Celebrating 50 years!

I was recently asked to create a cake for our local Eagles Club for their 50th anniversary!  The neat thing about our Eagles Club is that fact that it is in the shape of a ship!  On top of "the ship", I also made 300 cupcakes for the event.  I made six different flavors: blueberry "cheese cake" with cream cheese icing topped with fresh blueberries, strawberry "cheese cake" with cream cheese icing and a strawberry drizzle, "Andie's mint" with chocolate mint butter cream, vanilla-filled with lemon curd and cream cheese icing, vanilla with butter cream, and chocolate with chocolate butter cream. 

                                     

A Princess Castle for a Princess!!!

It's always fun making a cake for a child's birthday!  I was able to pick my design and just "go with it" for this one.  I must say, if I was turning 3, I would definitely want a cake like this!!

This is a chocolate cake covered in butter cream, adorned with "forget-me-nots" and of course all of the traditional castle architecture-towers and turrets......

A colorful confirmation cake!

Well, I'm a little behind on my blogging, so it's time to catch up! Over the weekend I had the task of creating a confirmation cake.  A few ideas were thrown around.  After surfing the Internet for ideas, this is the cake that was decided on......

 

The entire cake is covered in butter cream.  The round cake has fondant accents.  The zebra print was created by cutting out black sugar paper and placing it on the butter cream.  They are chocolate cakes filled with chocolate mousse and strawberries. 

Batman

For my nephew's 4th birthday, he asked for a Batman cake....The bottom tier represents Gotham city and the top tier has batman symbols cut out of sugar sheets.   The cakes is covered in butter cream.  The buildings are made out of gum paste.

A cake fit for a princess

Here we have a cake that has butterflies flying out of the top tier.  Castles on the bottom tier and a crown to top it all off.  The cakes are covered in butter cream and the decorations were made out of gum paste. 

We're in the Hockey Spirit!

My nephew asked me to make his 7th birthday cake.  He had some very creative ideas, but ultimately decided on a hockey cake.  He made sure to tell me he wanted a "flat" cake, not a "stacked" cake.  Our entire family has gotten into the "Hockey Spirit" ever since my cousin laced up her skates for the first time!  With that said......here is a "flat" hockey cake for my nephew's 7th birthday!

This is a basic vanilla cake with white butter cream frosting.  The hockey jerseys are made out of melted down almond bark.  I colored the almond bark and piped it into the shape of jerseys. 

And.....

In honor of our inspiration for this cake.....

 Go Hammerman!!!!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

 Let's hear it for the DiVa! 

 Happy 16th birthday! 

Peace Signs-Flowers-Dancing-FUN! 

Happy Birthday Champ!

As I was at work on a Friday, one of my regular customers had a "request" for a cake.  Thinking it would be sometime within the next few weeks, I was excited to hear what this cake request was.  Well, as luck would have it.....the cake was needed on SUNDAY!  (Yes, 2 days away!!!)  OH BOY.....there really wasn't a specific design.  As we started to talk about this cake, the idea of a guitar came up.  After thinking for a few minutes, this is what I came up with.......

This is a lemon cake and it is covered in butter cream.  The flames are made of melted and colored almond bark.

Christmas, Thanksgiving, and a few birthdays

This cake made its way to southern Minnesota.  The family was celebrating Christmas, Thanksgiving, and some birthdays.  The top tier represented Christmas/winter.  The middle tier was for the birthdays, and the bottom tier was for Thanksgiving. 

The snowmen were made out of fondant.  I piped around the snowmen with white butter cream to look like a snowbank.  I also pipe on snowflakes to the side of the cake.  I sprinkled the cake with an edible glitter so it would sparkle. 

On the middle tier I made presents out of fondant.  The bottom tier was covered with cutouts of pumpkins.  The pumpkins were also sprinkled with an edible glitter for a little sparkle. 

Happy 13th Birthday!!

This cake was made for my cousin's 13th birthday.  She likes the colors green, blue and purple.  She plays softball and hockey.  I wanted to incorporate all of these things into her cake.  This is what I came up with....

The base is white cake with lemon filling.  It is covered in purple/blue/green fondant.  I made the 3 colors, twisted them together and rolled it out to get the Tye-died look.  I rolled out small balls of fondant for the border.  The middle tier is a hockey puck.  German chocolate cake with German chocolate filling, covered in black fondant, piped with her hockey nickname.  Small hockey pucks were placed in areas to border this tier.  The small pucks were piped with "#35" (her hockey number).  The top tier is for softball.  It is a German chocolate cake and filling, covered with white fondant with red lacing piped on. 

Sports!!

So, I was asked to make a sports themed cake.  After some thought...I decided to make the following cakes......

The baseball is covered in white fondant and I piped the laces on with red colored butter cream.  The soccer ball is also covered in white fondant and the blue patches are made of fondant.  The "field" is a 1/4 sheet cake piped with green butter cream to look like grass. 

The basketballs are covered and fondant and piped with black colored butter cream.  The "court" is a 1/4 sheet cake covered in fondant and piped with butter cream. 

There's a Party in My Tummy.....

This is the boom box from the kid's show Yo Gabba Gabba.  We celebrated my nephew's 2nd birthday with this cake.  It was a basic vanilla cake, iced with butter cream and covered in fondant. 

It's a Beach Party!

We celebrated my niece's 5th birthday with a beach themed party.  The base cake is a 2 layer 1/4 sheet cake.  The sandcastle and beach ball are also made of cake.  The sand is a combination of brown sugar and crushed up graham crackers.  I sculpted the turtles out of gum paste.  The water is blue tinted butter cream.  I beach ball is piped with butter cream.   

It's all down hill after this!

Happy 40th birthday!  There's nothing that says it better than a toilet!!!!!

I had to make it look realistic, so.....I added to the inside of the bowl.....

We have lemon jello with semi-melted Baby Ruth candy bars.  The entire cake is completely edible.....one just has to get around the sight of the contents of the bowl! :)  Happy 40th birthday!!

For the DiVa!

A bright colored cake for a 15th birthday!  I made the tiers to look as if they were uneven and falling over.  I knew what the colors and design were suppose to be.....so, it was just a matter of executing. 

Diamonds, colorful "zebra print", and polka dots!!!!

To infinity and beyond!

My nephew absolutely loves Toy Story.  So, I did a cake revolving around toy story.  Each tier represents something different from the story.  My nephew is always talking about Buzz, so I had to top the cake off with Buzz.  The bottom tier is about Andy's backyard....

The cake was iced in butter cream....the fence is made out of pie crust that I cut into strips, baked and brushed with food coloring. There's kind of a funny story that goes along with the pie crust: I sent my husband to pick up some of the pie crust you can buy in the refrigerator section at the grocery store.  For some reason, he brought home pizza crust!!!  I bet you can imagine how frustrated I was when I saw the pizza crust!  So, I ended up making pie crust from scratch...luckily, for my husband, it turned out just fine..

The middle tier represents "outer space."  I piped on different swirls and added some little stars.  I piped on white butter cream on each tier to represent clouds.

The top tier is for Buzz.  I made a planet with a crater in it.  I added some stars and some white butter cream. 

At the party, I added some other characters to the cake.  Jessie, Bullseye, some aliens, an army man with parachute and of course.....Woody. 

A Princess For A Princess.......

We recently celebrated my niece's 6th birthday.  When I asked her what type of cake she wanted, she said "a princess cake."  So, this is what I came up with......

I sculpted the cake to look like a skirt. I piped on pink and white frosting and then added some purple to "jazz" the skirt up.  I added a barbie doll to the top of the cake.

Under the Sea......

This cake was made for one of my friends.  She loves dolphins.  I frosted the cake with a blue tinted butter cream.  I tried to make the frosting look like waves.  I piped on some sea-weed and some coral.  I made the seashells by melting down some white chocolate and then poured it into a shell mold.  After they were set up, I painted the shells with food coloring.  The dolphin pieces on the top of the cake were made from gum paste.   

My new assistant!

The same weekend I had to do the graduation cake, I also had a request for a 16th birthday cake.  Not only was it a fondant covered cake, it was to be filled with chocolate mousse and strawberries. This was no ordinary cake decorating job.  Normally I would fit the cake making/decorating around my schedule, but with this cake, I had to work it into my schedule and my "new assistant Kelsey's" schedule.  Kelsey wanted to help make her boyfriend's cake. 

Kelsey helped with all aspects of this cake.  From frosting, to coloring, to rolling out and to sculpting.  She did a wonderful job! And the cake turned out quite well! Kelsey sculpted the football out of cereal treats. 

So, after we finished the boyfriend's cake....we figured we should also make Kelsey's dog Alex a birthday cake.  It was his birthday too!  Instead of "cake" Kelsey sculpted a bone out of cereal treats and we covered it in fondant.

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
-- Roger Caras

Graduation 2011

Graduation Day! It fills the heart with mixed feelings -- fulfillment and sadness, anxiety and eagerness.

This was a graduation cake for my "niece."  I went back and forth between multiple cake ideas.  I decided to go with something simple and straightforward. 

 I did a white cake filled with chocolate mousse and strawberries.  I frosted the cake in a purple colored butter cream.  I added some white drop flowers with purple centers.  The graduation cap is made of cereal treats and covered in white fondant.  the tassel was made out of fondant cut into strips. 

Who doesn't like legos?

This cake was a lot of fun to make.  I had full creative control on the design.  I immediately knew I wanted to make a 3D Lego guy.  He is sculpted out of cereal treats and then covered in fondant.  The cake itself was chocolate.  I frosted the cake in butter cream.  The Legos placed on the cake were cut out of fondant. 

The "Bobcat"

Here we have a Bobcat cake for a little boy's birthday party.  I made a two layer vanilla cake frosted with butter cream.  I piped grass on the top and along the bottom.  The dirt is made of crushed up chocolate cookies.  The bobcat is sculpted out of cereal treats, and I covered it in fondant. 

I Love Cows!

So, I wanted to come up with a fun idea for my older brother's birthday.  As I took his kids shopping for presents, this idea came to me.  His daughter wanted to buy him a t-shirt.  Well, she picked out a shirt that basically said "I Love Cows" ("Love" was replaced with a picture of a cheeseburger).  Well, I decided to make him a large cheeseburger......

Presents, Presents, and More Presents

 What's a birthday without presents???  The brown and pink cake pictured above was requested by a co-worker.  She wanted a cake for her mom's birthday with the "big" bow.  The cake is covered in fondant.  The polka dots, ribbons and bow loops are also made from fondant.  I make the bow loops a few days in advance to allow enough time to dry properly.  This is one of my favorite cakes!  LOVE IT!!

 The three cakes above were made for an 18th birthday party.  The same techniques were used as were used with the brown and pink present.

This 3-tiered cake was the FIRST cake I ever attempted.  (Nothing like starting small and simple ha?)  This was for a surprise 30th birthday party.  This cake was all chocolate!  Chocolate cake....chocolate filling....

chocolate, chocolate, chocolate!