Practice Cupcakes

Recently, I had about 4 cups of frosting left over from that ruffle cake, and I made a dozen cupcakes with excess batter from the Star Wars cake. So, I decided to practice a couple new flower techniques that I've watched on YouTube, or seen on Pinterest.  I've made the rose in the center many times (tip #1M), but the other two were new to me (tip #104).  I think the one on the left is supposed to be a ruffley rose, and the one on the right is supposed to look like a carnation of sorts.  They were really easy, and VERY yummy!

Here's a close-up of each type:

What occasion would you want these for? A wedding, a shower, mother's day, or something else?

Star Wars Cake

A friend I've known for several years approached me at the pool last week and said she was glad to hear that I'm finally charging for cakes, because she wanted to order one for her son's 9th birthday party.  I was  pleased that I was getting the chance to do a Star Wars cake, because it's been quite a while.

After much searching for ideas on www.cakecentral.com AND Pinterest, I came up with the idea to do the Star Wars logo on the front, with light sabers around each of the sides. After I posted a plea on facebook, a friend helped me find the font that matched the one used in the Star Wars logo. So I printed it and cut the letters out by hand.  The light sabers were fairly straightforward, and I was fortunate to have all of the colors I needed to make them already on hand.  

I wasn't sure yet what to do for the top of the cake, but I was considering making a Yoda figure out of fondant, or these cool X-Wing fighters that I saw on one of those sites.  In the end, my time crunch dictated that I make the ships, because much simpler than Yoda they were.  The X-Wing fighters seemed to be flying, propped up on toothpicks, but mine were made of gumpaste, and ended up being too heavy for flying. They sunk right into the cake. Oh well... can't win 'em all!

Of course, the MOST important thing (to ME) is that my friends love the cake, and the birthday kid is thrilled.  His mom said that he thought it was "super cool!" Mission accomplished!

Ruffles for a Friend

For my friend Terri's birthday, a bunch of us met at a Japanese steakhouse for dinner to celebrate. She knew her husband was taking her there for her birthday, but she didn't know that the rest of us would be there.  My friend Sharyn, who had arranged this little surprise party, asked me to make a cake and I happily agreed. 

Knowing Terri like I do, I know she LOVES my buttercream icing. Don't even bother messing with fondant. Just go for whatever cake design gives her the maximum frosting-to-cake ratio possible!  So... I was excited to try this simple ruffle technique that I had seen on one of my favorite cake blogs, "i am baker."  I chose a teal/turquoise color to go on the scrumptious three-layer chocolate cake.

And, here's a close-up of the ruffles:

This design is a very forgiving one, just like the rose cake that I also found on that blog.  I love forgiving cake designs. They look very impressive without having to look perfect. That is SO me!  I would definitely love to practice this technique more, so feel free to request it... in different colors, with different borders, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination!

Sweet Swags

Here are some photos of my first attempt at making fondant swags.  My friend e-mailed me a while back with a photo of a cake that her daughter loved and wanted me to make for her 4th birthday party.  It LOOKS impressive, but I was not discouraged at all when I watched the YouTube video about how to accomplish this fairly simple technique.

The "cake-tastrophe" happened when I attempted to use some fondant that I had made a couple of weeks ago.  It should have been fine, really.  I colored it and covered the sides of the cake with it; then I added more color to it to cover the top of the cake, and it worked OK there too.  But, it was NOT cooperating AT ALL when I tried to make swags with it.  No matter how much I worked it, nuked it, added Crisco to it, it was doing nothing but cracking and tearing apart.  Still not sure why.  So, I reluctantly made a fresh batch.  And, it gave me the exact same problem.  Then, since it was nearly 9pm on Friday night (day before the party),  I resorted to sending my hubby to Wal-Mart to pick up some pre-made fondant while I took a much-needed break.  Fortunately, he had the foresight to pick up SEVERAL different kinds for me to choose from, including some that was pre-colored pink.  I was skeptical, but lucky for me, it matched perfectly, and the swags came out much smoother and easier than before.

The next challenge came when trying to attach the swags to the cake.  The photo that I was copying showed the swags hanging from the SIDE of the cake, not the top.  The swags I had made were too heavy to do that, so I had to move them up.  Not sure how they did that without the swags sliding off of the cake.  

Lastly, I added the star medallions, the bottom border, the shooting stars, and the pearl accents.  Then, I still had a little time left before the cake was to be picked up, so I got out my Cricut Cake machine and cut Lila's name out of some leftover gumpaste.  

All in all, it was harder than I thought it would be, but I was pleased with how the cake turned out.  I definitely could use some more practice with swags & fondant draping, though.  The best part was hearing that when I texted a photo of the cake to Lila's mom, Lila grabbed the phone and ran around showing everyone her cake... I guess that means she loved it!

Strawberry Sweetness

My friend (and hairstylist) recently asked me if I would consider making a trade... a cool birthday cake for her daughter in exchange for hair services.  I jumped at the chance to do this fun project and was totally satisfied with getting my hair done rather than getting paid cash for it.  I would totally do it again.

She was throwing a Strawberry Shortcake party for Sophie, and this design is similar to one that we found on Pinterest.com.  It was a fun design to make, and I was really happy with the way it turned out.  I hear it was a big hit at the party too!

Golden Anniversary cake

My friend approached me several months ago about making a cake, and I was already booked on the weekend she needed it, so it didn't work out for me to help her out that time.  She recently called me again about making a cake for her in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary. I couldn't very well tell her "no" twice, so we got together to talk about cake designs.

The couple of honor is German, and Germans LOVE their desserts, so this cake will be the centerpiece among many desserts at the reception.  My friend decided she didn't want anything too fancy or flowery, and she quickly fell in love with this quilted fondant pattern. Only the one in the magazine was white and had colorful flowers on it, so we looked for other options to decorate the top of the cake and came up with a bow. She was fine with the cake being white, but wanted to incorporate gold in the design somehow.

The cake inside was white chocolate with raspberry preserve filling.  I have never had good luck with fruit fillings, and this time was no exception.   I put a few rows of icing around the outside border of the bottom layer before spreading the raspberry preserves.  Then I stacked the layers of the bottom cake (9" round) and put a crumb coat of icing on it. When I tried to put the second coat of buttercream on the cake, it seemed unstable, and the filling was trying to escape and leak out.  The icing between the layers kept bulging out and making the cake look slumpy.  I was so worried that I was going to have to re-do the bottom tier, especially after adding more weight by putting a layer of fondant AND a second tier on top of it.

But, as you can see, the fondant ended up holding the cake together after all.  I used a roller to make the criss-cross pattern in the sides of the fondant. Then, I stacked the tiers, sprayed them with edible gold paint, and piped the white border around the bottom of each tier. Hayden helped me attach all of the sugar pearls. I assembled the gumpaste strips into the bow on top and attached the gold "50" to the gumpaste heart and outlined it with pearls too.  After it was dry, I flipped it over and attached a flat stick to the back with candy melts.

I was really pleased with the way this cake design came together.  My friend was thrilled with it too!  Can't wait to hear how much the Germans enjoyed it!

Masquerade Cake

My friend's daughter was turning 13 and having a fancy masquerade party with all of her girlfriends this weekend.  They all got dolled up in dresses and masks with feathers and sequins.  The birthday girl picked out this gorgeous mask as the theme of her cake. I will admit that I was a little intimidated by the color scheme of black and gold, especially since they didn't originally request fondant. When I said that I wasn't sure that I could accomplish the design they wanted in the colors they wanted with buttercream, my friend wanted to be sure she wouldn't be missing out on my icing.  Once I assured her that there would be plenty of buttercream icing under the fondant (and agreed to bring her a bowl of icing), she said that I could use fondant.

Of course (just keepin' it real...), it wasn't all smooth sailing, especially since this was the weekend that I took on TWO cake projects, and procrastinated on both of them all week because I wasn't feeling well and had no energy.  I finished the bridal shower cake late Friday night, and began making the fondant for this one on Saturday morning. For some still-unknown reason, the powdered sugar would NOT incorporate into the melted marshmallows, and my KitchenAid stand mixer was proving to be inadequately small for the job. So, I ended up running to Michael's and using a 50% off coupon to buy fondant as a last resort. Ugh.

The cake was white chocolate with buttercream filling, and I covered the cake in white fondant, sprayed it with edible gold paint, and added black fondant stripes and border. There is a dome-shaped cake underneath the mask, which is covered in black fondant. I added the feathers for a little extra flair. I wanted to be a little fancier, but was running short on time, so I had to call this the finished product this time.  The good news is that the cake was a big hit and the birthday girl loved it! That makes me happy.