Monster High Cake!

I was asked to make a cake for a little girl who happens to be a huge fan of Monster High (which I admit I had never heard of….am I living under a rock?) After some brief research I fell in love with the bright colors and line design. The cake was a success!!

Thanksgiving Cakes

So, for most, the most important part of Thanksgiving is the turkey…yea we know. But for us cake enthusiasts, the most important part can be the cake! Are you making a cool cake for Thanksgiving? I'd love to see! Comment or post below!

BMW for the Boyfriend

Every year I try to think of something unique for my boyfriend's birthday cake. I actually appreciate the opportunity too, because since no one is paying for it..and he'd appreciate anything with cake inside..I get to try out new shapes and cakes themes. Basically it's my opportunity to take a risk. Well, since he loves his black BMW so much I figured why not "wow" his friends and family with a car modeled cake. So what the hey.

This is only the second cake where I attempted to carve a shape after filling the cake, although I took some much needed youtube advice and chilled the cake before going at it with the knife. My biggest issue was proportions but I found that lightly imprinting where I wanted to detail before actually committing to it helped me place things like the grill, headlights, and doors in the right spots. 

Father's Day Sizzler...Grill Cake!

What's one of the most popular things to do for father's day? Have a BBQ! So even though the weather wasn't exactly cooperating this year, I decided to try a grill themed cake for the Father's Day event I attended. I created the grill items using fondant, chocolate fondant for the cheeseburgers and I dyed white fondant to create the hot dog and shrimp on the barbie. I bought this cool Wilton Icing Writing Pen that I found in Michael's, which was neat because the "Happy Father's Day" writing was a thick enough consistency that it looked just like ketchup!

Baby Shower Cake...Part Deux

Whew...finally finished the cake for the baby shower. What would be a cake decorating experience without a few disasters? And finally a finished product at 1:30am. Awesome. I went for the owl theme since the party is actually being thrown for the dad, and just went where my imagination took me. I bought pre-dyed Wilton pink fondant, but I must admit I was a little disappointed. I had a hard time rolling out the fondant, as it was drying/cracking pretty quickly, and so it made for a not so fun time covering the cake. But ah well, practice makes perfect.

I'm Almost Due....Baby Shower Cake Ideas!

I'm almost due...for another Baby Shower Cake that is! This one is an "it's a girl!" theme, which is always lovely, but it's for a co-worker and he's the dad. I was skimming through some cake ideas and since it's for co-workers and I'll be cake slaving away on a work night...I don't want to get too crazy with it. There's this one particular cake which I keep being attracted to because I think it's fun and cute and I love that you can cut into the belly, what a neat idea! How fun and sassy! Maybe I'll get to try the next...not so sure about that cake for a dad's party though. Anyway, I'll post whatever the creation is later in the week...

Fake or Cake? What's your Opinion!!

It seems that a fairly new (at least new to me) and popular notion among brides on a budget is the fake cake. By "fake" I mean ordering a beautifully decorated, fondant covered wedding cake...but what is inside? STYROFOAM! Some businesses even rent these already decorated cakes for your special day. Neat idea if you ask me, who ever eats all that cake anyway? So why pay for it? Often times the bottom or bottom two tiers are made of actual cake...can't skip that classic photo op. So what's your take? Is this really a growing bridal market? Would you forgo the real cake for a potential $500 price break?

It's a Boy!..First baby shower cake

This cake is a three tiered safari inspired baby shower cake, which was actually pretty fun to make. I covered the cake in white fondant and mixed a Wilton Sky Blue Icing, 1 oz. (Google Affiliate Ad) color to use for the zebra stripes and giraffe spots. I actually just looked up some zebra and giraffe patterns and did my best to copy the prints free hand, drawing them in to the fondant and then cutting them out. I used plastic straws for support throughout the cake (I was a bit nervous that the weight of the top layer would cause the fondant on the bottom layers to start separating under pressure). This cake was a big hit at the party, and it was my first baby shower cake!

Captain America cake for a True Hero!

Hmm...I received a cake order for a huge comic lover who also happened to spend quite a few years serving our country in the Army. Captain America was his favorite character, I was told, so he deserved nothing more than his own shield...who can argue with that. This Captain America shield is filled with red, white and blue vanilla flavored cake and was a huge hit at the party!

Converse Cake

So, my first sneaker cake had to be a converse high top, ode to my childhood, what can I say. The construction of this cake was a wee bit of an issue, next time I'll definitely use more doweling as support, but once covered it fondant it was a beauty. Great cake idea for the male counterpart, and who doesn't like a Converse shoe...seriously. 

Best Supply for Decorating Classes Shout Out!

I wanted to give a shout out to one of my MOST USED cake decorating supplies, that would be my Wilton Cake Caddy! This was awesome while I was taking classes because I brought the cakes I was working with to and from the class site, but the other awesome thing is that if I don't have access to cake boxes or I'm just bringing a cake to an event...then this comes through every time! (And it super easy to clean). Because the sides clamp, it can hold alot of weight...and cakes with alot of fondant and/or frosting are actually REALLY heavy. Who knew?
                                                  Wilton Ultimate Cake Caddy (Google Affiliate Ad) 
                                                              

Louis Vuitton Speedy Bag Cake

I figured I'd share the second speedy cake I made (see the earlier purse cake I posted to learn exactly how I constructed the cake). This cake was a different design, and I used Wilton's chocolate fondant to cover the cake. I mixed a lighter brown color and then kept the original brown chocolate color to cut squares creating the checkered pattern. Sidenote, I actually really like working with the chocolate fondant because it smells sooo good the whole time you're working with it and it actually tastes like chocolate...its tastes GOOD! That's a little hard to come by with fondant.  Check out the cake...

Published in Cake Central Magazine!

Woo hoo!! Was just randomly checking my emails, and realized that lost way down there in between all that junk mail was an email from CakeCentral.com, telling me that my scariest cake moment was featured in the magazine's "Cake Scares" article. Awesome! And it's official...

Showing Off My Artistic Abilities

Hmm...when was the last time I painted a picture...high school maybe? Well this next cake called for me to whip out the paintbrush and brush up on my techniques...copying a drawing from a sorority's promotional material. But I must say it was fun, and edible! As I painted the whole Cleopatra using food coloring and made it easy for myself by drawing a light stencil into the fondant before drawing. Note: If you make a mistake and paint outside of the lines with food coloring...it's not so easy to remove it, so TREAD CAREFULLY. I also watched a few more youtube videos on covering square shaped fondant cakes before starting this project because I was tired of coping with wrinkles and ripped corners and boy did those help! Check it out...

Traumatic Tiered Cake Experience

As a pseudo beginner cake decorator (I've been at it for about a year now), I had to at some point take on the challenge of a tiered cake. And I must say...this cake was a challenge. I created this spiderman cake for a kid's birthday party and unfortunately, kids and fondant don't mix...they just dont really like it and I can't say I blame them. Sooo frosting it was, and so I was already out of my "just cover it up with some fondant" comfort zone. I made some big time rookie mistakes with this cake, but I guess you've got to start somewhere. I did a good deal of research on how best to create tiered cakes so I knew enough to put dowels in the bottom layer in order to hold the weight BUT my bottom cake was not as level as it should have been. And, to make things easier during the party, I had the top tier on a cake circle but because the second layer was uneven...the top layer was tittering on top and I had about a half centimeter gap of space between the two cakes...YIKES! So I created a night yellow band to cover up this unsightly space and drew some frosting spiders on it. Lesson learned, make sure your bottom cake is level, you can imagine how frightening that car ride was for me. But I must say, the cake was delivered to a very excited Spiderman fan birthday boy.

Doing Big Things

So, a girlfriend of mine wanted a cool cake for her boyfriend's birthday and I figured I was up for the challenge. Had I ever made a cake shaped like a liquor bottle before? Nope. But with the basic techniques down I tapped into my creativity and took the plunge..check it out..

Gift Box Cake

This is actually my second gift box cake but I was pretty proud of myself today because this is the FIRST fondant cake (out of about 5 so far), that hasn't somehow ripped, cracked, or wrinkled while I was trying to cover the cake with fondant. I guess practice makes perfect...check it out!

Louis Vuitton Purse Cake

So I decided to go ahead and take on the task of my first purse cake...and I'm actually please with how it turned out! But let me say, it wasn't exactly a "cake walk".

I think that the most difficult part of this cake, was trying to stencil the Louis Vuitton pattern especially because I didn't have an actual stencil. After doing some research online, I saw that you can purchase one but I didn't have a few weeks to wait for it to come via mail and I couldn't find a stencil at any local store. Soooo I pretty much had to make one myself. 

I created the purse shape by baking two 9x13" cakes and cutting them in half to create four layers, this pretty much created the height and width of a real purse. I then filled the cake with buttercream, and carved the top layer to create more a of rounded shape...

 Chocolate Fondant was a perfect color match (but note: I did find that the Wilton chocolate fondant was drier than white/colored fondant). When I covered the cake, the fondant on both ends wrinkled so I had to cut the ends off and roll out separate pieces to attach to the end. This really wasn't noticeable on the finished product since I put "fondant piping" on the two ends of the purse anyway. I still need to work on covering square objects with fondant because the corners of the cake continue to be an issue for me.

I then laid my stencil on the cake and painted on the Louis pattern using Yellow Pearl dust mixed with water, the pattern isn't perfect...but I'm sure you get the jist of it. 

I mixed white, yellow, and the chocolate fondant to create a "tan" color which I used for the piping and zipper part of the purse. I rolled out some fondant to create handles and attached them to the side of the cake using gum paste glue, but I had to lighten up my handles since my first ones were thick and just too heavy to hang off the side of the cake. And Voila!!

Finished Louie Vuitton Purse Cake!!

cake central

Ever check out Cake Central? I'd definitely recommend as a resource for cake tips and project inspiration. The site is a central location for everything cake from recipes, to ideas, to articles...and I've been browsing thorough lately looking for project ideas. Check it out!    cakecentral.com

Cake Orders

This is a second baseball cap cake that I made for a co-worker. Although I was honored to have been asked to make a cake (my first real cake order!), it was so hard to figure out what to charge. I know pricing is one of the most frustrating things for cake decorators and this was no exception. Of course I ended up only charging for the cost of my materials, about $30. But believe me, as I worked on this cake for FIVE hours straight I realized how my time and efforts were worth far more than that $30 bucks, but you live and you learn.