Guitar Cake

Wow, how time flies! My first born turned 30 today!!! He requested a guitar cake for his birthday so I did the best I could by him.

I used a guitar we had around the house for the details & used an ukulele (funny lookin' word) for scale. The cake is my experimental version of carrot cake (which I do not like & had to trust E.S.C. for quality control) w/ Edna's crusting cream cheese buttercream, covered & decorated in fondant. It is missing strings because I could not for the life of me figure out how to get straight edible strings on this beast (I will be purchasing a clay extruder in the near future). A lovely lady that I met at work told me to use licorice- talk about AHA moments! Sadly, I was not able to locate any black licorice in time (found scads of red licorice). I will be doing another bigger guitar in August & will have solved my problem by then. I carved this cake in three pieces (body, neck & tuner top) out of a 9x13 sheet and just pieced it together.

Friends & family use the nickname "Amp" for my son so I I made a pick to honor that.

In honor of his 30th Birthday.

The black pieces are fondant. The light brown was fondant marbled to get a wood grain & the dark brown was painted on using brown gel color & vodka. I then painted the lines on the neck & brushed the whole thing w/ vodka to get a nice sheen.

The Cake Truffles were covered in white chocolate; however, they turned out very ugly (but tasty according to Quality Control) so I did not take pictures- maybe next time. Thanks for looking.

Iron Man Mask

It's been slow going for cake making lately, but I finally have a couple of new cakes to post.

One of my sweet grandsons turned the Big 0-4 this month & had an Iron Man themed party so G'ma was asked to make the cake. Yay! The cake is my own version of a WASC Chocolate w/ chocolate buttercream, covered in fondant. My trusty Executive Sous Chef helped me carve the contours of the mask out of a 12" double layer round (I bought a mask as a model & then gifted it to the birthday boy). We did not get it exactly right but I was afraid we wouldn't have enough cake if we kept carving.

I used a color wheel to figure out the right combo of red to get. The mask is white fondant painted w/ gold pearl dust & the eye cut outs are also white fondant painted w/ silver pearl dust. I used the #12 tip to make the screw impressions on the mask. I cut out the mouth & replaced the cut out w/ black fondant.

I also have been having trouble figuring out what to do with all of the left over cake & finally tweaked the cake ball recipe to come up w/ my version of Cake Truffles (no pictures, but they are super delicious) & I have decided to include them as an extra w/ each cake I make. I will try to remember to take pictures the next time.

Operation Game Cake

I usually make a cake for the lovely doctors & nurses at my Mom's doctor's office. They always take such good care of her & deserve a treat. This year I decided to make an Operation Game cake & as always candy for the nurses. The cake is an 11x15 marble cake crumb coated in buttercream & covered in fondant. The patient is also fondant w/ modeling chocolate hair & eyebrows & I cut out the holes down to the red & filled each hole w/ game pieces made from white modeling chocolate. The words were written w/ an edible marker & the tweezer is made from gumpaste.

This was the second cake I made in a 3 day period & as always I couldn't have done it w/o my trusty Exec. Sous Chef who is the World's Best Fondant Worker!!!

My Nephew's Graduation Scorpion Cake

My nephew just graduated from military school. According to the school's website, his platoon's colors are maroon & yellow/gold, the mascot is a scorpion & his cap & gown were blue. Armed w/ all of that information & photos downloaded from the site I was ready to make a cake. The cake is a 10" marble cake crumb coated in buttercream & covered in fondant. The morterboard is gumpaste & all of the scorpions are modeling chocolate. I thought my scorpions were ugly, but my Executive Sous Chef informed me that all scorpions ARE ugly, so there! LOL

The Holiday's are COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will probably not make a cake for Turkey Day this year as there is a LOT going on; however, in December I should have at least three cakes to post. I am going to attempt a cake in the shape of the "Operation Game," a military graduation cake complete w/ scorpions & another cake I haven't decided a design for yet.

Thanks for looking! Stay tuned!

Tru Blood Drink

Okay, a friend asked me to make a cake for his wife's birthday which just so happened to coincide w/ the Season premiere of "True Blood," and she is a huge fan of the show.

The cake is red velvet filled w/ cream cheese buttercream, covered and decorated in fondant. The neck is modeling chocolate. I was able to recreate the symbols on the neck by making them out of gumpaste & attaching them to the modeling chocolate and then covering in fondant. I then coated the entire cake w/ an edible varnish. I could not get the words Tru Blood on the actual bottle b/c when I tried that trick on the cake the letters just sank into the soft cake & didn't show through the fondant like it did on the neck. I had a hard time w/ this cake b/c I tried a new fondant & it basically turned to goo in the humidity. The shape of the bottle looks more like a Jack Daniel's bottle than the Tru Blood bottle but I am always concerned that there is not going to be enough cake so I made the bottle portion larger so that everyone would get cake. The person that ordered it said the varnish made it very hard to cut (note to self: experiment w/ varnish more before next use).

P.S. I just noticed that the photo editing made the bottle look even shorter & stouter than it really was, guess I need to work on my editing skills.

So, here it is:

Graduation Cake

Well, this is not the Tru Blood cake that I mentioned in my last post but I was asked to make my niece's high school graduation cake & that came first. I promise that the next post will be the TB cake (if it turns out right).

My niece is a beautiful individual & deserved a unique cake. Her school colors were green & white, well that was just too boring for such an energetic young woman. With the help of her mom I decided to make her cake hot pink & lime green. I made her in gumpaste wearing green & white to honor the school. On the back of the cake as a surprise easter egg I made her tattoo in gumpaste, it is the letter "B" surrounded by a hot pink bow. I also added personal details to her figure such as painted toenails, flip flops, pink earrings, brown eyes, green eye shadow & black hair. She was thrilled which made me very happy!

The cake was yellow amaretto w/ amaretto buttercream filling & icing, covered in fondant. As usual, everything is edible!

Cake for Community Center Library

My Mom-in-Law called and said she needed a cake to congratulate an Eagle Scout. This Scout had founded a new library in a local community center. The celebration was to be held at said library. This is a WASC  (new recipe) w/ a crusting cream cheese icing (also new recipe) covered in fondant/gumpaste. I used an 11x15 & cut it into 2 separate cakes.

My next project is a cake that looks like the Tru Blood drink bottle.

Mom's Birthday

I made this cake for my Mom's birthday. It is a double layer 8" round WASC filled and iced in buttercream. Covered and decorated (roses, leaves & drapes) in fondant. Butterflies & roses on sides are royal icing. All is edible except for the butterfly antennas.

Phineas and Ferb

This cake is for an adult friend's birthday. Apparantly, she is a huge fan of Phineas & Ferb so I made this cake for her. The cake is an 8" yellow WASC iced & filled with an experimental version of buttercream. The fence & all figures are gumpaste & fondant.

When I was working on the figures my 3 1/2 yr old grandson came over & immediately called out "Phineas & Ferb, Grandma!," I was pretty pleased that he recognized them. I hope the birthday girl enjoys them equally as much! There is a camping tent on the cake because my friend was going camping for her birthday where she was going to be suprised with the cake.

Batman

The little boy that celebrated last year's birthday with Lightning McQueen rang in his 4th year with a Batman theme! This is a chocolate wasc cake (12" & 8") filled & iced with buttercream and dusted with silver luster dust. All decorative accents & figures are fondant & gumpaste. Batman himself was a real challenge; however, I don't think I did too bad (for a third try). The first picture makes the cake look lopsided but that is the photographer's fault, not the baker's (yes, I suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder).

Next week I get to make a Phineas & Ferb cake for another friend's birthday!

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.