Artist Cake

This weekend I made a birthday cake for my friend's little girl who was turning 8.  She loves art and was having an arts & crafts themed party at Michael's.  I was excited to finally get a chance to try out a technique I learned in a Wilton class a few years ago-striping.  In order to get the multi-colored effect on the shell border, you use a food-safe paintbrush dipped in gel color and paint a stripe down the inside of the bag.  This was the perfect cake to use it on.   I also had fun sitting down with the b-day girl in advance and watching her sketch out her dream cake for me.  Happy Birthday, Savannah!

Teapot Cake & Cupcakes

Last weekend I made this little cake and cupcakes for a 50th birthday surprise party.  I used the Betty Crocker Bake & Fill dome pan, frosted it in an ivory color buttercream (it looks yellow in the picture for some reason, but was a creamy ivory color in reality).  The handle, spout, and lid are shaped out of gumpaste.  I painted the knob on the lid with edible gold leaf and then piped a random lacey pattern using the same ivory colored buttercream with dots in between the squiggles, and on some of the dots, I painted the same gold leaf on to give the teapot some interest.   I also added some pink drop flowers and ivory colored leaves and vines on various parts of the teapot. I used the large star tip to pipe the pink buttercream on the cupcakes and then made a simple 5 petal flower in a slightly darker pink colored gumpaste and used a gold dragee for the middle of each flower.  I made the tea bag tags out of gumpaste and wrote different tea names on each one using an edible marker (ie:  "chamomile, Earl Grey, English breakfast, etc.) and the hostess set each cupcake in a porcelain teacup to put around the cake on the table.  I poked holes in the gumpaste tea bag tags before the gumpaste dried hard, and then after it dried, threaded some white thread through the hole and let each tag dangle out of the teacup/cupcake.  I think they all really liked it, including the birthday girl, who collects teapot and loves tea.  This was very simple and fun to do.

Springtime in Paris cake

This week is Teacher Appreciation week and the PTO asked me to do a cake for it.  The theme of the teacher's lounge is "Paris in the Springtime."  The black and white cut outs are pieces of the Wilton sugar sheets (they have a pretty black and white scroll). The middle tier has my attempt at chantilly lace (2nd time I've ever tried that).  The poodles are fondant cut outs embellished with buttercream piped details.  They are my favorite part of the cake and they were an after thought (funny how that happens sometimes).  I thought it turned out cute and my daughter could not stop saying "Mom, it's soooooooo pretty."  She is not used to me doing "pretty cakes."  lol :)

Fairytale Tangled Cake

Yesterday was my daughter Julia's 6th birthday. She and I both fell in love with the magic of the Tangled movie, and so she had a Tangled theme birthday party at our local aquatic center. I decided to try to re-create a favorite scene in the movie, which is the night where Rapunzel and Flynn sing "At Last I See the Light" to one another in the boat, with floating lanterns all around. I made the lanterns out of gumpaste and then dusted them with sanding sugar. The castle is mostly cake, with 2 plastic columns used from the Wilton castle set. The little boat toy was purchased because I decided making a boat out of gumpaste might be a little beyond my skill level :). This cake was really hard to photograph because there was so much dimension to it and I'm not a professional photographer. You'll have to take my word that it was beautiful in person. I often do not like the cakes I make once I'm done, but this one was just my very favorite of all time. I loved everything about it, including the yellow buttercream roses that I conned my husband into making (I took the Wilton class but couldn't ever get it, and then he picked up the decorator bag, looked at the diagram and made them perfectly lol :) Julia insisted on a lemon cake with vanilla buttercream, so most of it was that. The upper sections were butter recipe yellow with buttercream for those of us who don't particularly love the lemon. Anyway, after I got into this project I looked around online some more and saw that others have had the same idea (I thought I was being all original). It's neat to see how everyone tries to re-create this love scene and they all come up with something a little different. Here's my addition to that collection.
Happy Birthday, Julia!

Sweet Sixteen Cake

Today I finished up a special sweet sixteen cake for a friend's daughter. Her favorite colors are brown, orange, purple, and green, so I worked 3 out of the 4 into the mix (I think green would have made this a mess:) The bottom is a 12" square, butter recipe yellow cake with a vanilla custard filling. The top is a 8" square , butter recipe yellow with raspberry filling. It was freakishly heavy and my husband was out of town, so I managed to haul it out to the back of the van and had my friend drive my van during delivery so I could crouch down in the back and hover over this cake (I was really afraid it would fall or lose pieces). We made quite a picture on the roadway, I'm sure.
This teenager is in colorguard, plays violin and piano, and loves Taylor Swift, so I used edible images to incorporate her interests. I made the gerber daisies and whimsical smaller flowers out of gumpaste. I could tell she really liked it, so it was worth the work and time. I think this will be my last cake for awhile. I am trying to do summer school and raise kids, so I know it needs to be :)

Minnie Mouse Birthday

Today was my daughter Julia's 5th birthday party with her friends and ever since we went to Disneyland this last summer, she's in love with Minnie & Mickey Mouse. This cake was super simple to do and came together fast...the apples--not so much. I kind of wanted to slap the woman who teaches the little tutorial on YouTube for making it look so simple. The reality was that it was messy, cumbersome, time-consuming, frustrating, you name it. Her little video makes it look like these come together so fast and effortlessly, but that just simply is not true when trying to re-create them at home. If you are feeling masochistic, though, you can watch the video and attempt them yourself. Here's the link: The kids really loved them, though, so I guess it was worth it anyway. Basically you dip a Granny Smith apple in melted caramel, then add 2 large marshmallows for the ears (she makes it look like they just stay in place with a gentle push of the finger, but I had to stab toothpicks in to keep them from sliding off)dip all of that into melted chocolate, attach a red bow (I made them out of fondant), then let all that set up firm, then dip them halfway up in melted white chocolate, quickly put 5 or 6 white dots on (I used white M & M s) then dip in red sanding sugar. Some of the steps I photographed, but by the end, I was so frustrated I had cracked open a bottle of wine and put the camera away to begin cursing this woman :)

Sweet Ballerina Cupcakes

Yesterday I again broke from my temporary "retirement" and made these cupcakes for Julia's ballet teacher, who was having a recital for the other class she teaches. I thought these turned out really sweet and feminine looking. They are Devil's food chocolate with vanilla buttercream. I made the little ballet slippers using white chocolate candy melts and light pink candy melts. I used my smallest round writing tip, filled a disposable decorator bag with the melted candy and piped them onto waxed paper. It only takes about 30 minutes for them to harden nicely (at least here in New Mexico...) I sprinkled them with sugar pearls in pink, cream, and some of them with little silver dragees.

Barbie Mermaidia Stage Cake

Today I made a Barbie themed cake inspired by the Fairytopia/Mermaida movie for my friend's daughter who was turning 5. I always enjoy making cakes for kids, but most especially when the kids know exactly what they want and tell me all kinds of details to include. For this little girl, she really wanted to see blue frosting for ocean with yellow cake inside to remind her of sand, a turtle & dolphin character from the movie, the Bibble character, a sparkly orange or red starfish, and seashells made out of candy. At first, she asked for "saltwater flavored buttercream," but her mom and I agreed that maybe it might be less offensive to the palette if we instead sprinkled the frosting with chunky sugar crystals. I found a chocolate mold and made the shells and starfish out of white chocolate (dusted the starfish in colored sanding sugar to make them sparkle), and then made a key lime filling between layers that was bright green to look like seaweed. The pebbles are edible chocolate rocks I found at Walmart. I was really disappointed with how the Bibble character came out (*had such high hopes for him!), but after 2 hours of re-doing him and fussing over him, I gave up and decided to just accept him the way he was. Hopefully the birthday girl liked this one! It was my first time doing a stage cake. If you are curious about this technique, they are fun to do and very easy. You just bake 2 rounds of equal size (these were 10"), then cut one of them exactly in half and lay it on top of its other half. You can use the elevated area to set the scene/background for all kinds of character cakes.

Ballerina Bunnies

Last weekend was my daughter's ballet recital. I had volunteered to make a special cake for the occasion and ended up with this. My husband (loyal fondant animal sculptor) made the bunnies and I drew faces and slippers on them using my edible markers and dressed them in little tutus made of tulle. The cake itself was butter recipe yellow with a vanilla pudding filling and vanilla buttercream. The girls had dressed as bunnies, flowers, and pretended to be butterflies throughout this "Spring" themed recital, so that's why all 3 of those elements are on the cake. It was very cute to see the girls checking themselves out in bunny form on the cake (there were 6 girls, thus the 6 fondant bunnies). I was glad to be able to help out!

iCarly Cake

I made this iCarly cake for my friend's daughter a couple of weeks ago. She had found a picture of a cake she liked online (thank you to whoever posted it :) and then I changed it a bit by adding the sugar cookie pops which I made by icing round cookies white, placing an edible image of the main show characters on them, and then dusting the edges with colored sanding sugar. I really liked the way the cookies came out with the sugar borders, and the kids at the party enjoyed eating them! The cake itself is a butter recipe yellow, and I divided the batter up and colored some of it purple and some pink (left some the light yellow) and layered it in the pan for a marbled effect upon slicing.

Sweet First Birthday Cake

Yesterday I made this birthday cake for my friend's niece who was turning one. The top 2 tiers are carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and the bottom tier is butter recipe yellow with vanilla buttercream.

Strawberry Shortcake Tiered Cake

Yesterday, I made this Strawberry Shortcake inspired cake for a good friend's daughter turning 3. She is an adorable and super sweet girl, so she deserved a cake to match. I'm so glad it came out cute and she liked it...Happy Birthday, Abby!

Sparkling Twilight Cake

This weekend had me busy making this enormous Twilight cake for a friend turning 26 who can't help falling in love with Edward :) The smallest tier was her favorite flavor combination (lemon cake with lemon filling), the middle tier is Devil's Food chocolate cake with a rich dark chocolate pastry creme filling, and the bottom tier is a French vanilla cake with vanilla creme filling. Each tier is torted and covered in vanilla buttercream. I sculpted the chess pieces (featured on the cover of the last book, Breaking Dawn) in fondant and made the little plaques out of fondant (wrote favorite quotes on each in edible marker). We added the roses, the feather, the lace ribbon, and the edible glitter to give it that romantic feeling the birthday girl wanted. The entire house was decorated in keeping with the Twilight theme, from life-size Edward, to movie posters and book covers, framed book quotes, and lit candles all over. It was lots of fun. I'm so glad the birthday girl liked her cake...Happy Birthday, Danielle!

Doggy Cake

One of my closest friends has a little girl who is absolutely crazy about dogs. She decided to have a girly doggie party in honor of her 5th birthday, and this is the cake I created for it. The dog itself was made using the Wilton 3D lamb cake pan. I added a muzzle to make it more doglike by attached a small rice crispy treat to the nose with a toothpick. The tail and legs are also made of rice crispy treats that I frosted. The "fur" is piped on using the grass pull out tip. I extended the ears by adding a lot of piped chocolate buttercream to make them look more like a floppy dog's ears. The hat is just a sugar cone (ice cream cone) that I frosted in pink buttercream and then rolled in pink sugar crystals. The bottom round cake had a slight strawberry flavor to it because that is her favorite flavor. I think the strawberry cake mixes have an overwhelmingly artificial taste to them, so I used a golden vanilla Betty Crocker mix and then took about 1 cup of batter out. I colored this separated cup of batter with a pink gel coloring and added some strawberry Nestle Quick syrup to it, then marbled that into the golden vanilla. It looked really cool and girly and had just enough strawberry flavor. I then made a homemade vanilla buttercream and added the same pink gel coloring and a little bit of Strawberry Nestle Quick to that for the strawberry frosting. The dog was made of triple chocolate fudge cake with homemade chocolate buttercream. I think everyone really liked it...minus the part where the poor dog's head fell off midway thru the party :) Happy Birthday, Savannah!

Hello Kitty Ballerina Cake

Today was my daughter Julia's 4th birthday party. I had so much fun making this super girly ballerina style Hello Kitty cake. I copied a cake I had seen online (thank you to whoever put the original picture up), though I didn't have the same plastic ballerina cat figure, so my husband ended up sculpting this one for me out of fondant. He's getting really good at that! I made the skirt out of a piece of tulle I had bought at Hobby Lobby and made the flowers out of gumpaste. Though it took awhile to make each individual flower, it really wasn't that difficult to do. This is my favorite of all the girl cakes I've done so far.

Little Mermaid Cake

I made 2 more cakes this week for a friend who has 3 kid birthdays back to back to back! Her kids (amazingly) were born on Oct. 16, 17, and 18 and are each like 2 years apart. She combined the younger 2 for a party this year and I did simple cakes for the occasion (this one and Yo Gabba Gabba). The weekend before this party I did the wizard cake (see below) for her oldest. It was a fun and busy cake week!

Tinkerbell & Friends

Today I made a cake for my friend's daughter who was turning 5. She bought the set of Disney Tinkerbell & friends figurines and I arranged them on tiers of cake done in the Wilton Petal pans. I used fondant cutouts of leaves and the grass pull-out tip to make the grassy border and the inner part of the flower. The birthday girl was super excited about her special cake and her mom even decorated the whole house to look like Pixie Hollow. It was really pretty and I was happy to be a part of it.

A Look Back at Tinkerbell

Tinkerbell's House

Last year I created a fairytale mushroom house for my friend's daughter who was turning 4. This is what we imagined Tink's house might look like. I made the cobblestone walkway out of fondant with the cobblestone patterned roller and then brushed brown cake coloring over it. My friend wanted the overall feel of it to be less Tinkerbell and more fairy woodland fantasy, so the cupcakes I made are just of butterflies and caterpillars (I made the butterflies out of white chocolate).

Purse Cakes

I made small individual cakes for my friend's daughter and each of her guests at her 4th birthday party. She chose which purse would be for each of her friends and then I monogrammed the cakes for each guest. This was for a Fancy Nancy themed birthday party.