Mini Cakes 2

To see the first batch of mini cakes and get up to speed on thier purpose, go here.

My friend is having another bake sale to raise money for her oldies. So I made these cakes for the sale:

I think this one looks like a cutesy little baby shower cake.

Everyone loves Mickey! (if you don't, don't tell me cuz I'll totally judge you)

My mom made this one.

A little tiger stripe experiment.

Some fondant meets old-school piping. The rose is fondant. I think next time I'll use a smaller tip on the border stuff.

And my personal favorite of today's lot:

Can I get and "Arrrrrrrrrrrr..."

Oh, by the way, they are all either white or chocolate cake with white buttercream filling.

Day of the Dead

October 2010

Of the cakes I've made so far, this one is one of my favorites (possibly my favorite).  My friend, Jona has her anniversary on Halloween so every year she celebrates- and celebrates BIG. 

I wanted to make some kind of contribution to the soiree so I volunteered a cake. Knowing Jona and her style, I knew it had to be something I've never done before. So I researched. I looked at magazines, I looked online I looked everywhere until I found a cake I thought would fit in well with her party.

Each layer of the cake is a black and white cake (one chocolate layer, one white) with butter cream icing and filling.  The red took For.Ev.Er to mix and was nearly a full bottle of food coloring. I also mixed in a little black to keep it from being bright, cherry red (or hooker red, however you want to see it).

It has a little black airbrushing on it as well to give it that gradient look. The skulls on the sides are white chocolate and black icing (hand piped, obviously) with silver luster dust eyes. The drippy looking stuff on the sides is also white chocolate. That did not turn out the way it was meant to. I wanted runny royal icing but I can't make just a little bit of it and I didn't want to make a whole batch. So the white chocolate was a compromise and it's the one thing I regret about the cake. No matter how much black I put in it, it still dried purple so I (gulp) painted straight food coloring on it to make it look darker. It turned out ok... not great... but I couldn't peel it off and start over cuz it had melted into the fondant. So I just had to go with it.

 

The skull and sombrero on top are formed from fondant. I was beside myself trying to figure out what to top the cake with and I just started playing with fondant and came up with the skull. Again, I used what I have at my disposal (toys) to make the sombrero. I used a ring from those baby stackable ring thingies. Washed the heck out of it then formed the sombrero to fit over it and down inside of it, taking the form of the inside of the ring and let it dry out a little over night then hand piped the decorations on it. I think the sombrero is my favorite part.

The spider webs and inner border are hand piped. On the back of the cake, if you look close, you'll see a little spider. I accidentally got a tear in the fondant and that little spider was covering my oopsy.  Anyway, I didn't get to go to the party, but Jona tells me people liked it. So I'll take it as a success. And for me to say anything nice about my own work is a bonus. I more than often think the things I produce are crap. But I'm told I'm my own worst critic.

How I Spent My Weekend

*Quick side note, I've decided to not necessarily post the cakes in the order that I made them- otherwise it will be a year before you see the cakes I'm making now. So just go with it.

Remember when you were in elementary school and every year on the first day you had a to write a report about how you spent your weekend? That's kinda how I feel about this particular post. If you go here, you'll see the list of things I had to do. It was a daunting list and I think most of it actually got done. But you're not here for that stuff. You wanna see cakes.

This first one is a cake order. A little girl's birthday (Mary, my dear friend's daughter). She is a princess in every sense of the word. This girl probably has pink blood. So for her birthday- this is what she's getting:

The light really washes it out, but the rounded corner parts of the castle are purple gum paste. The pink rooftops are ice cream cones covered in fondant shingles.  The ivy is hand piped. It's a four layer white cake with sprinkles. (ok.. ok... it's funfetti. I can't lie) with white buttercream.

This photo is to show the stone work detailing on the purple castle walls. I use what is available to me: toys. My nephew has a train track toy and one section of it has a cobblestone print. So I washed the heck out of the toy and then pressed the gum paste on it to make the stone design.



My Niece, Macy also had a birthday this weekend. (Today, in fact!) She is a giraffe lovin fool. She ordered her cake months ago when her sister got a zebra print cake.  The cake is red velvet with cream cheese frosting. The pink bow was for Macy, it is her favorite color- and she just got pink extensions in her hair. I'm not exactly fond of the pink with the giraffe print. I would have rather had a blue or something- but the kid likes pink- so the kid gets pink! Happy Birthday, Mouser!



Fairy Garden

December 2009

First order of business.

Are any of you having a hard time looking at this site? I tried it today on my work computer and it came up this garish green with light blue words. Not only could I not read it, I nearly went blind trying.

It's supposed to be a lovely shade of green with a cutesy background...? can you see it?

Now, for the reason we're all here. Cake.

Ok... have we recovered from our time travel? Cuz we're gonna do it again. Back again to December 2009, not quite so far this time, a week or so. Heeeere Weeeee Goooooo!!!!!

{Shimmer}
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Here we are in Idaho. Home for Christmas. My sister has a birthday coming up so I want to try out the things that I learned at Meranda's.  I found a recipe online for fondant. I've heard from multitudes that fondant is disgusting. So I wanted to find one that was edible.  Now, fondant, as a rule, is not really meant to be eaten. It's more of a decoration... an edible decoration, but a decoration nonetheless. My fondant, however, is awesome. It's still too sweet to eat a whole lot of, but at least it doesn't taste like rocks.

I had a cake in my head. I should have drawn it out to see how it looked in my head versus how it actually turned out. (some of my cakes I sketch, some I Internet stalk and try to copy others or just get inspiration). For this cake I was going for a fairy garden theme.

Some of it was cut by hand, some with cookie cutters that were meant to be something else but I played around with shapes and colors. My nieces all helped with the "narbles" (my nephew can't say marble- so from that day until the end of time, they will be called Narbles).

My niece, Sadie is quite a little artist. It was her mom's cake so I asked for her help with the little fairy. She made it all from her own imagination all with fondant. I think she did an amazing job!

For a first effort I don't think it turned out too badly.

The One that Started It All

Let's go back in time. Far back into the reaches of yesteryear...

{shimmer}
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Ahh.... it's 2009. December. The Christmas season is nearly upon us. [whispering] {oh, look, there I am! I'm sitting in Relief Society}. What is that paper being passed around? [looking closer] it's a sign up sheet for the ward Christmas Party. Ohhh.... a cake decorating contest? Niiiiiiice! Look at me sign up. Silly girl.

This is boring, let's fast forward

{squeeedlelelelleeeee}

Right. Let's stop here. It's the day before the ward Christmas party. I've already called on my friend, Meranda. She is an amazing cake decorator. Her skills with fondant are awesome! I've always wanted to learn how to use fondant. I grew up in a buttercream home so I've never been around it. I asked her to help me come up with something for my ward party. The theme of the party was "Whobilation" all grinchy and stuff. 

This is the creation she and her mother (with the littlest bit of help from me) came up with:

Her mom made the Grinch. Isn't he awesome!?

I made the doors (I know! Amazing, right?) and the little present hanging from the peak of Mt Crumpit.

It was from here that I watched how she worked the fondant and then I just copied it. For better or worse (my money is on worse) this is where it all began.

That was a nice trip through time. Can I stay? I wanna be in Denver. {sniff sniff}

Back to Reality.