Christmas Wedding

Here is a very small cake (68 serv) that I did on the 19th of Dec. It was cutting a little too close to Christmas for me. It was done with whipped icing. I loved the glittery red ribbon that I used on it. I got the roses from Sam's club...way better than the one's at Costco. They were beautiful.

The best compliment I got was from the bride, she said..."My mom & I think that is the most beautiful wedding cake we've ever seen"

For Heather

Hey sis. I posted this on here because not a lot of people look on here. Let me know what you think! Thanks!

More cakes

Theres one more that I didnt get a picture of that is comming soon.

Hunter Cake

Here is our first wedding cake. It went really well. Everything went very smoothly and everyone loved it. I think the hardest part was cutting the cake. The chocolate cake was too moist and looked sloppy after cutting. Does anyone have a good chocolate cake recipie for us to use? The top teir (plus a sheet cake) was white cake. The middle was marble and the bottom was chocolate.

Coral

I was testing out a new recipie. The decoration is just for fun. It was really easy to do too. I dont think that you can really mess up. Its just a 6 in. I tried to put a three inch on top but it just didnt want to be frosted so this is what I got.

iPod Cake

I did this for a friend so I got lazy and didn't put headphones on it. The color is much better in person. It was a silver/black color with a sheen on it.

For Heather: The only thing I made from scratch was the ganache (so easy) The chocolate mousse I get from the cake store. I comes in a frozen liquid form and all you have to do is defrost it and whip it to the consistency that you like. Then I flavor it with my oils (I like the chocolate hazelnut) The ganache is just 2 parts chocolate to 1 part heavy cream. Or if you want a thinner consistency you can do 1 part chocolate to 1 part heavy cream. All you do is cut up the chocolate and put it in a bowl. Then you heat up the cream in a saucepan until is simmers. Then pour the cream over the chocolate and stir until the chocolate is melted. From there you can either use it to pour over a cake or chill it, then whip it a little to use for a filling. If you would like to use it as a frosting you would whip it a lot more. The cake mix I bought, I always use Betty Crocker. I also bought the chocolate fondant at the cake store. It was the satin ice brand in dark chocolate. I hope that helps.

I don't often get to do cakes that I actually want to make. I've had my eye on this design f0r a while and was just waiting for the right oppurtunity to make it. Well, I got my chance with the swanky dinner party that my friend throws every year. I love the way the colors blended. The cake was chocolate fudge w/ 2 layers of chocolate mousse and a middle layer of ganache. I whipped the ganache to make a frosting and then layered it with dark chocolate fondant. I like this cake, it tasted good too! I'll have to post a better picture later.

Mosiac Wedding Cake

Here is the wedding I did in August. I was happy with the way the mosiac & gumpaste letters turned out. But I felt really rushed on the shape and smoothness of the frosting. Oh Well! It was hard to walk away from this cake without trying to do more to it because it felt so plain but it was what the client wanted so....here it is.

BudKitty

I did this for Dave's Boss who just had a baby boy. It is the logo for the company. They named him McGuire. This one was a really fun cake to do.

"EASY" mini roses

Here is the video that I was telling you about Heather. I obtained some kinda bad shots of the cupcakes that I did Saturday. I will try to get better ones from the photographer.

Etsy

We are one step closer to our etsy store, thanks to our friend Katie who took these FABULOUS pictures. We just need to get an actual kit together to photograph.

Ipod

Pretty self expanatory. 11 x 15 in chocolate sheet cake with chocolate filling. We used a food coloring marker for the writting. We are finding those markers to be an essential tool.

Purses

Here are the different designs that we came up with. The theme is "Purse-onal Enrichment" and the colors are black and white. I think my favorite is the polkadot one. These would be super cute in color. Gabby and I are going to be selling these on etsy.

may wedding

Here's a cake I did back in May. It's weird to even say back in May, it really didn't seem like it was 3 months ago. Anyway, typical wedding cake but I know you were asking me Heather where the pictures were. I still have to get pictures for 4 other cakes I've done recently.

Mini Purse Topper

Gabby and I are making purse cupcakes for enrichment next week. We need to make 75 (sheesh). This is the easiest way that I came up with to do them. We wanted something that will stand up but not take forever to do. Here are the steps to doing them. It looks like a lot but its super easy.

1. Gather Materials: Fondant, Large and small circle cutters, rolling pin, tiny flower cutter, drogees (sp?) and your handy dandy scraper.

2. Cut small flowers out of thinly rolled fondant

3. Cut purse body with lg circle cutter out of 1/2 to 3/4 in thick fondant.

4. Use scraper to cut the top and bottom off of the circle. More off bottom than top.

5. Smooth out edges

6. Cut purse flap with sm circle cutter out of 1/8 to 1/4 in thick fondant. Also cut strips for handle and roll into snake.

7. Get top of purse wet and flaten one end of snake and press onto top of purse.

8. Put sm circle on top of purse. Measure the length of the handle and cut and secure the other (flattened) end of handle under the flap.

9. Lightly press flap down to secure.

10. Add tiny flower and drogee in center. Done

You can also luster dust or add stitching to the flap if your super ambitious. You can also use the food coloring pens to draw designs or whatever. This is just the basic structure. Just thought I would share.

Butterfly

Sorry about the mess in the back. We were on a time crunch. Anywho, this is our butterfly cake. We made the butterflies out of gumpaste. We cut them out with a cookie cutter (that I found in the clay modeling section of the store) and hung them hanging half way over the edge of a box in the center to get their wings to dry shaped. Then we painted them with lusterdust and piped royal icing on them. Food coloring pens would work great too if your going for a more graphic look.

Tommy B- Day Cake

This is the cake I made for Tommy's birthday. I didnt really have a plan. We just did whatever. Tommy loved it. I baked it in a 11 x 15 sheet cake and cut the peices out and stood them up on the board. This was done using our new Fondant recipe. It tasted like royal icing to me. This is basically how I set it up. Looking back now. I wish I would have done a smaller head. We did a chocolate cake with chocolate peanut butter icing.

Kitty Cake

This is a cake that we decorated for a neighbor. She already had the pan but didnt have the time to do the stars. Gabby and I layered the extra peices of cake on there to raise the legs and nose. For a star cake it turned out pretty good.

For Shalece

Hope this is on time. Havnt checked the blog in a while. I thought this would be a cute rice crispy idea for a baby shower.

Paint Roller

http://http//cakecentral.com/article83-Quick--Easy-Smooth-Icing-Using-a-Roller-Melvira-Method.html

Here is a link that I found off of cake central. They use a high density foam paint roller to smooth out buttercream on cakes. I havnt tried it but it looks awsome! The above link gives the detailed instructions. Pretty simple though.

White Almond Sour Cream Cake

I got this recipie from Edna's http://www.designmeacake.com/ website. It is the perfect white cake. It is stable enough for a teired cake but is still moist and is soooo yummy. Ive gotten lots of compliments everytime Ive made it for an event. Just thought I would share.

Ingredients
2 boxes white cake mix
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 teas. salt
8 egg whites
2 2/3 cups water
4 Tbls. vegetable oil
2 cups (16oz carton) sour cream
2 teaspoon clear vanilla flavor
2 teaspoons almond extract

Directions
Mix all dry ingredients by hand using a whisk in a very large mixing bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and beat on low speed for 2 minutes. Bake at 325 degrees

***One recipe makes: one 14" round + one 6" round or one 16" round or one 12" round + one 10" round or one 12x18" sheet cake or one 12" round + one 8" round + one 6" Half a recipe makes: two 8" rounds or two 6" rounds + 6 cupcakes

If you havnt gotten this book from the library, then you are really missing out. It is fantastic. It is by Kerry Vincent. She needs no introduction Her work is flawless. She has some things in there that I would have never thought possible. So cool. For one of her cakes she makes her own silicone mold to make the jewels that you see on the cover (above). Genius! Gabby and I tried out her fondant recipie. Loved it! (Dont make it when its raining. Doesnt work as well) It takes the same amount of work as the MMF but has a much better texture. We are definatly not going back to MMF after this. The plus about this one is that the fondant will stiffen if left to dry. The MMF wont. Plus you can use it right away but its better if you leave it overnight. Heres the recipie for anyone who wants to try it.

1 oz powdered geletine (you can get it at walmart)
1/2 C water
2 lbs powdered sugar (plus more for kneeding)
1 oz glycerine
1/2 C karo or light white corn syrup

Let the geletine bloom in the water and heat but not to boiling. Add the syrup and glycerineto the geletine. Add sugar and mix in the electric mixer with the dough hook. Scrape the bowl as needed. When it is a ball then turn out onto a work surface to kneed, but grease your hands with crisco first. Add sugar as needed kneed till its pliable and not sticky.

Raspberry cupcakes with Mango frosting

Heres how it turned out.

Mango Frosting

I felt like experimenting after having a Mango Raspberry smoothie and wanted to try and translate it into a cupcake. So I made white cupcakes with raspberries and made this frosting. It turned out good.

Mango Frosting:

1/4 c butter

1/2 c shortning

2/3 c mango puree

1 1/2 tsp lemon juice

1 lb powdered sugar

1 T meringe powder

Puree frozen mango pieces in a blender. Cream together butter, shortning, mango puree and lemon juice. Add meringe poweder and sugar and mix till smooth.

Cherry Cordial Cupcakes

Chocolate cupcakes with almond cream cheese frosting, chocolate sprinkles and a fresh chocolate covered cherries. Tastes similar to a cherry cordial but way better!

Cake Love Italian Buttercream

http://

Beth, I thought you might like this.

Jacob's 30th B-Day Cake

Explination:

The cake base: Replicated concrete floors that Jacob did in our home.

The Lumber: Jacob's new passion is making things out of wood. ie: tables, toy chests, anything.

Business Card: Replica of Jacob's new business card (thanks, Heather!). He just got his contractor's licence at the end of last year.

Snowy Mountain & Snowboarder: Jacob loves to snowboard! (And yes, I realize that the fondant snow-boarder is way to big for the mountain - because I made him before I made the cake - but I just didn't feel like re-making him nor did I have the time!)

X-Box Controller: Jacob LOVES his X-Box. He built an entire basement just for it! I made him an X-Box console last year so I had to do something different with the X-Box theme this year.

"Happy Birthday" letters: Made those to look like scrabble pieces. Jacob's FAVORITE game is Scrabble. He's really good at it too!

The base is a piece of MDF that I just had cut at Home Depot when I bought it.

I screwed a "floor joint" to the middle of the board (it's galvinized steel so I covered in in tin foil) then just screwed a piece of PVC pipe (that is actually a sprinkler pipe) into it then covered everything in foil. I put a thin layer of piping gel on top of the foil for the fondant squares to stick to.

For the base, I to replicate the concrete floors, I cut out a bunch of tan fondant squares with my cutter and layed them onto the foil-covered base then took brown royal icing and splattered it on randomly then took my "trowl" aka: pastry cutter/icer and scraped it off.

The "Lumber" was just a 11x15 cake cut into 3 1/2 inch blocks then covered in tan fondant and painted with brown food coloring/vodka mixture. It would have looked MUCH better had I marbled the fondant to have a "wood grain" then layed it on but I had too many blocks to do and re-mixing fondant would have made the marble effect dissapear. The second stack of lumber is baked from a 12x12 pan and also cut into 3 1/2 rectangles.

The X-Box controller is carved out of pound cake and is just sitting on top of the top of the PVC pipe. There is cardboard underneath and it just sat there perfectly.

Jacob's business card: cut out of gumpaste/fondant mix and dried overnight. Painted with food coloring/vodka mix and piped.

for amelie

The inspiration

The result

Baby Shower cake for my best friend April. I used the baby's monogram for the front.