A cake-filled weekend

This past weekend kept me busy with several cakes... (again, apologies for poor picture quality)

First was Friday: A friend from church took and passed her citizenship test last fall and the swearing in ceremony was Friday morning. Her family followed that with an "American Desserts" party that night. This was my contribution:
(idea from the "Hello, Cupcake" book)
As a "gift", I also made her the following candies:

Then on Saturday, a friend from theater had a birthday party thrown for her by her husband and son. She requested Cherry Chip cake - so I baked it, made some buttercream frosting tinted pink by Maraschino cherry juice (which also added a little more cherry flavor), and decorated as you see here:

And finally, today (Sunday) was Maryn's birthday. Last year's cake was one of my first blog entries (the butterfly cake). She asked again to be surprised, but wanted chocolate, so this was her cake:

This was a double-chocolate cake with chocolate and cherry chips baked in. Upon placing the cake on the cake board, I then covered the top in chocolate chips and allowed them to melt. That was spread across the top and sides of the cake and allowed to cool and set to give the cake a crunchy "crust" (notice the dark brown band around the star). I was able to use up the rest of the frosting from Janet's cake, and topped off the decoration with some maraschino cherries.