Mini cakes and streams

In a perfect world, we make no mistakes. Well, my world is far from perfect. While making the baby shower cake last weekend, I "figured" my cake batter incorrectly and had a really really small 8" cake. I decided to hand it over to Emily to deal with and start over on the baby shower cake. This was what she did with her 4 year old little brother...

Too Cute!

To make some $$$ at the dance studio, I had a little cake display with mini cakes. These were WAY harder than I ever imagined. I tried it thinking it would be fun. As with all projects, the first few were fun, the rest were WORK!

When I try this again...and I will. I will freeze my cake, then cut it into mini cakes, then frost them frozen, let them come to room temperature, and finally add fondant...

Here is my display! Hope you have a great weekend! Near the end of the month keep your eyes on the blog for a snake cake and a fun penguin themed cake, as well as a treasure chest...Oh the fun creations we have in store for you!

Wild about Baby Showers

I am not sure if Emily and Katie are going to talk to me tomorrow after all the work I made them do tonight! My poor slave labor (I mean, dancers who are fundraising by making cakes!) helped me to make over 24 animal heads and 2 full fondant sculptures. I was very pleased with how they turned out and hope that my friend enjoys them as much as we like them!

Here is the 9" round three layered white cake with raspberry preserve filling:

Katie made the lion and Emily made the monkey. I think they turned out darling!

Here is another Katie creation, the giraffe on the side of the cake.

Monkey up close! I love his little banana!

Katie's little lion is darling too!

The only thing left is to get it to my customer in one piece!!!

ShamWow!

You always have to wonder what people think about when they work in an ER...One group of ER workers undoubtedly think about ShamWow! for whatever reason. One of the sweet ladies hired me to make her a ShamWow! cake and her is my tribute to said cake.
It is Chocolate cake with whipped chocolate frosting, covered in milk chocolate fondant. Hope it tastes good! The cake is based off of this ad...

Animal Prototypes

My dear friend, Denee, has challenged me to make a jungle themed cake with matching cupcakes. You know me (maybe you don't), but I am always up for a challenge, but I will loose many sleepless nights trying to figure out how to accomplish my task. Anyhoo (as Denee would say) here are my monkey...

and my giraffe...actually the giraffe is Katie's...many of the really good prototypes are my 11 year old daughter's. She is an excellent Sculpey polymer clay sculptor and since we have learned to add gum paste to our fondant...she like this medium as well...

I am really looking forward to making this project NEXT Weekend!!! So keep your watching my blog to see how it turns out!!!

Happy Birthday!!!

I love birthdays! I like them even better when they belong to someone else!
Today we are saying "Happy Birthday" to Marcy and Scott.
Marcy's cake is a traditional white cake with white whipped frosting and strawberry perserves covered with marshmallow fondant. I had more plans for the bow, but the extra loops decided NOT to cooperate. Given it takes 24 hours for them to dry...well...This smaller bow is what I had to use... I am happy to say, I have learned my lesson about writing on the tag.

Scott is an Auburn fan, so I did my best to pay tribute to his team. Scott's cake is red velvet with chocolate frosting covered with dark chocolate fondant. I must admit that I learned to make this chocolate fondant specifically for Scott and I am so happy I did. My family loves it...I like it a bit too much...Thanks, Scott!

His happy birthday message is supposed to be a banner...

A big "Thank You" to Michelle for supporting my girls' fundraising by letting us make her cakes!!! Enjoy!

Happy Birthday, Debbie

This is the last cake for the weekend...boy, am I bushed. I have not been sleeping so well. I think it is because I knew I had a BUTTLOAD of work to do on this little baby.

Here are a couples of tips I want to pass on to you!
1. If you are making a cake for someone else, ask them if they have a cake carrier that you can put their cake into. Wow! Safe travel for the cake and it is theirs to keep!
2. When you are told to let fondant dry for 24 hours...they really did mean it. I only had 4 hours for mine to dry. Glad I got up at 2am not able to sleep and began rolling curlicues and faking, I mean, making the ribbon!

3. When placing a tag onto a gift, write on the tag before placing it on the gift. It makes writing so much easier!

All in all, I think it turned out pretty darned cute! I hope my friend likes it! My new motto is "Made with love, not necessarily skill!"

Have a blessed day!

Thank you!

My whole cake baking hobby has added a new dimension as I am making cakes for hire, for a modest donation to my daughters' dance team. As you can tell, I am not a professional cake decorator, but I do have quite a love for this as an art form.

The girls and I decided to send letters to some of our friends and family to tell them about our cakes and various other fundraising activities. Some were nice enough to send a donation! One such person is my Aunt Anne. She is not really my aunt...no, family you can't pick. I am from the south. And, in the south, when you love someone "like family," you give them a title to fit that love. Thus is how it is with Aunt Anne! So here is our thank you cake to her for her contribution to our dance fund!

Groom's Guitar Cake

A dear friend's b-i-l is getting married tomorrow and I offered to make the wedding cake and groom's cake. The wedding cake is not assembled, but the grooms cake is ready to go! The groom loves his electric guitar and this cake is based off of his guitar. It is a lovely shade of teal!
I used the Wilton guitar cake and altered it by cutting the shape to be more like his guitar.

As you can see from this angle, I used the neck of the orginal guitar to support my long neck. The new neck is a cardboard base covered with fondant. The cake itself is chocolate with chocolate fondant (the brown fondant is chocolate--- the blue fondant is regular vanilla flavored.)

As usual, I pray that the cake will be delivered safe and sound and that the people who get to eat them...completely enjoy them!

Morning inspiration

Morning!
I have had a busy one already. One of my brides wanted to have her fiance taste one of my cakes, since I was baking this weekend, it was very easy to whip her up a tester cake. She wants her cake covered with fondant, so I decided to play.

Top view!!!

Emily was stuck babysitting yesterday and decided that she and Katie deserved cake...chocolate cupcakes to be exact. My personal fav! Anyway, I decided to make my bride something special...a fondant rose cupcake. I think it is pretty cute!

Side view.

Have a very blessed day!

Surprise Birthday Cake

I am really excited about this cake! First because it is for a very special friend. Mary has decided to devote her life to Christ as a NUN! Wow! This is her last birthday with family for quite a while. Tomorrow is going to be quite a shin-dig and I am so happy to be a part of it.

This cake has changed designs about a million times trying to find the best cake and ease of transport. So it is a tiered cake with 2 rectangles and a square. My daughters think it looks odd (they are all about Mathematical Symmetry, which I can appreciate as a Mathematician...but as an artist...I need FREEDOM...and I didn't have the pan I needed...so I made due!)

I loved the idea of the vines and had made many flowers to go onto the cake and decided on the roses. I was going to stop here, but something was off. My sides are not perfect...I am just not so good at smooth sides. So... I decided to add white scrolling vines with piped icing...

I hope this special lady likes her cake!!!

First Wedding Cake EVER!

It always starts somewhere...You know what I am talking about, that spark of something that makes you take a road that you never that you would ever go down. Well, that is how it was with me and cake baking. It started with wanting to help a sister-in-law and then it turned into needing practice for said sister-in-law's cake...and low and behold, I am making a wedding cake for a friend's son. Crazy...I know!

Roger, my dh, made the cake board. Boy, was that thing sturdy! Boy, was that thing HEAVY!

I have never prayed so hard as when we trasported that thing 30 miles from our house to the wedding reception! OH BOY!