Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all you dads, step-dads, and future dads out there! For the occasion, I made this father's day cake for a dad and a step-dad to celebrate together with their kids. The cake was a German Chocolate Cake (chocolate cake layered with chopped pecans, coconut, and chocolate buttercream) and I added layers of caramel as well. The cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and the tie, collar, and pocket were also made out of fondant. In order to make the collar stand up on the cake, I cut out the collar shape in advance and let it dry against a small, round fake cake.

A friend of mine joked that because both of these dads are LDS return missionaries that I should've added a name tag that says "Elder Dad" :) This would make a pretty cool missionary cake (if you don't know what that is, you might not be living in Utah... hehe.

One Year Anniversary

I stole this picture from Betsy and Matthew's blog because her picture is better than mine :) For Betsy's wedding cake, which was one year ago, she ordered a 5-tiered pink wedding cake and added a beautiful white feather coming out of the top. The top tier of the wedding cake was a Coconut Almond Cake and she ended up eating the rest of the cake the day after the wedding. Because of this (and because the idea of freezing a cake for a year before eating it doesn't sound appealing), she ordered a one year anniversary cake that matched her original design. Matt chose Buttery Yellow Cake for this cake (yellow cake layered with chocolate buttercream) and apparently ate it all up :) I love hearing that! The cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and the design was hand cut to look like the top tier of her wedding cake.

Here is the picture of the original wedding cake. Happy Anniversary you two! :)

Old School Nintendo Controller

Some of you know that I teach Communication classes at the University of Utah and at Neumont University. This quarter, I taught a class with some awesome gents (all men in my class) and had a really great semester. To thank them, I made them a giant old school Nintendo controller. Although most of them never had an NES, they all knew what it was and loved it. Because Neumont University is a computer science school, I had to make sure I did this one right (and because my brothers would mock me relentlessly). This cake was 16 inches long and 8 inches wide and had two flavors. One side of the cake was Ruby Red Velvet cake with chocolate chips and cream cheese frosting while the other side was Mom's Apple Pie Cake (spice cake with apples baked into the cake layered with cheesecake filling and buttercream).

My students jokingly suggested that I make them a cake for the day of the final and a few of them suggested I make Red Velvet. What can I say, I have a soft spot in my heart for my students. The cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and I hand cut all of the elements to this cake to match the dimensions as best as I could. Here's a shot of the inside of the Ruby Red Velvet side. What was especially funny was that after we had cake, they had to take a final exam. I told them that I tried to put them on a sugar high beforehand... don't worry, they did well on the final exam as well. :)

Brown & Blue Circles, Take 2

Stephanie needed a birthday cake fast and happened to be at a party recently where she saw (and ate) one of my cakes. When she went onto my website, she liked the Brown & Blue Circles Cake. Rather than just using the same design, I tried to give it an extra touch by having some of the circles come off of the cake. This trick is done by drying the marshmallow fondant shapes in advance so that it becomes hardened. Then, they will stand up in attention. The cake was a 9-inch round Brownie Lovers Cake (chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache and a layer of brownies). Fun!

Bountiful High School Graduation & Birthday

Rylee was having a birthday and graduation at the same time but his very thoughtful sister, Britnee, decided to get him 2 cakes because she really wanted to celebrate both occasions. This first cake has the Bountiful High Braves logo and graduation cap and diploma, all made from marshmallow fondant. The bottom of the graduation cap was a rice krispie base covered in buttercream and marshmallow fondant so that they could be able to eat that as well.

The top cake was Brownie Lovers (chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache and a layer of brownies) and the bottom tier was Cookies & Cake (vanilla cake layered with buttercream and crushed Oreos).

The second cake was more unique to Rylee's style. This cake was a basketball backboard, since he loves basketball, and a Utah Jazz jersey, because he loves the Jazz. The backboard was a Peanut Butter No-Cup Cake (chocolate cake layered with peanut butter buttercream) covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. The basketball was rice krispies covered in buttercream and fondant as well. The jersey was also marshmallow fondant. Britnee told me that both cakes were a big hit at the party and that Rylee loved his surprise cakes! :)

Celtic Tree Cake

If ever there was a labor of love, this was it. Terry contacted me about her daughter's upcoming wedding and said she wanted some unique.... really unique. Corrie wanted a Celtic cake with a tree on top. I agreed to do the cake back in January and then after taking the order, I realized that I wasn't sure how I was going to do it. One of my favorite cakers, Bronwen Weber, once said that one should always take the order, no matter how outrageous the request, and then figure out the details later. So about two weeks before the wedding, I started to get a little nervous. Making edible 3-D items I've done many times before but getting tree branches to stay up with flowers and leaves was a whole new challenge.

The top tier was Brownie Lovers (chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache and a layer of brownies), the middle was Carrot Cake (traditional carrot cake layered with cream cheese frosting), and the bottom tier was Caramel Macchiato Cake (coffee flavored cake layered with caramel cream filling, buttercream and caramel).

Here is a picture of the tree branches, flowers, and leaves taken by Kelsey Beacco (with Kel-Z Photography: corderyk@yahoo.com). For those of you that care about the details, here ya go! Each flower and leaf had to be hand cut and then attached to a separate wire. That task alone took hours but it had to be done to look great. Once I made a ton of leaves, I made a "bunch" by connecting the leaf wires with green flower tape. Now that those were done, I had to start on the tree. I sculpted the base of the tree out of rice krispies and then covered it in buttercream and homemade marshmallow fondant. I streaked the tree first with lines and then layered on the brown color using a paintbrush and brown food coloring.

The branches of this tree were the hard part. Initially, I made branches out of rice krispies and then covered it with fondant. I adhered them to the tree and added the leaves and let the whole thing sit together for a day or so to make sure that it would stay up on its own. The next day (the day before the wedding), I realized that the tree didn't look like a tree and the branches were sagging. Frustrated, angry, and determined, I ripped out the branches and tried again. Instead of using the rice krispies, I simply rolled out "branches" with fondant and again adhered them to the tree. I prayed that it would come together and in the end, I think it totally did. I finally added the leaves and flowers, and popped that sucker onto the top of the cake. I made a few more lines or veins in the tree and branches, and layered some more brown color to make it look even more real. Lastly, I added the "tree-engraved" heart with the initials of the couple that Corrie wanted.

To finalize the cake, I placed patches of grass and flowers around the tree branches that descended down the cake. I piped green buttercream in different areas around the cake and then rolled thin strips of green fondant to cut into grass blades. I added these to the green buttercream patches and placed a few white and pink flowers into the grass. The Celtic pattern on the bottom tier was taken from Corrie's wedding ring pattern and went all the way around the huge 16inch square base of the cake.

At the wedding, the bride came out to see it before the ceremony and told me how much she loved it. Corrie's mom and friend both commented that the cake was "so them!" There's no better compliment I could receive for the cake! So much work but so much fun.

Last Minute Wedding Cake

Taylor called and said that she was having trouble with her wedding cake person. That wouldn't have been so unusual except that it was three days before her wedding! She asked if there was any way to make a last minute wedding cake and I was down for the challenge. Her wedding colors were red, yellow, and pink, and had seen a few cakes I've done that she liked. The top tier was Rainbow Bright Cake (vanilla cake layered with sprinkles and buttercream and dyed pink, yellow, and red) because the Groom loves Rainbow Chip cake. The middle tier was Carrot Cake (traditional carrot cake layered with cream cheese frosting) and the bottom tier was Cookies & Cake (vanilla cake layered with crushed Oreos).

It was a bit challenging to incorporate the three wedding colors into the cake but we agreed on the pink floral pattern with the red and yellow border. The cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and the monogram was as well. It was cute to see that their initials spelled out "ART" :)

Topsy Turvy Tigers

Evan turned one and Sarah wanted a fun cake for his birthday party. She had a beautiful cake in mind that had little bears on the cake and instead wanted these adorable tigers. We did a rice krispie top tier since she didn't need THAT much cake. One tier was Orange Dreamsicle Cake (light orange flavored cake layered with orange buttercream that tastes just like one of those orange creamsicle bars) and the other tier was a Banana Cream Pie Cake (light banana flavored cake layered with banana slices, banana cream, and buttercream). Sarah later told me that the party had battle going between which flavor was better... I think it ended up being a tie :)

The cake is covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and all of the decorations (tigers, letters, etc) are also made of fondant. Topsy turvy cakes are tricky and for me, they never turn out the same, which makes it all the more fun. For little Evan, we made a "smash cake" to match so that he could go nuts with his own little cake and get all messy for the pictures. This cake ended up being huge and a lot bigger than most of my smash cakes. This cake is only covered in buttercream and the dots and bow are all marshmallow fondant. The cake was a Rainbow Bright Cake with two different shades of blue. Sarah sent me the video of Evan going to town on this cake.... rather than using his hands, he just got all in there with his face. It was SO cute!

Goodbye Cake in the form of a Suitcase

Drew was moving back to Texas from good ol' Utah and so Nychole wanted to send him off with a cool goodbye cake. Everything on this cake is edible from the straps to the "stickers" to the suitcase tag. I loved this cake because I could incorporate so many different techniques to make the cake look as real as possible. In order to get the right colors for the suitcase, I had a few different brownish colors and then highlighted the straps and handle by painting on layers of brown food coloring.

The traveling stickers were hand painted. Drew has traveled to Hawaii, California, New York, Utah, and Texas so I wanted to get all of those onto the cake. For the first Hawaii sticker, I made a little turtle and a few colorful starfish to place on the "sticker." The Texas sticker was hand painted as was the globe sticker and the NYC apple. For those of you who don't know, the 15 is the major freeway running through Utah. I made a sticker in the shape of Utah and then put the 15 interstate on it. The sticker on the right side is a representation of a Hawaiian sunset.

The cake was Lemonberry (lemon cake layered with raspberry cream filling and raspberry buttercream) covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. All of the decorations were also made of marshmallow fondant. The hand painting, layering, quilting, sculpting, and coloring of this cake made it so much fun. I hope the party went off well!

Repost: Twilight Cake

I've been getting a lot of spam on this post so I'm reposting this picture and deleting the last post hoping that my spam issues will go away. Sorry for the confusion! :)

Noelle turned 12 over the weekend and having a birthday around Thanksgiving can't be the best for any kid so I wanted to make sure her birthday cake was amazing for her. Her aunt, Keri, wanted to get her a Twilight themed cake since Noelle is quite obsessed with the Twilight phenomenon. The top and bottom tiers are fake cakes since they were only going to feed around 15-20 people but we wanted the height and the grandness of a three tiered cake. The base of the cake was actually about 15 inches so this cake was a biggie for a birthday cake. The middle cake was a Rainbow Bright Cake with the layers of cake dyed white, red, and black to match the color theme of the cake. The cake was layered with vanilla cream filling and buttercream.

The cakes are covered in marshmallow fondant, and the decorations are also made out of marshmallow fondant including the chess pieces, flowers and apple. I hand-painted the new moon logo on the bottom tier to match the new movie's logo.

I didn't know much about Twilight so I got the inside scoop from my cake apprentice, Alex. She said one of the books had two hands holding an apple, another book had the red and white flowers, another had a chess board with the two chess pieces you see here, and another had the red ribbon with a tear in it. I hope she loved it and enjoyed her 12th birthday!

MD Graduation Cake

Robin just graduated from medical school and in her honor, Sarah ordered a graduation cake to surprise her. Ehren, Robin's hubby, and Sarah planned an awesome bash with friends, food, and cake to celebrate her huge accomplishment. Robin's favorite color is purple and so we did a purple and black themed cake complete with a stethoscope, grad hat, and poem. The poem on the side was one that Sarah thought would give the cake an extra special touch. It reads:
"Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the Horror of the shade, and yet the menace of the years finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."

I wrote the poem with an edible marker onto a flat piece of fondant. Then, I placed the "paper" onto the sides of a fake cake in order to dry and set into the shape it's in now. By making the poem in advance, it dried in this position and so I could move it easily and I knew it wouldn't lose its shape. The stethoscope and hat also had to be made in advance in order for them to dry in time since everything is made of sugar. I rolled out some fondant and cut out the top of the hat to let it dry for about a day. I formed the bottom of the hat with fondant and let that dry as well. I made the tassel by rolling a tube of fondant and cutting "strings" with scissors. My goodness, this is hard to explain! :) I hope it makes sense though.

The feedback I received on this cake was awesome. Sarah and Ehren both said that Robin LOVED the cake and that it couldn't have been better. Robin's favorite flavors are lemon and chocolate so the top tier was a lemon cake layered with chocolate buttercream. The bottom tier was Strawberry Not-so-Short Cake (strawberry cake with strawberries baked inside layered with vanilla cream filling and buttercream). Congratulations on your huge accomplishment, Robin!

For those of you on facebook, you might have noticed that I'm pretty behind in posting these latest cakes on my cake blog. I'm trying to work my way up to the most current cakes and I apologize for my delay. For all of you who read my blog, please feel free to find me on facebook and "friend" me there! Thank you!

Dolphin Cake

Echo wanted a dolphin cake for her birthday and since she's growing out of the princess phase, I was more than happy to indulge her in the dolphin phase. The cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and the dolphins were all made out of fondant as well. The cake was a Lemon Supreme Cake (lemon cake layered with lemon cream filling and buttercream).

In order to make the waves, I colored the fondant into a few different shades of blue. Then, I cut out wave "strips" and tried to layer them on top of one another until they were "wave-like." I know, so many official words in this post :) It was so cute to see how happy she was with the surprise dolphin cake. The kids went straight for the dolphins on the side of the cake and were on a sugar high for the rest of the night!

I also have to point out my really cute new cake base! It's so pretty that I had to put the dolphin cake on it for the photo.