Sam's GIGANTIC CAKE OF AWESOMENESS!!!

 

My wonderful friend Holly sent me an invitation to her son's birthday party, and I immediately replied and said I hoped she'd let me make his cake. Sam is such a great kid, and I knew this would be a fun project.  His initial ideas for his cake involved something called Beyblades. He tried to explain them to me.  They're toys (like spinning tops) that battle each other in plastic arenas that resemble a kitty litter box (or so I'm told). Waaaayyy beyond my limited comprehension!

So, one day, Holly calls me up and announces that she has the PERFECT idea for Sam's cake. A giant donut!! Sam LOVES donuts... you don't even know how much.  Anyway, I was very excited about the idea... my creative juices immediately started flowing.  We decided to keep it a BIG surprise. And I'm so glad we did, because the expression on his face was just priceless!  He said, "It's a GIGANTIC CAKE OF AWESOMENESS!!!"

Jill's Dragonfly cake

Our good friend Jimmy called me up and requested that I make a cake for his wife's birthday.  The only two ideas he gave me were that she's a huge Georgia Tech fan, and she LOVES dragonflies.

I searched Cake Central's website and saw a cake with these beautiful dragonflies with shimmery wings made of GELATIN, of all things!  Long story short, I tried to make the gelatin wings, but they didn't really come together very well. Maybe some other time.

So, I kept looking for other ideas. Found another design on CC that featured dragonflies made of royal icing. Easy enough, right?

WRONG!!

I made approximately 30 dragonflies for this cake the night before (so they would dry). They were soooooooooooooooo delicately fragile, too fragile for words.  If I would pick one up, it would break. If I would move one, it would break. If I would touch one, it would break! If I would breathe on one, it would break! If I would so much as LOOK at one, it would break!

OK, so maybe I'm being "slightly dramatic," but I kid you NOT, I was down to 3 or 4 dragonflies from the night before.  I made some more, bringing my total number of dragonflies to around 50, and hoping against all hope that they would be dry enough before the party that they wouldn't break.  Well, I ended up with a whopping 7 dragonflies attached to the finished cake.  One of which I broke when I picked up the cake on my way out the door! Luckily I was able to fix it on the spot, and we had a wonderful celebration.

I would also like to mention that this was my first successful attempt at using my Cricut Cake machine for the lettering on this cake.  I learned a few things from trial and error, and got really lucky this time. I think it looks pretty nice, don't you?

Minnie Mouse cake

A mom whose kids are on the same summer league swim team as my kids sent me a facebook message earlier this week saying that she needed a birthday cake for her youngest daughter's third birthday party this weekend.  So, I asked her to send me the photo of a cake she said she had found online and loved.  I was delighted to see this fun Minnie Mouse theme, and re-create it for them.

This was my very first attempt at MAKING my own fondant, and I have to say, I was really pleased with the results.  I used the recipe from Peggy Weaver's Baking Corner.  I followed the directions exactly for the first batch that I made, and it made good fondant, but a HUGE mess!!  For the second batch, I mixed it in my KitchenAid stand mixer with the dough hook.  Much better!

My BIG birthday present

So, Saturday was my birthday (39, if you must know), and I was NOT prepared for the HUGE surprise my husband sprung on me!  How I had done cake decorating for years without knowing this particular machine existed before seeing Costco's Black Friday ad, I have no idea.  Because it's AMAZING.

It's called a Cricut Cake. And he got me the Martha Stewart version!  If you've been under a rock like me, it's a machine that cuts creative designs out of fondant, gumpaste, cookie dough, frosting sheets, etc. Basically anything thin and flat and edible. Tortillas even. In case you want some butterfly shaped tortilla chips.

Cricut Cake

I'm in heaven... I cannot wait to try it out!  I think it's safe to say this gadget may take my cakes to a whole new level of FUN, so STAY TUNED!

More than all that, though, it touched my heart to know that my husband believes my cake decorating is worthy of such an investment.

Green Eggs & Ham

My friend's son requested a Dr. Seuss party for his birthday this year, and he liked a picture of a "Green Eggs & Ham" cake.  I'm hoping he goes crazy for the real thing... Here are some shots from the party.

Even the inside is green!

"I do, I like them, Sam I Am!"

Life at 40's a Beach!

A friend-of-a-friend was turning 40 this weekend, and I got recruited by her husband to make a cake for her surprise party.  He told me that he tasted the cake I made for my friend's daughter (the Tinkerbell's Teapot cake) - OVER A YEAR AGO - and remembered it when he was thinking about throwing this party.  What a compliment!

Anyhoo... his wife loves the beach and loves to read books by the author Jan Karon (ex: The Mitford Series).  So, I tried to incorporate a little of both with the scene on this cake.  Sparkling gel for the ocean water, sand made of Nilla wafer crumbs and brown sugar sifted together, beach accessories made of fondant, beach umbrella made of white chocolate covered in fondant, and a few gumpaste seashells.

Yep. That's about it.  I hear the cake was a big hit, everyone loved it (especially the birthday girl), and there were no leftovers. Always a good sign.

Birthday on the RUN!

So I got a phone call from our good friend across the cul-de-sac who wanted to throw his wife a surprise party for her birthday.  He gave me complete freedom as far as the cake was concerned, so it's a good thing that I know the birthday girl really well.  I did have her kids come over and confirm that my idea was fitting, so after the go-ahead from them, I got down to business.

She loves to go running; she does the 3-day walk for breast cancer every year; she has a treadmill in her house that she actually uses (*gasp!*).  So, now I just had to figure out HOW to present a cake with running shoes.  When I baked the cake, I intended to make the base look like a treadmill.  But, it didn't quite work out because I didn't really want the cake black, and I didn't want to cover it in fondant (because she doesn't really like it that much, and neither do I), plus I simply didn't have the time to make it work.

My brilliant husband, who patiently watches episodes of "Cake Boss" and "Ace of Cakes" and all of the Food Network Cake Challenges with me, has obviously caught on to a few cake decorating tips and tricks (by osmosis, I suppose...), because he suggested making the shoes out of rice-krispie treats - just like the pros do. One advantage to doing this is that the decorations are lightweight and don't sink down into the icing or the cake.

No time to practice, just jump in with both feet!  I baked the cake, made the icing, bought the fondant, and made a recipe of Rice-Krispie treats.  Only then did I realize that they were HOT, and I needed to let them cool before trying to shape the shoes.  Not just because I'd burn my hands, but they were so sticky, and they would melt the fondant as soon as it came into contact with it.

Got the general shape of the shoes, including the hole where you'd put your foot. 

They look a little bit like clogs in their natural state, don't you think? :^)

Just the shoes.  I like how they turned out.

The color scheme came together very well, I thought. 

Ta-da!

Here you can kind see the stripes better...


And the birthday girl loved her cake.


The end.