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!

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.

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!)

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!

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!

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!