High School Graduation

Wow!  I haven't posted in a long while, but this special occasion warranted a visit back to this page.  I haven't done a lot of cakes recently as it's very hard to make them with a son who is allergic to wheat.  The clean up process is a big hassle and I would rather avoid any problems.  

Last month my oldest son graduated from from high school.  I had no excuse, but to make him a cake to celebrate this special occasion.  Since he as played soccer since he was 3 and has been on both club and high school teams, I had to include something related to soccer!  The colors of the cake are his school colors.  

The soccer ball was tricker than I thought it would be.  I made the ball out of Rice Krispie treats and then I cut out individual pieces to place onto the ball.  That was the tricky part!  After I did that, I went over each seam to add more detail in between each shape, so that it looked like stitching.  

If I would have had more time to do this, I would have added more detail, but this was a surprise cake and I had to do it in the time that my son wouldn't see me do it.  Sometimes though, less is more, right?!

Minecraft "Cake"

This year we spent my youngest son's 6th birthday visiting my brother in San Francisco.  It was the first time in many years I haven't done a cake for a birthday.  So, we decided to do a joint cake for him and his next oldest brother whose birthday is three weeks later.  This is the theme the two of them picked.

Because my youngest has a wheat and egg allergy, it always makes things a bit trickier trying to figure out what to make and what to make it from.  This time around I decided to keep it simple and just do Rice Krispie Treats instead of actual cake.  

I also wanted to include them this year in helping me design/make the cake.  I prepared all the RKT's and jello, cut them into cubes and had them decide how to arrange everything.  The picture below shows them busy at work, taking turns placing the cubes.

I think they did a great job cooperating and designing their cake.  It was nice to have them take part and they were very proud of their work.

I made all the figures out of fondant and they told me where to place them on the cake.  Here is the result...

Pizza anyone?

About a year and a half ago, I made hamburger "cakes" for my oldest son's birthday.  Going on that same food theme, we decided to make a pizza "cake" for my middle son's 10th birthday.  I'm really happy with how this turned out...even though I had made it myself and knew it wasn't real, every time I caught sight of it I had to laugh at how real it looked!

The "crust" was made with a big chocolate chip cookie...not the most convincing crust, but we had to compromise for taste.  The "sauce" is just red frosting and the "cheese" is Wilton Candy Melts.  I made the "pepperoni" out of fondant.  First, I dyed the fondant a pinkish color, cut into circles and curled up the edges before laying them out to dry.  Once they were dry, I painted them dark orange, bronze and then brown using airbrush colors.  I then blotted them to give them a mottled look like cooked pepperoni.  

This was a fun "cake" to make and it tasted really good too!!  I can definitely see doing this one again!

Sand Pails

We took a vacation to the beach in California the week before my son's 5 birthday so we decided on a beach theme this year.

These were a lot of work, but fun to do as they weren't my typical cakes.  As he has wheat/egg allergies, I decided to make them out of chocolate Rice Krispie Treats.  Plus, I thought they would be sturdier as well.  I searched online for a mold I could use for the pails and ended up finding a large muffin tin in Michaels that worked perfect!

For most of the shells/sea creatures, I bought a chocolate mold and used fondant in the mold.  The shell in the top left was made by hand.  I then dusted everything in gold and silver luster dust.  The "sand" is Gluten Free graham cracker crumbs (not easy to find in stores, but I found them on Amazon).  

I made 12 of them in total in 6 different colors...more than enough for every kid to have 1.  They were a great hit at my son's water party!!

Gluten Free Strawberry Cake

This cake I made for my youngest's 4th birthday.  He is allergic to wheat, so I'm always looking for new recipes to try.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups gluten-free flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup oil
• 4 eggs
• 1 (3 ounce) box strawberry gelatin
• 1 (16 ounce) container frozen strawberries with sugar, thawed
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

• 1. In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients. Mix with an electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes.
  2. Pour into two greased 9-inch pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (40 minutes for a 9x13 pan; 20 minutes for cupcakes).

Lemon Cake

This cake does take a bit of preparation time, but it has really nice flavor and is worth the extra effort!

Ingredients:

• 3/4 c. butter
• 2 c. sugar
• Grated rind of 1 lemon
• 3 lg. eggs
• 1 1/4 c. milk
• 3 1/2 c. sifted cake flour
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 3/4 tsp. salt

Instructions:

Cream butter, sugar and lemon rind together. Beat egg yolks until thick; add to the creamed mixture. Sift flour, salt and baking powder together several times. Add alternately to the creamed mixture with the milk. Beat until smooth. Fold in the egg whites, beaten stiff but not dry. Bake in 4 (7 inch) or 3 (8 inch) greased layer pans. Bake in moderately hot oven about 25 minutes or until they spring back lightly from the touch in the center.

Raspberry Cake...oh so yummy!!!!

I thought I was definitely a chocolate cake person, until I made this cake one day for a wedding cake.  It was absolutely delicious!!  It's now one of my favorite recipes!

Ingredients:

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package white cake mix
• 1 (3 ounce) package raspberry gelatin
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen sweetened raspberries, thawed
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup hot water
• FROSTING:
• 1 (12 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen sweetened raspberries, thawed

Instructions:

In a large bowl, combine dry cake mix and gelatin powder. Add raspberries with juice, eggs, oil and water. Beat until well blended. Pour into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool.

FC Barcelona Jersey - Soccer shirt cake

 My now 12 year old is a HUGE soccer fan and wanted me to make him a jersey from one of his favorite teams.  

After researching some cakes online and looking at pictures of the jersey, this is what I came up with.  I didn't really want to make a jersey shaped cake, but was looking for something a little bit different.

To make the jersey, I rolled out a rectangular piece of fondant and then rolled over a small bit of both long sides.  I then put a small slice of cake that I had cut off the top of cake to level it and placed it on the top half of the rectangle.  Then, I flipped over the bottom half as if I was folding a shirt.  I then made the sleeves and tucked them in between the shirt piece.  After I had it as I wanted it, I "glued" the shirt shut to hold it in place.  

Then I broke out my airbrush to paint the shirt.  I used wax paper to mark off an area for the red and after that was done, I held the paper over the red area to spray the blue.  In order to get the speckled look on the red with the blue, I used a wire strainer to spray through.

After that had all dried, I made the edges to go around the neck and arms, along with the decorations for the front.  The emblem is made from both colored fondant and edible color markers.

The cake was a hit at his party, especially since the boys knew what jersey it was without me telling them!

Star Wars Clone Trooper

My 9 year old LOVES Star Wars and Lego so this year he decided on a Lego Star Wars Clone Trooper cake.

In order to make this cake, I baked two 9x13 chocolate cakes.  I made templates for the body parts and used them to help cut out the body parts from the cake.  This guy was big...about 2 feet tall.

The head is made from both cake and Rice Krispie Treats....the bottom layer being cake and the top layer being RKT.  It was the easiest way to mold the mask as needed.  The arms are just made from RKT.

All the design on the fondant was painted on with a paintbrush using airbrush food coloring.  It took A LOT of time!!

Always well worth it if you end up with a happy child on his birthday!

Who ya gonna call?

My four year old son is a HUGE Ghostbuster's fan to say the least!  After hearing him sing the theme song over and over one day, I knew I had to make a Ghostbuster's cake for his 4th birthday.

 This ended up being a huge project about 20+ hours long.  My son is allergic to wheat and eggs so I decided to make the main cake Wheat/Egg free and do separate cupcakes using regular cake.

I started out by making all the Ghostbuster's symbols for the cupcakes (see below).  That took about 4 hours total for 13 symbols!  They were all hand cut.

Next, I worked on Mr. Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.  He is made out of Rice Krispie Treats and then covered in fondant.  He was really quite funny when I was done with him!

Next I worked on the buildings, figuring out how tall I wanted them compared to Mr. Stay Puft.  One of the buildings is GF/Egg Free strawberry cake and the other was GF chocolate cake.  The strawberry one actually tasted pretty good for a GF cake!  Definitely not as light and airy as regular cake, but it was certainly edible.




Some of the building parts were made from RKT because I didn't want to overdue it with the cake.  The only real trouble I had was with the GF chocolate cake.  I used a box mix and it was very crumbly and didn't want to take the frosting.  The homemade strawberry cake wasn't that way at all.  

The cupcakes were a lot of fun.  I made a marshmallow creme filling for the them and dyed it green to look like slime.  They were super yummy too!

It was definitely a lot of work, but worth it to see the smile on my little guys face!!

Gerbera Daisy Graduation Cake

This is a High School graduation cake I just finished.  I also made 2 dozen matching cupcakes and 40 cake pops.  It took me over 21 hours to do!!

This cake is red velvet with cream cheese frosting on both tiers.  The graduation cap is made from Rice Krispie Treats.  The top of the hat has a thin piece of cardboard between two pieces of fondant to help it hold it's shape.

The flowers took about 4 hours to make.  I had to make 24 flowers so there were lots of flower cutouts to do. Each flower consisted of 2 large daisy shaped cutouts and 4 1/2 small daisy cutouts.  To make the center of the flower, I cut the small daisy in half and then snipped each petal in half.  Those were then layered around the center.  

The cupcakes and the cake pops are both strawberry cake.  I used a cake pop machine to make the cake pops and then dipped them into melted chocolate.  They were delicious!!

For the stripes, I ended up using royal icing.  I had originally planned on using an edible writing pen, but I didn't like how it was coming out. I also did the same for the zebra cupcakes.

This is what the party table looked like...how fun!!

Cake Classes

I have two fondant cake classes coming up....May 26th at 2pm and June 23rd at 10am.  Spots are limited so sign up asap to reserve your spot!  Please see the "Fondant Class" tab above for all the class details!

Lavendar 80th Birthday cake

This was a birthday cake for an 80th birthday celebration.


Both tiers were raspberry cake (super yummy!!) and the buttercream was vanilla (smoothed to look like fondant).  

This was my first ever flower arrangement, but I was very happy with the end result.


The flowers are set into a small, plastic bowl.  After I took this picture, I actually carved a little bit out of the top of the cake so that it was set into the cake a little bit more.  


I also added some ribbon around the cake board.  

Urban Organic Wedding Shoot

A rare rainy day in January was the setting for this Urban Organic wedding shoot I was asked to participate in.  Taylor Proctor of Taylor Made Weddings and Events wanted to create a very modern and authentic look using the natural elements of an urban setting.  This shoot was done here in St. George and featured many talented individuals to help pull it all together.  

The design used a mixture of blacks and whites along with splashes of silver and green.  All of the elements tied in together beautifully to create a very elegant look.  The droplets of rain seemed to enhance the organic quality to the shoot, although my cake (by the end of the shoot) wasn't in agreement.  Let's just say that rain and black food coloring don't mix.

The design of my cake was intented to represent all the surrounding elements.  I copied the design on the top of the black wedding dress for the top tier.  As you can see, the bottom tier was made to look like the silver placemats.  I thought the green ribbon in between the layers tied in the organic, green color nicely.


I was honored to be a part of this shoot and it was a lot of fun to watch everything come together.


This shoot (& my cake) have currently been featured on a couple different blogs:
Inspire Smart Success
The Bride and Groom.com




A special thanks to:

Taylor Made Weddings and Events (Wedding Planner)
My Favorite Flowers (Florist)
Photo Love Stories (Photography)
Lauren James Bridal (Wedding Attire)
JK Jewelers (Jewelry)
Beauty N Brows (Hair & Makeup)
Natalie Kehl & Cole Chollet (Models)

The Minion

Months ago, my husband saw a similar cake and said that he wanted a cake just like it.  So, I decided to make him one for his 40th birthday this past week.

This cake was a total surprise for him, which created a whole new challenge...trying to make the cake while he wasn't home and in the few short hours I had available to do it.

I am proud to say I pulled it off!  He had no idea!

This cake was 4 layers of 8" chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  I used a bowl and Rice Krispie Treats to shape the head.  The legs and feet were also made from Rice Krispie Treats.

The hardest part of this cake was placing the yellow fondant over the whole thing.  If you've ever done a fondant cake before you know it's difficult to place fondant over a tall cake without getting lots of wrinkles.

Because I was pressed for time before my husband got home, I wasn't able to get it as wrinkle free as I would have liked.  I needed to clean up all the cake evidence in such a short amount of time!

I trimmed the bottom of the yellow fondant to cut off some of the wrinkles.  It was going to be covered with the blue overalls anyway.

For the eye, I just cut a small circle of white fondant and covered it with brown and black for the pupil.  I then gave it an eyelid and used part of a canning lid for the goggle.

As I was doing the hair, I thought it would be really funny to add some gray hairs since it was his 40th birthday.  I just poked a hole into the yellow fondant and then added small bits of fondant for the hair.  I added gumtex to the fondant to allow it to hold its shape.

I did the apple (bapple, if you've ever seen the Despicable Me shorts) last as a finishing touch.

He was very surprised and happy with his cake.  I'm still not sure how I pulled it off without him knowing.  I STILL have red food coloring on my hands from the apple, two days later!  Talk about almost being caught red handed!

Chocolate covered, peanut butter eggs

All week I've been staring at these chocolate covered peanut butter eggs on Pinterest.  I couldn't resist any longer and had to give them a try!

Anything I can make Gluten Free for my 3 year old, is worth trying as I always feel he gets left out.

You will need:
4 cups of powdered sugar
1 1/2 cups of creamy peanut butter
1/4 pound of butter
3 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips
2-3 tablespoons of milk
1 tablespoon of shortening

I used my mixer to combine the powdered sugar, butter and peanut butter.  I warmed up the butter and PB to help it combine easier, although the original recipe didn't say to do so.

Once those ingredients are combined, add the milk one tablespoon at a time until you reach a playdough type consistency.












Form the "dough" into egg shapes, place them on wax paper and put them in the freezer for about an hour (I only did 45 minutes because I was impatient).

In the meantime, melt the chocolate chips.  I used a double broiler method, but you can also do it in the microwave.  Add 1 tablespoon of shortening to the chocolate chips.

Coat the peanut butter eggs in the chocolate.  I tossed mine into the chocolate and then scooped them out with a fork, allowing the excess chocolate to drip back into the pan.  Place them on the wax paper and once they are all done, place them in the freezer.

I ended up with over 50 eggs about 1 inch in length.  This was a LOT of eggs, so I think next time I will only make about 1/2 the amount.

I also ended up with excess chocolate so I decided to drizzle some over the eggs for fun....can't have too much chocolate, right?  We'll pretend I'm not on a diet for now.

Here is the end result after being in the freezer.  I have so many, I'm going to keep them in the freezer for now and hand some out to friends!!

Hamburger & Fries

This "cake" was actually my son's idea for his 11th birthday.  At first we were thinking one big cake, but I thought that having individual mini cakes for each child, would be a lot more fun.


Although they weren't that tricky to make, they did take quite a bit of time considering I made a dozen of these.  They were a lot of fun though and a big hit at the party.  The kids were a bit confused eating them!

The "buns" were made from the tops that I cut off of cupcakes.  The "cheese" was made from fondant.  It was probably my favorite part because I made it the exact color and thickness of sliced cheese.  It looked EXACTLY like cheese!  The "lettuce" was also made from fondant.

The "hamburger" is brownie.  I used the bun as a guide and cut out the brownie using a fork to give it a rough edge. 


The "mayo", "ketchup" and "mustard" are just buttercream frosting, as well as the "sesame seeds".








The fries were really funny too.  They were made from white fondant and then I used my airbrush to spray them.  They turned out a little darker than I was going for, but they were still fine.

 We told the boys to come to eat and had the table set up for "dinner".  They were quite confused when they saw their plate!  I will definitely have to do these again...they were great fun!