Tuesday, July 31, 2007

clowning around

Both of these cakes were made for work-study students who worked in my office when I worked for Grand Canyon University.

The first one is interesting because I had seen some kind of pattern where you bake a round cake and a square cake to make a clown shape. Obviously, I cut up the square cake for the hat and collar. Then I just had to ice it, put borders on, and decorate with M&Ms (carefully making sure the Ms were not visible, of course).

The second one used the little plastic clown heads, but the clown bodies are made entirely out of icing. They taught us this technique in my Wilton Cake Decorating I class in 1996. That's also where I learned about the klassy technique known as bag striping. You take a paintbrush and stripe the bag with icing color(s), and then fill the bag with white (or another color) icing. When you squeeze it out through the tip, it gives a stripey-swirly effect. And yes, that's the technical term. There will be a quiz later, so write it down.

Awww... y'all know I'm just clowning around!

Monday, July 30, 2007

3-D cakes

These cakes are all examples of cakes I've done with 3-D elements on them. The first is a square cake with a Spiderman head for my sweet nephew's 3rd birthday. I made the head part with an egg-shaped pan, and set it diagonally on top of a square cake. Next is a soccer cake I made for a fellow youth leader. It's a round cake with half of a ball cake on top. He raved about that cake for years. Next, there's a doll cake - always cute. And lastly, there's a golf ball cake, but I can't remember who I made that particular one for. I remember struggling to find some household item with which to make the dimples on the golf ball, but I don't remember what I actually ended up using. Gotta love the green-colored coconut I used for the grass!



pseudo-wedding cake


Here's a cake I made for a couple at our church when they renewed their wedding vows. I'm showing it here mostly because it's the only cake I've made using the Garden Cake Stand that my mom bought for my sister's wedding. She saved it, and I used it for this cake. My dad just brought the stand to me all the way from Arizona when he visited a couple weeks ago. Thanks, Dad!
Also, you might notice that I decorated the top tier of the stand with a coordinating candle and floral arrangement instead of making another cake or a dummy cake to go on top. I thought it was pretty creative.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

coming soon...

...my first wedding cake! I'm very excited (and a little nervous, if I'm being honest) to be doing my first wedding cake next month.

The wedding is August 18th -- just 3 weeks away! Be sure to check back for pictures.

(Oh yeah, and I have two birthday cakes to do the following week!)

Friday, July 27, 2007

cakes of all shapes & sizes!

Today, I scanned in most of the cake photos from my album and uploaded them HERE. There are all types of cakes to see -- bridal & baby showers, kids' birthdays, adults' birthdays, graduation, characters, sports, etc.

You can enjoy looking through the slideshow until I have a chance to get them organized into different posts for each group. Every cake has a story, you know!

Saturday, July 21, 2007

everything's coming up daisies!

Here are a few shots of my newest creation... a bridal shower cake for my neighbor's cousin, Heather. She's having daisies in her wedding bouquet, and her bridesmaids' dresses are a peachy-coral color, so we made the daisies on the cake peach, mauve and green. I like the layered effect - it gives the cake an elegant, but whimsical look.

One other new thing I tried this time - a pastry cream filling. It's like a vanilla custard, and it's really delicious. Sorry you can't see it in the pictures. Hope they like it. Maybe I'll get to do the wedding cake next month!


Friday, July 20, 2007

joining in

Today, while I was decorating a bridal shower cake, Hayden and her friend Allie wanted to join in the fun. I had an extra layer and some leftover fondant from a previous cake, so I let them decorate their own together. Here are the results:

They called it a "Play-do" cake because fondant feels like Play-Doh. They also wrote and drew pictures on the cake with FoodWriters (edible markers). Then we all ate a piece. Cute and yummy!

Thursday, July 19, 2007

bridal shower cakes



These are the three bridal shower cakes I've done in the past. For my sister, my mom's co-worker, and a close family friend.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

dairy-free cakes

Something most people might not know is that I am able to make cakes and icing without using dairy products. My friend in Arizona has a daughter who is really allergic to milk, so she can't just go to the local bakery and buy cakes. They liked my cakes better anyway, and they didn't only have a few designs to choose from. I would do whatever design they wanted. So, twice a year, for her daughters' birthdays, she would give me the party invitation or napkin, and I would copy it.

Here are a few examples:



My two favorites are the butterfly one with the ladybug toddler cake and the Veggie Tales cake. Those ones and the Blue's Clues cake were all done freehand. There's a funny story about the Spirit cake, though. I didn't have a horse pan, so I decided to do a transfer. I made the square cake and spray-painted the blue for the sky. To get the image of Spirit the horse, I had to go to the official movie website and play a bunch of silly games in order to be able to "win" coloring pages to print out! I think there were 4 different designs, and I won three of them before I got one I could actually use on a cake! The things I'll do for my friends...

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Princess Castle Cake

Here's the latest cake I've done. I saw this castle kit on the Wilton website recently, and I've been so excited to get my hands on it and try it out. It was definitely worth the $19.95 at Michael's. I didn't even use all of the pieces on this cake. It has 12 towers with removable turrets, 6 windows, a door, and a main roof peak. I have a feeling I might wish there were more windows someday. We'll see...

Anyway, it was fairly easy to decorate the plastic pieces - just used icing and edible glitter/colored sugar sprinkles.


Oh yeah, and this is what I look like at 2AM when I finish a cake fit for a princess. It didn't really have to keep me up that late, but I am a night owl by nature. I just should have baked the cakes and gotten the castle supplies the day before. Then I could have gotten to the decorating earlier in the day and gone to bed before midnight. The cake actually only took about 3 hours to decorate once I got going on it.
I just hope nothing happens to it when I deliver it! (It's on the same street, several houses down from mine.) Just pray that I don't have a "cake-tastrophe"!! Sorry for the weird lighting issues on the pictures - I don't know what's up with my camera.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Stay Tuned...

I have cakes to make for this Saturday AND next Saturday.... a princess birthday and a bridal shower!