Race Track Cake

Here's a really fun take on race car cakes!  David, a friend of my family, was throwing a party for a friend who had a Christmas-time birthday, and even as an adult had never really had a birthday party all to himself.  (Something all of us with December birthdays can relate to on some level!) We came up with this unique design using his age as the racetrack:

The top and sides of the cake were iced and then covered with fondant, cut in the shape of the track and checker-flag tiles.  A yellow border was piped on.  We added Matchbox cars to give it an extra nostalgic feel.

To keep the track continuous, I carved out ramps for the road to follow between the 2 and 4.  This cake was pretty large and very challenging but I just LOVE the way it turned out!

Fire Helmet No. 2

I was asked by my friend Natalie to make a Fire Helmet cake for her husband.  It was a challenging cake because it's so important for me to get it right, and try to capture as much detail as accurately as possible.

I'm really happy with the way the eagle turned out this time:

I was able to fix and/or vastly improve on the tough spots from when I first experimented with the Fire Helmet cake (post here).  I'm really happy with the way this cake looked for my friend and her hubby.

Christmas Cakes!

I've really been enjoying making some adorable Christmas cake this season!  Here are photos

This adorable Santa cake is an 8" layer cake frosted in vanilla.  I tinted a small amount peach for his face, cut a red fondant section for his hat, and piped curly beard, mustache and trim around his face.  I gave him pink, rosy cheeks using pink luster dust.  The rosy cheeks really made the cake!  I made this cake to take to a Christmas party my family was invited to earlier this month and it was a hit with everyone.

I have the fortune of being invited to an extremely fun party for just us girls called a "Tree Skirt Party."  For this party, you are required to wear your tree skirt- yes, the one under your Christmas Tree- as part of your outfit.  So many of us find very elegant, and creative ways, to do this.  It is a lovely night and I look forward to it each year.  This year I was asked by the Hostess to make a cake of a lady wearing her tree skirt for the party.  This was my first "doll cake" and it was so fun and much easier than I imagined it would be.  To make it festive yet simple, I made her skirt look like a Santa-hat style tree skirt, and gave a holly & berries border along the bottom.  I added a sparkly red bow to the dolls hair to match her outfit.

The Classic Yule Log is a type of cake I have wanted to do for a long time.  I used a very traditional recipe:  a chocolate sponge with coffee flavored mascarpone filling with a fudge icing.  The outer icing was smoothed to give a bark appearance, and I made some holly & berry accents and little mushrooms out of fondant.  This cake is one of my all-time favorites, and it was hard for me to part with it.  I just love the perfect balance of tradition bordering on cheesy.

Gender Reveal Cake

I was asked by my friend Lori to do a gender reveal cake for her brother and his wife.  I have so much fun with gender reveal cakes, I think mostly because you get to be in on a really big, happy secret.  I made this cake all white, so that when they cut into it there would be no mistaking it was blue inside!

I piped a personal message on top using the baby's nickname.

I really love the effect of an all-white cake with just a simple tinted filling.

Black Friday Birthday Cake

I have a tradition that is twelve years strong:  Black Friday Shopping with my friends Kari, Jill & Marla.  Marla has a end of November birthday, so every year we are either shopping on her birthday or really close to it.  This year I decided to make a small 6" cake for us to enjoy during our Black Friday Lunch.

I made little fondant shopping bags from some of our favorite stores, and of course, the essential steaming Starbucks cup!  I also got a chance to practice some drop strings from the top border (such a pretty look that takes practice).  

Just a simple and yummy little cake for us girls to enjoy together~

Girly Birthday Cake

My friend and regular customer Natalie ordered a cake for her birthday!  Natalie is mom to three little boys and needed a big dose of girly-ness for herself!

I made this cake, iced in two shades of pink, with edible glitter and a huge bow on top.  Natalie loved it, it was exactly what she wanted.

Thanksgiving-Themed Birthday Cake

I'd like to take credit for the MAJOR creative points earned in coming up with a way to combine a Birthday (for college-aged triplets, to be specific)  and Thanksgiving into one cake.  But I can't, because my creative and hilarious Mother-In-Law Marilyn completely thought up this cake idea for me:

I made three 6" layers of cake with a fourth top layer that is a smaller dome shape.  This gave the turkey a round body.  I made a fondant head, with fondant eyes, beak and flappy-turkey-thingy (Please feel free to comment if you know the correct term for this turkey part!)  All the feathers and wings are piped on using my own petal-technique (see this post for details).

To make the cake extra special and personalized, I made one large tail feather for each college they attend.  The logos and feathers are made completely out of tinted gumpaste, with a little edible food marker used for the Bulldog and Tree.

They loved the cake, and I was really happy to help them celebrate with family while they were home for Thanksgiving break.

Carrot Cake

I made my first carrot cake to bring to Thanksgiving dinner.  It was the recipe from my favorite Cookbook, America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book.  It was frosted with cream cheese icing.  It tasted really yummy, I will definitly keep this recipe as my favorite!

Carrot Cake

  

Minecraft Creeper Cake

Here's a cake for a Minecraft Fan: 

My friend Shannon shared some ideas she had for a Minecraft cake, and we decided to do this Creeper cake.  I found a pattern to print here and used it for the design.  I mixed 4 different shades of green fondant and cut little squares out of each color, and used black for the face.  This is a 9x13 layer cake.

2-tier Ocean Cake with 3D Mermaid Topper

I was asked to make another cake for my friend Natalie, who was celebrating her son Austin's 3rd Birthday. Austin is such a blast, a really great little guy.  He wanted to have an Ocean Birthday, and really wanted a mermaid on his cake.  We decided to go big for Austin and give him a cake with lots of ocean creatures!

The base tier is 10", the top tier is 8"

Everything was done in buttercream with the only exception being the mermaid on top, which was mostly fondant, gumpaste, and the flesh-colored parts being Wilton's modeling compound.  I liked using it, I thought it was pretty easy to work with and also pretty forgiving.  It did seem a bit rubbery and didn't want to stay in the exact position I wanted it to, but overall very useful.

My favorite are the big buttercream octopus, the yellow and blue flounder, and little red lobsters.  All were maid with piped buttercream using various tips.

When modeling the mermaid, I used a dowel rod through her torso as the main support.  The dowel rod was inserted into the top of the cake, and I created a little rockpile using chocolate rocks and buttercream piped into waves.  It held the heavy topper in place well.

Rustic Baby Shower Cake

I was asked by my friend Jen (who is also my photographer) to make a cake for a baby shower she was throwing.  Her request was to keep the cake very simple and not too baby-ish...

I had been admiring the rustic style of cake icing for awhile and was looking forward to a chance to try it myself.  I found this pretty version here which worked just perfect with the decor Jen had already selected.  And a major bonus about making cake for Jen are the great pictures she takes of my cakes!

Here's a photo I took showing the texture on top, too!

Owl Cake

I made this adorable owl cake for my friend Mindy, who's little Natalie turned two.  She loves owls and we came up with this simple design carved from a 9x13 sized cake.

We chose the colors to match some really cute little owl favor bags.  The feather look was created using the petal technique with various round tips.

Mindy and her family loved this cake!  It was such a cute and bright cake, perfect for her spunky little two-year old.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cake

I did this Monster High Cake for Jessie earlier this fall, and next I got to make another cake for her daughter Madyson.  Madyson was turning five and wanted a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Birthday Cake!

I forgot to snap a picture at home, so I  was grateful for this picture from Jessie!

Her favorite turtle is the red one, Raphael.  I was trying to decide how I could make a TMNT cake a little bit girlie, and decided on using a night time setting so I could have a mostly purple evening sky.  I used black fondant to make a city skyline that wrapped around the entire cake.

On the top, I made a gray sewer cover with Raphael's eyes and eye mask peeking out of a manhole.

Teapot Cake

Amanda, a friend from MOPS asked me to make a teapot shaped birthday cake for her daughter.

The teapot is 6" rounds stacked and carved to have the rounded top.  The spout, handle, dots and lid are gumpaste tinted lavender.

Soccer Ball Cookies

This is a tray of cookies iced to look like little soccer balls.  They were made for a team snack for the end of season. Each cookie is individually wrapped. 

Gender Reveal Cake

This cake was sooooo much fun to make.  I was smiling and giggles the entire time I was frosting a decorating it.  It was just a blast to be the only person who knew the secret!

My neighbor Deanna asked me to make this cake for her daughter, Brittany.  Her nurse gave me a call after her ultrasound and I made the cake for a gender reveal party that night for her family.  No one knew the gender, until they cut into the cake!

To keep things simple, I had the vanilla layers baked and tinted only the inside filling.  I kept all other icing plain white, so there would be no mistaking what color was on the inside.  It was so fun to be in on the secret and help make the reveal a special night!

Toilet Seat Cake

My husband's crew asked me to make this Good-bye cake for one of their own.

 

This is a 9x13 layer cake with a toilet seat on top!  The seat is a wide, flat ring of white icing.  Inside, piping gel was tinted blue to look like toilet water.  A little gumpaste iphone sits inside the bowl.  

 



"The Cure" themed BIG Birthday Cake

My friend Julie had mentioned this summer that she would be ordering a big cake for a birthday party near Halloween.  As the date approached Julie gave me small details about who the cake was for and the type of party this would be. 

My first and most important challenge was to somehow channel The Cure....yes, as in all your favorite songs from the 80's Cure.  Let me tell ya, there's not a lot Cure-themed cakes on the internet to draw inspiration from.  Somehow, I miraculously found this picture, while searching for "Goth Cakes".  That's when Julie and I decided that we had to have the big hair on top, to give props to lead singer Robert Smith. 

We loved the eye, too, so I made a gumpaste eye with a painted iris, pupil and lots of glimmering shadow and lashes!

 



The top layer was a 6" vanilla layer cake frosted in ivory tinted buttercream. 

 

 

The middle layer is a 9" red velvet layer cake with vanilla buttercream and covered in black fondant.  I made a ruffle border to wrap around the base.  It was kept smooth and simple.

 

 

 

The bottom layer is a 12" marble layer cake, with Maroon tinted buttercream. 

 

 





While delivering the cake before the party started, I got to glance at the set-up in progress.  It looked like an amazing party, and I'm so glad I was able to help make the day special. 

 

 

 

Pennywise the Clown (Scary Version!)

If you're like me and probably many other people born around the late 1970's and early 1980's, then there's a pretty good chance you're terrified of clowns.  You don't enjoy them in circuses, parades, or birthday parties.  In fact, I'm rather confident that my generation single handedly destroyed the clown profession.  But it's not our fault, it's Stephen King's.....you know where I'm going with this, right?  Yes, you do.  The movie IT.  I am still mind boggled how that horrible movie was played on network television during primetime.   A nation of impressionable minds were forever changed...

So you can imagine my delight when I was asked to make a creepy clown cake for my good friends Kenn & Kari.  They had an awesome Halloween party with a creepy circus theme and wanted a Birthday cake for Kenn's dad.  I couldn't possibly think of anything creepier than Pennywise, the clown from It.  So I had to Google the most wrong and depraved phrase anyone should ever have to Google....."Clown from It".

I highly suggest you never, ever do that.

So, here is the creepy cake. 

I could only bear to take this one quick picture.

Brave Cake

My friend Janice had some great ideas and inspiration for a Brave-themed cake for her daughter Marleigh's sixth birthday. We decided on a 2-tier cake.

The bottom tier was inspired by a tapestry we found here.   I did a bottom border in gray fondant to look like a castle.  It was a 10" cake.

The top tier was all about the bow & arrow.  I did a gold rope border, a bow made out of a fondant/gumpaste blend (I let it air-dry bent around an 8" pan so that it would keep the contour of the cake later). The top tier was an 8" cake.  The icing was vanilla tinted ivory to give it a little bit more of an old-timey feel.

The top was very simple with her happy birthday message piped between two arrows.

San Diego Chargers Cake

I got a surprise call from my friend Lynn who asked for a surprise cake for her husband's birthday.  Brandon and I used to work together (before kids, a hundred or so years ago).  He is from San Diego so he got a cake with his team on it!

We did a red velvet cake with cream cheese icing.  It was the first time I tinted cream cheese icing, and it actually worked out pretty well.  I kept the borders and writing a regular vanilla buttercream so it would pipe well.  The logo is a cut fondant layered on top of each other.

Fire Duty Cake

My wonderful husband has been on light duty at work for six months straight, as that is the rehab time required for ACL surgery.  It was not an easy six months, especially since my husband loves his job and doesn't do well with being restricted!

So when the time FINALLY came for his doctor to give him the okay to get back to work full duty, I made a cake for him to take to his crew.

The best part was, he got to put out a structure fire his first day back on duty, within the first twenty minutes of his shift.  The crew came back to the fire station and had cake!

Denver Broncos Cake

I was really excited to get this order from my friend Rachel, who was planning a Broncos game themed party.  She loved the football-field cake I did this summer and wanted me to use that as one tier.  I came up with a party-inspired Broncos tier for the top:

For the vertical stripes, I cut tinted fondant into 1" strips and affixed it to the sides.  I snipped off the tops to be level with the top of the cake. 
The curling ribbon is a 50/50 fondant gumpaste blend, cut into long thin strips and curled around 1/4" dowels, and left to dry overnight. 
The Broncos logo is gumpaste and fondant, cut into the shape of the logo and layered on top of each other. 

Teague loved his cake and we had a really fun time at his birthday party!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cake and Cupcakes

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cake and cupcakes.




This is a 9" cake decorated to look like Raphael's (the red turtle) shell with the weapons he carries.



Zach also needed cupcakes to take to school, so we did TMNT faces...

Rainbow Cake

Lily and I made this little cake for fun.  I had some extra fondant so we tinted it pink (at Lily's request).

 She helped me roll the fondant into balls to put around the base.

We divided up the batter and tinted it bright neon colors.  I've discovered through trial and error that if I need to tint cake batter and want the colors to be bright and vibrant, I made vanilla cake and omit the egg yolks from the recipe.  It always tastes really great too!

Monster High Cake

A 12" diameter 2-layer chocolate cake

The skullete logo was made with black sugar sheets and fondant. 

Pretty and Pink First Birthday Cake

This is a 2-layer vanilla cake carved into the shape of a 1. 

The bow and flowers are gumpaste, and it has a coordinating smash cake.