Sunday, December 20, 2009

A Family Tree

This cake was commissioned for a couple returning from a genealogy mission in Frankfurt, Germany. There are no supports in this cake so everything you see is edible.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Gingerbread

Karren really loves the Christmas season, especially because it means gingerbread. This year, she had the opportunity to make a gingerbread train.


A year or two ago, she made this gorgeous house. It was HUGE and even had backlit stained glass windows.


Happy holidays from Karren's Specialty Cakes!!!!

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

K. Everton Photography

A good friend and excellent photographer just launched her business:


She photographed a couple of Karren's cakes in the past (See Bus Cake; Crib Cake). Ksenia also photographed the process to make Karren's famous crib cake and we hope to finish and publish this "how to" guide before the end of the year. We would encourage you to check out her work.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

A Masterpiece For My Little Masterpiece

Nine days after delivering our daughter Miah, we celebrated her short life with a giant birthday party. I constructed this five tier cake to celebrate each of the five days she spent with our family. The party was just as fun, happy, and colorful as the cake indicates. A Perfect, PERFECT day.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Availability Update

Karren is taking off the rest of 2009 to recover from her recent C-Section. We also have the calendar blocked off for the months of January to April. During this time, Karren is only willing to accept cakes that are "really cool." In other words, no plain, boring cakes. If you have an idea for a really fun shaped cake, please call and pitch the idea. If Karren thinks it is a cool idea, she might do it for you anyway. She will be back to full business in May but is only accepting a very strict one cake a week. No exceptions! Thanks, and we are looking forward to a wonderful Christmas season and a great 2010.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Miah Rachel Wilde

Karren's daughter, Miah Rachel Wilde, was born October 15, 2009 and passed away October 20, 2009. She was a very special child who had a chromosomal disorder called Trisomy 18 or Edward's Syndrome. Karren will be taking a break until May 1, 2010 and will start taking orders for events occurring after that date.

A video showing the life of Miah:

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Finally a girl for Mike!

Our good friend Mike recently got married to an amazing girl named Cathleen. They had a gorgeous wedding in Mike's parent's backyard in August and Karren made the cake for them. Here they are cutting the cake.

Simple Wedding Cake and Eiffel Tower

This is from a wedding back on August 28th.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Birth Scheduled

Karren has scheduled a C-Section for Miah's delivery. It will be the morning of Friday, October 16th. As always, thank you for your prayers and thoughts.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Now you can follow this blog on Facebook

Just click here or "Follow this blog" in the NetworkedBlogs section, sign into Facebook, and you will be notified via Facebook when new posts are written.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Orders on hold until further notice

As many of you may know already, Karren is currently pregnant and due October 24th. Sadly, we found out that her child has a terminal chromosomal disorder called Edwards Syndrome (or Trisomy 18). Karren has named her Miah Rachel Wilde and she isn't expected to live long. There is a high chance of still birth and an even higher chance that she will pass away during the first week of her life. There is a tiny chance that she could live up to a year or more. For this reason, Karren will not be taking any orders until she learns the ultimate fate of her daughter and has enough time to grieve. We appreciate your understanding in this matter and we will update this blog when we know more, so please become a follower if you would like to know more. Currently, we are thinking April 2010 as a return date, but if her daughter is still alive then, it will be later. Thank you once again for your patience and understanding and we look forward to serving you again soon.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Motorcycle Cake

This cake was a groom's cake for a wedding yesterday.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Getting married and want a free cruise?



Karren is featured in the newly released Portland Wedding Notebook. We usually don't advertise, but this was an offer too good to pass up. What is it, you may ask?

Quoting from the web page:
"Our Wedding Workbook's are printed, 200+ page, full color wedding workbooks created exclusively for brides in specific areas."

"With over 100 worksheets, timelines, planning sheets, questions to ask wedding vendors and coupons from local wedding vendors our wedding workbooks are all brides need to plan a beautiful wedding everyone will envy. The best part is that it has full color photos of local wedding cakes, decorations, reception and ceremony sites, photos of real weddings and a 7-day Carnival Cruise certificate for every bride who purchases the workbook for only $39.95!* (travel agency fees, port charges not included)"

It was the offer of the free cruise that we thought was really cool. They are available in Boston, Chicago, Phoenix, Portland (our favorite), Los Angeles, Seattle, and Washington DC area.

So, if you are getting married and want a free cruise, or if you just want to see Karren's ad, or you just like free cruises, click here.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Foulger/Becker Wedding

Despite Karren's pregnany, Karren still did a number of wedding this summer. This particular wedding was for a friend, Kathy Foulger, and her now husband who were married June 20, 2009. These photos were taken by Bagdanoff Photo and we felt they did a great job capturing Karren's art. Enjoy the photos of Karren's mad hatter cake and delicious cupcakes.



Saturday, June 13, 2009

Separation of Church and State


Whether you enjoy something spritual like the Mormon temple in Boston ....


or revel in the knowledge of your books at school ...

Here at Karren's, we don't mind doing both on the same day.

Monday, June 1, 2009

An 80th Birthday in an RV


This cake was made to celebrate a grandmother's 80th birthday. The cake represented the good memories of her past growing up in Dusseldorf, Germany (children statue in the front of the RV) and her current life relaxing in the RV.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Bridal Workbook

Karren will have a full page ad featuring her cakes in the upcoming first edition of the Portland Bridal Workbook. If you need a way to stay organized during all the wedding planning, this is a great way to do it.

Benefits of this workbook (and why we decided to advertise in it):

* A Beautiful Keepsake
* 200+ Full Color Pages
* Planning Tips & Ideas
* Timelines & Calendars
* Local vendors and interview questions
* Things for out of state guests to do
* Budget worksheets
* Local marriage license information
FREE 7-day Carnival Cruise certificate inside each workbook! Look on page 172 inside the workbook for details!


It will be published late this summer and you will be able to purchase it in major bookstores or online at http://www.bridalworkbook.com/ for $29.99.


So far, we have been very impressed with this company. We worked with a graphic designer named Mary Housenga to create our full page ad. We think she did a great job! What do you think?


Thursday, April 30, 2009

Does this Oscilloscope even work?


Well, seeing that is is made out of frosting and cake, probably not! This cake was made for the release of a new oscilloscope at Tektronix. The client stated, "The cake was a huge huge hit. They all just couldn't believe it. I will pass Karren's name around as I have a feeling other product lines would love to have a similar cake for their launches, etc."

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Tea Time Anyone?

Sometimes, you just want to celebrate with a little cake and tea, or in this case, a tea pot and cups that ARE cake.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Bouquet of Hope



Are you looking for a great way to spend the Saturday before Mother's Day? Does your mom (or yourself) enjoy ballet, a great seated meal, the violin, Karren's cakes AND you would like to support a great cause at the same time? Then, the Bouquet of Hope is for you! It is a benefit for Rose Haven, a community and intervention center for women and children in Portland, Oregon. Karren will be providing one of her beautiful masterpieces for the event.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Girls, Football, and Cake, OH MY!!!!!

Karren and Brooke teamed up (no pun intended) this weekend to create these cakes. Brooke is new to Karren's Specialty Cakes and she did a fabulous job.

This first cake was ordered for a 50th birthday party of a gentleman who appreciates the female the body. Here is what his wife had to say: "The cake was the hit of the party!!!! **** and all the guests loved it!! Some of us gals wanted to compare clevage as the night went on so you can just imagine what those pictures look like! HA! We were very pleased and will look forward to working with you again!"


This second cake was for a birthday party of a local football coach.


Finally, our good friend and photographer celebrated her birthday this weekend. Karren made up a flavor (Pumpkin Spice Praline with Daquoise) and helped her party in style. Happy birthday Karen!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Gaming - Old School



This birthday boy really loves gaming. Does this bring any flashbacks to the rest of you?

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Turning 18 - A Crowning Achievement

Karren made this cake for an 18th birthday. After all, when a girl turns 18, she should be reminded that she is a princess, right? Her mother shared this with us: "We celebrated at my daughters competition.. which they won!!! The team LOVED the cake… and everyone said how delicious it was… it was just perfect. But to tell you the truth… my daughter’s reaction when she saw it was priceless…. She was overwhelmed… she did not want to cut it or touch it… she wanted to save it forever!!!"

Friday, February 27, 2009

How to make a crib cake?

Karren has had many requests on how to make her crib cake since she invented it over two years ago. Finally, she has decided to divulge her secrets and is creating a cake pattern which will be available for purchase in the near future. She spent last Monday and Tuesday with Ksenia Everton photographing the process (see Ksenia's Blog). Next up, Karren will compose the instructions before she passes it off to Augusta Bowden for assemblage. Stay tuned! The finished product should be available within the month.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Welcome to Brooke Weeber

We are pleased to announce that Brooke has joined Karren as cake designer. Karren is extremely picky when it comes to hiring and has been looking for 2.5 years for someone who as skilled as Brooke. Brooke comes highly recommended and has done beautiful cakes with her previous employers. She graduated from The French Culinary Institute in New York City and worked at Alice's Tea Cup and Cheryl Kleinman Cakes as a cake decorator. You can see some of Brooke's work under her last employer here: http://citybirdcakes.blogspot.com/. Welcome Brooke!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Love Rocks


This cake was for a woman's 50th birthday party. She loves diamonds almost as much as her husband loves her. What better can showcase the phrase "Love Rocks" than a diamond ring in its Tiffany box? The client sent us a nice thank you note which said: "I wanted to take a moment to thank you for creating the crowning jewel (literally and figuratively) for my wife's birthday party. We were so very impressed along with our guests with your attention to detail and overall presentation. We were blown away with how great the cake and cupcakes tasted...Everyone at the party asked where the cake and cupcakes were made, we gave out a lot of your business cards. Thank you again for making my wife's birthday a very memorable occasion with your special cake and cupcakes. By the way, the Tiffany blue was spot on..."

Saturday, February 14, 2009

KM Design Photography

We have a friend, Karen Murdock, who is a fantastic photographer. She took photos at our child's first birthday celebration. What is better than three one year olds who are put in front of a cake? Other examples of Karen's work are found on her business web site, KM Design Photography.



Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Karren Featured on KOIN 6



Karren was featured this morning on the KOIN 6 morning news show. Kacey Montoya and her camera man, Douglas, came by nice and early (4:30 AM). They did 4 segments with 4 teasers where Karren showed how to make two of her desserts and showcased the camcorder cake Karren made specifically for the broadcast. It was great getting to know Kacey and a lot of fun to do the show. Karren felt that it was a great experience and we hope Kacey enjoyed herself also. We sent the cake back to the studio with them. Bon appetit. The recipes featured on the broadcast are posted on the KOIN 6 website and the actual newscast is posted on Karren's website (thanks to Jeff Bowden for making it web accessible).

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

A Rabbit of a Birthday


This gray rabbit with a flower was for a little girl's first birthday. The daddy loved it and said, "You hit a home run with this one." We are always happy when a customer is pleased with Karren's work.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Argyle Mad Hatter


Karren made a small argyle mad hatter cake this past weekend. It was for a 30th birthday party from a girl's parents. It was tougher than Karren thought and she didn't like her first try so she took it apart and started over. Once the ribbon and chocolate name were added, it looked great and Karren was happy.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

February 11th and KOIN 6

Karren will be featured in the KOIN 6 Morning News show from 5-7 AM on February 11th, 2009 in conjunction with their "Gifts for Valentine's Day" week. Kacey Montoya will be doing the reporting. She will be showing what she does as well as demonstrating how to make two simple but elegant desserts.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

A Baby Shower and an Engagement

Karren was able to throw a baby shower for one of her friends, Darcy Taylor, this weekend. Earlier in the week, she created an announcement which she sent to the people Darcy specified. Unfortunately, she forgot to put the address on the invitation, but everyone figured it out. :) The breakfast at the shower consisted of crepes and eggs Benedict. Karren also made this cake for her.



Karren also made a cake for an engagement that happened at The Melting Pot in downtown Portland. The couple were big fans of cherries and the future groom ordered the cake for use in the proposal. Karren combined their love of cherries with the location of the proposal to design this cake. We hope all went well that evening.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Treasure Chest


Karren created an open Treasure Chest last weekend for a 3 year old birthday party. According to the child's mother, "It turned out incredible. Everyone kept asking where we got it, and how delicious it was. I passed on your info. I hope thats ok. It really made [child]'s party come to life. Thank you for that!" Karren was also really pleased with it. When I got home, she had me go straight to the fridge to look at it. I thought it looked awesome, as usual.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

The Art of Weddings


Karren participated in the Art of Weddings this week. We set up on Tuesday evening. Karren made a 30 person wedding cake which is beatiful as always and stayed up until 1:30 AM on Tuesday night. Wednesday morning, we got up at 3:30 AM (yes, after two hours of sleep) and participated in the KOIN 6 Morning news show (see below). It was fun, but Karren was afraid of the interview, so the reporter kept our section nice and short (perhaps too short). The actual event was tonight from 5-9 PM. It was great meeting all the vendors and couples! Among our favorites are Missionary Chocolates, 1st Comes Love, Sassafras Catering, and Oh Baby. Reviews were posted at Social Enterprises and EJP Events.


Wednesday, January 7, 2009: KOIN News 6 Coverage of the Art of Weddings