Hawaiian Beach Cake

Skylar turned one yesterday with a Hawaiian themed party. Marie, her mother, was really excited about throwing her a 1st birthday and had decked out the backyard to match the theme with Hawaiian decorations. We were joking that although Skylar won't remember the party, Marie will have the pictures to prove it!

The top tier was a cookies'n'cream cake (sweet white cake layered with chocolate buttercream and crushed oreos) and the bottom tier was coconutty cake (just what it sounds like... coconut cake layered with coconut buttercream and coconut flakes). All of the decorations are handmade with marshmallow fondant. There are crabs, fish, octopi (I like to think that's plural for octopus), starfish, flowers, seahorse, seashells, and palm trees around the cake. Then, I sprinkled brown sugar along to edges to look like sand on the beach and on the ocean floor.

Along with the main cake, Marie wanted a smash cake all for Skylar that matched the Hawaiian beach theme. I wanted to keep the decorations simple when compared to the larger cake. It's also a cookies'n'cream cake covered in marshmallow fondant. I hope she just ripped it apart!

Hannah Montana Explosion

This weekend Allie was turning 5 and she wanted a Hannah Montana themed cake for her party. This cake was really fun to make because the colors were just so bright and lively. All of the decorations are handmade with marshmallow fondant, including the guitar and the Happy Birthday sign in "Hannah Montana" fashion :) Allie herself is a huge University of Utah fan and so her mother, Jeri, wanted a figurine of Allie to be on the cake singing into a microphone with a Utah jersey on.

The bottom cake was cheesecake lovers (cheesecake flavored cake layered with cheesecake filling and buttercream) and the top cake was rainbow bright (with three layers of cake, one dyed purple, one dyed yellow and one dyed pink layered with buttercream and sprinkles).

Because of the decorations on the front, I wanted to post a smaller picture of the side of the cake. The top tier was purple with zebra print and the bottom was pink with yellow dots and musical notes along the sides. So much fun to make!!










Jeri just emailed me this inside shot of the rainbow bright cake. She said that Allie loved the cake and even attached an adorable picture of Allie with the cake... she looked pretty happy to me :) Yay!

Dots and Stripes

I wanted to make a more simple cake than my usual themed cakes and so here is a pink and brown cake inspired by other cakes that I've seen made. The cake is covered in fondant and the pink and brown decorations are all fondant as well, including the bow.

Cherry Blossoms on a Cake

I've always wanted to do a Mulan inspired cake... not with samurai swords and dragons but more so with delicate cherry blossoms. As I've mentioned before, I've been known to go overboard with decorations on cakes so I tried pretty hard to censor myself. Feel free to pick off some of those flowers in your mind if you need to :) hehe. Otherwise, I hope you likey!

Mickey Mouse & Safari Animals

Marianne wanted a centerpiece for her daughter's 3rd birthday. She had already made the desserts for the party but wanted a little something else to boot. She wanted the traditional Mickey colors of red, yellow, black and white along with the Mickey symbol and his hand. I sculpted the hand out of rice crispies covered in buttercream and then fondant. I made the hand much larger than planned and then realized that there was no way the hand would fit on the cake itself. Luckily, Marianne was awesome in allowing creativity :) The top tier was also made out of rice crispies and the bottom tier was a Rainbow Bright cake (white cake dyed different colors to match the theme with sprinkles baked in and layered with sweet buttercream and more sprinkles). You can never have enough sprinkles in my opinion.


Jayden turned.... 6! Yes, good job! You got it! Michele, Jayden's mom, wanted a similar cake to the safari/jungle cake that I made a while back. I tried to take that cake idea and add more details to make this cake more special for Jayden and Michele. The top tier was a strawberry lemonade cake (lemon and strawberry cake layered with lemon buttercream) and the bottom tier was a chocolate and white cake layered with sweet buttercream.

The cakes were covered in marshmallow fondant and handmade marshmallow fondant decorations. All of the animals were made from fondant as well. This cake was so much fun to make because it was all about creativity. I wanted to make the animals look friendly and cutesy... (is that even a word?). I hope this cake was an improvement from the previous jungle cake. :)

A Very Very Pink Cake :)

Betsy was so amazing to work with in making her wedding cake. We designed it together through many different sketches and ideas. I was so thankful that she was the complete opposite of a bridezilla :) The bottom four tiers are fake cakes and the top tier was the cake used for the ceremonious cutting of the new couple. The cake was a coconut almond cake (a light coconut cake layered with coconut buttercream, coconut flakes, and sliced almonds). I originally made the bottom four tiers a week in advance (since they were not going to be eaten) but I wasn't satisfied with the color. So I redid the whole cake the night before the wedding to make sure that the colors were spot on and that they all matched in one solid color because I didn't want some tiers being slightly lighter or darker. The second run through took 12-13 hours straight to complete (it was the first time I've seen the sunrise in Utah! haha). It was worth it though because I wanted it to be PERFECT for Betsy.

This is a 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 inch cake. The top tier has a hand cut design out of marshmallow fondant in the theme of Betsy's wedding. The second tier has the monogram for the couple's last name and is studded with swarovski crystals in a swiss dot pattern. The third tier is a new technique that I was trying and it is buttercream stenciled onto the cake. If you've ever tried stenciling, you might know that it's not as easy as it looks. If you've ever tried stenciling onto a round surface, you might know that it's even more challenging. And lastly, if you've ever tried stenciling buttercream onto a round, and sticky fondant surface, you might know the wonderful joys I experienced at around 2am :) The fourth tier has ivory, fondant swags with fondant dots. Finally, the bottom tier is a diamond pattern, indented by hand, with swarovski crystals to accent where the lines meet.

I can't say enough how great it was to work with someone who was so excited and willing to take a chance on a very pink cake... and also to take a chance on me :) This cake was 20 inches tall without the base and had to be transported in two separate pieces in order to make it. The cake had to last through an 80 minute drive to get to the wedding and luckily it all went well. Thank you so much, Betsy, for being amazing through this process! It really was fun, challenging, and totally worth it in the end!

Rubik's Cube and 2 Mini Cakes

This weekend was a big weekend for me. I had 6 cakes to complete and three of them were quite difficult. The first three cakes were for Emily's wedding. Emily saw a Rubik's cube online and wanted to replicate it for her groom's cake. Each tier was 9 inches by 9 inches by 3 inches. Stacked on top of each other, this cake was 9 by 9 by 9. Phew! The squares were actually more intricate to make than anticipated. Everyone knows what a Rubik's cube is and so it had to be perfect. If those squares were even slightly off, the whole look of the cake would be off. In any case, I tried to be as precise as possible and it was SO much fun to make. The cake is buttery yellow cake layered with chocolate ganache. The whole cake is covered in marshmallow fondant. In order to get the edges as crisp as possible, I cut out the sides and top a few days in advance. I measured them out so that they would fit together and cover the cake perfectly. Then, after they dried and hardened, I simply aligned the edges and (sugar) glued them together. I hope Peter was shocked and that he loved it :)

Emily was one of the most thoughtful brides I've ever seen. On her wedding day, she wanted to give her father and bridesmaid their own cakes in honor of their birthdays. So along with the Rubik's cube cake, I made two mini cakes. The first was a purple flower cake for her bridesmaid. The second cake was a camping themed birthday cake for her father. All of the decorations were made out of marshmallow fondant. Both of the mini-cakes were Peanut Butter No-Cup Cakes (chocolate cake layered with peanut butter cream filling).

Awkward Turtle

Guy wanted to surprise his girlfriend with a cake for her birthday. They are both "awkward turtles" and so he wanted to have a turtle to represent their shared joke. Adorable! This was a brownie lovers cake (chocolate cake with a layer of brownies in between). I wasn't sure what an "awkward" turtle really looks like so I tried my best. His legs and head are made out of rice crispies and then covered in buttercream and fondant. I hope he ate those too!

Graduation & Mustangs

Jenilynne just graduated from high school and so we had to celebrate, cake style. Her school colors were black, white, and red (or at least I hope they were). I tried a new technique on the sides of the cake and was pretty happy with the turn out. The cap and tassel were made out of fondant. The cake was an apple pie cake with cheesecake filling and then layered with buttercream. Here's a shot of the inside of the cake. Yay! On the same day, Liz wanted to celebrate Father's Day early and so I made a 1967 Mustang themed cake for her father. The mustangs were handmade out of fondant, as was the mustang on the top of the cake. Although I was afraid that it looked like a taxi cake, Liz's husband said it was totally recognizable as a mustang cake. Phew! The cake was a chocolate dipped cherry cake layered with chocolate buttercream and cherry filling. I hope they liked it :)

Pirates and Princesses

What 5-year-old doesn't want to be a pirate, right? Well, Grant wanted a pirate cake for his birthday. This cake was a buttery yellow cake layered with chocolate buttercream. Grant's mom wanted some cupcakes to go along with the cake so we came up with some designs that matched the cake theme.

The cupcakes are also buttery yellow cake covered in buttercream and dipped in crystallized sugar. The decorations on the cake and cupcakes are handmade out of marshmallow fondant.

Abbi, on the other hand, wanted to be a princess for her birthday. The top tier is made out of rice crispies and then covered and decorated with marshmallow fondant. The towers are also made of rice crispies and the tower tops are ice cream cones covered in fondant. The bottom tier is strawberry cheesecake cake. I wanted to keep this cake very simple rather than going overboard with colors and decorations. I hope I accomplished that here :)