Saturday, August 15, 2009

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...

Thursday, August 13, 2009

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!

Saturday, August 8, 2009

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!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

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!

Monday, August 3, 2009

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!