Goodbye 2015...

Another year has passed and I am entering into my 34th year of life on this earth. I am so grateful for where I am and how God has blessed me this past year. I have reached new heights with my baking and have ventured into sculpted cakes. In 2016 I am looking forward to more extravagant cakes, new business ventures, and new skill development. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to all, and a very Happy Blessed and Blissful New Year!!! See you in 2016!!!!

It’s Party Time!!!!

 So, I know it's been a minute since I've been here,  but I have been hustlin and bustlin trying to get my Christmas shopping done, as well as, getting things together for my 6 yr old's Spider-Man themed skate party. I worked for 2 days on his cake and there were moments where I began to feel a little discouraged and I didn't know if I would be able to pull it off, but I kept at it because I wasn't going to disappoint my baby and LOOK HOW IT TURNED OUT!!!!! Sometimes you have to press on through and get to the end result before you can appreciate the journey! You may not be able to see what you are capable of until you complete a goal, you have to put in your head that giving up is not an option. So everyone at the party, my son included, we're floored by the end result. They were very impressed and so was I.  I'm one proud mommy and I have another cake to add to my portfolio.  Keep the faith luvv buggz; until we meet again...KISSES

Halloween themed cupcakes

I baked 300 cupcakes for a fall fest held at our local community college. Skulls, bones, eyeballs, and most pumpkins made by hand out of gumpaste.

My second try at fondant

More cakes

I've done quite a few!

Earlier cakes I’ve done... don’t judge me lol

You gotta start somewhere... share my journey

I do cakes too!!

A few recent cakes I've done... a baby shower cake for my best friend, a handbag cake for my daughter's 2nd birthday, and a red velvet for a family reunion. Still learning and only getting better.

Back to school cupcakes for my church

Baked 100 cupcakes for the children going back to school! All of the decorations are edible and created by yours truly!!!

Triple Chocolate Phantazee

This is for the die hard chocolate lover! A decadent chocolate cake, filled with smooth rich chocolate ganache, and topped with a deliciously sinful chocolate cream cheese icing. Mmm...

Banana Pudding Phantazee

An awesome twist to a timeless classic! I wanted to take a popular dessert and turn it into a cupcake!

This is a moist and delicious yellow butter cake, filled with banana pudding with fresh bananas in the mix. It is topped with my amazing whipped cream cheese icing tweaked with banana extract with crumbled Nilla Wafers!! A taste of the south in your mouth!

Red Velvet Phantazee

Red velvet... a popular flavor that is requested a lot! There are many different recipes for red velvet cake and they all taste different. I have a great recipe that people absolutely love!!

My red velvet is an extremely moist cake with a special ingredient to take this cake uniquely off the charts! It is topped with my delicious cream cheese icing. If you love red velvet, this will be your fave!

Piña Coco Phantazee (pineapple coconut)

I created this flavor upon request from my aunt for her dad's(r.i.p.) 80th bday. I wanted to get the best results and have each flavor stand out, yet come together beautifully.

This cake is moist and delicious with pineapple chunks and a little juice baked into it; it is filled with a tart, thickened pineapple juice reduction. This cake is topped with my whipped cream cheese icing with added sweetened coconut flakes and coconut extract. This is an awesome tropical treat!!

Lemon-lime Phantazee

This cupcake was inspired by years of purchasing lemon cakes and cupcakes that have nothing but lemon extract in them. My cupcake has the tang we often don't get from lemon flavored goodies.

This cake is moist and delicious with FRESH lemon juice,  lemon zest, and lemon extract. It is topped with a sweet, creamy, and tangy lime cream cheese icing that has FRESH lime juice, lime zest, and lime extract.. yum!!

Wanna Be Startin Somethin...

The first thing I wanted to accomplish was creating cupcakes with cream cheese icing only. See, as I mentioned before; I am totally not anti buttercream, however, it is so hard to find a cupcake in any bakery that is topped with the tangy creamy goodness that is cream cheese icing.  I always loved cream cheese icing, but as a child, I could only get it from one of two places; anyone who made red velvet cake or from my Aunty Tanzy who made this wonderful chocolate mayonnaise cake with, you guessed it chocolate cream cheese icing; both of which I could only have on very few occasions so my quest as a teenager and then into adulthood began. I wanted to create deliciously scrumptious and unique flavors that would take people to a place of bliss and have them coming back for more. I have yet to see a cupcakery geared specifically toward the cream cheese icing lover so it is my duty, mission, and pleasure to finally be that person!!! I have had much success in making people extremely happy with my cupcakes and some have even expressed to me that mine are the best cupcakes they have ever had! The secret is having an awesome icing on top of a really good and moist cake. I do my best to ensure that I don't make my cupcakes too sweet and that they taste like the name(flavor) I have given them. I have also been told that each cupcake has the perfect balance of flavor, not too sweet, just right! I pride myself on keeping each cupcake just that!

AND SO THE PHANTAZEE BEGINS......

I had to come up with a name for my future global company so I had to think long and hard about who I was as a person, what my cupcakes accomplished, and what would intrigue the consumer and cause them to want to know more. Since I am a dreamer to the MAX and I like to travel into my fantasy world from time to time, I decided to create a name that plays into that. I also like to spell things in my own unique way... So without further ado, I present to you: Valerie'z Phantazee Cakez!!!!! Da dada daaaa!

Stay tuned for the flavors and their descriptions!  UNTIL...KISSES

First Thingz First...

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Valerie, but for all intents and purposes, let's just go with ChefVee! I am a certified chef, and self made cupcaker!!! I have wanted to be a chef for as long as I can remember and have my own cooking show...  As a child, and even at times still today, I venture into my own fantasy filled world and host my own cooking special. I explain to my fantasy audience the proper classical techniques to preparing the totally awesome gourmet dish i'm working on. I guess i'm kinda quirky that way. I loved brownies as a child, so Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker were good friends of mine; and once I began baking on my own, they were my go to. I began taking those box brownies and exploring creative options like adding nuts and marshmallows and caramel to them to make them my own. My older sister, Dana, liked them and would take them to school. Her peers loved them so much that they started paying me $0.50 a piece for them; therefore a baker was born!!! Today, I am a high honor graduate of Le Cordon Bleu (Atlanta), I spent three months in Jamaica at the Sandals Resort in Montego Bay completing my externship, and I have created my own cupcake line.

 My cupcake journey began when my former classmate, "Jenkins," as I call him, introduced me to the most magnificent cupcakes I had ever tasted in all my life (until my own of course) from a cute little cupcakery. We would talk from time to time about starting our own lines of cupcakes to knock some of the competition out the water. Anyway, this cupcakery had a nice selection of unique flavors of cupcakes and a few of them had cream cheese icing. I like buttercream, but most often I find it to be too sweet so before anyone thinks I am anti buttercream, i'm not and even if I was.... sooo anytime I go into a bakery I look for cupcakes or cake with cream cheese icing. I bought two cupcakes, a chocolate raspberry almond and a red velvet.. I bit into that chocolate raspberry cupcake and WHOA was it amazing! The only thing was, there weren't enough cream cheese options. This is what lit the spark inside of me to finally create my own line! As my journey began, I turned back to my dear old friends, yep Betty and Duncan, but felt like box cake was cheating my potential future cunsumers. I took an intro to baking course while in culinary school and learned how to bake a cake from scratch, while the recipe was good for cakes in school, it wasn't so much for a delicious cupcake... way too dense so I had to begin my trial and error process of finding/developing a deliciously moist cake. And <--- totally know u shouldn't begin a sentence this way, but it's my blog so who cares! And so A STAR IS BORN!!! UNTIL... KISSES