Thanksgiving Cake & One More December Cake

I told you guys I would probably be posting cakes out of order. I finally got my Thanksgiving cake out of the trusty ole 35mm. Again, hats off to my Executive Sous Chef (he totally deserves a raise!) for helping with all of the small details. This cake was a two layered red velvet, filled with cream cheese filling , iced in white chocolate ganache & covered in fondant. All of the decorations are either fondant, modeling chocolate or gumpaste.  Boy, we learned a lot from this cake!

This was a last minute cake we made for my Mom & Pop-in-law. They were hosting a dinner for their church (where he is the Pastor) for Christmas. Mom wanted poinsettias but sadly the humidity was our enemy that week & we couldn't get anything to dry. I didn't have time (or energy) to do anything fancy; however, it was made with the same amount of love as all of the others!

I also made a gingerbread train that same week but will not post those pictures as the icing wouldn't set & it ended up very losided!

Well, that's all for now. Again, Thanks for looking!

December Cakes

It's me again. I am posting three cakes that I made for my Mom to give as Thank You gifts to her doctors & the staff at her apartment building. I have a Thanksgiving cake to post, but sadly it is trapped in my 35mm camera so as soon as I finish taking the 11 photos left on the roll I will post that cake.

The first cake was for her General Practioner. It was a yellow cake with buttercream icing covered in fondant with gumpaste accents.

This next cake was for the staff at the apartment building where she lives. Again, this is a yellow cake with buttercream icing covered in fondant with fondant accents. My Executive Sous Chef made the bow and, as always, helped me with the logostics.

Lol, I just realized that I forgot to remove the tissue from the bow before I took the picture. Oh well, still a pretty cake & I promise, the bow stayed fluffy when I took out the tissue.

I really do not like to duplicate cake designs because I like for each cake to be unique; however, I made these three cakes in one week while working full time and, as a result, I made the first cake again with a few adjustments. This cake was for my mom's Nephrologist.

And because the nurses there are super nice & always treat my mom with respect I made a few extra treats for each one of them. My grandmother sent me a few books on candy making when she found out I was designing cakes so I thought I would put them to good use & made each nurse a candy bar with their name on it.

And then wrapped them up in individual boxes.

Well, Thank You for looking! I will hopefully post my Thanksgiving cake soon.

Crate & Barrel Giveaway

There is a cool blog called Half Baked - the Cake Blog that is hosting a giveaway for $100 gift card to Crate & Barrel. Check it out http://www.thecakeblog.com/2009/12/crate-and-barrel-giveaway.html

Bell Cake

Sorry it took so long to post a new cake, I'm slow but sure. I made this cake for my mother-in-law's birthday. She collects bells so I thought this would be unique & special just for her. It started out for a small gathering & kept growing until it reached 100 people. So, my idea of a simple small bell large enough to feed family & friends grew into a monster bell to feed 100+ (note to self, next time change the theme & design of the cake to reasonably accomodate the servings). I also made a sheet cake (no picture) because I wasn't sure if more people were going to show or if the cake wasn't cut right it would never feed that many people. My sous chef is a life saver, he definitely deserves a raise! This cake stood about a foot and a half tall & was 10" at the bottom & 6" at the top. We had a time covering this beast in fondant, it took us approximately 9 tries to get it even close & still wasn't as neat as I wanted (hence the wrinkles & different piping on each side). At 5 AM I was in tears & the cake was due at 11 AM. We finally got it on there with a minimal amount of tearing (thank goodness for decorations like piping- it covers MANY mistakes!). We learn something new from each cake.

Keep checking back for Thanksgiving & Christmas cakes. There will be at least 3 cakes for Christmas; however, not all with Christmas themes. Thanks for looking!

Jungle/Zoo Cake

The birthday boy who was the recipient of the Lightning McQueen cakes has a younger brother, and for his 1st birthday he had a Zoo theme. His mom brought me a napkin as inspiration. I covered the cake w/ buttercream (most kids don't like the taste of fondant). The pond is piping gel, the sand is brown sugar & all of the animals are gumpaste. The palm trees are a combination of pretzel, royal icing & fondant. This was also a fun cake to make.

And this was the birthday boy's Smash Cake!!!!

Okay, that's it for now. If I can get everyone in my world healthy and out of the hospital I will probably be designing & baking either a Purse cake or Topsy Turvy cake (that is a lot of cake, though) in the near future just to warm up for the holidays, so stay tuned....

Random Cakes

You've already seen my grandson's birthday cake, as well as a few friend's birthday cakes. Well, here are a just a couple of random cakes for birthdays & just because. The first was for my Mother's birthday. This was my first attempt at painting & making delicate 3D fondant pieces. The second one I made for Mother's Day. The Gator cake was based on a plaque mounted by our front door. I made a copy of it & cut it in pieces & used it for patterns. And the last cake was a class cake. It was a test to assess my skills in buttercream, color flow & royal icing.

Unfortunately, I don't get to design & bake as often as I would like so the posting here may come in bursts. I do have a few more cakes in my album to share so I will be back w/ a few more, but that will probably be it for a little bit.

Of course, the weather has started to cool down at night so you never know what might strike me....

The Holidays

I love the holidays! As soon as the weather starts to cool, I start to nest. Every year! I love to bake holiday treats! I am already planning this year's cakes. I'm thinking of making a cake that looks like a real baked turkey w/ dressing for Thanksgiving,  but I'm not absolutely sure of that yet.  Oh yeah, my Gingerbread House will either be birdhouse or a country store.

This was last year's fair. The turkey cake was the first real experiment, poor thing took me 8 hours (I've gotten slightly quicker w/ practice, but not much). I had a substitute Sous Chef for the snowman cake, one of my sons!! The Christmas cake was a gift from my mother-in-law to my sister-in-law to match her collection of holiday dinnerware. I also made a Gingerbread House before that to practice making the poinsettia's.The Easter cake was carved & covered in fondant w/ a fondant swag & handmade royal icing lilies.

Oh, and just in case I haven't mentioned it- everything is edible on all of my cakes. The decorations are handmade by me out of a lot of different mediums (buttercream, fondant, color flow icing, etc...) and are always edible!

Toy Story

One of my favorite people in world is my 3 yr old grandson!!! He went to "Dismey" World for his 3rd birthday (that's exactly the way he says it). He went on the "Buzz Ride" & talked about it for days, so when he came home we had to have a "Buzz" cake and this what my Sous Chef & I came up with....

The bed is chocolate cake covered in Fondant. The headboard & footboard are gumpaste. The floor is fondant painted brown w/ a pastry brush. All of the figures (except the army men) are made of gumpaste. I just took one his "Toy Story" books & mimiced the pictures. This was a very fun cake! Challenging, but Fun!

Brobee

A co-worker approached me one day & asked me if I could make a cake that looked like a character on his daughter's favorite TV show, "Yo Gabba Gabba." I immediately said I could before I even saw the creature (I always love a challenge). The character's name is "Brobee" & he is a green creature w/ orange horns coming out of his head, well see for yourself...

This was definitely one of the biggest challenges I had come across. I had never carved or stacked a cake before. Needless to say, this was the third incarnation of that cake. He was made of chocolate cake covered w/ fondant & fondant accents and his arms are rice krispies treats covered w/ fondant. He was 13" tall and 8" wide. If it wasn't for my trusty Sous Chef (the kids just call him "Dad") I don't think that I would have pulled it off (at least sanely).

Stay tuned for more....

Lightning McQueen

Well, I finally got a minute to try to get some of my pictures posted. So far, I have only designed cakes as a hobby, but would love to have my own cake shop one day. I will be probably be posting my cakes in random order.

I have only made a few character cakes for friends. This was one of the first cakes, Lightning McQueen. I made the first cake for a family gathering & then they wanted another one for a bigger party, hence the second bigger cake..

The next entry will be about "Yo Gabba Gabba" a show on Nickelodeon.

Beginnings

Well, I guess I've joined the world of the blogger. I have had several friends & family ask me where they can see & show my cakes so I decided to bite the bullet & start blogging. In the near future I will be uploading photos of my cakes & writing commentary on each one. It probably won't be very interesting but you guys asked for it so here it is!