Twins who Love Purses

Brian called to say that his wife and her twin sister were turning 30 this week and to celebrate, he wanted two really cool purse cakes. They were spending the week vacationing in Park City and so it was only fitting to do two really chic handbags. I modeled both of these cakes after actual purses but edited them just a bit while trying to keep the same feel and detail work. In addition to the cakes, Brian wanted to make sure that these were personalized for each woman. Dallas' cake was a vintage Chanel purse (Strawberry Tall Cake: Strawberry cake layered with vanilla filling and buttercream) while Danielle's purse cake was a Coach handbag (Supremely Lemon Cake: Lemon cake layered with lemon filling and buttercream). They both turned out to be life-size. The Coach bag was over 8inches tall, 9inches wide, and 4.5 inches thick. Everything in these pictures are completely edible and made out of homemade marshmallow fondant. The ladies are from Texas so we had to add that detail in here somewhere, so we thought of the key chain. There are doggy collars as well because they love their dogs, Dixie, Stella, and Miles. The Park City postcard was made out of marshmallow fondant and the trees are painted onto the "card." The necklaces were modeled after Carrie's necklace in Sex and the City.

Now for some more detail on caking. In order to give the cakes the right shimmer, I tinted the fondant just a touch and after covering the cakes, I painted the cakes with edible silver or gold shimmer. Although it's hard to see here, the shimmer made the cakes really glow. The lipsticks, necklaces, pearls, key chains, and dog collars were all hand painted as well. In order to make the pearl necklace, I rolled out small balls of white fondant. I let them dry and harden just a touch over night. They were hard on the outside but still a little squishy on the inside. Then, I took a thin wire (18 gauge florist wire) and threaded the beads onto the wire. After connecting the last ball to the first with the wire, I painted the whole necklace with white petal dust. It's pretty amazing to see how fast time can fly when you're caking! Hours and hours into the night... ahh, so fun!

A College Book in Cake

My future-sister-in-law, Jenilynne, just got accepted to her first choice of colleges and we're so excited for her! For the occasion, I made a cake that looks like a huge book. Why Chemistry? I'm not really sure... in fact, everyone in my life teaches communication so I don't know why I wrote Chemistry and not communication... maybe because our books don't look so old. Haha. Anyway, it was a lemon cake with strawberry cream filling cake (it was an experiment and they are my guinea pigs). Most of the decorations are made out of marshmallow fondant but some of of them are made out of modeling chocolate (like the football and the apple stem). She doesn't drink coffee so I told her the mug was full of hot chocolate :) It was so much fun to try and make my first book! Yay! I told Jenilynne that I think I've made more cakes for her than anyone else in my life. So many life events for an 18-year old... ah, the good ol' days.

Elmo Box Cake

Jeri wanted a birthday cake for Gabby and said she loves Elmo... just Elmo, none of those other Sesame Street characters :) She knew she wanted something unique and colorful so this is what we came up with. I've always wanted to do a box cake and this was the perfect opportunity for that. I was just so lucky that Jeri was awesome to work with (again)! This box was 8 inches by 8 inches by 8 inches which doesn't sound that big but this cake turned out to be pretty huge. There were two tiers here (4-inches thick each), and only the top was real. The cake was a Snow White Cake (sweet vanilla cake with vanilla cream filling and buttercream) dyed to match the colors of the decor (red, green, and blue, I believe). I know Jeri loved it and I hope Gabby did too.

All of the decorations are made out of homemade marshmallow fondant, including the bow on top. If you care to try caking on your own and want to learn how to make a bow, read ahead, otherwise you can stop here :)

In order to make the bow, roll out thin strips of fondant about 1.25-1.5 inches wide and 5-7 inches long. Take a small rolling pin (I use clean PVC pipe) and wrap each strip around the pipe and adhere the edges with a small dab of water. Now let the ends that you just adhered hang down from the pipe and prop the pipe up so that they can hang that way over night. When they are dry the next day, take a 6-inch baking pan and place each of the pieces in, some on top of each other, until they form a nice bow. Using a paintbrush, dab a bit of water wherever the bows touch each other. Happy Caking!

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!

Ivana wanted a Mickey Mouse Cake for her son's 2nd birthday... and by Mickey Mouse Cake, I mean, a Mickey Mouse head :) She was coming into town to celebrate the occasion with her family and needed a fairly large cake to do it in style. This cake was actually much bigger than I anticipated because the round face was a 9-inch cake and the ears were 4-5 inches round and the whole thing was 4-inches tall. It was all Chunky Monkey Cake, which is chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache and banana cream filling and sliced bananas.

Although it looks very simple to do, this cake was pretty challenging to get right. Mickey is such a recognizable character that any slight error would be obvious so I had to make it as perfect as possible. The flash in the picture makes Mickey's face look more pale than it was but here's a front shot. Oh, I guess I should mention that "Sreten Rodendan Kristian" means Happy Birthday, Kristian in Croatian :)

Gourmet Ding-Dong Experiment

In an effort to make individual desserts for a recent holiday party, I inadvertently created a "Gourmet Ding-Dong," as one of my guinea pigs said (Thank you, Roger!). Having never tasted a ding-dong before, I wasn't sure if that was a good thing! One thing for sure, these mini-cakes were for total chocolate lovers. It was basically chocolate layered in chocolate, covered in chocolate and then wrapped in chocolate. YUM!

These are 2-inch round, 3-inch tall red velvet cakes layered with dark chocolate ganache. Half of them were filled with cinnamon cream filling and the others were filled with coffee buttercream. They were all covered in milk chocolate plastic (or modeling chocolate) and topped with a bit of buttercream and chocolate leaves or flowers (in order to separate the two flavors). Here are a few more views for you. I hope your mouth is watering... that

is, if you like chocolate!