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.