The Hippy Hippy Cake!

It was a surprise 40th birthday party for a very good friend of mine.  This cake was ALL about him!!  Tie Dyed from the inside out!  It was huge too! 3 tier, 9 layers with photo spacers.  The photos were awesome, all of the birthday boy, from baby pictures to Daddy pictures, from prom pictures to wedding pictures and everything in between. It really made it fun to look at!

This cake included EvErY color of the rainbow.  It was stacked golden vanilla/rainbow, tutti frutti (birthday boy's favorite!), golden vanilla/rainbow on all 3 tiers with almond flavor butter cream.  SOOOO YUMMY! Oh and covered in rainbow tie dyed fondant.  There was a massive amount of food coloring in this cake indeed, but have no fear nobody walked away from this party with ADHD that didn't arrive at the party with it to begin with. ;-) I can't believe how moist this cake was! Must have been all that food coloring.

Oh and I forgot to mention every one was instructed to ware tie dye to the party too.  Even his little baby girl at 7 months old had a tie dyed onezie on! SO CUTE!

Sept 12, 2010

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A Mile Stone!

This cake marks a major mile stone for me!  One year ago I was paid for my first cake!  Last year this little cuttie turned 4 and wanted a flip flop cake.  This year she is 5 and it's all about Hello Kitty!!

The top tier is cherry chip cake with cherry frosting.  The bottom tier is strawberry and white cake, checkerbord pattern, with strawberry frosting.  Strawberry Nerds filled the boarder very well.  Hello Kitty is all MM fondant.  She really looks like she is falling over but truely she was not.  Her head is tilted a bit but that was intentional.  I could not get her wiskers to stand up to save my life, so they ended up pressed aginst her face, still cute though. 

June 15, 2010

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S..l..o..w..l..y getting back into it.

A friend of mine asked me months ago if I would make her Moms birthday cake. I had given myself the MUCH needed break and was excited about doing this one. It is a smaller version of one I had made before. I had fun and am glad to be making cakes again.

Dark chocolate fudge cake, filled with fresh strawberries and chocolate ganache, covered in dark chocolate cream cheese frosting and chocolate covered strawberries.

April 9, 2010

60

A Return Customer!

A while back I did a Coach Purse cake for a friend of my Mom.  Well he called again and asked for another cake.  This time it was for his wife's baby shower.  He gave me the invitation as inspiration and $150.00 budget.  Although that was a bit much for a cake for 25 people, it gave me freedom and I think it turned out great!  This cake may even be my favorite cake I have ever made.

This was a French vanilla cake with strawberry filling & bit of a bonus.  Instead of just the strawberry filling I usually do, I added REAL strawberries this time with a touch of brown sugar sprinkled on top of them.  It had a cream cheese/butter cream frosting and a little fondant.  The larger peas were a little challenging.  I tried to make them out of cake but that didn't work.  So I tried strawberry ice cream.  That didn't work very well either.  So I had seen this done before (but never really liked the idea) and really it was my last chance, so I made them out of rice cereal.  I don't think I will be using this very often, but it was necessary for this cake and it worked fairly well.  Then my favorites new trick (I learned for the wedding cake, last week) I covered it with luster dust!  What an awesome trick to cover flaws and make it sparkle.  And who doesn't like sparkle? 

February  27, 2010

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The Wedding Cake

When I was asked to do a wedding cake, I was a bit nervous (BTW those nerves never left!)  I explained to the bride that I am NOT a professional cake decorator!  I am a Mom with a hobby!  She explained what she wanted and then showed me the picture. 

It was the cake Mariah Carey had at her recent wedding, with a few variations.  She wanted 3 tiers and the hearts to be red and white.  I thought I can do this, but it was going to be HUGE (for me)!   Mark was my savior on this cake!  This would not have all come together without his awesome brain! (and his muscles - I will explain later).  The prep work was draining!  I spent many a night in bed thinking and thinking about this cake.  It was so big, but would there be enough?  I didn't want them to run out!  How embarrassing that would be! 

The ingredients...  I have a large kitchen table... this was a lot of food!

The baking of enough cake for 100+ people took 2 1/2 days in it's self!  Bake, cool, wrap, freeze... bake cool, wrap freeze...

The bottom 14 inch tier was 2 layers of dark chocolate fudge cake with strawberry filling.  The second tier was a 2 layer 10 inch golden vanilla with strawberry filling.  And the top tier was a six inch, 2 layer dark chocolate fudge cake with strawberry filling also.  Here is all 3 crumb coated with a strawberry butter cream and ready for fondant.

I have had problems in the past of the weight of the cake "crushing" the bottom tiers (remember the almost flop) Mark was here to save the day on that.  He made me custom plexi glass pacers, and there was NO "crushing".  He also came in with his muscles, when my for arms were on fire & the palms of my hands were bruised from kneading & rolling out fondant!  What a guy!  The hearts & crescents are made of gum paste (also another saving suggestion from Mark).

I covered the whole thing in luster dust.  A perfect finishing touch!

The bride had her own topper and red bows and then we tossed some rose petals around it.

I think the bride really like the cake.  In fact she liked it so much she never cut into it!  She said she wanted to keep it forever.  They served the sheet cake to the wedding guests.

February 20, 2010

200

Give the gift of flowers to someone you LoVe!

This is my quick happy birthday gift.  It can be made is any flavor but my fav is the chocolate with fudge.  The white flowrer cake was a white cake with strawberry filling (by request).  The others were a dark chocolate cake with a fudge filling.  The card gives instructions to revome the flowers and place upside down on a microvable plate.  After heating, it kind of becomes a lava cake!  Yummy!  You can even eat the fondant flowers (that I am still perfecting).  It can also be filled with icecream!  $25.00

Purses 1 & 2

In an effort to try and get all the past cakes I have done on this blog I am combining a few.  These are both purses.  They are totally different events and times.

Purse #1

A while back this guy that works with my Mom needed a cake made that  described his new wife.  She is a Mom of many but still like classy things.  He wanted a "Coach" purse with "Mom" things falling out of it. Well me not being a very "classy Mom" I had no idea what a Coach purse was, so I had to do a little research. Then I just thought of what falls out of my own purse as a Mom of many!  The cake was a white cake with strawberry filling (as requested) with mostly butter cream frosting.  Each of the C's (that partially define a coach purse) are painstakingly hand painted on with butter cream frosting. The phone, lip stick, crayons, pacifier and fish crackers are all made from fondant, as well as the "COACH" tag and pure handle. This was definitely the beginnings of my fondant work. Oh what a door that opened for me!

This was only the 2nd cake I was paid for and still very unsure what to charge for it. I think Mark did the math for me & I made something like less than a dollar an hour for all the time I put into it.  But that didn't matter to me at the time.  I just had so much fun doing it!!  He recently called me back and ordered a baby shower cake (and gave me a MUCH larger budget).  Keep checking the blog to see that one at the end of February.

September 2009

60

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Purse #2

This cake was more recent and was for a VERY good friend of mine. It was her baby shower and the cakes were intended to look like the invitation. These were all chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream under that pink and green fondant. These were SOOO YuMmY!!! I hope all the cakes I have made for people taste like this one did! Again there was a lot of learning done on this cake but I still liked how they turned out. I cant wait to hold that baby!!

February 2010

Nerf

This was for a friend of mine, well actually for her 10 year old son's Nerf birthday party.  I really had fun with this one!  She brought me the toy gun and it sat around for a few days while I thinking of how to do this cake.  My boys thought it was the coolest toy ever, because we have nothing even remotely gun related in this house.  The bullets are made of fondant and totally edible. The cakes are done in butter cream.  The gun is chocolate cake and the target is a white cake, colored to match the patter of the icing. (does that make sense?)  When you cut into it, it was 3 different colors.  I had fun with this cake.

November 2009

30

Scouts!

These cakes were actually for a set brothers, just done at different times. The Cub Scout (Bobcat cake) was for one of my Cub Scout boys, as a gift from me to him.  His mother liked it so much she highered me to decorate the top of a Costco cake she bought for her older son's court of honor. Both caked are done solely in butter creams.

October/ November 2009

20

Pixar Cars X2

This was for my sister's kid, on his 3rd birthday. It was all butter cream and the rounds were white and chocolate cake that looked like a checkerd flag when you cut into it. That part was a huge hit and one of my favorite fun surprises. She gave me all his little toys cars to add to the cake. The plaid was ribbon I got at the craft store. This was my first experiance with black frosting and I soon learned to...dislike it VERY much!

May 2009

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Someone that works with Mark saw a picture of Kayne's cake and wanted something very similar.

December 2009

30

Flip Flops

This was the first cake I was ever paid for! A friend of mine that has awesome talent and takes great pictures of my family called me and asked if I would make a cake for her daughters 4th birthday. She sent me a picture of what she wanted and this is what she got. On the plates I sprinkled brown sugar, to look like the flip flops were in sand, but forgot to take a picture of that.

July 2009

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