White and Purple Tiered Cake

We had a talent/variety show at church not to long ago.  I really wanted to make a cake.  There are people who know I make cakes, but for the most part alot of people didn't know.  Here is what I came up with.  Cake covered in fondant and piped in white. Then fondant flowers with purple fondant centers covered in purple sanding sugar.

Strawberry Shortcake Birthday Cake

My little girl just turned 4.  For her 4th birthday she insisted on having a Strawberry Shortcake cake.  Over all it was a fun cake that went pretty smoothly to make.  It was really humid here the week I made it and the fondant was alot harder to work with than usual, but I was able to get past that and work through it.  At least there were no cake disasters.

We went with a WSCA cake with a strawberry cream cheese filling and frosted in vanilla buttercream, then covered in marshmellow fondant.

For your taste bud enjoyment I a sharing the Filling recipe.  I found the recipe over on cake central.  I love that site for new recipes for cakes and cupcakes.

Creamy & Firm Strawberry Cream Cheese Filling

Ingredients:

1 cup water

2 small pkgs strawberry gelatin

4 8oz pks cream cheese at room temperature

1 16oz frozen sweetened strawberries (thawed)

Instructions:

Put one cup of water into a clear glass bowl--don't substitute.  Microwave on high until it boils.  Add the two boxes of gelatin and stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until you can smear the mixture against the side of the bowl without seeing any granules.  It should be clear and red.  this step will take a few minutes.  Add the strawberries and mix well.  Let this come to room temperature.  DO NOT refrigerate.  Cream the cream cheese in a stand mixer until fluffy.  Add the strawberry mixture a half cup at a time until it is well blended (it will be a little thin).  Refrigerate for an hour or more or until ready to use.  This filling is very yummy with WSCA as it is not too sweet. 

Left overs are yummy when put into a graham cracker pie crust and topped with whipped cream.

Thomas Goes to the Circus

Thomas and the Chinese Dragon Birthday cake for Doble.

He wanted a Thomas Carnival cake and this is what I came up with.  For his preschool class we made cupcakes to look like boxes of popcorn.  This was alot of fun to make.  Everything is edible.  The two figures are made from gumpaste, and the circus tent is out of rice cereal treats.  He chose a vanilla cake with cookies and cream filling and a chocolate cake with white chocolate buttercream and raspberry filling.

Once again I had to cover Doble's name.  The red little plaque thing on the bottom layer has been colored in to hide his name.

I used nut and party cups instead of cupcake liners. Every other crease was colored using a sharpie.  The popcorn look was created using marshmellows that had x's cut into the top of them and then painted using yellow food coloring.  We had butter and extra butter!

Winnie the Pooh and Friends Baby Shower Cake

Winnie the Pooh Baby Shower Cake for Baby Drevin.  The Client asked for an elegant Winnie the Pooh cake with bows and characters.  The orginal plan was to sculpt just the Winnie the Pooh and put images of the characters on the side.  After sculpting the Winnie the Pooh I decided to go ahead and do the other characters. The client was so appreciative that I wanted to go over the top with it.  It pays to be thankful :) I love the way it turned out. 

New technique I tried.  I have a little work on it, but I think it brings in that simple elegance to the cake.

I would like to eventually own a fondant diamond impression plate.

Fondant T-I-double G-ER

Doble asked why Eeyore was smiling.  "He is supposed to be sad", he said.

Cute little piglet

Sleepy Pooh

Top Layer: Vanilla Cake with Chocolate Ganache

Bottom Layer: White Almond Sour Cream Cake with Italian Meringue Buttercream and Fresh cut Strawberries.

All the Winnie the Pooh characters are sculpted from fondant mixed with tylose to make a gumpaste

Scroll and Swirl Wedding Cake

My largest cake yet was made for my Brother and his new Bride this weekend. I had a lot of fun learning how to pipe for the first time.  I can't wait to do more in the future.  I was so nervous and didn't want to free hand it but I did anyway and here is what I came up with.

So as a litttle tip...you must have confidence when doing piping work.  It takes practice, but the more confident you are the steadier your hand will be.  I was so nervous to do this cake that I practiced a couple times prior to the real thing.  The improvement jump from the first time the the third time was dramatic.  I was going to pin prick the whole image onto the cake.  However, I found that doing that method was actually harder.  If I accidentally didn't cover the pin prick it would look bad.  Freehanding actually was easier.

From Top to Bottom Tier:

Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Filling

Vanilla with Lemon Cream Filling

White Almond Sour Cream with Cream Cheese Filling

Chocolate with White Chocolate Italian Meringue Buttercream and Raspberry Filling

The newly weds cutting the cake.  Thank you guys for trusting me to make your cake.  Best wishes to the both of you.  I love you!

Kali and Kyle's Pinecone Wedding Cake

This cake was made for a friend of the family.  She gave me a picture for inspiration and a paint color chip to match the fondant to.  I was really happy with the way it turned out. 

 The pinecones were made from real pinecones I found in the clearance section at walmart for a dollar.  I then iced them with royal icing to make the snow affect.  The twigs were shaped using 22g wire and then wrapped with floral tape.  Let me tell you floral tape is not my favorite thing to work with.  It is so sticky.  The tiers are all covered in fondant and then wrapped with blue ribbon.  The perfect cake for a wintery wedding. 



Elegant Black Tie Wedding Cake

I will admit that I was extremely nervous for this cake.  I have known that I was going to be making it for about 8 months.  A wedding cake is a big deal and I didn't want to make any mistakes.  After setting up the cake I was actually really pleased.  I started thinking... "Hey I actually can do this cake thing".  I even had someone ask me to make thier wedding cake.  Who knows, maybe when the kids are older I could go into business. 

16" square - sour cream almond cake and buttercream filling and icing

12" square - chocolate cake with nutella filling and buttercream icing

8" square - lemon cake with lemon filling and icing

***Thanks to my friend Katrina for the chocolate cake recipe and the nutella idea.  The cake tasted just as good as it looked.

Congratulations Vanessa and Joshua!!

Twilight Series Cake

This is the cake I made for my mother in laws 60th Birthday. I will say that I am so pleased with it. This one and my Minnie Mouse Cake are my two favorites I have done lately. So as you can see this is a Twilight Themed cake. Can you see each book represented in the cake?

Twilight: The apple

New Moon: The words and the flowers

Eclipse: The ribbon

Breaking Dawn: The chess board middle tier and the chess pieces.

Each tier was a different flavor

Top: sour cream almond

Middle: red velvet (loved the effect)

Bottom: too much chocolate (first time I have ever used this recipe and loved it)

The cake was frosted in cream cheese frosting and then covered in white fondant. Then I embellished the cake with hand colored fondant. Everything was edible, chess pieces and all.

Needless to say my mother in law LOVED the cake. I was so excited to make this for her as she is a huge fan of Twilight.

Pink and Green Polka Dots

It was so much fun to finally make a little girl's birthday cake. For Razy's first birthday we went with a pink and green polka-dot theme.

6" round is chocolate cake

10" round is vanilla cake

6" round smash cake is chocolate cake

All are decorated with buttercream icing and embellished with marshmallow fondant.

The candle was purchased from Party City and says, "fun to be one".

The topper on the large cake is a Willowcreek figurine that says, "birthday girl".

Spiderman Cake

This year for his 4th birthday, Lil' E chose Spiderman. I was going to attempt another 3D cake, but opted for a city scene instead. He loved it. 6" round is vanilla cake, 10" round is chocolate. Decorated in buttercream icing with rolled fondant city and stars and black piping for web and outlines. The spiderman is a store bought candle.