Monday, January 24, 2011

Gender Reveal Cake

This was a cake for a gender reveal party an expectant mom was having.  The color of the frosting inside was to reveal whether the baby was a boy or a girl.

This cake was a vanilla cake and I made pink frosting based on the results of her ultrasound.  This was my first large bow like this.  I made it a couple days in advance and used bits of paper towel in each bit to allow it to dry in the right shape.  It worked!  

I glued fondant circles on the cake board to give it some added detail.

I was really happy with this cake!  What a great way to find out what you are having!!



This is what the cake looked like before all the decorations.  My first square fondant cake....





Yankee Cake

My oldest son is a HUGE baseball fan and especially loves the Yankees.  We found the idea for this cake online and I instantly knew this was the one I wanted to do.

It was a departure from my usual fondant cakes, but still used a lot in the decorations.  The actual cake was frosted and topped using a grass tip. 

I made the hat, the ball and the NY symbols earlier in the week.  I didn't do the shirt until that morning since I didn't want it to dry out.

The hat was definitely my favorite part of this cake.  I had always admired these fondant baseball hats, but up until now have never attempted one.  It really wasn't too bad.  I made a dome shaped cocoa krispie treat and covered it in chocolate frosting.  I then layed the navy blue fondant (a mix of blue and black gel food color) over the dome.  I did the stripes with my awesome little rolling tool that has a wheel to make stitching.  For such a simple little tool, it really gives it such great detail.  The rim was a little tricky trying to get it to fit right, but it turned out just how I wanted it to. 

The NY symbols took a little bit of time.  Not because they were that hard, but because I had to make them small enough to fit.  The one on the shirt wasn't so bad, but the one on the hat was a little hard to work with.  Actually, I was a bit surprised how well they turned out. 

For the shirt, I made templates out of wax paper and used them to cut the shapes out of rolled fondant.  I then used my rolling tool to make a small groove in the fondant for the stripes.  Then, I cut very thin navy blue stripes and placed them into the grooves.  Next, I added the NY symbol. 

The ball was quite simple.  I just drew the stitching on with a red food coloring pen.  After it was all done, I decided to add buttons to the shirt.  I just felt it was missing something without them.  My husband thought I was nuts!  He's probably right....

Farm Animals


These are some little farm animals I made to send to my friend.  She made a Thomas the Train cake for her son's 2nd birthday and I offered to help with these animals.  They were so cute!

Zebra Stripe Cake

Another cake with the dreaded purple fondant.  At least there wasn't as much this time around!  The lime green color was a little tricky.  It is a combination of yellow and green gel food coloring....a touch more of yellow than green.

This cake was based of a picture I was given.  I added a necklace and a bracelet to it because the birthday "girl" likes jewelry.

This cake was a lot more time consuming than I had anticipated.  It took about 12 hours total.  I made the numbers and the bow ahead of time (about 2-3 days in advance) with gumtex/fondant and had them dry.  It was my first time making a bow and I'm quite happy with how it turned out.  The bow is made out of three strips of fondant bent into shape.  I placed some paper towel in the rungs to hold it in shape while it dried for about a day.  I usually leave these types of things out for a day and then after that, store them in the fridge until I'm ready to use them.

The zebra stripes are pretty easy to make.  I had bought a new rolling tool so that made it much easier.  It just takes a lot of time to actually arrange them onto the cake.  Plus, you really have to be careful with black fondant.  If you get it wet (which you need to "stick" it to the cake), the color runs.  A big problem when you are placing it onto white fondant where it will show very easily. 

I learned a trick while putting the ribbon around the bottoms of the cake.  It helps to "fold" up the strips of fondant and sort of roll them out while placing them around the cake.  It prevents the strip from getting warped as you are trying to do it. 

I used kabob sticks to hold up the numbers (they were quite heavy) and made a hole in the top to insert the candles. 

The necklace and bracelet were a lot of fun to make.  I took equal portions of the purple, white and green fondant and rolled them into balls to give the appearance of a rock.  It really came out quite real looking. 

I got to use my new cake board my dad made for me.  I just covered it in white wrapping paper and decorated with ribbon.

Halloween Spider Cake

I must have been on a cake roll because after I finished my friends cake, I decided I needed to surprise my boys with a Halloween cake.  

Let's just say that purple fondant is NOT an easy accomplishment!  It probably took me a good 45 minutes to get this color the way I wanted it (mixing blue and red food gel).  One day, maybe I can afford an airbrush kit so I don't have to spend so much time coloring the fondant.  

After struggling with the purple, I had to attempt the web.  I wasn't having a steady hand day so it was quite hard to get the web to look ok.   

The spider was a lot of fun.  I used lots of gumtex in the head and body to help hold the round shape.  I made that a day in advance to give it time to dry.  The legs I just rolled into ropes and formed them onto the sides.  In order to get more than one thing the same size, it helps to make equal size balls of fondant before shaping them.  I then added the eyes and the fangs to complete the look. 

The pumpkins I made into different sizes and carved lines into them.  Some of them I added just stalks and others both stalks and leaves.  The leaves were a little tricky because they were so small.  They did add such a great touch to them though.  For some of them I added some vine and attached them to the pumpkin plants.  Finally, I added some graham cracker crumbs for dirt to give it the finishing touch.  You can really by looking at the picture on the right how all the small details really make the cake what it is.                                                                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                              

Crown Cake

My friend asked me to help her with her daughter's birthday cake, so of course I couldn't resist.  It was especially nice to work along a friend and talk while doing all the busy work.  Plus, up until that point I had never had the chance to do a girlie cake.  It was a nice change!

My friend had bought a pretty birthday banner with a cake on it, which is how we came up with the idea for this cake.  The buttons weren't on the cake in the banner, but we decided to incorporate them into the actual cake. 

The crown on the cake is probably my favorite part.  I rolled out a flat piece of fondant and then cut it into a crown shape.  In order to get it the right shape, I rolled it around a cup and let it dry in that position.  I also added gumtex to make the fondant stiffer.  My friend added some edible glitter and the button to complete the look. 

Karate Gi Cake

My son had recently started to do karate so we decided to choose something to reflect that.  I came across a karate gi cake online that I decided to try out.  This was my first attempt at a non-round fondant cake. 

This cake is a single layer 9x13 cake, which I carved small indents out of the side.  In order to make it a bit easier to lay down the fondant, I made two individual pieces...one for the top half of the cake and the other for the bottom half.  I figured the belt was going to cover the seam anyway, so I might as well make it easier.

The belt is three pieces....one strip going across, a strip for the ties and another for the knot.  For the edges of the gi, I cut three strips and made small indented lines with a knife.  I now have a rolling tool that makes these stripes...much easier! 

I was a little nervous about making the Yin Yang symbol, but it was much easier than I thought it would be.  I just used a cookie cutter to make a circle of each color and then I cut away what wasn't needed.  Then I just made a small indent to insert the opposite color in each half.  To make the bottom of the cake neater, I rolled out a black rope and just fit it around the cake. 

Of course, the cake itself was chocolate with chocolate frosting....what else!?

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Sports Cake



This sports cake was for my youngest son's 2nd birthday. He is a HUGE sports lover so this seemed rather appropriate for him.






This one took a really long time to make, especially with all the fine detail to the bat and balls on the top of the cake. Since they were small, they were a little hard to work with.









All of them are made out of fondant, even all of the laces on the balls. The stars were made with a cookie cutter as well as the bat and football on the side of the cake. The writing on the bat is made with a food coloring pen.




The top layer had vanilla frosting and the bottom had chocolate. Whenever you are using white fondant, you will need to use a light colored frosting so that it doesn't show through the fondant.

Black Forest Cake

Not quite as exciting as the other cakes, but this was my first attempt at a Black Forest Cake.  My dad has wanted one for a while and I finally made him one for Christmas. 

I made my own whipped cream frosting, which was then generously spread on the top and side of the cake.  In between the two layers of cake is a layer of whipped cream and glazed cherries.  I shaved some dark chocolate and just applied it to the side of the cake with a spatula.  It made a huge mess.  There must be a better way to do that.  Anyone want to share?

Ice Age Cake


My oldest son chose an Ice Age cake for his 9th birthday. I used icing to give it that snowy look.
The characters, eggs and acorns were all made out of fondant. The faces on the egg were drawn on with a food coloring pen. I made the "ice" with sugar candy. It was the first time I had used this and it was a lot of fun to do. I just poured the melted sugar onto a pan, let it cool and then cracked it to form the ice.
I was so happy with the way Scrat and Sid came out and I had planned on preserving them like I had the jungle animals. Apparently, my dog had other ideas because she ended up eating them. By the time I caught her, only part of Sid's body was left. It was very sad!
Here is Scrat before he was eaten...check out his fang teeth!

The Star Wars Cake

So having 3 boys, I was bound to do a Star Wars cake along the way. This cake was chosen by my middle son for his 6th birthday. For all you non Star Wars fans, it is a depiction of Tatooine (the home planet of Anakin and Luke Skywalker).

For the top layer I used frosting. Looking back, I probably should have done fondant. With this cake, I learned the big mistake with not doing what's called a "crumb layer". Basically, what that is is a thin layer of frosting over the cake to "trap" in the crumbs. After you do this, you place the cake in the fridge to allow the frosting to harden. Then, you do another layer of frosting that comes out nice and clean without any messy crumbs showing through. I had quite a few messy crumbs showing through the blue on this cake.....lesson learned!

The buildings of Tatooine are made from fondant as well as the "rocks" and moons. The sand on this cake is brown sugar. It was a bit darker than the Graham Cracker crumbs, which is why I chose to use that.

The characters are just the plastic figures. I have been asked why I didn't make them from fondant. Basically, I was only 3 weeks out from doing the Jungle Cake. I was still exhausted from that...lol!

My first ever birthday cake...

This was my first ever birthday cake. I was standing in a store one day and this cake was on the front of a magazine. I ended up buying the magazine and making this cake for my oldest son's 2nd birthday.

It was a lot of work, but so much fun to make!

This was actually my second attempt at the cake. The ocean is made out of jello and the first time around, I made the ocean to close to0 the edge and the cake broke. I learned that lesson real quick! After that, it wasn't too bad....just lots of work with all the small details. I prepared the mermaids and swimmers ahead of time. Their suits/hair were made from icing and the mermaid tails were made from fruit roll ups. I also learned a lesson with those as well...fruit roll ups are VERY hard to work when they are warm. They end up being very hard to unroll and super sticky. The best thing to do is place them in the fridge. A million times easier!!

The seaweed is also made from fruit roll ups. As you can probably tell, the fish are just different colored Goldfish snack crackers with icing for eyes. The life preservers are mints with red icing. The treasure chests I believe are those treasure chocolate candies with icing for decoration. The boat is a Twinkie covered in frosting with a fruit roll up sail. It is "tied" in place with Twizzler "rope" and attached to some pretzel sticks. The "rocks" are chocolate covered raisins and the sand is Graham Cracker Crumbs.

As you can imagine, it ended up being pretty costly due to the many items needed to put this cake together. It was well worth it though, because I accomplished my goal of making this cake and I was happy with the end result. The only bad thing, is that nobody ate it at the party! They didn't want to damage it. My husband ended up taking some to work the following week! At least it didn't go to waste after all.


Saturday, January 22, 2011


This was my first ever fondant cake. I saw a picture on a cake website and just HAD to make it for my son's first birthday. I knew nothing about fondant at the time so I did lots of research before attempting this big feat. Let's just say it was A LOT of work....and I mean a lot!


I started 2 weeks ahead of his birthday and spent pretty much every nap time and every evening learning about fondant. I taught myself how to make fondant, color fondant, roll it out, cut it into shapes and create these cute little jungle animals. I even had dreams about making cakes since that was all I seemed to be doing those 2 weeks!



I probably put in about 20 hours of work when all was said and done. It was well worth it though, because it was a huge hit at his party. Of course, nobody wanted to cut it up and eat it! I had to have my husband cut the cake while I looked away. At least it was really yummy and worth eating! I did save the animals and have since clear coated them. They now sit in my son's room on a shelf....a nice reminder of his special day!


This cake was vanilla with chocolate frosting on the bottom layer and chocolate cake with chocolate frosting on the top layer....as you might be able to tell I LOVE chocolate! Initially, I made chocolate fondant for the top layer, but it was a failure. As I layed it over the cake, it cracked around the edges. I think it was too dry with the added cocoa powder in the fondant. I will have to attempt that again someday down the road. Every decoration is made from fondant as well. In order to make the animals, I added something called Gumtex to the fondant. It helps give it a stiffer consistency so that the animals hold their shape. All of my fondant is homemade and basically consists of powdered sugar and marshmallows...marshmallow fondant (MMF). It is much cheaper to make and it tastes much better than store bought fondant. I also made my own frosting for the first time with cake...also much better!

Since then, I have pretty much done fondant for every birthday. I have also helped a few friends learn how to make fondant and have also made a couple cakes for customers. This was just the beginning of a whole new venture for me!

Over the next couple weeks (if I can find a spare moment) I will be posting a lot of the cakes I have done over the years. I will try to explain the process to give you an idea of what it takes to actually prepare these edible works of art.