Lola's Tree

This cake was made for Rodney's boss, Lola, for her annual holiday party.

Lola requested a "Whoville" type cake, or something nostalgic. After looking for different ideas on the cake boards I frequent and coming up with nothing, I finally "googled" "whoville" and came up with a picture of a tree that was at Disney Land recently that represented "Whoville." I sent the picture to Lola; she said she liked it and so that is what this cake is based off of.

The entire cake is made up of four different cakes. 2 red velvet and 2 lemon (all with cream cheese bc).

The colored ornaments were made from melted down jolly ranchers that I molded into round shapes, the rest are silver dragees and edible pearls. The top is comprised of wedding sprays.

I really hope Lola enjoys this cake, it was a lot of fun to make!

close up of the top:





Don't forget to scroll down for the rest of this week's stuff!

Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes

These were made for two employees birthdays up at Tango. Milk chocolate cupcakes with chocolate mousse filling and chocolate buttercream!

Very Christmas order!

This order was made for an office Christmas/holiday party tomorrow.

Including: 25 piece cookie bouquet, 2 dozen cupcakes, an order of Oreo truffles, 2 dozen cheesecake cups!

(not pictured: truffles)

Cookie bouquet:



Wrapped:



Green Cupcakes



Red Cupcakes:



Cheesecake Cups:




Loved making all of these! I'm especially happy with the cupcakes and the cookie bouquet!

Pink Treasure Chest

The first of many posts from this busy, busy week! Don't forget to scroll down to see my new creations from the past few days!

This is my second attempt at a treasure chest. The only things different from the last one I made is that this one is pink, it's a marble cake, the hardware was silver instead of gold and I used a few different candies.

Everything on this cake is completely edible!

I really love making these cakes!

Bounce House

This was a pretty hard cake. It was made for one of Rylee's little swim friends, Noah. Noah had his 2nd birthday party at Pump It Up (what a fun place!) so this cake seemed appropriate! I got the idea for this cake from Cake Central, it's pretty genius! Everything is cake except for the posts which were made from Wilton plastic pillars, cut down to size and covered in fondant. The hardest part about this cake was icing the bottom "balloon" part, everything else was pretty easy. Happy Birthday Noah!

(Finished cake)

Starfish Cupcakes

These cupcakes were made to celebrate a one year old's birthday!

Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla bc, white chocolate starfish painted with white sparkle dust.

Yum!

Christmas Cookies/truffles

These were made for my MIL.







They are NFSC (no fail sugar cookies) with rolled buttercream and Oreo Truffles!

Check out the cute truffle box I found at my local cake supply shop, woo hoo!

Turkey Cake

Here's my version of the traditional Thanksgiving turkey!



I'm very pleased with how this cake turned out. The base consists of two 9x13 cakes and an egg shaped cake (Wilton pan) all carved together to resemble a turkey shape. The wings and drumsticks were formed from rice krispy treats. The entire thing is covered in vanilla buttercream. I put a heavy crumb coat on first and then another thick coat of buttercream on top of that. Once it had formed a nice crust, I textured the entire cake using a bag full of silver dragees. I mixed together some piping gel, cinnamon, brown food coloring and a little bit of water and brushed a thin coating over the entire thing. I brushed it thicker in some places to resemble a "cooked" look.

The stuffing is cut up cake scraps and the vegetables were made from fondant!




This cake was by far one of the most enjoyable to make!

Rylee's cake

This is the cake I made for Rylee's 2nd birthday! (the top is strawberry, the bottom is vanilla!) This cake was challenging but my little girl loved it!

*coming up: Jim's cake and the Thanksgiving turkey cake!

A Cold Brew

This cake was made for one of my younger brothers (I have two). Clifford turned 23 yesterday and I thought it would be appropriate to make this cake for him - since he's a big time bartender and all.

This is another oreo cookie cake that was made with three, 5 inch rounds. To make the look of the stein, I iced the cake as I normally would and then used my small icing knife (or spatula). I pulled up from the bottom of the cake to make each ridge, all around the cake. The very large handle was made from marshmallow fondant, the foam was made from buttercream!


The back



Clifford was totally surprised by this cake and I'm pretty sure he enjoyed eating it too! Happy birthday little bro!

Marissa

This cake was made for our good friend, Marissa. She sent me a picture from Cake Central of this design and only wanted to change the colors. (the original colors were pinks and browns)

I was very honored to make this cake for Marissa as she does a little cake decorating herself. (and she's pretty great too!)

This is an oreo cookie cake with vanilla buttercream and mmf accents.

Rodney did A LOT of work on this cake. He did most of the fondant work (except for the daisies) and he did a wonderful job.

I was pretty happy with this cake until we were on the way to the shower with it. It's three layers and pretty heavy so we opted not to put it in a box and instead, sat the cake (and board) on one of my large cutting boards. I held it in my lap. Five minutes into our drive Rodney asked me if the cake looked like a different color. We pulled over and noticed that the top of the cake was blue and the sides were still purple. The sun was not my friend that day. Once I moved to the back of the car and we were pulling out on the freeway, a giant dog ran out onto the freeway and laid down. This caused a ton of cars ( including us) to slam on our brakes. I (along with the cake) jolted forward and the cutting board hit the back of the driver seat, causing the cake to crack in a few places. I was REALLY upset. So upset that my two year old told me to calm down.

No one seemed to notice that there was anything wrong with the cake but it bothered me the entire time it was out, before it was cut.

Purple definitely taught me a lesson!

Jack's bleeping cake

This cake was made for one of Rodney's bosses.

As you can see, there is a word that has been removed from this cake, for obvious reasons.

Jack is a pretty awesome guy - very laid back, very good at what he does and pretty funny too. He uses the F word a lot and it's kind of a running joke, especially when it comes to his birthday. One year everyone wore "happy (insert explicative here) birthday" hats.

We tossed around ideas for this cake for a while. Rodney finallly convinced me that it would be funny to make a regular, very pretty cake with the words, "Jack's **** Cake" written on it.

It took me a while to warm up to this idea. I wasn't too keen on writing the F word on a cake and I was terrified that people would think I was unprofessional. Rodney swore it would be fine and that everyone would think it was hilarious.

Apparently they did. Rodney works in a creative environment. Very artistic, very fun and fun to be around people. Entertainment and advertising are a lot different than working for the Credit Union.

Still. It was totally weird writing a curse word on a cake.

Jack asked for an Italian Cream cake so that's what he got!

Raj

This cake was made pretty quickly, for someone who needed a cake within a day.

She asked for a 1/2 sheet, chocolate/chocolate and a message that said, "Congratulations Raj!"

Pretty easy cake and I'm actually satisfied with my piping on this one. Practice makes perfect, I guess!

Treasure Chest

LOVED MAKING THIS CAKE!

I've been wanting to do a treasure chest cake for a while now so I was REALLY happy when someone asked me to do this cake!

It's a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. The lid was made with rice krispy treats and the cake was decorated with fondant and candy accents.

There are four 1/4 sheet layers of chocolate cake for the base of this structure. There were also four layers of rice krispy treats that were carved to form the lid shape, that is sitting on a 1/4 sheet board. (thanks rodney!) There are several dowels through the cake that go through the lid and also serve as as a hinge for it to sit on, making it appear to be open!

The entire thing was iced in chocolate buttercream. I made the wood-like effect using my small icing knife. I ran it over the length of each side, several times until I got the look that I wanted. I knew it didn't have to be perfect because the chest is supposed to look old!

I placed several chocolate gold coins on top of the cake part before we attached the lid and added more in the empty spaces once we had the lid on and secure.

Once the cake was iced the way I wanted it, I added several different candy pieces (necklaces, bracelets).

I then attached the mmf pieces I'd made earlier to the chest - the lock pieces, the corner pieces and the hinges. To make these, I used a small batch of marshmallow fondant that I colored a golden yellow color. I then painted the pieces with "old gold" luster dust.

(close up)




Crushed up vanilla wafers were added to look like sand and the remaining candy was added on just before the cake was delivered!

I didn't have any problems with this cake. Everything went super smoothly and it's probably one of the cakes I'm most proud of! Happy birthday to Syndey!

Quickie

This cake was made on the fly for a friend of our family's.

It's a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream AND chocolate decorations.

Lots and lots of chocolate!

Like I said, this was very last minute!

Hannah's Cakes/Cookies

These cakes were made for Rylee's bff, Hannah. Hannah is turning 1 tomorrow and she celebrated this past weekend with her first birthday party!





This was the party cake, it's a two tiered (three 8 inch and two 6 inch rounds) vanilla cake with blueberry filling and vanilla buttercream! The flowers were made from marshmallow fondant and everything else (the butterflies, the grass) were buttercream. The #1 on top of the cake and the "happy birthday" message on the bottom of the cake were made from fun foam!

Hannah's smash cake is two 5 inch vanilla cakes with vanilla buttercream (no special filling). I didn't put any fondant on her cake as I try not to put it on cakes for kids.




The cookies were made to match the theme of the party/invitations which was butterflies. I decided to make half butterflies, half tulips. These are NFSC (no fail sugar cookies) with rolled buttercream! Yum!



These were definitely fun to make! The only problems I had came from the beginning of the cake baking process. My cakes rose really unevenly and had a bunch of cracks as well. This only happened with the 8 inch cakes though, the 6 and 5 inch cakes baked perfectly. I really need to go ahead and buy the 8 and 9 inch Magic Line pans. My sheet cake and smaller round pans are all Magic Line and I never have any trouble with those.

Happy Birthday Hannah banana!

Ana

This cake was made for my sister in-law, Ana.

It's a 3 layered white cake with strawberries and vanilla buttercream in the middle. The cake is also entirely iced and decorated in vanilla buttercream.

Ana loves cherry blossoms (maybe more than I do) so I chose to make her a cake with a cherry blossom theme. I picked different shades of green because I thought it would suit her perfectly!

Happy Birthday Ana!

Suzy's Cake

This was made for our friend Suzy's, 30th birthday. She asked that the cake be blue with white borders and a chocolate "30."

This is a plain vanilla cake with vanilla bc and chocolate drizzle on the sides.

I'm particularly pleased with the shade of blue I got on this cake, I absolutely love it!

This also just so happened to be the first cake made in the new house. Actually, this would be the 3rd and 4th cakes. The first two were VERY, VERY messed up. I only had to mess up on two (cakes) in order to figure out the workings of my new oven though and I'd say that's pretty good! (btw, new oven = awesome)

Happy Birthday Suzy!

Cupcakes for AJ

These cupcakes were made for our former swim buddy, AJ. AJ turned 1 recently and his mom requested these football themed cupcakes!

The cupcakes decorated like footballs are chocolate with chocolate buttercream and the field cupcakes are vanilla with vanilla buttercream!

Loved making these, they were a blast! I hope AJ enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed making them!

Kelsey's Cupcakes

These were made for Kelsey, for the day of her birthday. They are chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing, dressed up with a few silver dragees for the 3 year old princess!

Kelsey's cake

This cake was made for my friend Tricia's daughter, Kelsey. She is turing 3 and requested a Disney Princess theme. She went back and forth a few times on the princess she wanted so Tricia told me to just pick one. I decided to make Belle because the doll torso/heads that you can buy at your local cake shop/craft store are pretty generic and this one looked closest to her.

The 1/4 sheet is french vanilla cake with raspberry filling and the "dress" of the cake is french vanilla with no filling. All covered with vanilla buttercream.

This was a fun cake to make even though it turned out a little more YELLOW than I'd wanted it to. I'm happy with the results.

Plus, Rodney said it looks like Belle, which is all the approval I need.

P.S - please excuse the toaster/other kitchen items in the picture, we're in the process of moving!

Mom Mod, #2

This is the second "Mod Mom" cake I've made for a baby shower recently! What a popular theme!

It's a strawberry cake with vanilla buttercream and mmf decorations.

I'm pretty happy with the outcome of this cake, I like the color and I dig the way the fondant message came out as well.

I can't wait until this Texas summer is over and I don't have to keep my cakes in the fridge!

Chocolatey Peanut-butter cake

This cake was made for our good friend (and Rodney's co-worker) Amy, for her 28th birthday up at Tango.

I asked her what kind of cake she wanted and she mentioned something with chocolate and peanut butter. I did a little research and then came up with a creation of my own!

This is a triple chocolate cake with a cup of melted down, smooth peanut butter mixed in the batter. I also mixed in 2 cups of Reeses peanut butter chips and 1/4 of a cup of milk to keep the batter from being too stiff.

They smelled SOOOOO good while they were cooking!

I wanted something a little more rich than my usual chocolate frosting for this cake, so while I was at the supply shop this week, I picked up a pound of chocolate fudge base. Think chocolate shortening.

Such a good idea! The chocolate had a very rich and sweeter taste, which is exactly what I was going for.

I wasn't too happy with the look of this cake. I could have done so much more for Amy had she chosen a cake with a vanilla buttercream but chocolate is much harder. I decided to try and make the cake look like as decadent as possible - hence the chocolate drizzle on the sides of the cake and on the top. I also added a few extra Reese's chips.

Not the most beautiful cake in the world but certainly one of the best tasting! YUM!

Apple Pie

I made this pie.

I made this pie from scratch.

Making pies is hard work.

This is an apple pie that was made at the request of one of Rodney's co-workers for her birthday. She wanted something with fruit, not something rich.

I was super nervous about sending this thing off to work with Rodney. I'm sure about my cakes but not as confident with pies. I mean, I've made a few in my day but not for large groups of people. Rodney said everyone loved it and there was not a single spec left. I think that's good!

Abomasnow

This cake was made for my friend Tricia's son, William.

William just turned 9 years old and wanted his favorite Pokemon character as his cake.

I used the pin-prick method again. I know, the star tip. It's so much easier to use the star tip on character cakes though! Most kids don't like fondant and I figured a FBCT would be a little difficult considering the detail on this cake. Anyway, he loved it so that's all that matters!

This is the ever popular oreo cookie cake - and I had a piece, it was pretty good! Not that I'm biased or anything!

Flying V

This guitar was made for a friend of my mom's. It's her daughter's birthday and she requested a guitar cake. She originally requested a Warlock but said a flying V would be fine as well. I choose the latter of the two, the warlock would have been pretty difficult.

The body of the guitar is red velvet, the neck and headstock are chocolate. Iced completely in buttercream. All of the decorations on the cake were made from mmf and painted with silver luster dust. The only thing non-edible on this piece are the strings. We used dental floss and secured them down with edible silver dragees.

When I designed this cake originally, I had no intent on using the star tip. I wanted to ice the guitar as I would a normal cake, with a smooth finish. However, after the cake had been placed on the board and Rodney attempted to crumb coat it - we realized that the cake was not sturdy enough. We reinforced it with a straw and some toothpicks but the neck and headstock were still particularly wiggly. I decided to go ahead and use the star tip on the cake. I knew that once I did that, it would help stiffen it up. This cake was being picked up, not delivered and I never want to send a cake off with someone when it could potentially fall apart.

This was the first guitar I've made, it was quite the learning experience!

*Rodney was the engineer on this cake. He carved and crumb coated it for me. He's getting pretty good at carving, I'm so proud and I couldn't have gotten this cake done without him!

Some detail