Cake Dreams

All American Hero!

2011-12-10T09:39:00.000-05:00

A Captain America Birthday Cake for my son!

He is sculpted from fondant with some toothpick support in spots. I think sculpting is my favorite part of cake decorating. Although I do get frustrated by the structural elements as I'm definitely not the engineer type!!

His nose/eyes were fun! I learned a technique where you indent into the face with a ball tool and then roll a teeny piece of white fondant to insert into the dent. Then I painted his pupils and used sculpting/smoothing to create his nose.

I confess I'm not a great photographer. Hopefully you know this about me by now!

This cake was made allergen-free using an adapted Cybele Pascal recipe for red velvet cake, but I substituted blue instead of red food coloring and I did my own flour blend as I don't have the 11 dollar superfine rice flour she recommends. I ended up doing a confetti type cake for the top tier and did a dairy-free buttercream on the entire cake. All decorations are fondant. I wasn't 100% happy with the result. When I bake allergen free cakes from scratch it always feels like something is missing and I struggle to keep them moist. I still think 1-2-3 Gluten Free and Pamela's Chocolate mix are my favorites. I'm leaning toward oil over shortening too. The oil lends itself to keeping a higher level of moisture. I suppose this will be an ongoing learning process for me. I do enjoy the process!

Blessings!

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

2011-11-21T13:14:00.000-05:00

Our church had a bake sale and I donated some baked goods with a Thankful theme in honor of Thanksgiving Week.

I am thankful for my family and for how much I have learned this year. Our Loving God is so very generous with His love and His many gifts!!! What are you thankful for??

I hope your Thanksgiving is abundantly blessed!

With Gratitude,
Evie

Happy Birthday to Our Lady!

2011-09-09T12:02:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the feast of Our Blessed Mother's Nativity! Her birthday-day...so to speak! To celebrate with my kids we made donut muffin/cupcakes...allergen free taken again from the brilliant Cybele Pascal's website. The recipe is FABULOUS and I highly recommend ANY recipe by this talented baker. We used a dairy-free shortening based buttercream and these taste like cinnamon sugar donuts with buttercream on top...very tasty! I just used Bob's Redmill brown rice flour so mine are crumbly compared to what you might get with Cybele's recipes. I recommend doing it exactly as she says if you are picky. :)
The raised up cupcake represents Mary with 12 stars to represent her crown of 12 stars as laid out in Revelation. The unfrosted cupcake under it represents the moon under her feet and the blue is for her traditional color. Each cupcake has the symbol iced in white...white representing purity and holiness.

The Marian symbol was used on each cupcake.

I used a 1M tip to do the base icing and 12 tip to pipe the M with a tiny, tiny #1 tip to pipe the crosses. The stars can be done with any star tip, but I picked a small one maybe a 14 or 15...I don't quite remember! :)

Happy Feasting! :)

Happy Independence Day!

2011-07-04T10:55:00.000-04:00

I ALMOST didn't make a cake.

And then I did.

This is my first time trying a recipe from Cybele Pascal's book "The Allergen-Free Baker's Handbook".

I didn't have the same Gluten-Free flours, but I used what I had and was happy with the amount and overall look of my cake layers. We will try a bite later today and hopefully it tastes as good as it looks!

I wanted to try a chocolate icing instead of the usual white/red/blue for the base. So many designs look washed out or too bright...I *think* it works pretty well. I had hoped for a darker chocolate but alas...not enough cocoa powder. It was a happy accident that it works well.

I hope your 4th of July is blessed!!!

Happy Father's Day and Birthday Week

2011-06-19T21:11:00.000-04:00

Happy Father's Day to all the dads! I made this one for my Daddy! We did a quadruple celebration this weekend since we have 3 birthdays in our family this week, my hubby, my mom and my brother too!

Here's Dad's Cake from above and before/after travel...which always seems to cause something to move a bit!

This one was chocolate cake with vanilla and chocolate buttercream/fresh raspberries (dad loves them)!

Here's a good shot of birthday week cake stuff...

All lined up!

Mom's healthy carrot cake/GF/dairy-free/egg-free too!

My brother's topper for his traditional grasshopper cake...I didn't make the cake, just the TB Rays hat and ball topper.

And the cake for my hubby was the Angry birds 6 inch which I froze and thawed for this weekend...see previous posts for closer pics of this cake. I'm not a fan of the thawed cake taste...but I think there are better techniques for freezing. I didn't do it the best way! Next time. Next time I will do it right! :)

Blessings!

Angry Birds Cake!

2011-06-13T09:48:00.000-04:00

My hubby has recently acquired an Iphone. I must say it is quite a device. I'm not really tech savvy, but he has been having a blast with it. I discovered Angry Birds shortly thereafter and it. is. addictive. My hubby isn't really INTO Angry Birds, but after our team didn't make it all the way for the Stanley Cup Finals...a hockey cake wasn't on the menu. He suggested this and I thought it would be a blast!

I spent a lot of time making all the little pieces and had a difficult time getting that bottom cake to behave, but all in all it went well! I used hidden pillars wrapped in fondant to hold up the 6 inch cake and there are some supports that are not edible, but otherwise everything is fondant and buttercream. Hubby always requests cotton candy buttercream so we have a white cake with cotton candy buttercream. This was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun! I was sad to cut it up and store it, but it fits the theme too, right?

Destruction and mayhem abound! :)

Blessings!

Tiny eye painting tutorial

2011-06-09T12:31:00.000-04:00

There are a couple different techniques...I like this one. Although, to be frank...it can be messy and sometimes is not the cleanest. However it is faster than trying to glue teeny tiny dots of fondant (another way to do it).

Sooo depending on your comfort level you can give this a go or roll up tiny balls of black fondant and attach with a dot of water instead. Too much water will make it sticky and hard to work with.

Here's what I do:

Need:
White fondant
Black icing color
Ball tool or toothpick---depending on size of eyes
Premade piece that has dried enough to handle

After you've done the eyes if there is a tiny spot out of line or needing filled in a toothpick or pointed fondant tool does wonders for fixing it. I painted eyebrows here and used some orange to shape a beak. Again you could also use black fondant for the eyebrows. I did this technique using yellow for my black bomb birdies.

Blessings!

Preview...can you guess the theme?

2011-06-08T12:24:00.000-04:00

This one is going to be fun! I can feel it!

Blessings!

Baby Shower Cake

2011-06-05T16:44:00.000-04:00

One of my friends is having her 5th baby and I was blessed to make her a cake for her shower. Our Catholic families group tries to have a shower for each new baby even if the mom has already had several children. It is so neat to welcome each new life with a celebration and a cake! :) Also I think the moms appreciate having some things that are just for the new child.

The theme was sage/brown with polka dots. I found some ribbon as requested and then made a gumpaste/topper with a piece of the ribbon attached and the baby's name piped onto it. The cake was white chocolate cake with vanilla/caramel buttercream and chocolate butter cake with chocolate fudge icing. Buttercream icing with gumpaste fondant decorations and chocolate icing polka dots. The cake did a little slide to the right in the car so I had a bit of frustration with the after travel look, but that part of cakes (driving them) is still something I have to work on...long, long way to go. I think with a buttercream cake I need to use more icing to secure the cake to the board and perhaps double check the centering of the top tier. OR I just need to assemble on site! :)

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T10:11:00.000-04:00

He is Risen from the dead...REJOICE and BE GLAD!
Alleluia, Alleluia!

May your Easter be filled with the joy of Christ!

Blessings!

A Berry Sweet Time!

2011-03-28T10:42:00.000-04:00

I really enjoyed making this cake! Even with the struggles I always face when making an egg-free/dairy-free cake; it is still a joy to make something special for my daughter.

Here she is...so happy to be 5! :)

This cake was gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, and nut-free. Supposedly it is yellow cake, but given I don't use eggs it is more like a dense white cake. I have to say the 1-2-3 Gluten Free Cake Mix is my new favorite! I am fan of the box mixes for Gluten-Free baking simply because doubling recipes to make a tiered cake can often mess up the structure of an egg-free/gluten-free cake. I find when I do make it from scratch I NEVER have enough batter. This box mix made 2x as much as any other one I would buy and tasted much better than the other vanilla cake mix I used for her 4th birthday cake (the rainbow one). So I'm hooked! Thank you 1-2-3 Gluten Free!! The only modification I might try (when I make something smaller) is using oil instead of shortening. Since most recipes call for butter, shortening is a great substitute, but I've found it to create a very dense cake. Using oil seems to give a moister softer consistency. It will have to be an Easter Experiment! :)

Strawberry Shortcake is hand molded from gumpaste. I couldn't use the usual meringue powder glue to hold her together due to my girl's egg allergies. Which, well, was challenging. BUT toothpicks saved the day. In lieu of spaghetti and eggwhite glue we did toothpicks and tiny bits of water or corn syrup. It was difficult and time consuming, but this piece was the one thing she said she really wanted. How do you not make that happen!?!?! :)

Wishing you a Berry Sweet Day!

Prepping for a Berry-fun time!

2011-03-25T13:04:00.000-04:00

My firstborn baby is turning FIVE tomorrow. I really just can't believe it has been 5 years since I held her for the first time. This also marks 2 years of some serious cake decorating! I started this blog in Spring of 2009 so it has been an incredible ride since her 3rd birthday! I was telling a friend that I have probably made more cakes in these past 2 years than I have in the whole of my life!! Crazy huh?!??

Here's a preview of her cake decoration:

And I'm excited to say that I found an even better Cake Mix for gluten free baking...1-2-3 Gluten Free!

It makes 2x as much cake with only one box and for the same price as one of the other boxes which only made one layer at a time. Did I just confuse you?? Long and short---more cake at once...less moolah. Woohoo! I have found the Betty Crocker GF cake mixes to make a pretty dry hard vanilla cake, so I'm excited to have a new test of this brand. It says it is an award-winning mix! I'm excited to report on its taste when I blog about her party and Berry-Sweet cake!
:)

Til then!

Blessings!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T09:17:00.000-05:00

I made this cake for a small party for Valentine's Day. I also did quite a few sweets to go with it! Cupcakes, and cookies and candy oh my! :)

Now I just need to remember to take pictures before everyone arrives!

I hope your Valentine's Day is sweet!

Blessings!

My Niece is ONE!

2011-02-08T18:56:00.000-05:00

I made her this Ballet and Butterflies Cake for her 1st birthday! I met her in person for the first time this weekend and it was heaven! I LOVED every moment.

Her mom, my sister-in-law, asked for ballet since she had a ballet first birthday cake when she turned one AND for butterflies since my niece loves the butterfly at the end of the Hungry Caterpillar book. Pink and green was too match her bedroom colors and TADA! Fun, fun, cake! I had a blast making this one!

The cake is white chocolate sour cream with vanilla buttercream and mmf. All the decorations are edible and made from fondant/mmf/and buttercream.

I'm still working on my piping, but I think it's getting better each time.

Here's a pic of my lovely niece with her gift! :)

Happy Birthday Allison! I miss you already!

House Divided: Gators and Noles Cake!

2011-01-18T12:02:00.000-05:00

This cake was soooo fun but also quite the ordeal!!! I normally don't drive cakes over an hour a way, but for my oldest friend I decided it was definitely worth it! She asked for a Noles/Gators cake for her Brother-in-Law who was getting married. This was their rehearsal dinner cake!

Here's a close up of those time consuming gumpaste figures:

Check out the cute pics she sent me of the happy couple with the cake!

And look...no rivalry here! :)

Despite some of the drama I had with my car keeping me stuck at my sister's for a day and at my parents for another 2 days...it went smoothly...looooooong story!!!

Here are some other pics because they are just too fun to miss out on:

That's me. HI! Putting finishing touches on this cake at the site of the Rehearsal. Luckily the only thing that fell off the cake was 2 fondant balls and the "united" sign. Easily fixed! I had to pipe all the grass and fix those pieces...plus pipe all the details on the fondant footballs.

Also there were these babies:

Lots and lots of work!! I'm so glad I got the experience of doing a cake this large and of traveling with it. Lessons learned are definitely always worth the trials we endure to learn them. I'm soooo thankful for all of my answered prayers along the way and for the "cake angels" I'm certain were with me on the way there! Otherwise my car would have failed on me before the delivery. God is good.

And last but not least here I am with my oldest friend...we go waaaaaaaay back.
First the throwback pic...no laughing:

And here we are with the cake this weekend:

Love you girl!!!! Thanks for making me a part of Corey and Sarah's special day!

Blessings!

Tyler's Groom's Cake

2011-01-09T14:39:00.000-05:00

Woohooo! My first cake for a wedding! I love weddings. I really do.

I haven't ventured making a wedding cake yet, but just the fact that this was for a wedding brought a huge smile to my face. I loved doing this for them! It was surprisingly easy to pipe the borders (something I have always been hesitant about) and I think it added a nice finishing touch to the cake. The bride gave me the design choices and I worked with her a bit to find something that would work well. We came up with this design and it came together just the way we wanted!

The groom is both a UF and UCF alum so this cake featured his two schools.

The cake was lemon cake with vanilla buttercream with fondant and buttercream details.

Blessings!

"Wise Men Still Seek Him" Cake

2011-01-08T14:16:00.000-05:00

I made this cake last night at midnight. Yes. I know what you are thinking. She's nuts. I'm sure most of us cake ladies and gents are often up into the wee hours finishing our cakes. Or...maybe it's just those of us with little ones at our ankles! Either way I really wanted to take a cake to the Epiphany Party our Catholic Families Group is having today sooooo I made two cakes for the same weekend. Yes there was another one too...pictures of that cake will be posted next time! Sooo stay tuned. ;)

The best part of this cake is the before and after. Here take a look...you can see how working on a cake at 1 or 2 in the morning can impair your ability to make good design choices!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Thank goodness my husband doesn't mind telling me the truth. Otherwise...I would have just left it and said "eh" and "I'm too tired to care about changing it" but his loving question of "what does the black under Jesus represent?" and my realization that is was an attempt to fix a failed design....left me no choice but to try and work some "fix-it" magic. Soooo this isn't a perfect cake...NOPE. But I like it better after the fix. AND I enjoyed the practice piping on the before version so I guess you could say it's a win-win!

The cake is Red Velvet with vanilla buttercream and Marshmallow Fondant decorations and buttercream piping.

Tomorrow is the last day of Christmas for us Catholics! I'm going to enjoy today's Epiphany Party and Feast well! Enjoy your weekend!

Blessings!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T10:57:00.001-05:00

Yes Merry Christmas still! I'm Catholic and we party like it's Christmas until, well it's not Christmas anymore!!! :) We celebrate Christmas for an Octave (8 days) and then the Christmas Season lasts (liturgically) until our Feast of the Baptism of Christ...soooo Merry Christmas!

Here's a cake I made for a Christmas Party:

It was chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and decorated with marshmallow fondant.

I had the hardest time deciding what to do, but decided to keep it simple! I embossed the cross and the navy blue border with a circle cutter since the circle symbolizes eternity.

I also made a New Year Cake at the request of my daughter. She gave me instructions that it should be black and white with flowers, balloons, sprinkles and a clock. Although it didn't turn out exactly the way she asked (no room for balloons!!) it was still a decent attempt at meeting her expectations!!! Also ALL BUTTERCREAM! Always a good opportunity for me to practice my flawed piping!

I did some piped borders and dots and all in black buttercream. The clock is piped on and I used some colored sugar sprinkles to give it a bit of contrast. The little white snowflake sprinkles are supposed to help meet the "flower" requirement.

It was a chocolate dairy-free, egg-free, gluten-free cake with dairy free vanilla buttercream. The kids loved it! :)

Here's a pic of hubby and I on New Years Eve!

Many Blessings to you and yours in 2011!!!

Football Cake Fun!

2010-12-12T20:28:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to my Father-in-law! I just call him dad!
:)

He's a big Michigan fan and so my hubby and I set up a mini birthday party with a mini maize and blue cake to boot!

The kids had a blast singing to Grandpa and we all enjoyed being together and celebrating.

This is a white cake with dairy-free vanilla buttercream, covered in marshmallow fondant and wilton fondant decorations. The football is krispy treat covered in fondant. AND yes...I dyed all the blue myself...I read that the trick to getting a nice dark navy blue is adding black food coloring slowly! It worked!!! Hard to get it perfect since mmf tears easily, but it looks pretty good! :)

This picture is before I piped the yellow buttercream border on the "M" I wasn't happy with it without the piping. You can see how rough the M is...thank you serrated type knife! I need better fondant knives! :)

Advent Blessings!

3-2-1 Blast off!!!!!!!

2010-11-30T13:05:00.000-05:00

My son will be 3 this week!!!! Wow! Never doubt that babies grow up fast because they sure do!

He requested a Space Shuttle/space cake and I came up with this design after viewing bunches of cakes online. I had wanted to go all out, but we traveled for Thanksgiving and had our family party at my parents' home.

The shuttle is gluten free/dairy free cocoa krispy treat covered in marshmallow fondant with fondant and painted fondant detailing. There are toothpicks used in it's construction, but otherwise edible.

The cake was (it's all eaten up now!) gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, dark chocolate cake (I used Pamela's mix---2 of them---with the egg-free recipe) with vanilla buttercream and marshmallow fondant. Buttercream border and buttercream white stars. I coated some of the stars in cupcake gems I found at our grocery store using brown rice syrup on them and them just rolling or pressing them into the sprinkles.

Even those wary of allergen free baked goods said this cake was tasty. Fudgy and you'd never know it was gluten/dairy/egg free! Great moisture, great flavor! Thank you Pamela! I think I like oils in dairy free cake baking better than butter flavor crisco...but for cookies it is definitely better. Just my 2 cents!

All lit up! ALL SMILES :)

I have a few new projects coming up and an old cake pic I'll share now too...

This was a gluten-free/dairy-free/egg-free chocolate/chocolate buttercream cake with marshmallow decorations and a plastic St. Michael. It's the old "Devil's Food cake" with St. Michael conquering it!! :) The kids loved it. There were 3 candles one for each of the archangels.

Advent Blessings!

40th Anniversary Cake

2010-08-07T17:20:00.000-04:00

A good friend's in-laws had their 40th Anniversary Party today!!! I was blessed to have the honor of making their cake and this is officially my first attempt at edible images and a 3-tier gem. I must say this was perhaps my most challenging cake endeavor. Many, many, many mistakes were made. I was humbled. However I learned a lot and definitely have gained experience for the next time around!

This couple is such a wonderful example of married love!!! When I asked her what advice she would offer to other married couples she said "Pray. We pray a lot" and "communicate...make time for each other...your own special time". Such a great little bit of wisdom!

Here are some fun "in process" shots. I used Satin Ice fondant for the first time and it was a dream to work with!!! I did however have to go visit my sister to find it. Do you know that there's nowhere to buy it around here? I was soooo frustrated! Shipping 5 lbs of fondant is quite expensive! I'm hoping that with Michael's carrying Duff's new line I can start using that since no one supplies Satin Ice near me...*sigh*.

These are my 2nd attempt at fondant roses. A few turned out exactly the way I wanted. I normally would have colored more fondant and made some more, but I was trying to stick to a budget! They turned out well enough and I thought the luster dust and the burgundy color painted onto the petals gave some dimension.

These are the gumpaste panels I made to hide the bulging in my 12 inch cake. Oh my. I made the huge mistakes on this tier. The one that is most important structurally!!! Yikes. I had to make and remake. But see, that's how you learn, right??!?!? :) First I forgot water in my recipe and didn't realize it until after it had baked...then I remade it and had a lovely set up but my icing dam was infiltrated by the jam I first tried using as filling. Then lastly I realized that the reason my dam broke was too much milk in my icing. *SIGH* Soooo after 2 re-bakes of the 12 inch I settled on the fact that there was no going back and made these panels to strategically place along the 12 inch to hide bulging and imperfections. The show must go on!!!

Here's the "interior" of the 10 inch cake. The cake was white cake with raspberry buttercream and vanilla fondant. There was a 12, a 10 and a 6 inch. The 12 will probably give me nightmares for a while.

Isn't this pretty!!! I've never had one sit so nice and tall and clean before. Of course it's not perfect (cake structure is not my strong suit) but definitely the best tiered fondant work I've had so far.

So as I said before, this was a huge learning curve for me; but I feel more confident in my 3 tier abilities. Really I didn't have as difficult a time with the tiers as I did with the 12 inch all thanks to my silly mistake of doubling the milk in my icing recipe (probably because I was making triple the amount I usually do and just didn't realize I had used the wrong number when I did the math).

Oh well! I'm so glad it turned out well in the end! Thank goodness for gumpaste!

Blessings!!

Bassinette Tutorial

2010-07-13T09:57:00.000-04:00

As promised here is a play by play of my little fondant bassinettes that I used here:

There are a few modifications I would make if I did this a second time...the first being I would use Wilton fondant or fondant/tylose mix (dries faster) instead of just marshmallow fondant. You could do these in all gumpaste if you don't want to use krispy treats...but the fondant giraffes were heavy so I only recommend that if you are leaving your bassinette empty or with just a blanket to decorate it.

First you need to buy one of these chocolate molds from Wilton. It's called "Dessert Shells".

I found mine in Wal-Mart's clearance cake stuff for around $2!!! That was where my inspiration to play came from. Such a steal!
You can find them here

I had some marshmallow fondant to use up so I started with a ball of white fondant (use any color combo you like)and a WELL GREASED mold. Make sure you use crisco shortening or another fail proof combo to ensure it doesn't stick. It gets greasy, but it's better than starting over.

Then gently press the fondant into the mold

Flip it over and look for any un-filled spots and then press those areas in more. If you have any holes or need more fondant simply take a small piece and press in some more on top. I had to do this and it worked fine. Make sure the fondant covers enough of the shell that you have a little room to cut off a piece to make it even.

Carefully peel the fondant out of the shell. Slowly is the trick...

Flip the mold over and lay the fondant "hood" over it. I used a pizza cutter to get a clean edge.

Then I lifted it (careful) and smoothed the edge with my finger to even out imperfections.

Make a paper towel ring to give your hood a more rounded drying shape. I tucked the paper towel under the wide part of the hood after laying it back onto the shell mold (still upside down).

Use krispy treats pressed into the shells for the base and then cover them with fondant. I did a tuck and press style covering, but you could do something more neat and professional ;)

I used toothpicks (snapped into size) to insert them into the base, but a more food safe method (no one ate my bassinette)would be dry spaghetti or (if you are daring...more daring than I!)use royal icing or another icing/glue to adhere. I'd imagine this would make it delicate and more likely to break, but if you did this step last at the location site it would be fine. If it were me I'd bring spaghetti and toothpicks too...just in case!

These turned out so CUTE! I was very happy with them and loved that they were sturdy. Thank you krispy treat! I think these could make a great stroller too! You would just need to add some wheels on the side and a handle.

Thanks for sticking with this lengthy tutorial!

Blessings!

Stars and Stripes

2010-07-03T17:37:00.001-04:00

Happy Independence Day Weekend!!!!

Here's *the* cake. *The* ALL BUTTERCREAM cake. Yes that's right. I finally bit the bullet and attempted something this large in all buttercream. No fondant hearts or decorations. All piped...all sticky and fun. I *hope* you like it...I am still struggling with my piping skills. Hopefully one day I'll have a perfect dot or a nice even this or that...I'm definitely improving, but it always feels like something isn't quite right!

I was planning to do this cake in fondant, but was too lazy to make it soon enough and decided it was about time to practice some piping.

This is mostly white cake with vanilla buttercream. The little rounded top tier and star "tier" are chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream. I carved the star and the top tier and although not "perfect" I did like the effect. I had to pipe all over the star and then smooth it out to avoid the little star cake crumbing to bits. BUT it did eventually work albeit not entirely smooth.

I tried piping in (a technique I never really thought to be that fabulous, but thought I should try)the stripes and it really looked bad. I did sort of a swirly fill in and...I kid you not...it looked like intestines. Soooo nope. I smoothed it down with my viva paper towel and then outlined it. I think it looks better now. Intestines and cake decorating really shouldn't mix!

Hope your holiday is fabulous!

Blessings!

Double the Love Cake

2010-06-28T10:18:00.000-04:00

This cake is now my favorite one I've done!!! SOOO much fun!

One of our "extended" family (REALLY close friends)is pregnant with TWIN GIRLS!! She loves giraffes so the shower theme was giraffes. I did this to coordinate with the mom and babies on the invitations (giraffes of course!).

They requested white cake. I did white cake with vanilla buttercream for the cake and all fondant and buttercream decorations/details. The bassinettes are Krispy treats molded into a chocolate dessert shell mold and covered in fondant. Tutorial on that soon to come! I was very diligent and took lots of photos so I could show you how easy it was!!! :)

There are toothpicks in the topper and in the mom giraffe. I was concerned as I had to drive with the cake in my lap for 3 hours :sweating: but it all turned out fine. Here's what it looked like before we left:

I almost left it this way, b/c I LOVE how clean it looks, but we chatted on arrival and I decided to use some of the cupcake toppers to spell out "sweet babies" and then I piped a bunch of details which really gave it an extra special nudge in the right direction.

Here are the cupcake toppers I also made:

The grandma to be...she made the cupcakes and I made the toppers. The strawberry buttercream she made (which I thought would be fun!!) turned out tasty...just a bit of jam in it until it tasted strawberry-ee. I love finding new flavors and ideas!

Thanks for looking! There is nothing more fun for me than sharing this with you...I really love cake decorating and sharing ideas with fellow bloggers truly is the icing on the cake for me!

Blessings!

Wave Rider!

2010-06-12T20:39:00.000-04:00

My dear hubby turns 29 tomorrow! This is his cake as requested. I'm super happy with everything except the face...but that's just because characters are super duper tricky...oh well.

This is yellow cake with cotton candy buttercream. Buttercream, fondant, and krispie treat decorations. The body and head are krispie treat and everything else is sculpted from fondant or piped.

I decided to do something different than some of the other cakes I saw on this theme. I loved, loved Cakelava's version but really wanted to do a unique design.

Thanks for looking and a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my wonderful, wonderful husband!!!

Blessings!!

Sand and Sun Cake

2010-06-02T13:01:00.000-04:00

Every year we go to the beach for Memorial Weekend to be with family and friends. This year was no exception! Last year (if you remember back that far) I made a "beach cake" at the last minute to take and suprise everyone. I promised I would bring a cake each year and so I came up with this sand pail/sand castle (sort of) combo. If I could do it again I would use a castle pan. Mainly because I had to drive this cake a ways and to do intricate sugar work or delicate fondant pieces was not possible. PLUS the humidity is insane beachside...soooo yeah...I had to finish it when I arrived with cookies and sugar. I think the little crab saved the day as without it I would have felt the cake lacked something color wise. I literally threw the crab together the night before the cake was served with some leftover red fondant. I thought he turned out cute in spite of how soft he was when I took this picture! He had dried a bit by the time we cut into the cake.

The pail was a pina colada cake. Coconut cake with pina colada buttercream and marshmallow fondant. The "Sand Castle" was chocolate cake with oreo buttercream. I used raw sugar, buttercream and fondant accents. The crab's eyes are chocolae candies.

We had a blast playing on the beach with the kiddos and everyone seemed to enjoy the cake!

Blessings!

Oreo Cupcakes

2010-05-22T21:28:00.000-04:00

These didn't turn out as pretty and perfect as I had planned. The cupcakes were tasty but a sticky, sticky chocolate that didn't shape well and crumbles easily. I decided to go oreo buttercream which is hard to pipe pretty since it has chunky spots. Overall I'm just happy I was able to do my first homemade logo piks in the cupcakes. That was super fun!

Blessings!

Piggly Wiggly Cake

2010-05-22T21:09:00.000-04:00

Dig the Pig!

A neighbor with a soft spot for Piggly Wiggly turned 30. This was her fun neon green (color of her piggly wiggly shirt) 30th birthday cake!

I hand shaped the logo in colored fondant and then outlined the design in black buttercream. Vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream and fondant and buttercream accents.

This was challenging and fun too!

Blessings!

I Scream, You scream...We All Scream for Ice Cream

2010-05-18T13:15:00.000-04:00

So there isn't actually ice cream in this cake. Just a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream and fondant decorations. I over thinned the icing so it didn't do well in the hot sun, but since it was a donation to my church's carnival I didn't let it bug me too much.

It was fun! I loved using the sprinkles.

I also took a family vacation to Disney this month so I wanted to share some cupcakes the kids requested me to do before our trip.

These were gluten free/dairy free/egg free and turned out better than usual. I made some chocolate ones from scratch just last week and they were the best yet. I think Gluten Free baking just takes a lot of practice. I'm almost there! :)

Here's the cupcake sandwich I made for my daughter when she requested more icing.

Fun stuff! I'm sure I paid for all that sugar later on...oh well!

Blessings!

Suitcase Cake

2010-04-22T12:46:00.000-04:00

This was for a friend moving from the U.S. to Canada (her hometown). I tried to include all the things that are special to her...hobbies, work, homeschooling, church missions...she is a special lady and I'll miss having her around.

The suitcase is dark chocolate cake with non-dairy chocolate buttercream. The decorations are all fondant and buttercream. The cosmetic bag is chocolate cake with buttercream and marshmallow fondant decorations with little candy pearls.

She's a Mary Kay Consultant hence all the makeup and "MK"!

I think everyone enjoyed it but I'm still pretty self conscious of my baking skills. It's so hard to please everyone! I *want* to make one flavor for each guest just to be sure they love it! :) Impossible!!! Especially with a group of 20 women! Everyone loved the design and I was so happy to have had the opportunity to play with hand drawn designs on fondant "Stickers". Thanks for looking!

Blessings!

Rainbows and Flowers

2010-03-26T18:43:00.000-04:00

Happy 4th Birthday to my little rose! She specifically requested rainbows, flowers, clouds and for the cake to be green.

This is a dairy and casein/gluten/egg/peanut free cake. My little girl is allergic to these items plus 7 other things (including coconut and almond). I used the Betty Crocker box mix (two of them to get a taller cake) and then substituted butter flavored crisco instead of butter and egg replacer for the eggs. I used an all crisco icing with soymilk and butter flavor and marshmallow fondant.

Now, normally I would make a cake for her from scratch but I wanted to see if this cake mix would get a better flavor than some of the other recipes, so we shall see how this goes! I am hoping to try some new recipes eventually but this time I had limited supplies and opted to go the easy, but still experimental, route.

All the decorations are fondant and buttercream.

Blessings!

Twilight: 16th Birthday Cake

2010-03-17T15:30:00.000-04:00

I made this cake for a neighbor's 16th birthday. I had never read these books at all, but knew from the neighbors that she like it. I used a cream cheese frosting recipe that was a bit soft so there was some buckling with my squares. But overall I like the way it turned out. I suppose I need to be humbled with some small thing each time I make a cake. I know that the knowledge helps me feel more confident the next time I attempt another cake!! :)

I shaped these numbers from gumpaste and then painted the checkered pattern on with food coloring mixed in vanilla. I didn't have vodka soooo ya know...sometimes you've just got to use what you have in the pantry! There was some slight bleeding in the color because of it, but I was too cheap to go out and buy a food color pen! One day I will get some and go crazy! They look like fun!

The apple is fondant with a real apple stem that I washed and stuck in. I also painted the apple with some burgundy food color to keep it from looking too fake.

The top tier was a breeze (no cream cheese icing!) and was vanilla with vanilla buttercream and marshmallow fondant. The bottom tier is red velvet with cream cheese buttercream and marshmallow fondant. All accents are fondant and gumpaste.
And on a completely unrelated note...
Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Valentine's Day Cake

2010-02-14T13:31:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm calling this cake "My Heart Belongs to You". I made it for my husband since he was sad that I had made so much cake and given it all away. He requested cotton candy buttercream so I raced around yesterday trying to find cotton candy. Phew. I finally found it after trying 4 different stores. Thank goodness its a movie food found at places where you can rent movies! :) I grabbed hastily though and the one I grabbed was cherry. Soooo cherry cotton candy buttercream was the only option! Luckily it was tasty enough (albeit not exactly what he wanted). Next time I'll be more careful and look closely before rejoicing and running to the counter! LOL!

This was my first attempt at gumpaste anything and ultimately it was OK. I was frustrated by my lack of good spots to dry the penguin so he ended moved around a bit and cracking in spots. SIGH. Oh well. I know now what not to do. That's how we learn right?!?! :)

Penguins are a favorite in our household and given how crazy cold it still is all over our great nation I figured this was a great choice of bird to use. I really liked using a bit of a different color scheme and was happy to skip the hot pink.
This cake was white cake with cherry cotton candy buttercream filling and vanilla buttercream and gumpaste decorations.

Happy Valentine's Day! Hope you remember that you are loved! Single, attached, married or not; God's love is really the only love we need.

Blessings to you!

Birthday Cake!!

2010-02-08T14:03:00.001-05:00

I made this little cute cake for my sweet neighbor who turned 32. She didn't know I was making it so it was a fun surprise! Today is her birthday! This was just a little something to let her know that her day will be sweet. I told her to have cake for breakfast!

I wanted to try out some more all buttercream decorating. It is white cake with a chocolate chip crown. I told her I'm calling it chocolate chip crown cake! :) That's a cute little name eh? And I covered it in buttercream with royal icing decorations and buttercream polka dots and borders. This is my first time doing a top border. Is that even what it is called? I was proud that it turned out okay.

Also there's a heart...so ya know...Valentine's week continues ;)

Spreading the love all week!

Blessings!

Valentines on the Mind

2010-02-07T11:04:00.000-05:00

There's a big game today. Did you know that? Being not much of a football gal myself I only just discovered that this week. How did I discover it? Reading blogs about football cakes and cupcakes.

Pretty lame, eh?

Although, in my defense, I've had a lot on my mind.

What's been on my mind is a bit girlier. Just a teensy weensy bit girly in its nature. Like this...

And this...

And because the cupcakes looked lonely without someone to admire them...

This last one is my shameless attempt to give actual utility to some of my Valentine's platters which usually just look pretty for a few weeks in February.

I'm really a Valentine's Day crazy person.

It should just be said. I think that it would be obvious except I work REALLY hard to hide it. And I have pulled back...a bit. Shhhhh. Don't tell the heart-shaped lights hanging over my entertainment unit. I might pull them down and decide to get a little less kitschy next year.

Or maybe not.

A Thank You

2010-01-22T23:07:00.000-05:00

I'm really a ridiculously erratic blogger. Really. I am so lucky to make the cakes that I make, when I do get to make them. I'm even luckier in that there are people out there actually taking the time to look at my cakes and share in my cake joys and frustrations. I'm only a hobbyist. And I certainly don't feel I deserve to be honored for my inconsistent blogging...but I am! How 'bout that?

So this is a thank you to Baking Momma for this lovely award and the lovely words she typed about me on her beautiful blog. Thanks!

Now I'm blessed to pass this award along to:

Sweet Things
Party Perfect
Thirty Handmade Days
Pink Little Cake

I love reading these blogs! I love all the blogs I read and I only recently discovered two of them...the other two I've been following a long time!

I hope you enjoy following them as much as I have!

Blessings!

Christmas, an Anniversary, and a Company Cake

2010-01-22T22:37:00.000-05:00

So I know I've been MIA for A LONG LONG time...I mean a month in the blogosphere is similar to a year in other circles. Let me start by apologizing for missing a post and then not getting a picture of the Christmas cake to even make a belated post out of... such is life.

Here, however, is a picture of my hubby and I on our anniversary celebration. 6 years!!! We finally made it past 5! My hubby always says no one listens to what you have to say about marriage for the first 5 years...since you are "newlyweds". LOL!

I had wanted to remake our wedding cake (the top layer only) but didn't get a chance to and with my new weight loss regimen...decided it was best not to make a cake that would sit here and beg to be eaten.

The following weekend I made this cake for a belated Epiphany Party which is my hubby's yearly office party. The cake is based on their office logo which is basically a blue tree.

I was so thrilled that with my new cake turntable my fondant was much easier to apply and cut off and overall I had a clean look on the bottom of my cake with no holes to cover! So wonderful!
It is a chocolate cake with oreo buttercream (my hubby's new favorite) covered in marshmallow fondant. AND, the most exciting news of all...I used the below gift to make it!!!

My refurbished commercial KA mixer!!!!!!!!!!!!!! With a 6 quart bowl!!!!AHHHHHHHHHHHH! Yes ladies I can finally stop killing those poor handmixers (I've already had to toss 3) and move on to something more my size. This was the merriest gift of all! :)

So I'm back! On arriving back I discovered I won a blog award! I know little about it, but I know I get to name other blogs to receive this award now...so more on that next time!

Blessings in this New Year!

Advent Cake

2009-12-11T08:41:00.000-05:00

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!

2009-11-28T22:29:00.000-05:00

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

2009-10-26T13:38:00.000-04:00

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

2009-10-15T13:29:00.000-04:00

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

2009-09-27T09:15:00.000-04:00

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!

2009-09-19T13:52:00.000-04:00

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

2009-09-05T10:26:00.000-04:00

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

2009-08-22T12:24:00.000-04:00

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!

2009-07-25T19:30:00.000-04:00

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

2009-07-15T22:09:00.000-04:00

"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!!!!!!

2009-07-04T12:47:00.000-04:00

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

2009-07-03T10:57:00.000-04:00

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!

2009-06-24T10:17:00.001-04:00

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...

2009-06-23T16:18:00.000-04:00

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

2009-06-13T23:55:00.000-04:00

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!

2009-06-03T11:20:00.000-04:00

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

2009-06-02T21:29:00.001-04:00

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!!!!!!!

2009-05-31T13:37:00.000-04:00

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.

2009-05-29T10:13:00.000-04:00

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...

2009-05-26T11:44:00.000-04:00

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

2009-05-21T09:34:00.000-04:00

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

2009-05-19T11:11:00.000-04:00

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

2009-05-19T10:41:00.000-04:00

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.

2009-05-05T12:24:00.000-04:00

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!

2009-05-04T14:13:00.000-04:00

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!

Castle Cake and Sleeping Beauty Cake

2009-05-04T13:07:00.000-04:00

I know this is LONG overdue. I do have a good excuse. Really. What? You don't believe me?!?! Seriously. I have had about (how long has it been??) two and a half months worth of illness circulating through my household. Stomach bugs, allergies, colds and runny noses have been in full effect. Luckily it seems to have ended. Finally. So I'm back! And, the sad part is, I've been caking it like crazy without ANY time to blog. So this is going to be a lot of "past cake" action again. I'm attempting to catch it all up by the end of the week...so please be patient. :)

Castle Cake! My dear little princess of a 3 year old requested a Cinderella's Castle Cake for her 3rd birthday. I was slightly overwhelmed by the enormity (is this a word...I'm using it anyway) of this project. After mulling over whether or not to make a cake that is decorated to look like a big castle (which involves a lot of stacking of cakes...something I know nothing about yet) or to make a smaller castle topper...I opted for the latter. See, I'm not good at constructing much of anything...I would've failed out of architecture or engineering...so I'm pretty frightened of complex cake construction...at least until I can take a class and have someone with lots 'o' experience show me the light that is stacked cakin' it. Until then...topper it is!

I made the "topper" (it was pretty big for a topper) out of krispie treat and fondant based on an idea I saw by Krazy Kake Bakers on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26449841@N03/2641902525/

I think their cake is AMAZING. Mine turned out the way I wanted it to, but was...ahem...difficult to stabilize...back to the whole difficulty with "construction" thing. I stuck dowels through it in spots and jerry rigged it to work the way I wanted by pasting extra fondant on the back. For a first attempt it went pretty well, but next time I think I will think more about the inner workings of building it before diving into assembly. I propped it up using some non-edible items wrapped in plastic wrap since the cake I made was allergen free (my daughter is allergic to about 7 or 8 random things of which 3 are essential to a sturdy cake). It has fondant decorations and the "dairy free, egg free, wheat free cake" is covered in some mangled fondant. :P I mangled it by forgetting to rewhip my refrigerated, dairy free buttercream. After going back and forth with a friend who is trained in baking I realized much later on (D'oh) that this was most likely what botched my second fondant covering attempt. I also got the idea for my bushes and little trees from a post on Cake Wrecks for a Sunday Sweets segment seen here:
http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2009/01/sunday-sweets-cutey-patootey-dragon.html
If you scroll down the to princess/knight and dragon cake you will see where I got the "poke the bush with a paintbrush end" idea. Which, by the way, is brilliant and SUPER DUPER easy!

Luckily my 3rd attempt with fondant was a success! See below...

The photo isn't great as it was 1am when I took it and I didn't think to take one before I covered it in the cake container my sweet mother-in-law brought me to wash and reuse. I also didn't get a pic of the cupcakes before they were devoured. I've been BEGGING my relatives to send me better pics, but alas to no avail. So here's my plea again: PLEASE!!!!!!!!!! Send them to me Puh-leeeeeeeeeeze! Okay. I'm done.

I made 2 cakes and cupcakes for my daughter's party as I figured not everyone likes allergen friendly cardboard tasting cakes . Well actually it is that my husband is a cake aficionado and would have thrown a fit (well maybe not) if there wasn't real EDIBLE cake...hehe. So I did this Sleeping Beauty Cake. I say Sleeping Beauty Cake because that's where the quote is from. After the time spent doing the castle I was not in any mood to sculpt anything complex and I sort of threw this together last minute since I didn't feel like waiting for 24 cupcakes to bake (I only have one cupcake pan). I torted a one layer cake piece in half and filled in with buttercream. I made my own fondant for both of these projects (marshmallow fondant that I colored myself). I got the recipe off of a site a fellow amateur cake artist sent me...thanks Moni!

I was super happy with the results thanks to using a bunch of kickin' supplies that my husband's aunt sent to me for NOTHING. I was so excited to have all this neat fun stuff for fondant working that I just dove in and had a good time. :) Aunt T. you ROCK!

So if I happen to come across cupcake pictures I'll post them. The little cupcake toppers were made from fondant and royal icing and included swords, shields, frogs, hearts, and tiaras/crowns. They were adorable! I wish I had pics...:(

'Til my next "catch-up" blog!

Blessings!

Valentine's Day Baking

2009-02-13T14:08:00.000-05:00

Cupcakes for Heart Day

So I know I said I was going to post a cake, but given our food budget (I won't go on about the economy since everyone else won't stop yacking about it), my active young children and limited supplies...I decided cupcakes were a more realistic decision. I did however cut out a heart shaped mini cake from the leftover batter. I'll have to wait and see if I have enough "frosting from the can" leftover to make it pretty. Hopefully I will! I prefer to make my frosting and cake so this stuff never tastes as good to me, but to satisfy my creative urges it does just fine.

These are chocolate because I had to have chocolate at the time. I think I'm over it now. I used a star tip to do the icing and found some valentine's sprinkles from a previous year. I also used conversation hearts. I don't like the way they taste, but they are my favorite "theme" for Valentine's Day decorating in general.

I wanted to make Sacred Heart images out of fondant but didn't have any fondant sooo yeah...you've gotta work with what you've got sometimes!

Also I am not a photographer and do not claim to be. This is my attempt at making it look more appetizing...but, in general, I really stink at taking pictures.

I hope you have a blessed Valentine's Day!

Baking and Loving the Lord,

Cakedreamer

Blast from the Cakedreamer past

2009-02-12T13:32:00.001-05:00

More of the past cakes...

This one is a Baby Shower Cake I made (voluntarily) for a friend's shower. She had a girl and the colors were the main focus (pink and green). I thought it turned out OK. It was my first try and covering a small cake in fondant. I didn't even attempt to get it perfect and did it giftwrap style...hehe. I'm hoping to try covering a whole cake in fondant soon. I made the decorations out of Royal Icing I piped ahead of time. This was also my first try with Royal Icing.

This is my son's first birthday cake. I had sooo much fun doing it! That's what matters right? Not that it's sloppy in places...sometimes I think if I had better tools it would turn out better. This was my first attempt using fondant decorations and sculpting rice crispie treats. I made the car out of krispie treat and then covered it with dyed fondant. I used little candies for the wheel centers. I had a smaller amount of fondant than I needed so I ended up just making all the decorations out of 3 colors. I used chocolate bars for the road and royal icing piping on the road. I used fondant to sculpt the lettering on the side of the cake.

Hopefully I'll have a Valentine's Day Cake made soon! That should be my next post!

'Til Then: Baking and Loving the Lord,

Cakedreamer

2009-02-12T12:26:00.000-05:00

My Cake Past

I wanted to start by posting some pics of cakes I've done previously. Here are a few I have pictures of...

This was for my daughter's first birthday: Hungry Caterpillar Cake. I used two bundt cakes and cut and pasted them together with frosting using an idea I saw on coolest birthday cakes' gallery. I think it turned out pretty great considering it was my first sculpted cake!

This one I made for our Sacred Heart Enthronement ceremony. It is a rough job, but it was my first stacking attempt. I like the heart center, but I think I thought more of it then than I do now...lol :)

I know I have one more Cake pic...I just need to find it!

Baking and Loving the Lord,

Cakedreamer