Angry Birds Cake!

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

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?

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

Blessings!

Baby Shower Cake

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!

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!

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!

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!