Baby Boy Jungle Shower Cake

Today I made a jungle-themed cake for a surprise baby shower.  It is devil's food chocolate on the bottom with butter recipe yellow cake on top.  The top tier is torted with a special homemade vanilla mousse filling I made for the first time.  I sculpted the monkey out of fondant and the animal cut-outs are also fondant (found pictures online and traced patterns to cut out).  The details are piped on with royal icing.  The bottom border is ribbon that I wrapped around the base and pinned.

Cub Scout Crossover cake

Last night was our son's crossover ceremony for cub scouts and I was asked to make the cake for it.  I really struggled with coming up with the initial idea, but once it took root in my mind, the cake was easy to put together.  I decided to go with a stage cake for this, so that I could set up a nice camping/scoutlike scene.  To make a stage cake, you bake 2 rounds and then cut one of them in half, laying the 2 halves on top of one another so that you have a raised up area on the cake.  One of these days I will remember to photograph the construction so that you can see better what I'm talking about.  Since the main part of the crossover ceremony is the scouts crossing over the bridge, there needed to be a bridge on this cake.  I made this one out of Hershey bars "glued" together with melted chocolate chips.  Then I covered the bridge with pretzel rods and piped a chocolate rope across.  The corner support pieces are these dark chocolate rolled up cookie things I found at Walmart (it was their generic brand).  I cut them in half and pushed them down into the cake.  The trees are sugar ice cream cones that I piped with green buttercream frosting.  The mountain scape, campfire, signpost, etc. are made out of fondant.  The little white rocks are chocolate rocks that I found at Michael's and the larger rocks are jellybean rocks (really really cool) that I found at Toys R Us.  I thought they were more realistic looking than the chocolate ones I usually use.  The sand is just crushed up graham crackers.  I really liked the way it came out.

Cub Scout Blue and Gold Cake

Yesterday was our boys' big cub scout Blue and Gold Banquet and I volunteered to make a big cake for it. This was an idea that I envisioned to have each of the main scout den's (Tiger, Wolf, Bear, and Webelos) represented on the top with their caps and neckerchiefs. I got to play with my new toy, a Cricut cake machine and we cut the letters out of gumpaste with that. I also used the Cricut "Campin' Critters" cartridge to make the little characters and badges that matched up well with scouting. For the arrow of light, I just printed a stencil I found online and cut it out of yellow fondant and let it dry hard. For the Webelos hat and neckerchief, I painted fondant with different cake colorings (I like the Americolors the best) and vodka. It worked out much better than I thought it would. This cake was a lot of work, but a big hit with the kids, so worth it! For those of you who visit my blog regularly, sorry it's been so long since my last post...I could not remember my password and was having trouble getting everything reset. I will try to catch up on the cakes that did not get posted since Dec. over the next couple of weeks.
-Tracye

Baby Shower Cupcakes

I made these sweet baby shower cupcakes for a shower the teachers were having at my kids' school. One of the kindergarten teachers is expecting a little boy soon, and since there was no specific theme, we just went with simple blues, greens, whites, and browns. I made the little booties, the baby quilts, and the onesies out of marshmallow fondant and piped the details on.

Karate Cake

Today I made this karate themed cake for my good friend's son who is turning 10. She saw a picture of a cake very similar to this (thanks to the idea, whoever you are on Flicker!) and I switched it to a yellow belt since that is his current level. The gi is made out of homemade marshmallow fondant. I used an embossing tool to get the details on the edges. I don't feel it looks as good as the example, but it was easy and fun to make. For some added interest, I googled how to write "Happy Birthday" in Japanese and piped that on to the top. I hope it's correct :) The cake is butter recipe yellow with chocolate buttercream.
Happy Birthday, Trev!

Fox Motocross Cupcakes

Yesterday I made these cupcakes for another Fox motocross fan (the brother of the one I did the cake for previously--see picture). I made the stencil out of cardstock and spray painted these using Duff Goldman's new edible cake graffiti color spray in blue.

NBA All-Stars Cake

Today was my middle child's 8th birthday and he was having an NBA basketball party. I asked him if instead of finding a cake idea from the internet, if maybe he would just let me make up a cake from my own imagination. This is the result. We used edible images of his favorite NBA stars (as well as one of him playing b-ball) and put them on sugar cookie stars with colored sanding sugar in the corresponding team colors. My husband made the hoop out of fondant wrapped around a heavy gauge wire and then the basket netting he weaved out of white pipe cleaners (later it was turned upside down to create a basketball crown type of thing for the birthday boy). I piped a border around the bottom of the cake in red, white, and blue for the NBA colors.
Happy Birthday, Clay!

Motocross Cake

Today I made a FOX motocross helmet cake for our very favorite kindergarten teacher's son, who was turning 13. She taught both of our boys and became almost part of the family, so it was an honor to make this cake. I had never seen a motocross helmet before she sent me the picture, so it was a little daunting at first, but he really seemed to like the end result! The bottom square is devil's food chocolate and the helmet is red velvet and French vanilla sort of marbled together (see batter picture). I stacked half of a ball cake on top of a 6 inch round on top of an 8 inch round, froze it solid, then carved it to get the shape of the vortex helmet. The sides of the base cake have edible images of the various motocross logos for the equipment he uses. I free hand piped the graphic on the helmet. The visor of the helmet is part of a styrofoam cup that I frosted and put on the top. Tyler's first reaction was the word "siiiiiiick," which I understand is a good thing :)
Happy Birthday, Tyler!

Lego Cake

Here is a cake I made for a friend's son who is an avid Lego enthusiast. I guess it looks simple enough, but I think this was probably the most challenging cake I've made to date...because there is so little there to cover your mistakes :)
I think I used a total of 7 cake mixes to make this, as well as some Little Debbie snack cake things (cherry sandwich something or others) to make the studs? whatever those raised up parts of the Lego are called. This was extremely tricky, because if you get the proportions of the cakes or the studs wrong, it looks ridiculous. The cool thing about this cake was that each of the cake's inside matched the outside, like a real Lego brick would be, since I colored the batter to match the frosting. The whole thing is covered in buttercream, rather than fondant, for taste reasons, so that has a tendency to look sloppy, too...overall, I was happy that it came out at all, and that Jacob and his family liked it!

Gumballs for Griffin

When we got back from our summer vacation, I stumbled back into cake decorating from a brief hiatus and made this little gumball cake for my good friend Amy's son, Griffin. He was turning seven and has a great love of gumball machines, so it was his wish to have a small family style celebration with a gumball theme. It only took about 20 minutes to decorate this cake (what a refreshing change from some of my 3 day decorating cakes!) I thought it was really cute and we did the inside of the cake with rainbow colored batter with different fruit flavors...I added orange, lemon, and strawberry extracts to the batter and bright vivid food colors. Amy said it tasted good and Griffin really liked it.

Cute Vampire Cake

Yesterday, I had so much fun making this birthday cake for my friend's son who was turning 9. His favorite computer game to play right now is called "Transylmania II." It is a super cute game where a little vampire is trying to find his favorite teddy bear that has been snatched by some bad guys. Here is the link if you'd like to play: http://funschool.kaboose.com/fun-blaster/halloween/games/game_transylmania_2.html I had lots of fun playing the game myself before making the cake (so I would have some clue what it should look like :)...He had no idea I was making this cake for him (they did a great job keeping it a secret), he just knew he'd told his mom that he would most like an oreo cookies n' cream cake. While they took him out for a family dinner, my husband and I went over to their house and staged the cake. My friend said that he walked in and immediately recognized the game characters and was so excited. This is the kind of cake that I get the most excited about and enjoy doing, because it's like the child's dream coming true. The cake itself is a deep chocolate from scratch cake that I torted and layered with a cream cheese filling. It has homemade whipped cream frosting with crushed up oreos covering the sides. The top is a circle of fondant that I tinted purple. I had such great fun playing with a food safe paintbrush and black coloring to make the vine details and lettering from the game. My favorite part of this whole cake was the candleabra that I made out of fondant. The coffin is made out of Hershey's chocolate bars that I "glued" together with melted chocolate. This will be one of my favorite cake experiences...Happy Birthday, Trevor!

Bakugan Battle Cake

Yesterday was my son Clay's 7th birthday party. He is really into Bakugan right now, so I tried my best to do something cool with it, and this is what we got. The main cake is a 14" round (3" tall) of Devil's food chocolate with vanilla buttercream. He arranged all of his favorite figures on the cake just the way he wanted. He was very proud of his work :) I cheated a little and used an edible image this time since I was feeling intimidated by the Japanese anime`. My piping skills just aren't quite there yet :)...the fun part of this cake that I thought made it unique, was that I made 6, 6" round cheesecakes using my brother's special recipe. It is special b/c it is made with a sugar cookie crust, so the sides of the cheesecake are all sugar cookie. I made 6" cookie circles out of the same dough and piped the 6 different attributes associated with Bakugan using royal icing. It was great because we were able to offer the traditional cake and ice cream to the kiddos, but also have the cheesecake to serve to the adults. I loved the fact that there were a total of 7 cakes and he was turning 7 (that was just a happy accident :)

Soccer Cake for End of Season Party

Today we celebrated my son Clay's last game of soccer. His team, the Rams, did a great job and he really grew up a lot through the course of the year as a player. I enjoyed making this cake which is a Devil's food chocolate sheet cake that I decorated with vanilla buttercream using the grass pull out tip and sugar cookies made to look like each of the boy's jersey. Congratulations, Rams!

Lightning McQueen--Then & Now

Kapow, Kachow!! Today I made a little 3D Cars cake for my friend's son who is turning 2. Happy Birthday, Jordan! Hope you loved your cake...

Yo Gabba Gabba!

Ok, so personally the Yo Gabba Gabba! show really freaks me out...however, the little boy I made this cake for dearly loves it. I set my feelings to the side and tried to embrace the passion Jude has for this show by covering the cake in bright, fun colors. I think it turned out cute. Happy Birthday, Jude!

Wizard Cake

I made this wizard themed cake for my friend's son who was turning 8. I wanted to do an old looking book with these wizard and griffin figurines I had found at Michael's. We thought he might like to have those as a keepsake from his party. My husband thought of looking for some sort of incantation online, and so we found this one and just modified it a bit. I tried copying various Harry Potter fonts and piping them on the pages and then made the bookmark out of fondant. My husband couldn't stop shouting "The Wiiiiizaaard!" (as from the cell phone commericals). It was hilarious...

Firetruck Cake

This weekend I made a fire truck cake for a friend's little boy who was turning 5 and is just crazy about all things from the rescue theme. I love making cakes for kids who are this dedicated to the subject matter! I saw this little guy playing at the park last week and he was all decked out in his rubber boots, rescue vest, and plastic fire helmet insisting that the other kids at the park were in need of a rescue. My husband made 2 of the little dalmations for this cake out of fondant (thanks Travis!) and my friend Amy suggested making the border look like flames by using red and yellow buttercream piped on with the leaf tip. The bottom sheet cake is a butter recipe yellow cake made with my favorite recipe for homemade chocolate buttercream (added super black coloring to it), and the top truck is devil's food chocolate cake (cut up a 13 x 9) with vanilla buttercream. Most of the truck details we made out of fondant, and some of them we painted with edible silver dust (horn on top, side gauge paneles, side mirrors, etc.) I hope you loved your cake, Philip! Happy Birthday...

Super Mario Cake

Here's my most recent boy cake, a Super Mario cake for a friend's child. He was turning 6. I ordered the figures from Ebay (they were each about an inch tall) and had him arrange them the way he wanted. I piped the "goombas" and other key characters from the game out of buttercream. The clouds were my favorite part of this cake! I piped them on with my largest star tip at a swooping angle like I would if I were piping buttercream onto the top of a cupcake. This gave it more of a 3D effect that I was very happy with.

Beach Monkey Cake

Curious George Cake

My friend asked me to make a Curious George themed cake for her son who was turning 2. I was a bit nervous to make it, because I had never made a vegan cake before, and she had bought me a special vegan box cake to make. It was the Cherrybrook brand in a vanilla flavor and it was actually really delicious. I loved the buttery flavor and the unique texture it had. My favorite part about this cake is the little beach ball next to George. It just didn't look right with a one dimensional piped ball on the top since Curious George is 3D (it was a candle she gave me), so I rolled a little ball of fondant and piped the beach ball details onto it. It's funny how sometimes the best parts of a cake are the parts you really didn't plan on initially!