Sunday, August 31, 2014

Coral Wedding Cake

 This cake has three tiers of chocolate marble with vanilla buttercream filling and a buttercream fondant covering.  The decor is obvious: coral satin ribbon, raffia and God's beautiful bounty of fresh flowers. I created little flower picks with cut straws to create a barrier between the cake and flowers. (Suggestion: From a Pinterest subscriber.)

My friend and co-worker Nicky had confidence enough in my ability, to refer me to her  doctor for a beautiful wedding cake. The only challenge in this cake was using my new fondant mat.  This  will take a bit of practice which I got plenty of on the bottom tier. I definitely couldn't have finished the fondant covering without my sister, Sandy's encouragement, brain cells and help. The bottom tier took about 3 tries.  I am building more confidence with each cake I cover in fondant thanks to "The Mat".


Wedding greeter: Charlotte casually hanging out.


Saturday, August 30, 2014

Minion Edan

My first Minion cake. I say "1st" because I know there will be more.











                             This little guy took a lot more time than intended. This is where experience will help me down the road unfortunately, I have to waste so much time and cake with these life lessons. But it is always worth the end result; a Happy Customer.

My lil minion took a total of 5 layers of cake. 4 - 6" round layers for the base and a 6" dome for the head. The first lesson is ONLY STACK 2 LAYERS at a time, then add dowels and a cake plate THEN  stack the next 2 layers. Lesson #1: Too much cake for such a tall cake always put cake plates between every 2 layers. Lesson #2:  Trial and error with my new fondant mat system.  With some help from my sister, I think we figured it out. 

 The flavors were chosen by the birthday boy; cake was chocolate fudge with a peanut butter fluff for the filling. Rave reviews and I am grateful. This cake was ordered from my former teacher that saw some of my cakes on Facebook and ordered this for her darling grandson.  It was so nice to be able to do this cake for her and Edan, and even more wonderful to see her again. Thanks, Nun.

Friday, August 22, 2014

Mia's Birthday Party Under the Stars


Owls-Eye View

What a Hoot!

I love this cake, in case you didn't notice Mia's favorite color is orange. The ombre effect is so popular right now, so I incorporated it into the sides. It was a special cake which was made gluten-free and dairy free. The buttercream was made with shortening, coconut milk and clear butter flavor. The cake is a vanilla cake from Bob's Red Mill selection. It turned out delicious and very light I was very impressed. I always like to make a mini cake for tasting.
Toasting Marshmallows with her Bestie

Love this digger dog




























Mia has two pups in her home one is the yellow lab making his own marshmallow and the other one is a unique breed called a Malinois (Belgian  Shepherd~ Look him up he's stunning).  I wanted to respect his breed, so I simply made him a digger which I have been told is his number one favorite thing to do.

My favorite element on this cake is the tent and Mia. the tent is a RKT smothered in white chocolate and covered in fondant, talk about a sugar rush, YIKES!  I discovered during this cake if I freeze all my molded fondant before popping them out they are so easy to remove from molds. Duh, thanks "Amazing Wedding Cakes" show for a friendly reminder about this hint.  Truth be told my daughter-in-law Kristi told me about freezing fondant when using my Cricut cake machine, but I didn't even think to connect this method for all my molds.  The best part about freezing a fondant piece is that when it condensates it is perfect for applying to cakes because it's sticky.

The  trees I make are from a smoothie straw I cover with fondant and texture to look like bark. Then I stuff a hunk of fondant in a sugar cone then I stuff the bark straw into it. This will keep it from jiggling around when you transport or move the cake. These really need several days for all the chunky fondant to dry hard but they are pretty forgiving once they are delivered.   I love to use a straw because I can put a heavier dowel straight into the cake and slide the bark straw right over the dowel for increased stability. I haven't lost a tree yet. I simply pipe tree leaves in layers on the sugar cone and Voila!

Brooklyn's Lil Pony



This cake was made quite quickly.   My darling DIL, Kristi's little niece was having a birthday party on Saturday and she wanted me to help her make Brooklynn a cake.  Her Mom threatened to go to Walmart to get one, but Kristi nixed that idea and said my MIL and I can make one. So lickety split here she is.  The only downside was that we had to incorporate toy horses since we were in such a time crunch. I must admit they look adorable on the cake.
This is a chocolate marble cake layered to look like a zebra stripe (again, no photos I wasn't at the party so I couldn't shoot it).  The clouds were made from buttercream and marshmallow fluff to create lightness and shimmer to the cloudy look.  The sun was created with yellow fondant over a cookie and cut outs of the rays from a leaf cutter.  The rainbow was created also from fondant and squeezed thru my clay extruder to make even pipes then glued together and left to dry for 24 hrs. It needed more time but it stayed in place. All the flowers were punched out from a plunger cutter and pearls were added to the centers.  The ruffle was made with a rose tip from buttercream and the pearl border is white SIXLETS.  Yummmy and so satiny. The rainbow is my favorite element I can't wait to make another one. Maybe for a CareBear cake, hint hint~ someone? Anyone?

Friday, August 15, 2014

Annie & Hailey Love Nature

Annie & Hailey love Nature


This cake was made for two darling little ladies that loved their previous camping cake so much that they asked their Gramma for another one. You can see it is mostly buttercream with handmade fondant figures, complete with a squirrel, 2 bunnies (one bunny digger), a frog prince and lots of butterflies. I hand carved a hill to show that Annie was hiking and Hailey was swimming in her own private lagoon.










I have to make this particular cake Gluten-Free for the girls since they do not tolerate wheat and it has been ordered on several occasions now. It is a vanilla chocolate marble cake layered inside to look like a zebra print (photo to follow when I get my hands on one).