A Cake for Emerson

My youngest daughter, Emerson, turned 2 last week (October 27).  I was going to just make her a 'regular cake", with "just plain ol' frosting", but there was just no way I could NOT make her a fondant cake. :)
I have seen a lot of cute garden theme cakes, & I found a picture of super fun fondant buggies. I decided to make less fondant than I usually do for other cakes, b/c I always have more left over than I expect. However this time, I made too little for the actual cake part & had to roll it really thin, so it ended up rippling on the sides of the cake. Also, I haven't figured out the trick to icing the cake smoothly BEFORE the fondant goes on, so i end up with uneven cakes bumps (thus the ripples). I still have a ways to go in the art.

Fortunately, nobody in my home cares about that. ;)
I added cornstarch to the fondant for the buggies & mushrooms so that they would be stiff enough to hold their shape, and also dry out a bit. I made them that morning, & let them sit out on the counter all day. I made them all with my hands, a toothpick & a pizza cutter (for the bees' stripes), I'm really proud of them!  There are so many wonderful tools for this craft, but I don't have any yet. I found a tool kit at Michael's specifically for little figures & small details, but until we're not on a student family budget-lol-it'll have to wait.  The cake was a single tier french vanilla with chocolate fudge filling-DELICIOUS!

I usually let the frosted cake chill in the fridge for awhile before I put the fondant on, so the filling can set. Fortunately, nobody in my home cares about that either. :)
I wasn't planning on making so many grass blades, but since the fondant had to be rolled so thin, I had a couple huge tears (caused by moving it onto the cake) that needed to be covered. 
All in all, the cake turned out really cute and Emerson was super excited about it.
My camera has been broken for a few months & I haven't been able to get a new one yet, so these photos are all camera phone pictures....but they do the job :)

Bachelorette Party Cakes

I did these 2 cakes in back to back months, just a few weeks apart. I was definitely just winging it with the first cake. I made several cakes, round AND square, to have room for error! The first time, I carved the cake out free hand;

But with my second cake, I decided to trace the shape of the cake pans onto a big piece of paper, so I could sketch the shape before I got to carving cakes. I made a template by cutting out the final shape & then laid the paper over my cakes while I carved. This method made the process much smoother, & the cake corners were even.
In my google research on these particular type of cakes, I found a woman who'd used stainless steel bowls from Ikea to get the right form. And if you know me, you know I love any excuse to go to Ikea. :)
I was able to find exactly what I needed & the bowls really are perfect for this! 
I hadn't used multiple colors for the same surface before, so I had some overlapping issues with the skin tone/clothing colors.

But I am still really happy with the way the cakes turned out, & the clients were so thrilled, which always seals the deal for me :) I think in the future, I will make the cake's shorter, I think the length was a little too long for these.

A Dora Cake for an A-Dora-ble Girl

A friend of mine from church, Erin, saw some pictures of my cakes & asked me to make one for her daughter's 2nd birthday in early August. She loved Kelsie's design (my first!) & wanted something similar. Fun design, bright colors. She also mentioned that the party was a Dora party & asked if I could swing it, to tie the cake in with the theme. I wasn't ready to tackle making an edible Dora yet, but had some perfect size toys of Dora & Boots, so decided to put those on as toppers.
Erin requested yellow cake with cream cheese frosting & fun colors. Since Peyton's cake, I like to sketch the cake before I make it, I like having visuals to work with. I didn't want her cake to be exactly like Kelsie's, so I changed a few colors, & incorporated striped on one tier.I also stacked the top tier off center this time just to see, & I liked it. I think it adds to the fun of the cake.

I also decided to try modeling chocolate again, for the number 2 topper, & am really happy with the results this time. I molded the 2 with my hands, as I didn't have any kind of mold to use. I placed small wooden dowels in the bottom of the 2 before I put it in the fridge to harden, so that I could easily stand it upright on the cake.
Two things I still need to work on really improving are carving the cakes to be flush around the edges for the dirty icing, (which is the 2nd thing). Because once I've placed my fondant, I can see an obvious distinction between the layers of cake underneath, & I hate that. I made sure with this cake, to use more filling between the layers than I have before. Since the fondant is too sweet for a lot of people, or an unwelcome texture, it's important to have plenty of what they consider "the good stuff" on the inside. :)
Erin & her part guests all gave me wonderful praise, which makes me proud of myself & encourages me to continue to improve my skills!

Traveling Cake

In June, I went to Tennessee to make a cake for my dear friend, Abby. For her daughter, Addison's 2nd birthday. Abby found a really awesome design online & I did my best to imitate it! Since I'm still really getting my feet wet with this, it was a bit of a challenge. But not one I was about to pass up! I bought some circle cutters, but they aren't fabulous, only 3 sizes, & odd ones at that. But I have my eye on a great set on Amazon. :)
This was also my first attempt at working with modeling chocolate, which went fairly well, as the shape was simple, but I didn't dye it as perfectly as I should have. Hind sight is 20/20...
I had a lot of fun making this cake, & my sweet friend, Abby even helped me with some of the little details. :)
I used pound cake, which was delicious! The cakes alternated, 2 pink cakes, and 3 pink & yellow rings, filled with buttercream. The pound cake batter is thicker than regualr cake mix, so the rings didn't pour perfectly, but still baked really well.

I just used the Wilton buttercream mix this time, where, with Peyton's, I'd found a recipe online & made that. I think the Wilton buttercream mix is too sugary, I didn't like the texture. From now on, I'll take the time to make it myself.

The bird on top was originally supposed to have a companion, but again, I was rushing & just couldn't devote the time to it. Another first with this cake was working with gumpaste, I made the butterfly wings & the green leaves with it. Not loving gumpaste...looking for an alternative soon. I don't like the way it looks when it's dry...to me it looks faded...  The design Abby found had writing on the side of the cake, which I did, but not very steadily, so it looked a little wobbly.
This cake turned out great, but was definitely a learning cake for me, I felt like it was my first b/c of the obstacles I had in the making.   Though I wasn't thrilled with the cake, Abby & most importantly, Addison, were very happy with it. :)

Zebra Stipes, Leopard Spots & Rainbow Cake

April came quickly and Peyton & I had come up with a fabulous cake for her. She wanted 3 tiers (which was fine because we were expecting several friends). And she wanted different flavors/colors in each tier. I have to say that I put more work into this cake than I originally planned! But it turned out really fantastic! You can just google "rainbow cake mix" and find hundreds of images and recipes. But, here, I'll tell you how....you make a yellow or white cake mix, separate it into several bowls, and dye each bowl of batter a different shade. Here's the tricky part, you have to pour the batter directly in the center of the pan, one shade after the other, directly on top of each other, and QUICKLY. Don't worry, they won't blend, each new color you pour will push the previous color out, creating rings. It's tricky b/c you have to be quick & not drop any outside the current color you're working on. But it's doable!

Once it's baked, the cake will still have the darker color on the outside, but the inside looks awesome!
The rainbow cake was in the bottom tier, with a chocolate filling. The center tier had a really rich, delicious chocolate cake and white chocolate filling, and the top tier was a yellow cake with hot pink buttercream filling.

I filled & iced the cakes and let them sit in the fridge while I colored my fondant. (Of course now, I color my fondant when I make it, even though the tip I'd used on Kelsie's cake said to color it the next day). I've found it doesn't make a difference & saves time!

Doing the detail on this cake was particularly fun, because nothing lad to be lined up or spaced out perfectly. I found a terrific tutorial on youtube for the zebra stripes.  I watched this as I worked & it was perfect! I didn't like any of the leopard/cheetah spots I found when I googled the design, so I just made up my own, they weren't too bad. I did stripes for the top tier, which I also cut at an angle to give it the mad hatter effect. It turned out perfect for a first try...of course since then, I haven't figured out how to master that trick. Soon, soon.

I had to keep the cake separated to keep it in the fridge as long as possible, as I've read the fondant needs to be kept cool. But I took it out, put it together & added the balls & rope around the bottoms of the tiers, as well as the 7's on the wire. I need to find better wire next time, this was too flimsy & I couldn't get it looking straight. This is the cake that made me decide I could have a small business out of this craft & I'm well on my way!

I want to make fun cakes

Last October I was making a birthday cake for my youngest daughter, Emerson. And I thought, "I really want to make fun cakes for my kids". At that particular moment, it was too late to try anything other than doodle some swirls onto the chocolate frosted cake, as her birthday was the following day. But I decided that the next time I made a cake, it would be really fun.
I googled fondant cakes and found a million how to's. So when February rolled around, and it was time to make a cake for my [turning] 3 year old, Kelsie, I made my first fondant cake. I was fortunate enough to find an excellent site with a marshmallow fondant recipe and video, Piece-A-Cake. 
I made a huge mess, but had a lot of fun, and was proud and impressed with myself in the end.

 I didn't have any cookie cutters, or shape cutters, but I used a metal ramekin to cut the circles. Looking back, I didn't roll the fondant thin enough, it was way too thick, but it looked good & the kids loved it! Peyton, my oldest daughter, immediately begged me to make a cake this way for her birthday in April. So we looked at images online that night to pick out her design & I made a wish list on Amazon for every single cake making tool I wanted! :)

in the works

i'm going to start blogging pictures & details of all my cakes. I'll do a catch up when I get a chance to slow down...who knows when :)

But for now, I'll post some pics! This page is "under construction". :)
Here are my cakes, from most recent to first ever!

5th fondant cake for Arena's birthday 8/10

Don's birthday cake....a catastrophe...but still a fun theme ;) 7/10

3rd fondant cake for Addison's birthday 6/10

2nd fondant cake for Peyton's birthday 4/10

my first ever fondant cake for Kelsie's birthday 2/10