A Great Cause

Every year at work, we have a Christmas bake sale to benefit cancer research.  This year I donated a cake and two dozen cupcakes to help out.  I had fun making these treats.  Some used techniques I'd seen on my favorite cake web site and some were 'borrowed' ideas from other blogs I visit.  See what you think.

Fortune Cookie

This cake was for a 9 yr old girl's birthday who was having an Asian themed party.  We decided on a fortune cookie.  The client requested chocolate cake with buttercream icing.  I was able to get the 'edges' by building up icing around the 'gap' and used the airbrush to darken them up just like a real cookie would be after baking.  The 'fortune' was hand drawn and covered in contact paper to make it safe for inserting into the cookie. I had fun trying out my sculpting skills on this one!!

Hello Kitty

My friend loves Hello Kitty.  For her birthday, I decided she had to have her fav.  Her color is purple so the bow was too.  This cake is all buttercream icing.

Skating Party Part 2

The other half of the twins requested a chocolate cake that was a disco ball.  ...a disco ball...right....  The ball part was easy. I've got a few 'ball' pans so getting the round shape wasn't a biggie.  My question was how to display it so it looked like a true disco ball?  It had to be shiny and it needed to be raised somehow to give that 'up in the air' effect.  I ended up treating myself to my first ever airbrush and tried my hand at using airbrush colors.  I'm excited for another opportunity to use it.  I think Ms. Caroline was pleased with the results.  The cake is covered in itty bitty squares of fondant, all hand applied and then airbrushed with silver.. To add a little extra shimmer, I used an edible glitter on top of the silver. 

Skating Party

Roller Puppy!

This cake was made for one half of a set of twins.  Victoria specifically asked for a dog on roller skates.  I wasn't exactly sure how to pull that off but I agreed and started looking for ideas.  I ended up combining a few ideas I got off of the internet and some lessons I learned from yummyarts.com.  I love that site.  I learned a lot doing this cake.  The grass tip makes for good 'fur' but makes for bad traveling.  The strands are very fragile.  All in all, I think it turned out pretty well.  This was a white cake, hand sculpted and then covered in buttercream icing.  The ears are gumpaste, the tongue is a pink starburst and the nose and eyes are junior mints I commandeered from my son's Halloween candy stash. 

Wild Child

L is for Lauren

A friend of mine asked me to make a cake for her daughter's 20th birthday.  She said her daughter loves animal prints.  We looked around the internet and found a design we both liked.  This cake is strawberry covered in white fondant with black zebra stripes.  My husband asked if the cake was for Laverne...cause the L looked just like the ones Laverne De Fazio used to wear on every blouse she owned.  Wow...can you tell we're old?  : )

Batter Up!

This cake was one I made for a friend at work.  Both of her boys had birthdays recently and so they decided on having a dual birthday party.   The home plate is white cake with buttercream frosting.  The glove and ball are rice crispy treat (RCT) covered in fondant.  The bats are chocolate cake covered in fondant as are the ball caps.  I much prefer the taste of buttercream frosting but sometimes the fondant creates a much better look. 

Cake pics