Some Light Reading

This was a present for my wife for her birthday. I told her I'd make a "Twilight Cake" and this is what I came up with. I had a number of ideas of how I'd do it. I finally just made a 4-layer cake and left a little bit more space between the layers to allow room to carve around the cake to make them look like seperate books. I wrapped white fondant around 3 sides and then made a long piece of black fondant about 2 inches wider than the cake to make the top and spines of the "books". I used the ball tool to make the space between the books. I then used a pointed tip to give the effect of pages on the front and sides of the white fondant. I cut black strips to make the seperations on the white part. The titles were all hand piped onto the spines. The infamous parrot tulip was made using a regular tulip cutter and then making small cuts along the edges to give it the ruffled look the flower is know for. The apple is made of Rice Krispie Treat covered with red fondant. This gave me a bit of trouble. I must say it will be a while before I try to make stacked books again. I was happy to cut into this one.  

Peace, Love, and Birthday Cake

This was one I was VERY excited to do. As soon as I was asked to make it, all these ideas flooded. After acting like a kid in a psychedelic candy shop I regained my thoughts and came up with this cake.

 I started off by dying cake batter in 4 different colors equally. Pretty simple and straight forward

After greasing the petal shaped pan (an even cooler detail) I poured the batter in one by one on top of one another. I didn't swirl anything or try to mix it up. It went into the oven just like this. I did this for both layers and put buttercream between the two. When the cake was done I let it cool overnight and covered it with plastic wrap.

 While the cake was cooling I began on the details. I used a simple circle cutter to make what would later become peace signs and smiley faces. The circles and letters were made with a fondant/gumpaste mix to give them a bit more stiffness.

The flowers were cut with a daisy gumpaste cutter. As you can see, I used bathroom cups to allow them to dry. I turned them upside downand cut a hole into them to give the flowers some dimension. Everything dried overnight along with the cake. I left the fan on in the room to speed up the process a bit.

Once the cakes were cooled the next day I covered them in "tie-dyed" fondant. Ok, the fondant wasn't really tie-dyed. I took 4 colors that were the client's choice and rolled them together. The trick here is NOT to roll it too much. I tried it first and found out it turns into a brown blob. A couple twists of all 4 colors together, roll it into a ball and flatten it out. You have to do it right the first time otherwise the colors get too mixed and you get the infamous brown blob.

Once the cake was covered in it's "groovy" fare it was time to add the details. I put a few cutout circles on floral wire to allow some faces and peace signs to stand up in the cake. The rest would be glued on around the cake using royal icing.

This was probably the one thing that gave me the hardest time, the big peace sign. After 3-4 tries it came out the way I wanted. I had to use 2 different sized circle cutouts  to get the size right to fit the rest of the sign inside it. I used water to attach the letters and daisy to the sign.

 I was very pleased with how this came out. It was exactly what I planned on it looking like. The only thing I didn't have was a picture of the tie-dyed cake itself. I think all that really matters is that it was exactly what was expected and the cake tasted GROOOOVY! :o)

The Michelin Man "A Real Hero"

So I was approached by a co-worker asking me to make a cake for her boyfriend for his birthday. I asked what she wanted and mentioned something about the Michelin Man. I looked at her for a second, laughed, and then asked her what she really wanted...apparently she wasn't kidding. It all boils down to a game of Scatergories and a Michelin commercial. I did my research and this is what I came up with for her.

As you can see, I started with a Rice Krispie Treats sculpture

of the figure. I did this all from a picutre I found online. I did each section individually and then put them together on individual sticks. Once the entire figure was together I "sealed" it with royal icing.

Once it was iced I covered it with "Fondarific" fondant and used the hand tools to give it definition. Fondarific is awesome to use. Very easy to mold with and doesn't get "elephant skin" as easy as others. It even tastes a  bit better. One thing I would do differently is actually cover each section individually rather than all at once. There were some areas of the figure that was hard to cover. I got creative and just put pieces of fondant in the cracks and smoothed it out as best as I could.

This is the finished product. My friend bought the cake at a local grocery store and put the figure on it. He's standing up with a little help from a dowel behind him. It took me a couple tries to get it right. It was cool to watch it come together.

Welcome Baby Brianna!

 

This was a basic, 3-tier cake. The entire cake was made of devil's food chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream between the layers. In the first two layers I placed 4 sections of wooden dowels in each layer to help support the cake above it. (right) On the bottom of the top 2 layers were cake boards that sat on the wooden dowels. 

The next step was to stack the cakes. Once they were stacked, I put a larger diameter dowel down the middle of the cake to keep it from sliding, giving it a "spine" so-to-speak. As you can see between the first and second tiers there's a small gap. Well someone was in a bit of a rush and neglected to make sure the cakes were level before icing and putting the fondant on. :( Oh well, it still tastes good!!! I'll worry about that when I'm competing for $10,000 some day. (ha!) On the right is a Rice Krispie Treat bear. With a little help from the madre, she pressed treats into a the Wilton mold for the bear. Simple. At the end, the bear would be covered with chocolate fondant.

This is the finished result. The bow is chocolate fondant made free-hand. The baby and rocking horses are cake-toppers that I found in my local supply store along with the toy blocks on the bottom. The hat on the bear's head was sort of a last minute idea to tie together the baby girl theme. For this cake, it was my first time using "Fondarific" and I loved it. Very easy to roll out (little to no confectioners sugar needed) and even easier to cover the cake with. Borderline new favorite!

Congratulations to Brittany and Baby Brianna!

It's a girl!!!

I was planning for this cake for a while mostly because I was excited to try it. So when I got the round pans home the fun began. I thought I had to turn the pans upside down on a cookie sheet. So I tried it, and failed. Obviously the cake seeped out the sides and made a mess in the oven. I finally called the store I get my supplies at and was kinda laughed at. I figured out I could stand the cake up the correct way (with the rounded part down) and it wouldn't fall because the weight of the batter will keep it even. When they were done they came out perfect! I made a 9x13x2 sheet to put the "belly" on and covered it with black fondant. I put the rounded cakes on top and covered it with the pink fondant. Once it was on the cake is when I shaped out the dress. Wife wouldn't let me have any cleavage showing. :(  I made due with what I could. I added some trim and a bow to the belly to break it up a bit. The pink icing at the bottom, I think, finished the cake. I would totally do this one again. This was a lot of fun.

Where My Peeps At?!

The title will make sense after you read about this one. Trust me. :)

     

It was Easter so the only thing I could think of was an Easter basket. This is the first cake that I made by my own design. I had an idea in my head and I ran with it. This is the beginning. Obviously I made 4 cakes, 2 8in and 2 10in. I cut one of the 10in layers at an angle to give it the shape of a basket (I know, it looks like a flower pot). With the top layer of cake I cut it to simulate the depth of a basket and gave it a bit of a lip like baskets have. The biggest mistake I made was actually "scoring" the cake before I took out the middle part. I actually lost half of the "lip" because there wasn't enough cake left and the buttercream was too heavy...sooooo I made that the back.

  

This was interesting. Initially I was going to use one piece and wrap it around the cake. That wasn't working. So I just figured I'll do it in panels, but there would be a seam. Mom to the rescue! As you can see in the pic on the right, I used the stems of the flowers to cover the seams. And I added a grass border on the bottom for a little texture. Easy fix.

  

In the area that I carved out I added the contents of the "basket". All of the candy is real, the robin's eggs, peeps, and chocolate bunny. The grass is actually green buttercream. I used a grass tip to pipe the grass in. I put the candy in first and filled the rest in with the grass. I cut a hole in the cake for the bunny to sit in so he was sturdy. 

  

The last thing to put on the cake was the handle. I braided 3 different ropes of fondant and let it dry in a pizza pan overnight. The pizza pan allowed me to get the shape I was looking for. The individual ropes were too thick so it didn't dry all the way causing it to be too heavy to keep it's shape. So I brought it to the party and put it in for the sake of taking pictures. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this cake thing. Good times!

Daddy's Little Princess

I made this cake the night before I needed it with a little help from my mom. Never really expected it to turn out like this. The figures are all plastic, if you couldn't already tell. The fondant is actually chocolate flavored. I used simple daisy cut outs to add a little texture to the cake. I didn't think I'd get all this done in less than 3 hours. It was fun and I couldn't have done it without the madre. Thanks mom!!

A Gift for Everyone

   

 For Christmas Day at work I made everyone working that day their own personal cake. This is the beginning. I made 3 vanilla and 3 chocolate 10x10x2 cakes, stacked them, and then cut them into quarters. Once all the cake was cut I iced them and covered them with white fondant. On the cookie sheet, you can see the nametags drying. Those were made out of gumpaste. I used gumpaste because it dries hard and it would allow for the tags to keep it's shape.

                       

Next it was time to put the ribbon and the bow on. I made the loops the night before to allow them to dry overnight and be hard when I put them on the cake. The ribbons were simply a couple strips of fondant. The middle part of the bow I made when I was ready to attach the entire bow to the cake. I used a little water to make the the middle part sticky enough to attach either loop together. I placed it on the cake using water again. 

                   

This is the final product. I used an edible pen to write the names on the bows and brushed the color around the edges. I bought the a roll of the red foil paper to cover the cake boards with. The green bows were my favorite. They went very well with the red boards. The hardest part (more of a pain in the ass) was covering 12 individual cakes. It will be a while before I do 12 personal cakes again...at least by myself.

The Jolly Snowmen

I had a lot of fun making this cake. This was for our Christmas party. I got the idea for this from looking a pictures of others. I collaborated a couple ideas and came up with this. Everything is fondant. The tree is made by stacking stars on top of one another. There were 3 different sizes and 3-4 of each size to make the tree. The star topper is actually 2 stars pressed together with a toothpick in the middle to keep it upright on the tree. I also covered the cake board in fondant. It gave it that nice bright white I was looking for and also helped with keeping the snowmen in one place. The snowmen were simple. Just rolled up different sized balls of fondant and gave them a little shape. The noses were a bit of the pain to paint. Next time I'm using colored fondant. lol. The hats are fondant too. The top hats are two pieces (top and brim) and the santa cap is one. This was fun and a big hit at the party. It was hard to cut into it. It just didn't seem right. This was the first time I had a piece of my own cake.

It's a boy!!!

This was a cake for my wife's friend who was having a boy. I saw this cake in a picture online and tried it for myself. The moon, stars, and clouds are all cut from fondant. I cut the clouds freehand by drawing them on the fondant first and cutting around the outline. I left the outline on them to give the cake more of a cartoon type look. Again, I used royal icing around the bottom of the tiers, simply because I didn't know any better. The topper was store bought. It fit the cake perfectly! The original cake had a gumpaste infant sleeping under a blanket. At the time, it was way over my head so the topper was my idea.

My First Attempt....Kinda

This is the second cake I've ever made. I can't find a pic of the first one but I can describe it. It was the Steelers logo on a 8in round covered in white fondant. The red yellow and blue diamonds were cut out of fondant and I used a gel icing pen to write "Steelers" next to it. EXTREMELY simple but that was the point. Just wanted to check it out.

This cake was intended to try my hand at making bows and piping. I learned that the fondant doesn't need to be that thick for a bow and royal icing isn't really for piping. I had fun. In the end they all taste awesome because, after all, it's cake!!!

The First Post

Hey all! As you can tell this is my first post of, hopefully, many. The whole purpose of this is to put all the cakes I make in one spot so if someone wants to see them I can point them in a direction other than facebook. I'm also leaning towards the idea of making a business out of this. In the meantime I'm going to post whatever I make, the good, the bad, and the "holy crap, what the hell did I do wrong", so this should be interesting. I'm always open to new ideas and methods of doing things. Feel free to tell me what you think and even share your own experiences. I should have pics of what I've made so far up here shortly sooooo stay tuned!