Advent Cake

I made this mostly buttercream cake for an Advent social I attended. I wanted something not "Christmasey" but not "generic holiday" and this is what I decided on. I used "REJOICE" since it's commonly heard in the song "O Come O Come Emmanuel" and is what the whole season of Advent is about...rejoicing as we await the coming of the Savior. So I also included text around the sides of the cake, "Hope. Joy. Love. Fiat (Your will be done)."

I was surprised how well I was able to pipe...given piping isn't my thing, but I think it has much more to do with a good consistency of icing. Which I actually managed to achieve by adding a bit of corn syrup to the all shortening buttercream. I'm really pleased that this little trick did wonders for my piping! Woo hoo!

The stars and dove are made from fondant. It's a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream. Nothing fancy just a little cake for a very blessed night with the ladies. It was fun! I have lots leftover again...funny how even when I make it teeny it is still too much! LOL!

Advent Blessings!

Choo-Choo my son is two!

Happy Birthday to my little man! I cannot believe it has been two years this week!!!! He was born on the first Sunday of Advent so we are celebrating tomorrow...even though his birthday is not until Wednesday.

I made him this "Choo-choo" cake. He, as all little boys do; loves trains, planes and helicopters.

This cake was made all in one day so the fondant was a bit rough to work with hence a little bit of trouble here and there. I am overall happy with it although if it was for someone else I would have piped little royal icing dots over all the "seams" and hidden some of the fondant flaws. Given the holiday weekend...all of the shopping and having family in town...that didn't happen. Sooo I'm leaving him (the train) as is and remembering that my beloved 2 year old son will love his cake even with all its little flaws!

Advent Blessings!

Sugar and Spice Cake

This cake was for a baby shower I helped plan for a friend having her first girl. We did a "Sugar and Spice...that's what little girls are made of" theme. The colors were pink and green.




I had originally promised to make this cake simple and then I decided to change my mind. Hehe. WELL...in the midst of attempting a feat beyond my skill...I went back to the original plan for something simple. Soooo I ended up with an entire 6 inch 4 layer cake in my fridge because I ended up not using it atop my 8 inch cake. Long story short...keep it simple silly. :P It was for the best since about 5 people (for one reason or another) ended up canceling. So there was cake leftover even having an 8 inch. Good thing I changed my mind AGAIN! I also made gingerbread girl cookies for the favors which you can see here in this picture...a little bit...lol!



I did a chocolate/vanilla layered cake torted and filled with buttercream. In the center layer I added mini chocolate chips. It was covered and decorated with buttercream and marshmallow fondant decorations. I love the colors! I ended up changing my design a few times but in the end I was happy with it. I had some trouble with the buttercream...grrrrr. But I'm still learning!

Blessings!

Monkey/Ducky/Clothesline cake

This photo is not fan-tab-ulous, but I couldn't find my camera and my hubby took it with his cell phone. Oh well. I told you in the beginning I'm not a photographer...still working on that.

This was a baby shower cake for my sister-in-law who is pregnant with my first niece!!!! She and her husband love monkeys and ducks (their bathroom is decorated in this theme) and the party theme was based around baby clothes on a clothesline so I incorporated all of it into this cake.

The top tier is white cake with white chocolate buttercream. The bottom tier is yellow cake with eggless chocolate chip cookie dough buttercream (say that five times fast). Both tiers are covered in marshmallow fondant with fondant decorations. The clothesline is a sour candy string I rinsed and attached between pieces of fondant "wood". I piped the clothespins and handpainted the baby blanket. It was lots of work! BUT also lots of FUN! :)



Blessings!

Ladybug Cake

I made this cake for a friend's daughter's 2nd birthday party. She bought supplies and came over to help me put it all together. It was a lot of fun working on a project with "support staff" so to speak. I enjoy talking about cake decorating so I explained how I do things when I make cakes and she and I had a blast! Her daughter loves sunflowers so we incorporated that into the design.



I made cupcakes for the kids and we worked together to make ladybugs, flowers and leaves ahead of time. There is one little pink ladybug to represent her daughter and all the others are red. I was so worried there wouldn't be enought sunflower petals so I continued making them until all of my yellow fondant was gone!





I made the big ladybug out of krispie treats and stuck a lollipop stick into her head to help hold it higher and secure it.



The cake is chocolate/vanilla layers with buttercream filling/crumbcoat and marshmallow fondant. All of the decorations(excepting the krispie treat ladybug) are fondant.

Here's the view from above:


I had a lot of fun with this cake! I hope you enjoy it too!

Blessings!

A question for you!

Okay. I have some projects lined up and two of them are falling pretty close together. I have to work with limited time due to the kids and often need several days to make all the fondant and buttercream before I even start baking the cake and putting it all together.

I have a quick question. Those of you who have traveled with kids know you have to take everything but the kitchen sink with you. My daughter's food needs often involve packing extra items as well. Meaning...limited car space.

In this situation, where you had a cake to make for a locale that is hours away. Do you:
A) Bring some supplies, have nothing made (well maybe the icings premade) and work with what your friend has when you get there...doing the whole cake (baking, icing, covering, stacking, decorating) in one day and one night.
B) Make the whole cake ahead of time, cover it in fondant, decorate what you can (and finish decorations/stacking at locale) and balance it on your lap in a cake box the whole drive (keeping in mind this would put the cake done a day and a half early and make for no hand freedom to check on the kids during the drive).
C) Bake the cakes, make the icings and just bring them and supplies with you to the location where you fill, ice, stack and decorate.

Honestly...I have NO idea which would be best...I keep rolling it all around in my head. The last time I did this, made a cake for an event out of town, I did it all ahead of time but drove to the event (only an hour away) right after finishing the cake. I'm a little scared. My hubby thinks I should do it all there. But with the kids, their needs, the time constraints/locale constraints...it just concerns me to wait and do it all at once. Not to mention packing cake pans, cake divider, plus icings (premade) and all my fondant working supplies.

Any thoughts??? Hmmm? I don't have the luxury of an empty backseat or trunk to stick a no slip mat or anything cool like that...the one car with a full backseat and trunk. Doesn't leave much room for...well...much.

Please share any ideas! I'd REALLY appreciate it!

Blessings!

Birthday Dragon

I made this cake to enter in the Creative Cakes Competition. I'm hoping to win something! :)

Either way I had fun learning to carve freehand!! I carved all of this from a cake I had frozen that I didn't use for my "Wedding Birthday Cake". I carved the halved egg, whole egg, and dragon's torso from it and used mini cupcakes to make his neck which I glued onto his torso with buttercream. It was easier than I expected!! I have always been a little scared to lunge at cake with a knife, but it is not as scary as I thought and produced some great results!



The cake was a layer of vanilla and a layer of chocolate with buttercream and decorated entirely in marshmallow fondant and buttercream foliage. The toadstools are mini cupcakes stuck together.

I freehand sculpted his head (UGH this is can be so frustrating!) and made a party hat out of fondant too. I stuck his head in with a toothpick. Maybe not so sturdy in the long run, but for a quick pic and a cake that's going to be cut apart minutes later...it didn't matter much. lol.



He has a tail which you can't see in the first pic! I wish I could get a great pic and show everything, but alas it is not always possible!!!!


Hope you like it!!!!

Blessings!

Birthday Fun

Tomorrow is my birthday! Yippee! So I wanted to make a cake to celebrate. My hubby was a little confused by this concept, but hey...I enjoy it and it's my birthday so I pick what I want right? :) There's no point in him making me a cake since I love doing it so much.

I REALLY, REALLY wanted to do a wedding cake, but given my resources, young children and the fact my son cut 3 molars in 4 weeks...I had to let it go.

So I opted to do a tiered cake.

These designs I tried for fun.

I did one design---took a pic--- and then did another, took a pic and finally finished with something wedding-esque.

Overall my technique is lacking and I've got a LONG, LONG way to go before I can make a tiered cake that is both well designed and technically proficient; but I thoroughly enjoyed playing around with it.

PURPLE! It's my favorite color so this was especially exciting...hehe.

I really like the final one, but I think I would have just hearts on the top made out of gumpaste. I didn't actually have gumpaste so they are fondant...and I didn't decide to do this design until last minute which meant they weren't dry so I had to prop them up with some ribbon roses. I think if it was a wedding cake I would have done them in gumpaste, let them dry and had them bigger.

Nothing like a little cake experimenting to make for a happy birthday! :O)

Blessings!

Oh BOY!

Here are two baby shower cakes I made...simultaneously. I must be CRAZY. However, I was worried that the bassinette cake would not be enough since my great bassinette hood experiment of '09 failed miserably and I had to deconstruct and rebuild the back of my cake. So...here they are!




This Bassinette cake was chocolate cake with oreo buttercream and fondant decorations. The hood was entirely rice krispie treats covered in fondant.



This round cake was vanilla with chocolate buttercream and fondant decorations. I really enjoyed these cakes in spite of all the stress I put on myself trying to do two cakes in a short span of time. Otherwise I think Baby Shower Cakes are lots of fun to experiment with design wise.

Thanks for looking!

Blessings!

Shower of Roses

"I will let fall a shower of roses. I will spend my heaven, doing good on earth."
-St. Therese of Lisieux

My husband and I have a special devotion to St. Therese and we recently finished a novena to her for intercession for a special need. My husband had mentioned wanting to see roses as a sign of our prayers being heard and I started thinking roses...watched a tutorial and then made this cake. I hope you like it! It's certainly not perfect but I was SO excited my fondant non-ribbon roses came out well. I threw in a few ribbon roses too, just because I like them.



It's a chocolate cake with a chocolate butter cream frosting and all fondant decorations.

It's in honor of St. Therese and in thanksgiving for her intercession and all the blessings the good Lord has showered on my family.

Blessings to you!

Give Me Liberty!!!!!!

Happy Independence Day!!! As a way to say Happy 4th to all you wonderful bloggers, here's a stars and stripes cake to help you celebrate!!!


Of course...you can't eat it. But it is all the right colors and symbols....even if you can't dig your teeth into it's vanilla-y goodness.

The intent to wish you a Happy 4th of July is still there!

I took a few pics of the process of making the stars...

I cut out the corner first.

Lined up stripes I cut using a pizza cutter.

Then lined up my star cutter on top of the whole thing and cut it out.

I put some water on a white star and (using a spatula) transferred the flag shaped star onto the white star. Then I cut it out with a knife into a little bit of a larger star. The end result is neat!

I was so happy with this design!

My hubby is such a huge fan of our great country...and oh so PATRIOTIC...I mean our house looks like we should be having a party for Independence Day. We aren't. But at least there is cake! He's happy about that.

A lovely Independence Day to all my American Comrades and a blessed day to all!

"Fruit" Cake

I'm working on an Independence Day Cake, but thought I'd post this today since I haven't posted in a while.

Here's a picture of a "fruit cake" that I made for my mom's birthday. She's on a major Weight Watchers kick and refuses to eat much of anything as tasty as real cake so I made her one out of fruit! :)



I used canteloupe and watermelon for the base of it and pineapple, strawberries and grapes for the decorations.

Blessings!

Thanks!

Wow Raychel! I'm so touched that you think so highly of my amateur caking :)

So as I've been given this online blog award I'll play along!
Here are five things I love:

1.) Being a mom and taking care of my wonderful kiddos
2.) Edible creative endeavors! Cake decorating and making pretty sweets
3.) Being Catholic! All things about my faith inspire me!
4.) Other creative endeavors: decorating for holidays, writing and crafting
5.) Performing on stage and performing (aka reading or goofing around) for my kids

And the blogs I'd like to nominate...other than the two already nominated (Raychel at My Creative Way and Pink Little Cake you'd be here too!):

1.) Baking Momma and Jr. Chef

2.) Cupadee Cakes

3.) Cakes by Anitha

4.) Cake Space

5.) Holy Experience

I have no idea if these ladies follow my blog, but either way I love following theirs! Check them out!

Blessings!

Threadcakes contest...

I'm thinking about doing it for fun!

http://www.threadcakes.com

Anyone have an idea about which design I should try?

Blessings!

Rockband 2 Cake

This cake was for my husband's birthday. He's addicted to Rockband. I wanted (originally) to do a Wii cake in general but opted to stick with a Rockband idea since it's his latest obsession :0)

This is a pic of the detail on the fondant mii:



Here's the cake from another view:


I tried to create a cake that showed the aspect of Rockband that he sees when he plays so I recreated the "on screen fret board" with the colored buttons/notes. He's supposed to be popping out of the cake and the guitar is a mini replica of the game's guitar. I'm not thrilled about the slight bubbling in my fondant, but considering this was a rushed job...as I did most all of it in one day...I'm thrilled it turned out well and that my wonderful husband enjoyed it!

Blessings!

Welcome Ben!

I made this little mini cake for a neighbor who had a baby recently. It was thrown together last minute with what I had lying around, but I'm happy with it.

I used fondant for the quilted blanket and sculpted some white fondant by hand to make the letters for his name.

I used cutters to imprint the fondant and an embosser tool to do the stitching. I like it much better than my last cake! LOL!



Blessings!

Buttercreamy fiasco

I was so determined to try out some techniques I saw online about how to ice a buttercream cake. I even discovered that I was always using too little icing and that maybe, just maybe, if I used twice as much I could get that crumb free smooth finish I longed for. Since the Feast of Pentecost was this weekend I decided that was my good excuse for cake making.

Well. I wish I could say things went well...but they didn't...or at least they didn't end well. How's that for three "wells" in one sentence.

The buttercream process went...well. Okay I need a new word.
Here's the pic:


Not too shabby right? I mean I know it's not perfectly smooth, but for a first try at something this size in white buttercream on a red velvet cake...not bad.
Given it was a feast of the Holy Spirit I opted for fire decorations. Mainly because I didn't think I'd succeed at doing a dove. Next time I think I'll go for the dove.

Here's what I started out with:


Intriguing eh? I thought so. I liked it a lot and was pleased I'd gotten my fondant to be such a deep shade of red. It took the whole rest of my icing color container, but what they hey...it looked great! This is when things got complicated. See I ran out of fondant and although I like what I had completed I didn't think it looked fine the way it was and wanted to connect the fire with the flames. That sounds weird when I say it out loud, but that was the idea I had.

I thought: "WOW! This is a great opportunity to practice with Royal Icing!"

Not so much.

So here's what happened next:



I'd tell you that even now I cringe to look at it, but I don't think that would really give you the full measure of pain I felt when I ended up with this craziness on my beautiful buttercream cake. Sigh. So I cried some pretty fierce tears and then realized it was done. Done and done. Not going to be done again.

The mistake I made (in case you are interested) was in the consistency of my royal icing. AND consistency in general. Meaning I should've just gotten more fondant and stuck with the direction I was going in terms of fire. By using a whole other type of icing the overall look was damaged and then when my royal icing was thinned too much (after being to thick for piping...I tried to thin it) it was saggy and runny and didn't hold the way I thought it would. I piped over the text since it was (at first) too thick and then too runny...lol. SIGH.

What a fiasco eh?

All in all I learned SOOOOOOOOOOO much. So I guess it was worth it. Right?

Blessings!

BEACH!!!!!!!

I've actually never been one to jump at going to the beach. Never. Probably b/c I've always hated the ritual of bathing suit buying and wearing. I mean no one needs to view the parts of my body that I generally work hard at hiding...seriously. BUT we take a family vacation every year over Memorial Weekend to a beach resort and this year I figured...eh...let's make a CAKE! This made the whole beachy thing much more fun for me. :)

That and, well, I have kids. So I'm bound (of course) to end up in a swimsuit, chasing them around and sitting in sand, while the whole time trying desperately to ignore the fact that everyone can see my legs. Oh well.

Here's the cake I made:


The photo is not so hot, but I'm lucky to have one at all so...thanks DAD! And I did preface this whole blogging experience with the words "I stink at photography"...or something to that effect. So get used to it! :)

The cake was the smallest I've made (all I have are huge 10 inch rounds...well I do have an 8 inch heart shaped one...but how often do you have an excuse to make a heart shaped cake??). I used my mom's pans and we worked together to bake it. It's vanilla with vanilla buttercream. Covered in Marshmallow Fondant with white chocolate shells and food coloring painted onto the side of the cake. I used a mix of brown sugar and turbinado sugar for the sand. It was thrown together pretty last minute and was the fastest I've ever decorated a cake...phew. Pretty neat effect considering I had none of my tools and used whatever I could find in mom's kitchen! Thanks mom!

All in all (in spite of the heat) the cake was a success! I was touched by the sweet comments my friends at the beach made about this cake. I seriously almost cried when a few of them told me it was the best cake they'd ever eaten. Maybe I would have been more proud if it had been my recipe...lol.

Well thanks for looking!

Blessings and Happy Feast of Pentecost!

Virus...urrrrgh.

I think I've got some kind of a virus in my computer now. Ever since I accidentally clicked something while trying to click something else...all very innocent yet resulting in catastrophe.

Now I can't go to the blogs I'm following easily...sooooo irritating. Every time I click on the dashboard and click on the link it takes me to some generic search site. ACK!!!!!!!!!

Okay so pray I get this figured out b/c I'm really much too lazy to type all of your blogs into my computer every day. I'd like to keep up with it all, but I'm finding this speedbump to be like a mosquito I just can't smack.

Blessings from virus land.

My very own cake wreck story...

Sorry no picture! I mean...I have pictures...but it's more a pic of what it looked like before it was wrecked and what it looked like after I fixed the wreckage.

So I mentioned before that I was making...or rather made this Gators Gradution cake for my brother who graduated law school from UF. Well it was lovely! I was so pleased to have achieved the effect I wanted and it was a success (I mean some minor flaws/stripe spacing issues with my fondant but nothing the average non baker/decorator would notice).

So here it is before the...uh...incident:



It is a little unfinished as I was waiting to do the gator eyes/border until the day of the event. HOWEVER I loved how clean the white mint fondant looks. Yes folk, mint fondant...you read right. MINT. I did some fancy schmancy stuff with this cake for my little brother. It was a chocolate mud cake with a chocolate mint cookie fudge filling (say that five times fast) and covered in buttercream then mint fondant. The top layer was the same but with a buttercream filling. Mmmmmm. It was yummy! I did a little plaque out of fondant that said 2009 and a banner with his name and his new title across the top layer. Everything is made from fondant with a bit of royal icing and a buttercream border which you'll see in the second pic.

Sooo I had the cake like in the above pic all ready to go and had even done the eyes and added a few last minute touches when...KABLAMO...my son sticks his 5 fingers (maybe somehow 7 fingers) into the side of the cake and CRACK there is this gaping gash in my poor Gators Graduation Cake. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Nightmare.

I didn't have time to remake the cake as we were driving to the graduation that morning and I was planning on finishing the border upon arrival. We had to leave the cake at my brother's apartment so it wouldn't sit out in the heat of the car during the graduation. So I cried. And then cried some more. And then I sucked it up...resisted the urge to punish my son for my mistake (I left the cake too close to the edge of the table); and fixed it.

After I fixed it (the gash and the other pokes which I'm assuming he did after jabbing it), it looked like this:




I made a fondant "drape" and fondant "ribbons" in blue/orange fondant that (THANK THE GOOD LORD) I had leftover. I also redid a few stripes to hide some other pushed areas and added some bubbles/water from the gator down the drape to make it appear to have been intended. Hehe. Sooo I'm not a professional and I'm by no means recommending anyone does this if they are selling a cake. I only did it b/c it was for my brother and family and friends. They don't care. I told them...they still devoured it.

All in all I think I managed to fix the wreckiness...lol. I preferred the clean white look of the first pic, but I'm just glad I was able to salvage it after the...dunn dun dun...incident.

Blessings!

Desert Island Baking

Okay. So in general some things about cake decorating come easy to me...others...not so much. BUT I realized yesterday, as I tried to pipe some text without a piping tip and without some REAL stuff to use as tools, that this type of decorating (sans tools) is NOT A GOOD TIME. SIGH. So back to the drawing board. I'm just going to have to go out and buy what I need because I can't write with those store bought icing writers or gel writers...too melty...icky .

I am spoiled. Truly I am. Just ask anyone.

Okay, I'm ending this here I've got to go make a cake!

Blessings!

Love for Bakerella

So although I don't have the pics to post a full story about my Gators Law Graduation Cake, I wanted to throw some love Bakerella's way because her Graduation Candy Caps made my cake successful! Here's a close-up of the gator modeling his candy cap:



And here's a pic of him chowing down on some Gator Head...lol!



Thanks Bakerella!!!

Blessings,
Cakedreamer

Seminole Blues

I recently made a cake for my brother's law school graduation. (YAY for the lil' bro!) It turned out great! I've got to find time to collect my pics as I have a Cake Wreck/horror story to tell about it. Sooo you'll have to be patient until I can get back home to get my before shots of the cake.

In the meantime I was thinking of doing a Seminoles dummy cake for my brother-in-law's birthday. He chooses not to eat the sweet stuff but I thought he still deserves all the bells and whistles...soooo...why not! BUT in my searches of google images...the main things that pop up when you search for FSU cake are pics of half naked coeds dancing around in low cut tops and lingerie. ACK. I was not pleased. And the majority of the cakes I saw online and on Cake Central were of Chief Osceola's head. I'm thinking I'll have to be inspired by the colors of Garnet and Gold alone as the pics online don't look promising. Oh well. I'm just venting as this whole naked FSU Coed thing irritated me. As an alum myself I would hope the Seminole chicks could represent a little more of a dignified image...I mean I didn't see this much skin when I was searching and researching Gator cakes. Sheesh. Come on ladies...find your clothes!

Okay...end vent.

Blessings,
Cakedreamer

OH Baby...Shower.

As I mentioned before these are my "catch-up" posts and I'm excited to tell you that this is the LAST ONE! Which means I need to get working on some new ideas!

I was blessed to have the opportunity to make a cake for a friend's baby shower. The lovely little Maria was already born when this shower was thrown, so I steered away from the pregnancy theme and chose to work with the invitation colors which were pink and brown.

I made these little baby shoes out of fondant to be a little topper for the cake. The funny story that goes along with this is that I...ummm...well...attempted to make them as traditional white baby booties based on something I saw using a cutter on sugarcraft's website here: http://sugaredblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-make-baby-booties.html

BUT that was a disaster as I don't have the cutter she used and I let all my pieces dry instead of, oh I don't know...following directions! Sooooo they were a little cracked. I opted to cover the hardened cracked shell of a shoe with some pink fondant and to detail it with stitching and a little heart. Not too shabby compared to what they looked like originally. I should've taken a picture. It's probably better I didn't. They were a little scary before I covered them. Here they are all pretty in pink...



The most exciting part of this cake was that it was the first time I didn't actually volunteer for the event. A friend throwing the shower asked if I would make the cake! This was a neat first for me! :)

Also some other firsts: First time making chocolate fondant, first time doing fondant polka dots, and first time making ribbon roses. YAY! Here it is in the BOX! Very fun to buy a cake box and put it all together as though I'm a professional or something. Maybe someday (after some training or lots and lots more practice).



And here it is set up at the party:



The only thing I would change is the uncurved edge featured in the photo...it looks pointy to me, I was going for curvy not pointy. Oh well.

Everything is made of fondant except the little ribbon on top of the baby shoes.
The cake was vanilla cake (don't ask about the botched new recipe I tried before sticking to my favorite one) with buttercream filling and all fondant decorations.

Blessings!

Easter Sweets...LOTS of them!

Okay. So I know Easter Sunday has come and gone. But I'm a pretty traditional Catholic girl and it is technically still the Easter Season sooo although I'm late I'm not overshooting by posting this now...right?!?!? So here it goes.

These cupcakes show some of my firsts...first piping buttercream text without a guide, first fondant flowers, first fondant covered cupcakes. I'm ever amazed at how much better my cupcakes look when I just use a piping bag and a star tip to decorate them. It's seriously the best cupcake secret ever! Shhhh. However I realized I again forgot to rewhip my refrigerated icing...oops. So the icing looks...how shall I put it, dilapidated? Next time I shall not make this mistake. I hope.



Did I mention my daughter has food allergies? Oh yeah...I already did that...well because of those pesky allergies we have a difficult time finding yummy treats for Easter. Soooo I made some! :)

These are krispie treats shaped like eggs and decorated with (a little too neon) fondant. Now I've learned it really does only take a teeny bit of icing color to get the desired effect. Oops. Hehe. At least they are fun! My kiddos LOVE to eat the marshmallow fondant so hence the fondant decorations. I know that this is a huge no-no in some cake decorating circles...ahem. But I needed an option for my daughter and this was perfect! She loved them and they were all gone before Easter Week ended. Now she just snags whatever bits of fondant she can get out of my hands. She's a fondant lover. I guess that's what happens when you can't have chocolate on Easter. I still prefer straight chocolate (dark chocolate if possible) over fondant. But that's me. :)


As if I wasn't busy enough I also did an Easter Cake. What better excuse to make cake? It's 1) the celebration of the greatest event in Christian History, 2) the time when I get to eat cake or sweets again, and 3)an opportunity to practice cake decorating. I couldn't resist!

This first photo is of the fondant flowers I worked and worked on for days. The second is of the 3 layer heart-shaped, crumb-coated cake. I did two layers of yellow cake with a chocolate layer sandwiched between them. Buttercream, buttercream galore! I did, however, use boxed cake mixes this time. Well, as you can see from the above pics, I was busy. I have to state that I really prefer scratch cake. It generally has never failed me in the taste department where as this was, eh...so so.




I thought the crumb coated heart cake was so amazing! I've never made a cake this TALL. LOL.



Next I made my mmf (marshmallow fondant)and covered the cake with a little pinching and imperfection action here and there. I covered some of the imperfections with flowers (yay for hiding mistakes!) and allowed myself to be imperfect. Perfectionism is my vice and for once I had to let it go. After all I'm an amateur and this was my...4th? Yes. My 4th attempt with fondant. It was my first attempt at a shaped cake, so I'm supposing it's not bad...considering.



I made the cross from krispie treat (yes I watch too many cake T.V. shows...or I did when we had cable) and covered it in marbled brown fondant. I made it in 3 pieces and used toothpicks to hold it together. I think next time a gumpaste one would be nice. That way it could stand straight up and not sink into the cake. I could've been ingenius and used hidden pillars, but I was too lazy for that. I propped it up with balls of white fondant (also lazy) but I achieved the effect I wanted and it was just for us at home, so nobody cares. :) Unless you do. Please let me know.



I piped a little buttercream dot border and discovered the bigger the tip the easier it is to pipe a larger dot...duh. My hand hurt after about 10 size 3 tip dots and then I realized...oh maybe I should use a bigger tip. YES. That's the trick. MUCH, much easier with a larger tip.

All in all it has been a GREAT EASTER! Yay for seasonal caking. Happy almost Pentecost.

Blessings!