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

Anti-Birthday Cake

This cake was made for our good friend Jamie. He turned the big 3-0 this week and we wanted to come up with something original for his cake. Jamie's a pretty original dude so it was important that his cake not be "generic."

Rodney and Jamie used to be in a band together once upon, a long, long, long...well, you get the point. It was a while back. Rodney came up with the idea for this cake, the anti-cake. Jamie's a very outspoken, well read guy and this them suits him perfecly. If you can't tell, it's supposed to be a "generic" birthday cake (hence the 'birthday cake' written on it) with the "against" sign laid on it. Get it? It's the anti-birthday cake!

This cake is three layers of white cake with strawberries and vanilla buttercream sandwiched in between! The against sign was made with marshmallow fondant!

Happy anti-birthday Jamie!

Feel like making Whoopee...cushions, that is

This cake was made for a co-worker of Rodney's who is a pretty big kid at heart. We had a hard time coming up with a cake that matched his personality until Rodney and Amy both suggested doing a Whoopee Cushion cake. I did a search on both of my tried and true cake boards but neither had any pictures or suggestions for a cake like this. So, we made it up as we went along!

This is a triple chocolate cake with vanilla bc. The cake was carved out of two layers of a 1/4 sheet. (thanks Rodney!) I used the star tip to decorate this cake because I thought it would be a little hard to get the sides smooth seeing as how they were rigid and indented (and I'm not a big fondant person - unless it's used for decoration purposes).

I'm really happy with the outcome of this cake, I hope Mark likes it!

Physics Book

Here's cake #2 for the week!

This cake is for one of Rodney's co-workers (and closest friends), Tony. He's a drummer just like Rodney. He specifically said he did not want a drum cake so I was left to come up with something on my own. He loves to read and is into photography so I chose what I thought was easiest of the two, reading.

This cake was a little on the difficult side, specifically regarding the icing. The carving of this cake was done by the resident cake carver, Rodney. It's two red velvet 1/4 sheets with a "lip carved into opposite sides of each one and then sandwiched together to look like a book.

I went with green icing because almost everyone does brown on book cakes and I thought brown was a little boring. The effect on the "pages" were made with a fork and the rest of the decorations on the book were made from mmf.

I'm pleased with the outcome of it, even though there are some rough spots. I can't expect it to be perfect if I'm not using fondant, so I guess I'm okay with it!

Strawberry Cupcakes

These were made for my friend Tricia's, son William. These are for birthday tomorrow and I'm also making a cake for his party that will take place next week!

These are strawberry cupcakes with vanilla buttercream. Cupcakes are the most fun to make and the easiest!

*This is the start of a crazy, crazy week for me. I've never had as many cakes to do in one week as I do this one. Hopefully I'll get them done on time, a few of them are new challenges so we'll see what happens!

What's up for tomorrow: A Physics Book cake!