake sports my first-ever edible wafer paper fern, as well, which adds some beautiful height and drama to the overall effect.

This turned out as quite the moody Halloween bake, but one of my favorites! The top tier is decorated with wafer paper lace and buttercream roses. The bottom is stenciled with black sparkling sugar.

I like the playful angles of the wafer paper lilies on this one. Fault line designs are one of my favorites, and this one with the gold texturing in the center didn’t disappoint!

I made this dark-ish take on Little Red Riding Hood for a friend who gave me free rein on design. I’m not sure where this particular idea came from. Red’s cloak and hood are made from Vietnamese wafer paper.

A textured mocha delight for a grownup birthday. I love these sprinkles (Crispearls) because they actually taste good.

I made this for a Valentine’s day celebration, not realizing at the time how similar it is to this Banksy piece. That said, I love how the simplicity of this one lets the red pop through, and gives it an overall feeling of sweetness.

I made the heart balloon from sugar glass (e.g. caramel).

This 50th-birthday cake screams autumn, through and through. The wafer paper lace exterior telegraphs the fall-season flavors of bourbon-soaked spice cake, with caramel filling.

I made this beauty for a late summer wedding in downtown Seattle with a chic vibe of simple elegance.

I designed this one to evoke the painting that hangs behind Nick’s character when he comes out to his mom, in the TV version of Heartstopper. The painting is beautiful, as is what it represents. 🏳️‍🌈

I made this one for my friend Zeva when her book of poetry (also pictured) was published. Two beautiful works of art in one photo!

All of the flowers on this beauty are edible, made from a combination of wafer paper and gum paste. The stems are edible, too, made from pasta! 🍝 This cake leveled up my appreciation for and interest in wafer paper techniques. Now I want to make allll the flowers!

This one is from the early days of my cake decorating journey. It’s topped with my first-ever flower made using fried wafer paper. This was before I had actual floral wire on hand, so the gold leaves are supported by wire I stole from my husband’s tool box. I would never send such a thing out for eating, but for practice on a cake for the family, it worked just fine.

I made this to celebrate a dear friend’s wedding—simple and natural and evocative of growth and blooming! Fun fact: The stems are made from dyed spaghetti!

I love the bright colors in this cake! The top splash is hard caramel, colored to match the fresh strawberries inset in the cake’s sides.

This was one of my very earliest cakes, made before I even got serious about cake decorating, and it remains one of my favorites! Chocolate ganache and chocolate buttercream layer over the base of mocha buttercream to create the fault lines. The toppers are modeled after Tartine’s method for making “mushrooms” for their holiday Yule log.

This one is as pink on the inside—full of strawberries—as is is on the outside!

The cheerful, sunny exterior reflects the bright lemon flavors—lemon layers and lemon curd filling—hiding inside this one. I like the detailing and textures in this design. I’ve keep meaning to do something similar in a different, moodier color scheme, but I haven’t quite gotten to it yet.

This was my first cake of the spring season. I was clearly excited to shift from wintry gray into more cheerful colors and themes! My favorite part of this cake is a little buttercream ladybug I put on top, with a looping trail of teeny tiny footprints left behind it in the buttercream.

Lambeth is back in style! I had so much fun making this ultra-feminine version for a special 15th birthday.

This was a special bubblegum-flavored request for a neighbor’s birthday. The cake layers are flavored with bubble gum extract, just as the giant gumballs on top suggest!

This was inspired by a design in a Hanna Karlzon coloring book that I stumbled upon in a little free library in my neighborhood. Little free libraries are the best!

I contributed this pair to the dessert dash for 2023’s ADWAS annual fundraiser. The invitation was dark with tiny-leafed vines, which I mirrored in the cake designs.

This fun, spring-ish coordinated duo was for a high school graduation. Chocolate & peanut butter, meet pink champagne! The center medallion on each cake is made from sugar glass with edible gold paint brushed onto the back side.

I made this for a grown-up birthday party, reflecting the raspberry and chocolate flavors inside the cake. With subtle gold highlights—I do love adding gold to cakes!

I created these minty vines for a special birthday. This one is gluten-free, to boot!

This was my first-ever pink champagne cake, with an exterior that evokes the flavors inside. This dahlia is still my favorite of the wafer paper flowers I’ve made!

Inspired by stormy autumn skies full of bright, flying leaves. I made this for a friend’s farewell party as she moved away from Seattle during the season of fall colors.

I contributed this to Canine Companion’s 2023 Sit Stay Sparkle fundraiser. It is held in October, which is reflected in the autumn & gold design.

I was aiming for shimmery, textured whites on this one, all the better to set off the big pop of red poinsettia. The texturing is a mixture of edible glitter highlights, rock candy, and tiny bits of edible wafer paper lace; the poinsettia is crafted from wafer paper.

I love the gold and burgundy color combo in this one. I’d do the top floof differently today, but I guess that’s the great thing about learning!

This was an experiment in textures, from the stucco texturing on the white wrap to the stony textures of the bits “caught” in the corners of the netting.

I contributed this to an ADWAS fundraiser with the theme “purple touch,” so I was aiming for purples and textures. The stripes are made from dyed coconut shreds, reflecting the coconut layers inside.

I contributed this to the “Sit. Stay. Sparkle.” fundraiser for Canine Companions. I love matching cakes to designs or themes, so this one is designed to match the blue-and-yellow sparkle theme on the event materials.

Sometimes less is more, ya know?

I try to create cakes to suit the season, and this one went out in the dead of summer. I guess I had the beach on my mind!

I’ve really been digging the semi-naked look lately, where the cake layers peek through the sides. On this one, I was experimenting with layering delicate decor over the semi-nakedness.