Friday, October 26, 2007

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!

Sunday, October 21, 2007

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!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

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!

Monday, October 1, 2007

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!