Monstrous Bake Day!

Today was a very busy day of baking for me. It was our kiddos' fall carnival at school and I was asked to bake a Halloweenish cake for the silent auction. I decided to add a cake pop bouquet and an apple pie in hopes that they would earn more money to buy the school a new copy machine.
I found a super awesome monster cake that I absolutely loved and decided to try to make my version of him in purple. Thank you so much, to the original designer (I think it was Jen Adkins) for the idea. Here is the address for the blog where I found the monster cake idea: http://jenadkinsdesigns.blogspot.com/2011/06/sorry-ive-been-miapic-heavy.html I thought it was the most adorable thing I've seen in a long time. I also saw some super cute vampire and Frankenstein cake pops on Bakerella.com that I wanted to turn into a cake pop bouquet. The apple pie is just because I love baking pie the best and we are fortunate to have some of the best apples in the world grown right here in New Mexico. These were the famous champagne apples from Dixon apple farm. Hopefully the school made some good money at the auction!

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!

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!