Week #41 – Happy Halloween!

November 1, 2012 by

I wanted to try out 2 adorable halloween cake techniques that I found on the magical world of the internet.  The first, is this adorable devil girl cake topper and the other is this fun marshmallow spider web technique. I also wanted to try my hand at make the cakes three layers looks like candy corn (orange, yellow, and white).

I think it came out super cute and perfect for a kid-friendly halloween cake.  I actually really like the marshmallow effect and I’m wondering if I could do it in a more traditional, non-cobwebby way.  We’ll see.

The cake is a white cake with pumpkin pie buttercream (which was AWESOME). It is covered in white fondant with sticky stringy marshmallow cobwebs all over it. The girl on top is made of gumpaste and fondant.

I was planning on giving the cake to my new office but unfortunately because of the hurricane, our office is closed.  My neighbors got to gobble up this adorable cake.

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Week #34 – Gluten Free Birthday Cake

September 11, 2012 by

My friend Nicky can’t eat wheat.  It kind of puts a damper on making her a birthday cake.  After my previous attempt at making a gluten free cake from scratch, I decided to go with a mix and doctor it a bit.  She wanted a chocolate cake so I added chocolate and cocoa powder to the mix to give it a nice, milk chocolate flavor.

I made the flowers about a week in advance.  This made assembly much easier.  It was more like a fun arts and crafts project because I didn’t have to worry about making the flowers right before putting them on the cake. Also it gave the flowers time to firm up.  They are made from gumpaste which gets pretty hard after 10-24 hours.  I also filled in some of the gaps with silver and white dragées (balls of sugar).  I finished it off with a royal icing trail of pearls around the cake.

I also decided to make a custom board for this cake.  Unfortunately I only had one the same size as the cake so it’s a bit hard to see.  But I trimmed it with lace to go with the girly, romantic theme of the cake.

The cake was made with gluten free mix and vanilla buttercream, dyed turquoise.  I’m so in love with the cake.  This is definitely one I’d do again.  The flowers were fairly quickly to make and they really make a big impact. I think it would be perfect for a wedding or a shower cake.

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Week #2 – Faux Bois

January 18, 2012 by

Ever since I worked at The Chopping Block, I’ve become obsessed with faux wood grain.  I’ve always wanted to make a cake that looked like chopped wood.

This cake is actually a 9 inch styrofoam dummy, a 6 inch vanilla and vanilla buttercream cake and another 3 inch dummy all covered in fondant.

I used to have one of these great impression mats that had the faux bois in it.  You roll out the fondant on the impression mat and then put it on the cake.  Well, I lost it.  It’s clear plastic and very easy to lose.  So I decided to hand draw the pattern on the cake.

My first attempt I used a tool that looks like a spear so the edges were a bit rough.  But the other 2 tiers I used a mini rolling tool that looks like a tiny pizza cutter and the results were far smoother.  I also carved hearts into the “wood” for an extra bit of charm.

I finished the cake off with hand-made red flowers, gum paste buttons and a band of royal icing around each tier.  Then I found these adorable deer and decided they would be the perfect adornment to this adorable woodland cake.

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Week #1 – Mom’s Birthday Cake

January 18, 2012 by

The first cake in my 52 cakes!

Today is my mom’s 65th birthday! In order to celebrate her birthday I wanted to make her a fabulous cake.  This cake is vanilla cake brushed with kalua and vanilla Italian buttercream.  It’s covered with purple fondant and adorned with sugar flowers and a gumpaste bow.

I traveled to DC with the cake in a cardboard box and it arrived in tact!  Score one for my packing abilities. Should have taken a picture of the packing. It was almost a pretty as the cake!

We didn’t eat the cake while I was down there so we’ll have to wait to hear from my folks when they slice it open.

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