Everybody say "Wii!!!"

My son is a video game buff. A few years ago he received a Wii from Santa and things have never been the same. Making a Wii cake posed a few challenges. How was I going to make it stand up? Should I lay it on it's side? Should it be to scale?

I went over all these things and decided firs,t and foremost,it was going to be edible. I have seen so many awesome cakes that are made with all gum paste or rice krispies that, while edible, is not something I would want an entire "cake" made of. Who wants a giant rice krispy treat covered in fondant? I was willing to sacrafice a little of the "perfect looking" construction, for cake.

I knew that I was going to have to alternate layers of cake, with cardboard in order for it to stand up.

My original plan was to cover the cake with homemade modeling chocolate. I bought white chocolate chips and meledt them down. I followed the recipe (or so I thought) and it turned into a mushy greasy mess. It turned out, that since the bag of chips was white chocolate, it was 4 ounces less then a bag of regular chocolate.


Twinkle Toes Tip: Make sure you check and double check the ounces and size of ALL your ingredients before you leave the store, especially if you are using something for the first time.

I flavored my fondant with vanilla and then I  was left to determine how to cover this 8 layered cake.

The real Wii has a lot of panels so I mimicked to the best of my ability and layed the fondant on in strips.
After many layers of cake, cardboard, cake, cardboard, then 2 long dowels, I was able to make the wii cake standup.

The words and decoration on the front are also made from fondant. The only butter cream used was inside the cake as filling.
I will say that it took some time, but I am confident that I could do it again, and my son loved it!

Rock Star Cake

Every girl dreams of being a ROCK STAR at some point so this was my version of a totally girly Rock Star Cake

This was a huge and very heavy cake. The bottom layer was white cake, made from scratch. The second was yellow cake also made from scratch and the top layer was a yummy chocolate also made from scratch. All the stars on the cake are covered with Wilton Luster Dust to give them that rock star bling.

As an added bonus, I also created some pink lemonade cupcakes. Complete with edible microphones!

All and all, I feel the birthday girl really felt she could rock out!

Garden Party Cake

My last cake decorating class was last night. We were going to be covering a cake with fondant and them decorate it with flowers we made in previous classes. The book that is given with the class has some ideas in it, however, I didn't feel like making any of them. I purchased the 2011 Wilton Yearbook awhile back, so I decided to look through it and see if i could get some ideas.

I found a cake titled "Tinkerbell's flowing flower garden" I took some inspiration from that and made this:

Because this was a last minute decision, I had to make new flowers. I did have some extra flowers from the cupcakes I made a few days before, but I needed something else. My birthday is coming up and I wanted the cake to be very girly. I made a whole bunch of flowers using gum paste. I tinted my fondant with Wilton icicng colors, in leaf green. The I used sky blue, violet, rose and yellow for my flowers.

In class I added a ribbon like border using a new technique I learned. I also used Luster dust on the flowers to give them a shimmer and a little extra pop. I used butter cream to "glue" the flowers to the cake and Voila!

The cake came out wonderful and i am very very proud. I'm through for the time being with classes, but I am so ready to use all my new skills to make more incredible cakes!

Royal Cupcakes

This past weekend I was given the privilege to make some cupcakes for a family bbq. My original plan was to make cupcakes that looked like coals in the pit. However, something more sophisticated was in order.I decided on simple frosted cupcakes with royal icing drop flowers. I was able to make the flowers a few days ahead of time because once they are dry they last for a long time.

The leaves were piped on and made with butter cream. There is also a little piping work done under the flowers to add a little extra. The tops of the cupcakes are frosted with homemade butter cream and it felt so different then icing a whole cake. It felt strange because it was so small and there were no sides to cover.

After they were finished and brought to the party, they were placed on a lovely glass tower. It added so much to the look of the cupcakes that I'm going to have to buy one of my own. I thought these would turn out too simple but in the end I think they were perfect for the occasion and looked beautiful. Oh! They tasted good too!

Sir, Yes Sir!!!

I was asked to make a cake for an Army Themed birthday party last weekend. I was left to my own creative devices for the most part. There were a few things that I needed to keep in mind.
1. The party was for two kids
2. One was a girl, One was a boy
3. The cake needed to be "messy"

I decided to make the cake look like a battlefield, complete with army men and dirt. I added some rocks for a real outside effect as well.

I divided each battlefield with ivy. I thought it was a nice effect, plus the birthday girls name is Ivy. So I went ahead and bordered her whole side with ivy. The other side was bordered with yellow stars, it was my play on the Army's yellow outlined star. The whole bottom of the cake is bordered with grass.

The second to last touch on the cake was to add the terrain. I used graham crackers and crushed up Oreo cookies to make the dirt. There are some camoflouged rocks on the cake that are actually sour gum that I purchased from Party City, in the army birthday section. That is also where the army flags came from. The cars on the cake are good Ol' Hot Wheels and the army man are plastic.

This cake was definetly less "clean" then I tend to make my cakes, but that is how it was ordered and I think it went well with the overall theme. The cake was gone when the party was over, so that says something.

Fondant and Gumpaste

Lately, I've been working a lot with gumpaste and fondant. Individually and together, ( yes, you can mix them together)  Gum paste is extremely strong. You can roll it paper thin and not even think twice about it ripping. Fondant isn't as durable, but its easily flavored and colored.


I had worked with fondant before, there were a few things I did wrong, that lead me to believe that it was hard. For example, while rolling it out, I covered my rolling surface with powdered sugar. This is, somewhat O.K., however, it leaves powdered sugar all over the surface and if you fondant is colored you can see it. It also can cause the fondant to get very dry, it will crack and most likely fall apart. Crisco is the answer. It keeps it from sticking and is clear.

Gum paste dries super fast and must be worked with quickly. The plus is that it doesn't take long to hold it's shape and it gets nice and hard. However, if your a slow worker, you may be in trouble.

A few tips when working with these items are as follows:

• Keep your hands "crisco'd" not too much though
• Don't over work your fondant when trying to make it soft
• A little color goes a long way
• Be patient and don't give up
• Flowers arn't perfect, so your shouldn't be either
• Have everything ready ahead of time, as i said it dries out quickly

I'll be back to share some of my creations with you soon. 

Baskets and daffodils

I finally used some of the sugar flowers I've been working on. I practiced some flowers I haven't posted and decided to show them off on my new cake creation.
As you can see the cake is different from my usual smoothed out butter cream. This cake is basket weaved.




There are a number of ways to do a basket weave with the "old school" way using a flat tip with one serrated edge. To look more like an Easter basket would. I chose to use a large star tip to give it a fluffy look. This takes much more icing and probably not something you would want to serve at a kids party, however I did hear a study that sugar doesn't cause children to be hyper.
The daffodils are made from royal icing that I made myself. I made the flowers last week and allowed them to dry. There are some butter cream stems and leaves added as well. I tinted my butter cream with Wilton icing color lime green.




The filling of this white cake is raspberry. I know most people would pair that with chocolate but I thought the flavor combination of the raspberry, white cake, and sweet butter cream was wonderful.

New Pan

I found that the demand for sheet cakes is very strong. I don't really think it is because people really prefer a rectangular cake over a round or square. I believe this is what people expect when they think of a cake because of your typical grocery store bakery.

The wonderful thing about cake making is being able to break away from the "norm" by making round or square cakes for birthday parties and baby showers. These "specialty cakes" aren't just for weddings anymore. Having something as simple as a round cake adds a certain amount of pizzaz to an event.

That being said, I went out and bought a new pan for myself. I originally wanted to but a smaller round pan for stacking, but decided to go with a typical sheet cake pan.

I do prefer different shapes over this, but for a large party or event this does do the job. Besides, I got a new toy i can break in! I'm thinking Red Velvet! MMMM......

Just a spoonful of Sugar

O.K. O.K. so it takes much more then a spoonful to make these wonderful creations, but it is pretty much just sugar.

I started learning the ropes of sugar flowers recently and I have to say that I am in love. I have always had a thing for flowers, and I absolutely love that the delecacy of the petals can carry over into sugar.

 The apple blossoms, blue rose and primrose are made from homemade royal icing. They were left out to harden and are now ready to adorn a cake.

The button flower ( lower right) and pansies are made from a fondant/gumpaste combination that were also left out to harden. The sugar flowers ( the ones made from royal icing) have a longer shelf life then the fondant/gum paste flowers, however both are wonderful to put on cakes or cupcakes.

The sugar flowers as i said are more delicate because you are able to make the petals so thin. If you notice on the pansies, there is a slight "curl" in the petals and they are paper thin. A very neat trick I think.

Hello Kitty Cake

As promised I present to you the Hello Kitty Cake!

This cake was made for a 3 year old girl who loves hello kitty. Since the kids eating the cake are young and we didnt want to overload them with sugar, we went with what I like to call a "deconstructed 2 tier cake"

I made the typical two 8 inch round cakes, but rather then stacking them and putting filling inside, I made them 2 separate cakes with my homemade butter cream icing.

The Hello Kitty was made with butter cream as well and I'm not going to give away the secret of how I did it. The cake it a simple white cake, made with only egg white, no yoke.

From what I have heard, the cake was a big success!

Upcoming Creations

I have been working very hard lately on a new tecnique. Well, new for me anyway. SUGAR FLOWERS!

I have made a few roses, some rose blossoms and a few more flowers. Pictures to come very soon.

I also have a cake I just finished that I surprised myself with because it came out just beautiful. Stay tuned!

Graduation Cake

I was so happy to hear that someone who saw one of my previous cakes wanted me to make a cake for a graduation party. i did a little investigating and found out that the school colors were blue green and white.

I was given some creative license on to what everything would look like. So, I thought for a bit and realized that I could make a "cap" out of some chocolate. I added some butter cream tassels and VOILA!

This is a chocolate two layer cake with raspberry filling! Again the icing is butter cream and home made by yours truly. I mailed out a thank you card to the person who ordered and included a few business cards I whipped up. I can't wait to hear what they all thought of it.

Happiness is...

I got this image courtesy of High heels and diet dr. pepper. I actually saw this photo in A blog magazine earlier today and couldn't get the image out of my mind. I was really inspired by the quote as well and wanted to share it with everyone.

I believe home should really be a happy place and anything that reminds you of that should be cherished. I enjoy baking cakes for many reasons. I like seeing the look on people faces and I like knowing that something I made makes people happy. I enjoy being creative with cakes and cupcakes and watching that creativity come to life before my eyes. Most of all though, I like baking because it reminds me of my grandma. A simple time when we would get together in the kitchen and she would explain the ins and outs of cooking and count the scoops of flour I put in the bowl. She would help me turn the crank on the flour sifter and let me lick the beaters when she was finished.

Every time I bake anything these little memories pop into my head and it brings me so much joy that I can truly relate that Happiness is Homemade.

Mother's Day Tea

I was asked to make a desert for a Mother's Day Tea that someone I knew was hosting. The theme was butterflies. At each place table there was a butterfly centerpiece and a few facts about butterflies. I went through a few idea books i have and came up with these.

I decided these were best because they can be any color you want. The colors are made with sugar. So any color you can mix, you can use to tint the sugar. The big surprise that turns out to be very simple, is the the flower petals are marshmallows. YES, MARSHMALLOWS! The first time I saw these I couldn't figure out for the life of me what these were made of. When i found out, it then seemed so obvious.

A few extras

Here is a cake I made a couple weeks ago. The cake was red velvet with cream cheese frosting as the filling. I made a point of letting crumbs end up in the frosting. I mixed it all up and it put red "speckles" allover the cake. It gave a little hint of what flavor the cake was. Plus it was fun and different.

I tinted frosting red to make the butter cream ribbon roses. I know they don't look super red, but to make the icing a true red you have to use an extreme amount of red coloring. Besides, I like the tint of red that these ended up.

 That same evening I was practicing on cupcake decorations and tried a sunflower design.

 The center is a chocolate candy. The cupcake itself is also filled with chocolate. A group of these would be nice for a summer tea party or place settings.

Hubby's Birthday Cake

I just finished a birthday cake for my husband. I wanted the cake to be "manly" so I chose to stay away from ribbon roses and light colors. I wasn't sure how it would come out, but I'm very proud.

The cake is a yellow cake with cream cheese frosting as the filling. I know most people pair yellow cake with chocolate frosting but he told me not too long ago he was craving cream cheese frosting. He also expressed a love for yellow cake, so there you go.

I used a simple white shell border on the bottom and top edge of the cake. I tinted my home made butter cream blue and used white to make rosettes. I added the leaves and words last, which was a mistake on my part because I could have bumped the upper border with my hand. I added little balloons after his name for fun.

Favorite Colors Cake

My 2 favorite colors are....Pink and Green! I decided to have a little fun and make a cake for my family that was just that, pink and green.

 All the icing on this cake is made of butter cream that I made myself. The cake itself is white cake with a banana pudding filling. There is a swirl border and a star swirl on top.

By the way, it tasted good too!

Tea Party Cake

This simple Tea Party Cake was super fun to make. It took no time at all and I loved that the cake itself was PINK!

 

The cake was covered in fondant, however all of the decorations are homemade butter cream. The filling was fit for a little princess and consisted of banana cream pudding, fresh strawberries and bananas.

Overall the cake was a big hit. It was for a 3rd birthday party and both parents and kids seemed to really enjoy it. Yum!