Character Cakes are Fun to Do, Fun to Do, Fun to Do...

Here are some character cakes that I did last weekend. Right out of the ol' wilton collection. You can make a decent cake at any level of decorating. All you have to do is split it to put in a favorite filling, get your handy #21 star tip and go to town. I used little bits of fondant to give it more dimension but it really doesn't matter. I also did a few cupcakes on the side in case there wasn't enough cake.

Con"Grad"ulations

This is a graduation cake I did last month. I didn't want to post it until I got a better picture. As you can see that didn't happen, oh well. So as usual I am taking the picture at the last minute as I am delivering it. It was a pretty fun cake to make, I actually enjoyed it.

Piping gone bad...

Here is a cake I made for a good friend of mine who is turning 30. A bunch of us girls are taking her to Olive Garden for dinner tonight. I used the SM B/C on it and wanted to try my hand at piping (which still needs a LOT of work!). I think I have a solution for my horrible piping...Use a tiny piping bag so that I can have more control. And I have to take it easy with pressing in the pattern presses...it was late and I wasn't being paid for it so I didn't correct every little mistake... I was excited to try the bow too...I've never done one before. This is a white rasberry swirl cake with SM B/C filling...it's so light that it actually makes a great filling.

SWISS MERINGUE!!!

You guys have GOT to try this recipe for Swiss Meringue Buttercream!!! It is SOOOO silky and super, SUPER light. It is so awesome to work with. It spreads beautifully and gives your buttercream cakes a beautiful finish. It's almost like a moose but a lot silkier. A ton of pros like Collette Peters and Elisa Strauss (top NY cake decorators) use the SM Buttercream. I flavored mine with a creme Broquet(sp?) (pronounced: broke-A) flavoring which is a combination of lemon, orange, almond (go easy on the almond) & vanilla. I don't know the ratio of each flavor, your gonna have to guess or look on Google. It's not a complicated recipe, it's just different. I don't think I'll ever go back to the old way.

http://dyannbakes.com/?search_string=swiss+meringe+buttercream&search=1

Here is a website you might want to check out her videos for some neat tips:

http://www.carriescakes.com/

Also, take a look at this page. It's a chat with THE Collette Peters and gives some great tips:

http://www.pastryscoop.com/conferencesAndEvents_chat22.html

Here is Duff Golman's SM B/C recipie:

http://www.bakespace.com/index.php?mode=listing&act=show&lst_id=9874

Here's a recipie for marshmellow fondant:

http://www.bakespace.com/index.php?mode=listing&act=show&lst_id=16635

Happy Baking Everyone!

Guitar Cake

This is my first paid cake. It turned out really good. It was a lot of fun to make but a little tedious. It is a sour cream chocolate chip chocolate cake with hazelnut buttercream frosting. Really yummy combo. Thanks Beth for the recipie.

It was hard to find hazelnut flavoring so I used hazelnut coffee syrup. It was really good. I used have crisco and half butter and subed the water for the syrup.

Waaaaal-EEEEE Cake

Here's the step-by-step process for making the Wall-E cake. I only took pics of the structural process because I started running out of time and I'm sure you can all figure it out just by looking at the cake.

Prepare all cakes with a hole in the middle to go over the PVC pipe. I didn't remember to take a pic of the stand until after I had already placed the first layer on...sorry. Jacob cut the stand out of mdf. It was an 8 inch square ( I was baking an 8 inch cake) and on the sides, he left 2 extended rectangles to attach the wooden blocks onto with screws. Then, he fastened the PVC pipe onto the middle of the board with some "L brackets". He did a great job and this stand was SO sturdy. I covered the board with foil (so it wouldn't taste like wood) and, of course, washed all the pipes that I used. Then I placed the first layer on and added the filling.

This is a picture of the stand from underneath. He ground down the screws that attached the L brackets with a grinder so that they wouldn't poke anyone or show.
I added the second layer and added the filling. I used buttercream as the filling because that's what they wanted and it would keep the cake nice and sturdy.

On the third layer, I notched out a space for the '4-way' joint and then notched out room for the PVC pipe that was to be the "shoulders".

I added the third layer to the cake and then attached the '4-way' joint.

I attached PVC pipe for the "shoulders" and then attached the elbow joints.

It's starting to take shape, huh? I should've added a fourth layer to cover the pipes, but then it wouldn't have been square anymore...so I just iced over it.

Crumb coat then chill, chill, chill!

I fondanted it, being quick to cut out the holes for the neak and arms so that that the fondant wouldn't rip.

Then I attached the neak, and arm PVC pipes along with a 'T joint' for the head and fondanted them too.

After this, I added the details to the body, and painted it to make it look dirty, just like in the movie.

Then, I cut out the rectangles for the arms. I couldn't figure out any other way to do the arms...I suppose I could've cut the rectangles out of styrafoam and shoved them onto the PVC pipe, but I was running out of time and I didn't have any styrafoam left.

The hands were made from a gum paste/fondant mix and then shaped over a cylinder container to give it movement. Then, of course, painted silver just like the head.

For the head, I cut out two styrafoam shapes in the shape of the head (the rice crispy treats kept falling off) and fondanted them too. I attached them to the T joint then added the details on the head.

For the tires (this was the part that I was not happy with) I shaped rice crispy treats over the wooden blocks but didn't get the shape right. I cut out strips of fondant for the tire tracks and then painted it black. I didn't have any black fondant and it's hard to make fondant black. Black fondant would've been the best choice. The painting looks messy.

The coolest part was that the arms could move up and down and the birthday boy could play with it before we ate it.

Here is the result: