Football Cake Fun!

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!!!!!!!

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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!