Salt Cake City

Black & White Damask with Lime Green Flowers

2012-01-23T12:04:00.002-07:00

Anika was having a very elegant wedding and wanted a damask patterned wedding cake. We originally played around with the idea of having lime green design on a white cake but then determined that black and white was the way to go with accents of lime green and white flowers. The cake was 24-Carrot Cake, Coconut Macaroon, and White Almond Wedding Cake (flavor list at www.SaltCakeCity.com). It was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and then the design on the cake was all buttercream.

This cake was huge! It doesn't look like it from the picture but wow! When we carried this in, we were SO nervous about dropping it. The reception was held in the backyard of this beautiful estate and in order to get the cake into the wedding gazebo, we went through the driveway, down the side of the main house, down a steep heel, over a bridge (not over a river and through the hills though), and into the gazebo. Phew! This cake was HEAVY! In any case, the wedding reception was absolutely beautiful and just as I put the finishing touches on the cake, the beautiful bride and groom came in. They were so happy with the outcome and therefore, so was I :)

Pink Ruffle Cake with Mini Cakes

2012-01-23T11:55:00.000-07:00

Cynthia wanted this pink ruffled cake that she had seen on the internet. I had been wanting to do this cake design as well so I was thrilled to get her order. This cake was around 6 inches tall and it was Neopolitan Dynamite Cake (layered chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla cake) covered in light pink buttercream, no fondant here. To go with the main cake, she wanted little mini cakes that were also Neopolitan Dynamite flavored. These tiny little things were so much fun to make (okay, they were difficult and frustrating too but in the end, I felt so rewarded :) These were covered in deep brown marshmallow fondant and I piped initials and "4" on the top in honor of the little birthday girl. I love how simple, yet elegant both of these design were and how they complimented each other well.

Bumblebee Birthday Cake

2012-01-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

Ashley wanted a showpiece birthday cake for her daughter's 5th birthday. She was having a bumblebee themed cake (which is appropriate since we're in the beehive state :) This three tiered cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and decorated with tiny edible MMF bumblebees. The cake was S'mores Cake, Lemonberry Cake, and Turtle Power Cake (Check out my flavor list at SaltCakeCity.com).

I made the little bees by forming oval yellow balls with fondant. I cut out tiny white little circles for wings and then let them dry and harden over night. I painted black lines on the yellow bodies with a paintbrush and black food coloring. I let that dry a bit, then shoved the little wings in the sides of the body. I curled thin flower wire and then inserted one end into the bees. It was so simple for such a nice detailed touch.

Black Draping & Red Roses Wedding Cake

2012-01-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

Summer wanted an elegant white wedding cake with black marshmallow fondant draping, red sugar roses, and small gold dragees placed around the cake. The cake was Ruby Red Velvet Cake and Emerald City Cake (pistachio flavored cake layered with pistachio cream filling and pistachio pieces). It was covered in buttercream (no fondant on the cake except the draping). Getting the perfect sides to a buttercream cake takes lots of time and love :) I then accented the cake with edible rolled roses that are lined with edible gold shimmer. You can see that details a little better here. It was much more noticeable in person, I promise. Then, I placed gold dragees around the cake in no particular pattern.

I loved how this cake turned out! The fondant draping looks just how I wanted. Phew! :)

Stingray and Shark Birthday Cake

2012-01-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

Lisa wanted an underwater themed birthday cake for her son's 4th birthday at the aquarium. Well, actually, she wanted a shark and stingray cake :) She said that Ayden loved all kinds of sharks and stingrays and that I should focus on those. I had never made a stingray out of fondant but was up for the job. In order to get the color variation I wanted, I covered the whole cake in blue fondant then hand-painted dark blue and green onto the fondant. I added in some fondant crabs, starfish, sea anemones, coral, and most importantly the stingray and two types of sharks. I wanted Ayden on the cake somewhere too so I made him out of fondant and had him scuba diving on the top. The top tier was Rainbow Bright cake and the bottom tier was After Dinner Mint cake. I loved making all of the little details on this cake. It was one of those themes where I couldn't really go wrong (well, technically that crab is floating in mid air but other than that, I couldn't go wrong :)

Black & White Shimmered Damask Wedding Cake

2012-01-08T18:23:00.000-07:00

Jarom and Hillary wanted a very elegant wedding cake to match their wedding theme and venue. They got married at Chateau Faire, which is a beautiful and cozy wedding venue with a cottage feel to it. To keep to the black, white, and red theme, we did an all white wedding cake with touches of black and deep red roses. The whole cake was shimmered with edible pearl shimmer. The middle tier was quilted with a special cushion pattern to give it a little more detail and then small black dragees were placed in the corners. The bottom tier was all shimmered with a three piece damask pattern on each side.

The cake was Lemon Supreme Cake, Vanilla Latte Cake, and Brownie Lovers Cake (Check out more information on my website, www.SaltCakeCity.com under flavors). Yum!

Thank you so much to Hillary and Suzanne. This cake order was so much fun to complete and they were just such wonderful people. I've worked with both of them on several cakes now and look forward to a long cake future together :)

New York Rangers Hat Cake

2012-01-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

Hillary wanted to surprise Jarom, her new hubby, with a groom's cake at the wedding. Suzanne, the bride's mom, knew it should be hockey related and even Rangers related but at first, we weren't sure what to do. We toiled around with a few ideas, like doing a rink or a jersey but then it hit them both. He loves his New York Rangers hat and wears it everyday. They knew it would be the perfect groom's cake. The cake was Emerald City flavored (pistachio flavored cake with pistachio cream filling and buttercream) and covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. I hand-painted all of the patches that were on the hat (the NHL logo, and the two Rangers logos). I shaped the bill of the hat with a real hat bill and then added the grooves to make it look more realistic.

When I delivered the cake, both Hillary and Suzanne LOVED it! They couldn't get over how realistic it was and therefore, I was very happy. I didn't get to see Jarom's reaction but Suzanne said that he didn't even want to cut into it. The happy couple took it home, stuck it in the fridge, went on a honeymoon, came back, and ate it then! She said it was still so moist and delicious! It's the magic of fondant :) Congrats to both of you! (Wedding cake picture to come next)

Musical Themed Graduation Cake

2012-01-08T18:04:00.000-07:00

Ron wanted a music themed graduation cake for Kiley. She got accepted into ASU and wanted to celebrate her future adventures as well. The cake was Brownie Lovers cake and we used light blue and yellow, which are the colors from her high school in Taylorsville. The cap was rice kripsies covered in buttercream and marshmallow fondant and the cap top was all fondant. To make all of the musical notes, I cut them all out of fondant and then stuck a thin wire in the bottoms. I let them dry overnight and then they stood up for the cake occasion. I love the color combo here and also enjoyed making another themed graduation cake. Yay!

Pride & Prejudice Cake

2011-12-23T18:32:00.001-07:00

Yes, you read that correctly. This is a Pride and Prejudice cake based on different elements of the book by Jane Austen. Since Grace and her family were in town for Stephanie's wedding (see the post right before this one), she wanted to order this cake special for her mother's birthday. She knew she wanted something to do with reading but I'll be honest, when she said "Pride and Prejudice" I drew a total blank. Luckily my sisters-in-law love that book and were totally helpful in getting this order together. They told me to add little pieces such as the letter, the music piece, the ink and quill, a top hat and bonnet... so they pretty much told me exactly what to do to make this cake great! haha (Thanks, Ladies!) The cake was chocolate with chocolate buttercream. Here are some up close shots of the cake:

This first up close picture shows the letter (with the "wax" stamped seal) and the brooch of a woman's profile. These are all made out of sugar. The brooch was the most fun piece of all because I got my man-friend involved as well. He's quite the artist so when I asked him to paint on a woman's profile like a brooch, he was excited to get it right. He painted the profile with black food coloring and a paintbrush and it literally took him a few minutes. I was so pleased with the end piece. I added a tiny fondant bow,a beaded black border, smaller silver dragee border, and an even smaller gray border to give it some depth and dimension.

The pattern of the book was a beautiful stencil I found at a local craft store that looked "antiquey" to me. I added the patterned side piece with a frill cutter and then made grooves in the sides of the book to make it look like pages. The quill and ink bottle are also all sugar, as well as the candle.

This Waltz music sheet was really fun to make as well. I first cut out a flat piece of fondant. I drew on actual music (I found some waltz on the internet and just added those notes to the piece). Then, I laid the fondant over a few strips of plastic wrap so that it would dry and harden with a little bit of a wave to it. I added just a touch of ivory coloring to make it look a bit worn and old.

I absolutely loved making this cake! Each piece was so detailed and unique! Grace later told me that her mother loved it so much that they shipped each sugar piece over to her house so that she could keep them as mementos. I was so happy to hear just how much they enjoyed the cake!

Pink & Orange Topsy Turvy Wedding Cake

2011-11-12T10:16:00.001-07:00

Before I get started, here is a featured spot on this wedding: http://blog.thebrideandgroom.com/utah-wedding-planning/utah-wedding-vendors/stephanie-richiespring-wedding-at-la-caillefeatured-utah-wedding/

You know how you love your kids equally but some just behave better than others? That's how I feel about my cakes. I love them all but some just cooperate and flow beautifully while others give me trouble into the night. This cake, made for Stephanie's colorful and bright wedding, was so much fun to make. It really was a great night of marshmallow fondant that cooperated, just pearls that stayed together, and sugar flowers that popped off of the cake. I really couldn't be more happy with how this cake cake together, was made, and was completed. So let's start from the top.

Stephanie & her mom, Grace, were so excited for this cake. That was a great start! I knew that they wanted something fun, colorful, and unique. They knew they wanted a topsy cake and wanted to use orange and pink. We went back and forth on a quite a few designs before ending with this one. Stephanie and her parents came to a cake tasting where they brought tons of inspirations. They had tulle from the bride's amazing custom made dress (from Modest Couture,

	http://www.modestcouturebyelizabeth.com/), teapots, colors, teacups, and lots of excitement! It was a great night! At the tasting they decided on Ruby Red Velvet cake (layered with cream cheese frosting) and Coconut Cream Pie Cake (coconut cake layered with coconut flakes and coconut cream filling). I actually made quite a few cupcakes for the tasting as well since we supplemented the cake with cute cupcakes. They took those home and later told me that they ate them all for all meals of the day :)

http://www.modestcouturebyelizabeth.com/), teapots, colors, teacups, and lots of excitement! It was a great night! At the tasting they decided on Ruby Red Velvet cake (layered with cream cheese frosting) and Coconut Cream Pie Cake (coconut cake layered with coconut flakes and coconut cream filling). I actually made quite a few cupcakes for the tasting as well since we supplemented the cake with cute cupcakes. They took those home and later told me that they ate them all for all meals of the day :)

The cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and accented with fondant sugar flowers, sugar pearls, and topped with a sugar teacup filled with flowers. When I delivered this cake to La Caille, I couldn't believe just how perfect the venue was for this wedding. Please do check out the blog post that featured this wedding because you HAVE to see Stephanie's wedding dress and the room that was decorated so beautifully.

I cannot say enough about Grace & Stephanie. They were tremendously gracious and trusting of their vision and their planning of this wedding was executed so perfectly. I love when weddings are about the bride and groom and this wedding definitely was. Everything was thoughtfully planned to reflect the personalities involved here. Congratulations to the couple and I can't wait to work with you again! :)

Buzz Lightyear Themed Cake

2011-11-12T10:10:00.001-07:00

Nikki wanted a Buzz Lightyear themed birthday cake for Kaiden's 2nd birthday. Due to copyright laws, I can't recreate Buzz so we decided that I'd create a cake around Buzz's theme and then she could place a little Buzz toy on the cake (I know, the laws are silly!). The Brownie Lovers cake was topped with a rice krispie planet. The whole cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and accented with edible shimmer, pearls, and dragees.

Black Swirls & Blue Border Wedding

2011-11-12T09:56:00.001-07:00

Whitney wanted a big wedding cake to match the color scheme and feel of the wedding. She had seen a cake that she loved and wanted something similar. This 5-tiered cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and then I hand-piped the swirls onto the cake. The border on the bottom was edged to give it more detail and then an aqua fondant band went around the cake as well. The cake flavor was Cookies & Cake, vanilla cake layered with crushed Oreos and buttercream.

This cake was a lot of hard work but lots of fun. Because the design isn't completely set, I get to sit and just pipe freely until my heart's content. Yay!

I have to say that Whitney's mother, Michelle, was awesome during the whole process. It's great to get to work with people who care about the same things I care about and who trust my abilities. I got to do Whitney's sister's wedding a few weeks ago as well and just appreciate the kindness of this family.

Gears of War cake

2011-11-12T09:50:00.001-07:00

Emily wanted a Gears of War cake for her son's birthday. I didn't know what it was (all you nerds out there, I'm ashamed, okay! I'm ashamed! haha) so I did some research and found this logo. I knew it would be a challenge to recreate in all edible form but I was up for the challenge. Essentially I made a round cake, then added rice krispies to form the spokes around the cake. Each one was different so I had to cut, shave, form, and cover in buttercream a few times before I was happy with the shape.

I covered this "Can I Have Smores Cake" (chocolate cake layered with graham crackers, chocolate chips, and marshmallow fluff) with marshmallow fondant differently than I usually do. I covered the top in all red then I rolled out a long and wide piece of fondant to cover the sides of the cake. This made a more crisp edge. For the skull, I blew up a picture of the actual logo and then used it as a stencil to cut out the exact skeleton face. I placed it on the black inside circle and then used water and a paintbrush with black food coloring to give the face some shadow. I was so happy with the outcome and my brother (who apparently has the games and books) was really happy with it :)

Green, green, green, wedding cake

2011-11-12T09:44:00.001-07:00

Jenny saw a cake that she loved and wanted something similar for her wedding. The cake is all light yellow-green with a darker green crimped border. The top and bottom tiers were quilted with tiny pearls in the corners. The florist provided these beautiful flowers. The long pieces were so cool! (Yeah, I don't know what those are called... haha).

Jenny chose White Almond Wedding Cake, Strawberry Cheesecake Cake, and Chocolate Hazelnut Cake. The whole cake was covered in marshmallow fondant. The venue at Wadley Farms was beautiful! It looked like a cute little cottage in the middle of nowhere! It was raining that day but the venue was so rustic and warm inside. Absolutely beautiful! :)

Poker Groom's Cake

2011-11-12T09:32:00.001-07:00

Regan wanted to surprise her future husband with a poker themed groom's cake. I made a similar cake for the TV spot I did on KUTV and so we recreated it with a better hand :) The cake was Mocha Java flavored (Chocolate cake layered with coffee buttercream... yum!) and covered in homemade marshmallow fondant.

I love the simplicity of this cake. The cards are really just rectangles, the chips are just circles, and the side pieces are fondant discs with spades, clubs, hearts, and diamonds cut with aspic cutters. To make the chips, I cut out circles, then used a circle cutter even small to indent a circle inside of the chip. I cut out tiny white squares and placed them around the edges to make it look more realistic.

Thank you to my brothers for all of their help and "research" in getting the cards and chips as accurate as possible :)

Ladies that Luncheon (or Ladies that Cake :)

2011-11-01T20:29:00.000-06:00

WOW! That's not me patting myself on the back, I promise :) I believe it stands for Women of Worship. Carol wanted a unique cake for her women's church group gathering. She specifically wanted "girlie" and "pink" and more "girlie." We decided that a purse, hatbox, and present box would be perfect. I accented the cake with some edible sugar pearls, sugar brooch, sugar flower, and sugar bow. The whole cake is edible, including the "tissue paper" in the present and hat box.

I had so much fun making this zebra printed purse. First, I made the sugar flower with a pearl center and the brooch that's all sugar pearls and let those set up for a few days. I didn't want this whole cake to be black and white because Carol was pretty specific in her need for PINK! Haha. I shaped out the purse, frosted it, then covered it in marshmallow fondant. I added a flap over the top and used a quilting tool to add seams to the purse. I cut out zebra stripes freehand because it's way more fun that way. I added a purse strap, the flower, and brooch and Ta-Da!

I used a cool stencil design I found a while back for this present box and topped it off with a fondant bow. The lid was made out of rice krispies and then I propped it up just a bit to add the edible tissue paper.

The hatbox was extra tall (to fit a hat, of course) and topped off with a rice-krispie hatbox lid. I draped the sugar pearls around the box to give it a little more detail.

I believe the flavors were Banana Cream Pie, Mocha Java, and Brownie Lovers. Yum! I would've stayed to eat all three flavors, especially because the ladies were so much fun! They were shocked that this was their cake! They were setting up for the ladies weekend and stopped to come huddle around the cake. They took pictures of the cake and with the cake. Haha... they were awesome! Thank you ladies!!

Hot Pink & Damask Wedding

2011-11-01T20:10:00.002-06:00

Lisa wanted an elegant but still fun and girlie wedding cake. Her wedding colors were hot pink, black, and white and she wanted to add some bling in there too. After getting a better idea of what she wanted, we came up with this design together. We used a full black damask pattern on the bottom tier to match her damask wedding scheme as well. The middle tier had pink and white pinstripes with an edible black border. We added some jewels around the monogram for extra bling and then used pink dragees in the corners of the diamond pattern on the top tier. I created small pink, hot pink, and white sugar flowers to make up a flower bunch on the top of the cake.

The wedding was held at a relative's beautiful home. The whole backyard was set up beautifully to match the color and damask scheme. It was stunning! I was so happy that the cake fit in perfectly to the wedding landscape. Congratulations, Lisa & Jared!!

Oh, her flavors were White Raspberry Kiss and Turtle Power Cake (you can check out the flavor descriptions at www.SaltCakeCity.com).

Mini Mario Cake

2011-11-01T19:56:00.000-06:00

Recently, I've been making a lot more mini-cakes, which I think are ADORABLE! Look how tiny and cute this is!!! It's a 4-inch round top with a 6-inch round bottom. It's all covered in marshmallow fondant and all of the Mario bits and pieces are MMF as well. It was a Chocolate Chip No-Cookie Cake (vanilla cake layered with chocolate chips and buttercream). I loved making each little detail for Leo's birthday because it took me back to my childhood as well. Enjoy the throwback and the mini! :)

P.S. I'd like to add this to my nerd cake collection... Ah, I have to represent!

White & Black Separated Cake

2011-10-16T14:34:00.001-06:00

Chanelle wanted a really unique but also traditional wedding cake. We spent a lot of time figuring out which details to include and exclude for this wedding cake in order to get it perfect for her. We kept it traditional by using the columns to separate the cakes but threw in a more modern design with the floral designs and using a black and white color theme. The top two tiers were hand-piped designs, the third tier down was a floral designer stencil and the bottom tier was quilted with black dragees at the corners. The whole cake was covered in marshmallow fondant. Half of the cake was Chocolate cake with strawberry filling and the other half was White Chocolate Dipped Strawberry cake.

I have to admit a major fault here. Chanelle wanted the whole cake to be shimmered, which I think is so lovely because it shines beautifully. So I completed each tier, then sprayed the whole cake with edible pearl shimmer. I had a total panic attack when I realized that the shimmer on the black piping turned the black into silver. AH! I spent the next few hours hand painting all of the piping back into black. I felt so silly afterward!

So I try to assemble most of my cakes, if possible, before I get to the venue. There's really nothing more nerve racking than assembling a cake with a crowd of wedding guests surrounding me. Makes my hands shake!! Haha. This cake, however had to be assembled on site. I brought all of the back up supplies just in case I had a cake-tastrophy on the way over. Luckily, it was smooth sailing all the way. I loved the lighting behind the cake table as well. I placed the bride and groom on the top, added the cute purple flowers and took off just in time for the wedding to start. Yay!

It's the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse! Come inside!

2011-10-16T14:19:00.000-06:00

It's fun inside! (Yes, I'm singing the song!) Shona has the BEST parties! She threw her best friend a birthday party last year and went big with it (It was the double sided cake, half-death, half-Hawaiian themed... all hilarious). So when her grand-baby turned 1, she wanted to do it in style. Payton loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse so we did the whole Clubhouse in cake form.

Although the picture doesn't make it look very big, this cake was quite the feat, . The cake was Samoa Says Cake and Chunky Monkey cake (You can see descriptions and pictures of cake flavors on my website, www.SaltCakeCity.com). The hand, tower to the hand, and shoe were sculpted out of rice krispies. The Mickey Mouse head was styrofoam painted black. I know, I know. That should've been edible too. The issue was that mickey's head was just too darn heavy! My practice Mickey head split in half due to the sheer weight so could you imagine if that would've happened at the party. The babies would've cried for hours! Haha...

Anyway, the whole cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and all of the accents, were marshmallow fondant as well. I made a matching smash cake for Payton to destroy at the party as well. So much fun!!

Red Anemone Wedding Cake

2011-10-11T16:20:00.000-06:00

Airin's wedding cake was inspired by a cake she had seen and fell in love with. We tweaked the cake a bit to make sure it reflected her wedding feel and style. I made large red sugar anemone flowers to put on the sides of the cake as well as the top. She wanted the black swirls to cascade down the sides of the cake rather than be all over the cake.

The whole cake is covered in marshmallow fondant and I made the flowers and swirls out of fondant as well. The cake was Mint Chocolate Chip, Samoa Says Cake, and Raspberry Cheesecake flavored.

Aaron Despain Photography took these beautiful shots of the cake. You can find more of his amazing work at www.aarondespainphotography.com.
Here is an up close shot of the flowers. Enjoy! :)

Sassy Hippo Cake

2011-10-10T21:28:00.001-06:00

Aimee wanted a cutesy hippo cake for Laci's birthday. Aimee basically said, "I want a hippo, I want purple, now do whatever you want." It was great! I had made a 3-D hippo cake not too long ago but wanted to take a different route with this one. The cake was Brownie Lovers Cake with a rice krispie head covered in marshmallow fondant (because carving chewy brownies can be quite difficult). For the head, I shaped it out of rice krispies, covered that in buttercream, then in fondant. I indented the nostrils using a fondant ball tool and then added the exaggerated eyes, eye lids, lashes, ears, and teeth. I dyed buttercream different shades of blue and piped it around the hippo (I should have named her!). Finally, I used an angled spatula to make the buttercream look a little messier so that it looked more like water.

I really did love this cake. My parents were in town visiting when I made this cake and I rarely get a chance to show them what I do. My mom gave her input on the eyes, ears, waves, etc. which made this order so memorable. Thanks, Aimee for all of your trust!

Construction Graduation Cake

2011-10-10T21:21:00.000-06:00

Nicolette wanted a unique graduation cake for Charley. Because he was graduating in Construction Management, we wanted to incorporate that design element into the cake. We did the cake in Colorado Rockies colors, since that's his favorite team, and then added little construction signs all around the cake. I drew the construction signs by hand with edible marker and I love how they look. They are playful but were very clear to Nicolette and Charley :) The graduation hat was made out of rice krispies and the whole cake was covered in marshmallow fondant. The cake was Cookies & Cake and Lemon Supreme. I wish I had more pictures of the signs because they were adorable! haha. Thanks for reading :)

Repunzel's Tangled Tower Cake

2011-10-10T21:10:00.000-06:00

I made this cake for my bonus daughter's 8th birthday. We watched Tangled in theaters and we all loved it so much that Echo had to have the party be Tangled themed as well. This cake took HOURS upon HOURS to complete but I loved it in the end. I actually forgot what cake flavor this was because the tower took me so much time... haha.

The cake was covered in marshmallow fondant. I'm proud to say that everything on this cake is edible! I made the tower by covering a pipe with rice krispies and then covered them in buttercream and then covered that in marshmallow fondant. Lastly, I piped buttercream grass and placed little marshmallow fondant flowers on the tower. The house on the other hand, took some work. The whole house is rice krispies covered in buttercream and fondant. I shaped out the house and added an upside down ice cream cone on top to make the point. Then, I cut little purple, pink, and blue "tiles" out of fondant and placed them by hand on roof to make it look like shingles. I accented the house with windows, and fondant made to look like Repunzel's house in the movie. The trickiest part was to get the house to balance on the rice krispie tower. Wait, I take that back. The hardest part was driving 45 minutes to get the cake to the party all assembled in the car. It made it in one piece (YAY!).

Echo absolutely loved the cake and her friends loved it even more. It was so cute to see how proud she was of this fun cake! After the party, Echo gave the tower to Rosie (my best friend, originator of my business name, and official fondant maker) and I think Rosie still has it in her kitchen. Haha....

Texas Longhorn Cupcakes

2011-10-10T20:55:00.001-06:00

Camille works for Brian, who received Mickey Mouse Cupcakes from Honey a while back, and she got to try a few of the cupcakes since Brian couldn't eat that many cupcakes himself :) So then Camille ordered cupcakes for Jacob with his favorite team's colors. Can you guess it? Yup! Texas Longhorns! Half of the cupcakes were chocolate and half were vanilla all topped with buttercream. I topped some of the cupcakes with marshmallow fondant toppers with "Texas," "T," and the longhorn logo on them. I printed out the longhorns logo and then hand cut the fondant to make sure they looked right. So simple but so fun! :)

Super Sweet 2nd

2011-10-10T20:48:00.002-06:00

Laura was having a Super Sweet 2nd Birthday party for Gigi and wanted a super princess cake to match. She sent me over the party invitation and it was so cute that we decided to incorporate the design into the cake. It's hard to see here but the little blue design on the middle tier are two "S"s (for Super Sweet) and then the diamond design on that tier along with the princess crown. The flavors were Strawberry Not So Short Cake and Chocolate Truffle Cake. The whole thing was covered in marshmallow fondant.

I made the crown by cutting fondant in the right shape. Then, I laid the soft fondant around a small 4-inch round fake cake made of styrofoam. I added the yellow trim design and the purple diamonds in the center. I waited a few days and then slid the styrofoam out from the hardened crown. Lastly, I added a few golden dots on the top of the crown. So much fun! Laura went nuts when she saw the cake and I was so happy that she loved it!

Swirls & Quilted Ute Red

2011-10-10T20:39:00.001-06:00

Here in Utah, there are lots of University of Utah fans and Isabelle wanted to use Ute Red in her wedding cake. The cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and then I used buttercream for the swirls and dots. The middle tier is quilted with red dragees in the corners of the diamonds. Hmm.... I think that's all there is to explain :)

The top and bottom tiers were Tuxedo Cake and the middle tier was Strawberry Not So Short Cake. Yum!

Black & Pink Wedding Cake

2011-10-02T17:19:00.000-06:00

Amy wanted a totally different cake for her wedding and I was so excited when I found out what she wanted. Her wedding colors were black and bright pink and her idea was to do an all black cake with black vertical lines and very bright pink sugar flowers for the cake. I was definitely in! Then, Amy brought by this awesome cake base that her fiance made for the cake and these amazing skull cake toppers. They were hand made and worth almost as much as the cake itself so yes, it was a very scary delivery :)

The top was Ruby Red Velvet cake, the middle tier is Coconut Macaroon Cake and the bottom tier was Samoa Says Cake. The whole cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and the flowers were as well. The centers of the sugar flowers were rolled in crystalized sugar to give it a little extra sparkle. I wish I got a better picture of the cake because although it's definitely non traditional, the cake was pretty cool in person. Amy LOVED it, which is all that matters to me :)

Shark Head (hoo-ha-ha!)

2011-10-02T17:01:00.002-06:00

Ah, this cake was SO MUCH FUN! Laura wanted a REALLY unique birthday cake for Graham's birthday and she knew he wanted a shark cake. We decided to do a shark head coming out of the water. The cake was chocolate cake layered with chocolate buttercream and covered in marshmallow fondant. The whole thing looked like a white lump at first.... which was really sad for me. Then, I got to work!

I first carved out the mouth of the shark, angled the slope of the snout (do sharks have snouts?? I don't know), and then added more cake for the lips (well, I guess sharks don't have lips but you get the point). I then hand-painted the color gradation for the shark's skin (skin? Ah, this is a hard post!). I painted the mouth and nostrils and indented some black eyes into the cake itself. I added a few rows of shark teeth (hoo-ha-ha!). Lastly, I piped on some thick white and blue buttercream and then used an angled spatula to make it look more like waves.

Now if you're asking yourself what hoo-ha-ha is, watch Finding Nemo again :)

Green Guitar Cake

2011-10-02T16:52:00.002-06:00

This guitar was kind of a last minute order. Effey wanted a lime green and purple guitar to match the guitar that Vasileos had for his birthday. This cake was huge! It barely fit in the fridge when it was all done! It was all real cake and covered in marshmallow fondant. I loved that Effey wanted a "Peace, Love, and Rock 'n' Roll" message in the cake. It was a challenge to keep the cake so thin for the neck of the cake but was so much fun in the end :)

Deep and White Cupcake Tower

2011-10-02T16:47:00.002-06:00

Shauna wanted a cupcake tower for her wedding and wanted to match the colors and flowers for her wedding in the design. I had done her bridesmaid's wedding cake a few weeks earlier and so I was so excited to make Shauna's as well. We decided to do 3 cupcake flavors (Triple Chocolate, Rainbow Bright, and Strawberry) and the top cake was Rainbow Bright as well with layers of light green, dark green, and white cake.

DL Jones Construction made this awesome cupcake tower and since then, I ordered two more cupcake towers from Dennis Jones. Turns out that on the day of the wedding, I grabbed two wrong center dowels and wouldn't you know it, I couldn't get the 4-tier cupcake tower together. Ugh. It was really stressful in the moment because Shauna's guests were all waiting for the cupcake tower to be completed, along with the other tables for dinner. I had to assemble what I could of the tower and place the cupcakes as soon as possible because there were kids (and adults) running up and sneaking cupcakes away :) Haha. It's was actually pretty funny. One of the guests took a deep green cupcake and smashed it into another guests' face. Lucky it was the guest and not the bride!

Princess Tiara Birthday Cake

2011-09-14T15:08:00.002-06:00

Jen was having a fun princess themed birthday party for Madeleine's 3rd birthday and wanted a cutesy birthday cake to go along with it. We thought it only fitting that she have a princess tiara made of sugar for the day along with a wand (Do princesses have wands? Hmm, I guess so). Everything was made out of marshmallow fondant including the roses and bow. Jen's husband, Keldon, came to pick up the cake (there's nothing more enjoyable for me than to watch men carry out adorable princess cakes from Salt Cake city :) Keldon was so excited about the cake that he insisted on taking pictures of it even before leaving. I later heard back from Jen that Madeleine and all of her 3 year old friends loved the cake. Yay!

Here's an up close shot of the roses, wand, and pearls. :)

Snow Mobile Cake

2011-09-01T10:02:00.002-06:00

Breanna wanted a snow mobile cake for Winston's 7th birthday since that's the hobby he loves the most right now. I wanted to reflect the mountains here in Utah along with his snow mobile on the top. I made the snow mobile out of fondant, then painted the colors on with edible food coloring. The wooden sign was made out of fondant as well. I marbleized brown and white fondant together, let it dry and then wrote "Happy 7th Birthday Winston" on it. I made a few trees in the background with coconut and crystalized sugar "snow." I had so much fun making this cake because of all of the details of the snow mobile and winter scene, especially since we were in spring :)

Piece of Cake!

2011-09-01T09:56:00.002-06:00

Contrary to what this blog might suggest, I don't always make a cake for my classes. I did happen to make this cake for my students at Neumont University last quarter. I wanted it to be fun and festive and I've always wanted to do a slice of cake-cake. This was my opportunity!

To achieve look, I baked a full size cake. Then, before I frosted and filled the cake, I cut out the slice that I wanted to use as the top. I torted and frosted each of these two pieces separately. I did a flavor experiment with my students (free cake should always be an experiment :) It was a Peach Cobbler Cake, peach flavored spice cake layered with peach filling and granola. Wasn't my favorite experiment but from it, I revamped my peach flavor and now have the Just Peachy Cake (cinnamon vanilla cake layered with peach filing, peach slices and cinnamon buttercream). Anyway, back to this cake!

I covered the whole cake in white marshmallow fondant, then, I used a yellow fondant and made the sides of the cake lined with purple filling (I'm not quite sure what purple filling would be but I loved the color combination). I added stripes to the outside of the cake, then covered the top of the cake with teal "frosting." In order to the get that ruffle look, I simple didn't push the sides of the fondant onto the cake itself, I lifted the sides of the fondant to give it some volume. Lastly, I added marshmallow fondant "sprinkles." Yum!

Thank you, ladies & gents for a great class! It's always a fun time at Neumont :)

Peek a boo! I see you!

2011-09-01T09:49:00.000-06:00

Erin & Brian wanted a really unique wedding cake for their reception in March. Originally, Erin said she wanted something pretty traditional with swirled piping on a white cake. Then as we talked, I could see she wanted a little something different. Since her colors were white and blue, we decided to incorporate those colors into a cake that had some personality. This was the end result:

The cake was Chocolate Hazelnut cake (chocolate cake layered with hazelnut cream filling and buttercream) and Strawberry Cheesecake cake (strawberry cake layered with cheesecake cream filling and buttercream). They were covered in marshmallow fondant. Here's how this Peek-a-boo look done.

I covered each tier in blue first. Then, I rolled out a much thicker piece of white fondant and gently layered it over the blue. I took my tiny fondant cutter and slowly, softly, tenderly, gently, pushed the pattern into white fondant, being careful to not dig into the blue. I used a toothpick to pull the white fondant out of the cutter before removing the cutter from the fondant. I did that a hundred more times and then I had achieved the pattern she was going for. As the pattern got bigger and bigger, the fondant wanted to move around a bit more. I then took a paintbrush and a dab of water to "glue" the white fondant to the blue fondant. I added a blue border to each tier and then used a separated covered in the same blue fondant to give the top tier a little extra height. Finally, I added a top blue circle on the very top of the cake to give it some more color. Phew! It was quite the journey :)

It's the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!

2011-09-01T09:39:00.000-06:00

It's the Mickey Mouse, Clubhouse! Come inside it's fun inside! (sing along if you know it :) Jennifer wanted a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse themed cake for her three year old son's birthday. Because she didn't need to serve a ton of people, we decided to go with a MMC representation, rather than the full clubhouse (because that's puppy's pretty big!). The green part was cake, Tuxedo flavor, and the red part was rice krispies. Mickey's head, the candles, and the sign with "Chase" on it were all marshmallow fondant. It's amazing how much smaller this cake is in the picture than in person!

I've had a few people ask me how to make Mickey heads in fondant. All you need are two circle cutters (you can use biscuit cutters if you have those). When I'm doing small Mickey heads, I use a round piping tip and use the small end for the ears and the bigger side for the head. The trick it getting the dimensions right so that Mickey doesn't look like he has an oversized head or super tiny ears :) Enjoy!

Mickey Mouse Inspired Cupcakes

2011-07-23T22:11:00.003-06:00

Honey wanted to surprise her new boyfriend with a set of Mickey Mouse cupcakes. I was so happy to make them because I LOVE Mickey :) I decided to do a deconstructed Mickey and Minnie set of cupcakes and here's how they turned out. Half of the cupcakes were vanilla with vanilla buttercream and the other half were chocolate with chocolate buttercream (I've only pictured the vanilla ones here). All of the toppers were made out of marshmallow fondant and I hand-sculpted all of the Mickey and Minnie parts.

I delivered them to Brian's office and his receptionists went nuts over them. It was so sweet of Honey to surprise him like that. She said he blushed all day long over them.

Just to update you..... they are now engaged and will be married in a few months. That's right, I like to think my cupcakes had magic love in them :) Congratulations you two!! I can't wait to make your wedding cake!

Dual Sports Birthday

2011-07-23T22:06:00.002-06:00

Dominique was having a joint birthday party for Nick and Nico again this year. Last year, I made the boys a sports themed cake that was three tiers and had a baseball, basketball and football for each tier. This year, I went a different route because I wanted to keep it unique and fun for them. The basketball and baseball were made out of rice krispies covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. The basketball net and the baseball field were the cakes. The cakes were Cookies & Cake (vanilla cake layered with crushed Oreos and buttercream). The cake doesn't look as big here but it was pretty big and heavy. I get such a work out with some of these cakes :) haha

Jungle Animal Birthday Cake

2011-07-23T21:53:00.004-06:00

Shannon was having a Jungle themed birthday for Gabe this year and wanted a cake to match. I've done a few jungle animal cakes before but none that were 2-dimensional to match an invitation so I was super excited. I've attached the invitation below for you to see what I was going for. One of the tiers was Ruby Red Velvet with buttercream and one tier was Boston Cream Pie Cake (yellow cake layered with vanilla cream filling and chocolate buttercream). The cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and the animals were also all fondant. Happy Birthday, Gabe!

Rosa's Kitty Cake

2011-07-23T21:42:00.002-06:00

Danielle's babygirl was turning one and she wanted a fun cake for her party. She wanted to incorporate Rosa's cats with the cake and since the cake was such bright and vibrant colors, the cats really stood out as well. I loved the contrast here. The cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and the cats were also made of fondant.

You might be looking at these cats and saying "I could never do that" but I promise, it's super easy and fun... as long as you have some patience and time. Fondant cats are really just a mixture of different circles (head and stomach) with some thin tubes (arms and legs) mixed with small dots for the whites of their hands, feet, and stomach.

Danielle ordered Orange Creamsicle for this cake (orange flavored cake layered with orange cream filling and buttercream). Yum! I got to see some pictures of Rosa enjoying the cake... soooo cute :) I love when babies are covered in sugar... haha

Grandpa Fishing Cake

2011-07-23T21:22:00.002-06:00

Patty wanted a special cake to celebrate her dad's 50th birthday. She thought it would be cute to have grandpa fishing off of a dock with his four grandkids. As you can tell, Grandpa's a huge dodgers fan so I added that to his shirt as well. :) The whole cake and all of the decorations were edible except the wires hooking the fishing poles to the fish. Behind grandpa and the kids were a bucket full of worms and a tackle box with hooks in it.

The cake was a Tuxedo cake (chocolate and vanilla cake layered with chocolate and vanilla buttercream) and White Raspberry Kiss Cake (white chocolate cake layered with raspberry cream filling and white chocolate ganache). It was covered in marshmallow fondant and the kids and grandpa were also fondant. Thank you for looking :)

Tiffany Blue Wedding Cake

2011-07-09T10:23:00.002-06:00

Jennica & Braden were having a very traditional and elegant wedding and at the tasting, Jennica said she wanted a fun and colorful cake to offset the traditional. This is what she had in mind. This cake was based on a cake from Creative Cakes & Cookies and incorporated Jennica's beautiful wedding colors (black, white, and Tiffany blue). The whole cake is covered in marshmallow fondant and decorated with MMF as well.

Jennica & Braden chose three flavors for their cake. The first was Brownie Lovers (chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache and a layer of chewy brownies), the second was Ruby Red Velvet Cake (moist red velvet cake layered with cream cheese frosting), and the last was White Raspberry Kiss (white chocolate cake layered with white chocolate ganache and raspberry cream filling).

When I got to the venue to deliver the cake, they had a BEAUTIFUL room set up. I came in just as the wedding party was taking their photos together and wow, they looked wonderful. Everyone was dressed in black, white and Tiffany blue and room matched. Have I mentioned that this was a picture perfect couple? :) I have to give a special shout out to Penny, mother of the bride. She was amazing to work with to make sure all of the details were correct on the cake and also for the set up. Thank you all for being so easy to work with!

Red Bows & Pearls Cake

2011-07-03T20:02:00.002-06:00

Jesse, a former student of mine, emailed me saying he was getting married. You can imagine how shocked I was considering how young he is but then again, I do live in Utah :) He asked if I was able to make his wedding cake and I said, "Absolutely!" He was a great student and so I knew his fiancee was a lucky lady. Tori emailed me later and said they both trusted my judgement and to make whatever cake I wanted to make for them. Well, as fun as that may sound to some of you, it's MUCH harder than just doing whatever I want to do. I think a wedding cake should reflect the bride and groom, or at least the feel of the wedding itself. If your wedding is a very traditional and formal wedding, a bright colored topsy turvy cake probably wouldn't be the best. On the flip side, if you're having a fun wedding to reflect your outgoing personalities, a plain white wedding cake wouldn't do either. So this means I had to go on the hunt for more details. I asked about her dress, her venue, her invitations, etc. I soon found that they were having quite the wedding at the Grand America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake. A wedding at the Grand America for a beautiful couple should be grand itself, don't you agree?

This was the wedding cake for my adorable former student and his new blushing bride. We decided to do alternating borders of overlapping fondant and pearl beaded fondant. On the tiers with the pearls, I did 6 layers of the beads so that it created a very thick border on the cake but still an elegant touch. The large bows are also made out of fondant and I added a few edible white pearls around the cake (you can't see it very well in this picture but they're there). The only thing not edible are the crystal brooches in the centers of the bows because Tori wanted some bling on the cake. Finally, I painted the red bows and borders with edible shimmer to give it more sparkle.

The couple chose After Dinner Mint (Minty chocolate cake layered with mint chocolate ganache and mini-chocolate chips) & Southern Butter Pecan Cake (Butter pecan cake layered with caramel, pecans, and cream cheese frosting)

Congratulations, Tori and Jesse. You are a beautiful couple and I was thrilled to make the cake for you :)

Baby Blue Animal Print Cupcakes

2011-07-03T19:22:00.004-06:00

Shandell wanted cute cupcakes for a baby shower she was throwing. Since it was a baby boy's shower, we matched the shower invitations by doing baby blue animal print designs on the tops of the cupcakes. Here's the invitation:

For the cupcakes, she chose two flavors. The first is After Dinner Mint cupcakes which are minty chocolate cupcakes topped with mint chocolate ganache. Here's a shot of the cupcakes before the toppers:

The second flavor was Carnival Caramel Apple cupcakes which are spice cake with baked apples topped with cinnamon buttercream and caramel. YUM!
Shandell's been one of my clients for a few years now and I was so happy to make these cute little cupcakes for her. She later wrote me and said they were delicious and quite the hit at the party. Thanks, Shandell! :)

Soccer Birthday

2011-07-03T18:59:00.002-06:00

Carol wanted to get Matthew a unique birthday cake for his 16th birthday (not sweet 16, but rather a soccer 16 birthday). I remember telling her that it's not as easy as it sounds to make a soccer themed cake that doesn't look like a child's party cake. I came up with this design to incorporate Matthew's school colors, red and gold, along with his soccer jersey. Making a completely edible soccer net was quite the challenge. Fondant likes to lay flat to I had to dry it against a curved object that it wouldn't stick to. Four nets later, this one worked :) It's hard to see in this picture but it's on the top there with the fondant 16.

The cake was an Orange Dreamsicle Cake (orange cake layered with orange cream filling and buttercream) covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. Carol and Matthew were so excited when I delivered the cake while I apologized the whole time about it still looking childish to me. Haha... I'm such a perfectionist. They both loved it and so I just have to get over it. :)

Bright Zebra Birthday

2011-07-03T18:45:00.002-06:00

Whitney wanted a bright & fun birthday cake with a zebra print theme somewhere in there so we came up with this design for her 13th birthday party. To make it a little more whimsical, I tapered in the sides and made it slightly topsy so that it almost looks like it's falling over. The cake was Cookies & Cake (vanilla cake layerd with crushed Oreo cookies) and white cake with raspberry filling (the birthday girl's choices, of course). The balls and the number "13" are all made out of fondant and the whole cake was covered and decorated with marshmallow fondant. I had a ton of fun with this cake because it was just bright and colorful. Hmm... I don't think there's much else to it! :)

Hippo Birthday Luau

2011-07-03T00:07:00.003-06:00

Easter wanted a really unique birthday cake for Lili's first birthday. In fact, it was so unique that her husband drew a sketch of exactly what they wanted... Safari Lili sitting on top of a giant purple hippo with a friendly alligator and lion inside of a little jungle scene. Yup. That's right! Here's what I came up with. The hippo is all edible. The body and legs are all Ruby Red Velvet Cake with cream cheese frosting and the head is all rice-crispies. The whole cake is covered in homemade marshmallow fondant.

Here is an upclose shot of Lili and her little lion and alligator friend. They are all made out of fondant and so are the palm trees. I thought it was so cool that Easter's husband drew out a sketch and I'll tell you, when I first saw the sketch, I had NO idea how I was going to do it. As Bronwen Weber once said, always say yes and then figure out how to do it later. That's exactly what I did and I'm so glad I took on the challenge.

In order to get the cake this big, there were two full tiers of cake inside of the hippo herself and they were separated by a piece of cardboard and supported with straws so that the cake didn't collapse on itself. I shaped the head out of rice crispies and then covered the head in buttercream. I let that firm up in the fridge for a while, then I sculpted it down to make sure it was cute and in proportion. I covered it again in buttercream and then in marshmallow fondant. I added the eyes, lashes, nose and ears. Then, I used a few skewers to skewer the head in tightly to the main cake, and boy was this head heavy. It was HUGE (like an orange on a toothpick... or a rice crispie hippo head on a skewer, I suppose). Once I got the hippo's body and head put together, I added the legs out of cake and then placed Lili and her animal friends on the top of the hippo.

When I got to the party, Easter had gone all out! There were musicians, dancers, decorations, tons of food and it just looked like an awesome party. She went nuts over the cake and so I was proud to have been a part of Lili's first birthday. As a surprise, I made a matching smash cake with just a little hippo's face on it for Lili to get into and Lili loved it. Well, technically, I don't think Lili cared too much but Easter loved it :) haha

Call of Duty Birthday Cake

2011-06-05T13:05:00.003-06:00

This cake reminded me of my dad (he was an Army man for nearly 30 years) but it was for a 13th birthday. It was modeled after a video game and a cake that Minda had seen. Everything on the cake is edible and that made me so happy :) The gun and grenades were rice krispies covered in marshmallow fondant and then the helmet and camouflage base were cake.
The bottom tier was After Dinner Mint flavor (minty chocolate cake layered with mint chocolate ganache and mini chocolate chips) while the helmet was Tuxedo Cake (vanilla and chocolate layered with buttercream & chocolate buttercream). I hand painted the camo onto the cake using food coloring and water (like watercolor painting). For the gun and grenades , I shaped it out of rice krispies and then covered in it fondant. Afterward, I used a sculpting tool to create grooves, indents, and patterns into the fondant so that it had shape and looked more realistic.
After the party, I got this email from Minda: "Bday cake was AWESOME!!!!! Thank you so much for all your hard work! My son, Dakota loved it! Not to mention it was so yummy! You are so awesome! We will definetly be using you in the future and recomend you to others! Thanks again! We look forward in working with you in the future!!!" Yay!

Valentine Cupcakes

2011-06-05T13:01:00.002-06:00

My bonus daughter was having a Valentine's party in class (Yes, I am THAT far behind in posting pictures... I'm Sorry!). The rules on snacks in classrooms have become way more strict than when I was in school so now they can only bring in store-bought snacks. Luckily, I own a bakery so I can make special little treats like this. Yay! These were mini chocolate cupcakes topped with red dyed buttercream and really big candy conversation hearts. They were so adorable and she loved them. Happy late Valentine's Day (yes, I know, that was A LONG time ago :)

Light Pink Mouse Cake

2011-06-05T12:37:00.003-06:00

Sireesha and Sunil wanted a special birthday cake for their daughter, Ananya's, first birthday. They were throwing a big party and even renting out a special venue to get the friends and family together and celebrate. The party was Minnie Mouse themed so we came up with this cute design to match the decor of the room.

They chose a really soft pink rather than the vibrant pinks I've done in the past for other "pink mouse cakes." It's hard to see in this picture but I love how the soft pink contrasts with the black because it still pops off the cake. The whole cake is covered in marshmallow fondant and the hat on top is made out of rice krispies. Everything on the cake is edible. They chose strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting and Emerald City cake (pistachio flavored cake layered with pistachio cream filling and pistachio nut). Yum!

When I got to the venue, the space was beautiful! They had a ton of balloons and decorations which gave the room a fun feeling. I had to chose you a picture of it here... not the best picture of the cake but the space is awesome! :) I love the mouse ears made out of balloons!

Maroon & Brown Shimmer Cake

2011-05-26T19:49:00.003-06:00

I was asked to make a display cake for an awesome venue that I partner with (The Gathering Place at Gardner Village) because they were doing a wedding show. I've been to their main reception hall and it's warm and rustic so I wanted to bring in those tones with this display cake. The whole cake is covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. This top tier is quilted and I placed little impressions in the corners so that it looks more like a cushion or pillow or fabric. Then, I placed little edible dragees in the center of the corners. I added a beaded border made out of MMF to top off this tier. The second tier has an edible brown ribbon with a brooch studded with more dragees. I layered fondant around the tier a few times to give it the look of fabric as well. The third tier is a hexagon and I covered it in white fondant. Then, I used a sponge and food coloring to sponge on a brown tone. I let it dry and then sponged on another layer of brown dye.

Lastly for this tier, I used a damask stencil up against the dried fondant and essentially spray painted edible shimmer onto the cake so that it only showed up in the light. It's such a soft pattern that's barely noticeable but it's one of my favorite touches on the cake. I added a very small pearl border around this tier as well. The fourth tier repeated the design of the second tier with a maroon background and the "fabric" fondant border and a larger edible bow & brooch. The last tier was similar to the top tier. For this one though, I did a little something different.

I have done the quilted pattern on many cakes but I wanted to make it unique for this display. Rather than quilting the whole base, I centered the pattern on each side and only quilted a triangle shape onto the cake. Again, this was such a subtle touch but I love it. This final tier had a pearl border as well. I sprayed the whole cake down with the same edible shimmer that the damask pattern was sprayed with and made the whole cake pop a little more.

The ladies at the Gathering Place said it was a big hit and it looked like it belonged in their wedding set up at the wedding expo. It was home :)

Make Up Cake

2011-05-24T15:30:00.004-06:00

Breanna wanted a "girlie" cake for Brylan and thought she would love a make up themed cake. I have to say that I LOVED making this cake. I spent hours and hours making little make up pieces out of fondant and after every piece, I was more and more happy. I made several lipsticks, nail-polish, eye shadow, mascara, tweezers, brushes, and blush. Ah, it really was fun. All of the pieces on this cake were edible and there really is nothing that makes me happier than that... okay, maybe a few things but I was very pleased. The cake was vanilla with strawberry cream filling and covered in homemade marshmallow fondant.

Here's an up close shot of the pieces. I wish I could explain how I made these pieces but really, it's just a lot of circles and squares squished together until it looks right.

JP Display Cupcakes

2011-05-24T15:20:00.002-06:00

In January, I was a vendor at a kid's show called "Winter Palooza." While there, I met Rick & Jodie Peters, owners of JP Display. They are the behind the scenes people that set up trade shows, helps business promote products and services, and make everything run smoothly at these shows and events. You can check out their work at http://jpdisplay.com/

They were wonderful to help me with my first booth ever and then they asked me to make a set of 100 cupcakes for one of their clients. I was happy to do it. We thought it would be great to have cupcakes topped with their logo so I made their exact logo out of marshmallow fondant. There were chocolate cupcakes with buttercream, lemon cupcakes with lemon buttercream, vanilla on vanilla, and chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting (YUM!).

Missionary Badge Cake

2011-05-24T15:11:00.002-06:00

Easter's brother was coming home from his LDS mission and she wanted to do a unique cake for the party. She thought a cool idea would be to make his missionary badge in cake form. It was also going to be fun because the badge was in Samoan. It was a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and it was covered in marshmallow fondant. For the lettering, I had to use a few different techniques and cutters because LDS missionary badges are pretty distinctive and I wanted to get it right (I did a lot of google searches to get the size and fonts as close as I could to the real thing). In the end, it was a simple cake by design but took a lot of work to get it right. :)

Chocolate Truffle Box

2011-05-24T15:05:00.002-06:00

Mona wanted a unique birthday cake for her mother-in-law and she thought a chocolate truffle box would be great since she loves chocolates so much. For this cake, I wanted to make cake truffles in the place of chocolate truffles and they are peaking through the lid there. The whole box is edible including the lid and bow. The cake was Chocolate Dipped Cherry Cake (chocolate cake with baked cherries layered with chocolate buttercream) and it was covered and decorated with marshmallow fondant. I love how simple this cake looks while being very elegant and realistic as well. Enjoy!

Rock Star 1-Year Old

2011-05-24T14:53:00.002-06:00

Nia wanted a memorable and fun 1st birthday cake for her daughter, Sela Malaysia. She knew off the bat it needed to be rock star but wanted to keep a pink and brown color scheme. We came up with this design with fun stars shooting out of the cake along with an edible guitar and microphone.

Two tiers are Brownie Lovers (chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache and real brownies) and one tier is Rainbow Bright Cake (vanilla cake dyed to match the color of the cake with sprinkles layered with buttercream and rainbow sprinkles) The whole cake is covered in homemade marshmallow fondant.

For those of you interested in caking, making shooting stars is so easy to make and gives the cake a little extra pop. Roll out your fondant (I use MMF) pretty thick. Use any cookie cutters you have laying around but remember that if your shooting star is too big, it'll make the wire bend and fall over so you want something not too big, not too small. Cut out your shapes with your cookie cutters. Now use flower wire (or really any thin wire you can find) and twist the very top of the wire into a little loop. Shove the loop into the fondant and twist the wire just gently. The idea here is that the loop will catch onto the sides of the fondant and not let the star slide off of the wire. Then set the shape aside for a day or two. It'll dry and harden, then you can just pop into the cake. Yay!

5-Tier Black and White Damask Cake

2011-04-23T22:44:00.004-06:00

Brittany had always dreamed of having a large wedding cake even though she technically didn't need that many servings of cake. She also thought a black and white damask pattern would be a beautiful design for the cake along with some fresh, deep red roses to top it all off. The cake was massive, especially with the 6 or 7 inch tall base on which it sits and so I think Brittany and I both agreed that we needed to keep the design heavy on some tiers and not on others.

I get a lot of questions about how to do stenciling. In order to do the stenciling on this cake, I did a lot of praying :) That's the key! haha. Actually, I had the cakes covered in homemade marshmallow fondant, then I used black buttercream as my "paint." I held the stencil up against one side. I used a paint brush to "paint" the black buttercream all over the stencil, being extra careful to not let the buttercream seep out of the edges of the stencil. I used a straightedge to scrape the side of the stencil in order to gather the excess and to give it a smooth look. This is when the praying comes in. I gently pulled the stencil away from the cake and hoped for the best. I have to say, I was VERY anxious when I applied the first stencil but wouldn't you know it, it came off beautiful, no smudges, no errors, no problems to fix. Yay! One down, 26 stencil jobs to go (there were four sides for four tiers and then the middle tier had three separate stencils for each side). Phew! In the end, I was so happy with the outcome that I actually carried the cake to my man-friend for him to see if (yes, I usually just ask him to come see it but I was OVERLY excited that I wanted to carry it to him!).

Now on to the flavors. The couple chose Ruby Red Velvet Cake (Red velvet cake layered with cream cheese frosting) and White Raspberry Kiss Cake (white chocolate cake layered with raspberry cream filling and rich white chocolate ganache). I love how The Gathering Place at Gardner Village set up the cake table against this beautiful backdrop with the great lighting here making the cake a focal point at the reception.

I wrote this next part for the last post I made about Brittany and Spencer's golf groom's cake and wanted to add it here because I was so pleased with the venue...

"I have a take a second and talk about Brittany & Spencer's venue, The Gathering Place at Gardner Village in West Jordan. I have visited the location several times in the past but never at night when it was set up for a wedding. Oh my gosh. I walked in with the wedding cake and it was absolutely magical! As you walk in the giant doors, you see a breathtaking fire place that sets up the feel of rustic and warm venue. The ceremony was held right next door to the reception site which was so convenient for the wedding guests. I walked into the main reception area that was decorated with the bride and groom's wedding colors and I was totally wowed. I've delivered quite a few wedding cakes in my time and this venue was one that I left saying, "wow, I would totally get married there!" The room was large but not overly large so that guests would feel lost. It had a cozy and warm feel, especially with the white, black, and deep red color scheme. I wanted to stick around after delivering the cake because it was so inviting! I just have to say, well done, Charlotte & Shauna! The Gathering Place is truly amazing!"

Golfing Groom's Cake

2011-04-23T22:20:00.003-06:00

Brittany wanted to get Spencer a fun groom's cake for their wedding and wanted to incorporate his love of golf. She had seen a cake online that had a golfer with a golf cart and thought that would be fun. The cake was Brownie Lovers which is chocolate cake layered with a rich chocolate ganache and a layer of chewy brownies. It was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and all of the cake was edible, including the golfer, the cart, and the bag.

In order to make the golf cart, I had to make the wheels, seating area, and roof in separate pieces. I let them dry and harden and then assembled them a few days before the wedding (this way, if it fell apart, I still had a few days to make another). Luckily, it went together beautifully and even made the delivery drive. I tried to keep the side pattern elegant and simple considering how much detail there was on top. Plus, the main wedding cake is coming in my next blog and you will see that the main cake was quite a cake and so I didn't want to take away from that one too much.

So when we got there, my best friend, Rosie (who I call my "cake muscle") brought in the cake. We set everything up and as we about to leave she said ,"Where's the golf ball?" I looked at the groom's cake and there was no golf ball! Fondant Spencer was holding a club and looking down at the grass but there was no ball! I freaked out for a second (especially since I literally saw the bride walk passed me in her beautiful gown as she entered the main ceremony next door). Then I remember that I put three extra golf balls in the fondant golf bag behind Spencer. I have to thank my dad for that. Every time we go golfing, he always stresses to bring many extra golf balls... thank you for the tip, Dad! It saved me here! :) I pulled one off of the golf bag, set it in front of the club and called it a day.

I have a take a second and talk about Brittany & Spencer's venue, The Gathering Place at Gardner Village in West Jordan. I have visited the location several times in the past but never at night when it was set up for a wedding. Oh my gosh. I walked in with the wedding cake and it was absolutely magical! As you walk in the giant doors, you see a breathtaking fire place that sets up the feel of rustic and warm venue. The ceremony was held right next door to the reception site which was so convenient for the wedding guests. I walked into the main reception area that was decorated with the bride and groom's wedding colors and I was totally wowed. I've delivered quite a few wedding cakes in my time and this venue was one that I left saying, "wow, I would totally get married there!" The room was large but not overly large so that guests would feel lost. It had a cozy and warm feel, especially with the white, black, and deep red color scheme. I wanted to stick around after delivering the cake because it was so inviting! I just have to say, well done, Charlotte & Shauna! The Gathering Place is truly amazing!

To visit their website, check out www.gardnervillage.com.

More to come on Brittany and Spencer's wedding! :)

Blue & Silver Stripes Cake

2011-04-23T21:55:00.002-06:00

Heather & Craig needed a simple but elegant cake for their marriage at The Castle in Layton. When I met them at the tasting, I thought they were SO kind and just an all around fun couple so I was thrilled to make this cake from them. Heather had seen a similar cake I made for a previous wedding and wanted to incorporate her wedding colors. They were having a winter wedding but were firmly against having a Christmas theme or a snowflake theme so we kept it simple with silver and blue.

The cake tiers were 6-inches tall a piece so it was a very heavy and very tall cake. The top tier was Strawberry Cheesecake Cake (strawberry cake layered with cheesecake filling and buttercream), the middle tier was Rocky Mountain Road Cake (chocolate cake layered with mini-marshmallows, chocolate chips, and chocolate buttercream... we left the chopped almonds out) and the bottom tier was White Raspberry Kiss Cake (white chocolate cake layered with raspberry filling and white chocolate ganache). Wow, that was a mouthful!

Now for the details. The cake was covered in marshmallow fondant. I used the paneling method in which I roll out fondant in the size of each side of the tiers. Then, I essentially put the MMF on the cake just like a contractor would with drywall except I use buttercream :) I then cut out stripes of gray and blue and placed them on the cake so that they overlap. Lastly, I painted the gray stripes with edible silver luster dust to give it more shine. Ah, so much fun!!!

I ran into Heather last week at the "What a Woman Wants Expo" and she said she loved the cake :) From that order, I actually became one of the preferred vendors at The Castle and she was so happy that her wedding cake was the catalyst for the connection (I was thrilled too :) Thank you both for the trust and support in making your wedding cake!

Cake in the Hat?

2011-04-20T12:23:00.002-06:00

Reena needed a small but fun cake for Sawyer's second birthday. She wanted to do a themed birthday cake and was thinking the Cat in the Hat would be fun. We came up with this design together and I actually think the real cake came out better than the sketch! The whole cake was Truffled Chocolate Cake (chocolate cake layered with chocolate cream filling and mini chocolate chips along with chocolate buttercream) and it was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. The bow and the #2 at the top were also MMF so that Sawyer could really eat the whole thing.

To make the top cake, I layered stripes of white and red fondant over each other to make it look like fabric. Then, I used black food coloring and a paintbrush to paint on the infamous black lines from the book. When I delivered the cake, Reena loved it! It was just such a cute, whimsical cake :)

Brown & Burgundy Wedding Cake

2011-04-17T14:31:00.000-06:00

Elise was getting married and wanted a brown, burgundy, and white wedding cake to match her decor. She wanted something elegant but still fun at the same time. The top tier was Brownie Lovers (chocolate cake layered with actual brownies and chocolate ganache), the middle tier was English Toffee Cake (sweet yellow cake layered with chocolate buttercream and toffee chunks) and the bottom tier was Spices & Cake (spice cake layered with cheesecake filling and buttercream).

The whole cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and the bow on the top was also MMF. The floral pattern was stenciled on using a designer stencil and buttercream. I've recently had many people ask how I do stenciling on a cake. It's been a learning process and I have to say, I've learned a lot in making mistakes first. The first time I did a stencil, it worked beautiful so I thought to myself, "Yay! That's so easy!" Then I went through a rough patch where I would stencil, it wouldn't come out to my liking. For example, if the cake is white and I'm using brown buttercream to stencil, the brown can bleed or get smudged and unfortunately, it's not like I can just "erase" the errors. Essentially, I had to take the fondant off, recover the whole cake, and try the stencil again. With this technique, it's quite noticeable when there's an error and on my cakes, that's not okay for me. On this cake, I took my time to make sure my buttercream job was perfect, then made sure my fondant job was good to go before attempting the stencil. If the buttercream or fondant aren't done correctly, the stenciling will just not work right. I really think that's half the battle (G.I. Joe... knowing is half the battle.... :)

Anyway, when I went to deliver the cake, they had this amazing cake table set up under a gazebo with a great table and lighting. I thought it was such a beautiful set up and the bride and groom were there taking pictures (they looked beautiful). Thank you both for allowing me to make such a fun cake! Congratulations!

Small Road of Life Birthday Cake

2011-04-06T13:43:00.002-06:00

Jennifer wanted a special birthday cake for her dad this year. She was actually at a surprise retirement party for Dr. Edna Rogers a while back and loved the idea of doing a road of life cake. Because this cake wasn't too big, we wanted to put different milestones and special personalized details of his life onto the cake. Bob served a mission in Germany, "collects" and rescues cats, vacations in Palm Springs, loves his cabin, enjoys photography, and is a member of a Duck club (not shooting but rather watching ducks).

The cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and I used a number of techniques for the decorations. The ducks were hand cut out of white fondant and then I painted on the green and brown colors. The cats were also a combination of fondant shapes and hand-painting to get the right details on the cats. For the Palm Springs post card, I first cut the postcard. I added a layer of gray-ish colored mountains made of fondant and then painted a blue sky behind it. I added lettering on top of the colors and mountain as well as palm trees and coconuts cut from fondant. Although you can't see all of the details here, I had a lot of fun making each piece to personalize the cake even further.

The top tier was Mom's Apple Pie Cake ( Moist apple spice cake with baked apples layered with cheesecake cream filling) and the bottom tier was After Dinner Mint Cake (Minty chocolate cake layered with mint chocolate ganache and mini-chocolate chips). I love making this type of design because it really doesn't mean much to the passer by but those that attended the party and who know Bob really enjoy seeing all of the details of his life. Jennifer and her family loved the cake (YAY!) and Bob's 80th birthday bash was a hit!

Quilted Shimmer Cake

2011-03-23T23:14:00.002-06:00

Sylvia wanted a simple and elegant cake for Krystal's birthday. She wanted to incorporate gold and shimmer into the cake with a quilted design. This woman knew exactly what she wanted and I love that! I added a bow to give it a little more detail and then added edible pearls for the corners of the diamonds.

The cake was Lemonberry (lemon cake layered with raspberry cream filling and buttercream) and then it was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant with a MMF bow as well. I sprayed the cake with edible pearl shimmer and then the bow and sign with edible gold shimmer. I actually don't use a quilting mat or a diamond cutter to make the pattern but instead, I measure the circumference of the cake and then use a needle to poke the spots where the lines should meet. Then I take a straightedge and carefully press it into the side of the soft fondant. The hard part about this method is that if I miss it by even a fraction of an inch, I have to take it off and start again. On the other hand, this way, I'm able to adjust the size of the diamonds to fit each cake. Ah, so much fun! :)

Mini Grasshopper Cakes

2011-03-20T11:18:00.005-06:00

Kari needed two cakes for her friends' birthdays. One of her inside jokes is little grasshoppers so we went with this idea and made mini-cakes for them. This first one is a female grasshopper (can't you tell? She has pouty pink lips and eye shadow) made out of fondant on top of Vanilla Latte Cake (vanilla cake layered with coffee flavored buttercream). The blades of grass and bow are also marshmallow fondant and then I placed silver dragees on the cake for a little extra touch.

As you can see, these are pretty small cakes. They were around 4 inches in diameter, which is pretty small to work with when covering a cake in buttercream and fondant. This cake has a little boy grasshopper (why I had to make a girl and a boy grasshopper is beyond me. She said grasshoppers, I assigned them a sex). In any case, this one has a hershey kiss made out of fondant along with a puddle of chocolate underneath the grasshopper. Again, the mini-cake is covered in home made marshmallow fondant. This cake was a chocolate cake layered with chocolate chips and chocolate buttercream. YUM!

I later heard that the second cake never made it to Kari's friend because when she unveiled the first cake to her friend, they ended up eating both cakes together :) haha. Happy to do it!

Happy Bunny Send Off

2011-03-20T11:08:00.002-06:00

Karen wanted to give Martin a proper send off since he was leaving his position at the University of Utah and wanted to play off of his happy bunniness (not a word, I know). We went back and forth on designs and it proved challenging to incorporate bunnies into a cake for someone who's not turning 6 years old. In an effort to keep it more mature, I went with the school colors and a rather simple design so that you can focus on the happy little bunnies.

The bunnies were hand cut from circles and stripes and were surprising more easy to make than I anticipated. Circle for the head, circle for the body, strips for the hands, feet and ears. Okay, it's not THAT easy but you get the idea.

Because Martin likes things that are simple, Karen decided on Yellow cake with chocolate buttercream for the top tier, After Dinner Mint cake for the middle tier (chocolate cake layered with mint chocolate ganache), and 24-Carrot Cake for the bottom tier (carrot cake layered with cream cheese frosting).

Salt Cake City Logo Cake

2011-03-20T10:58:00.002-06:00

I made this cake as a display for an upcoming convention to match my logo. The whole cake is covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. There's not much else to say about the cake. Oh, I know, I can explain how to make fondant candles. Roll out fondant so that it tapers near the bottom. Stick a piece of spaghetti noodle through it so that it peaks out of the top just a bit and sticks out the bottom about two inches. Then, with a piece of yellow fondant, shape a ball and then pinch a tip from the ball so that it resembles a flame. Place that onto the tip of the spaghetti noodle (I like to put a dab of water where the fondant touches fondant, this will help it glue faster). Now, if you lay it down flat to dry, there will be a flat surface on your candle. Instead stick the remaining exposed spaghetti into a piece of styrofoam so it stands tall. Now, get caking!

Religion in Cake Form

2011-03-19T16:23:00.003-06:00

First an explanation. Sarah was taking a Religion and Conflict class and for her final project, she wanted something unique. What's more unique that religion in cake form? :) I was so happy to see her idea. She sketched out the idea she had in mind and explained it above. This was my interpretation of her interpretation of religion.
The book was made out of rice krispies covered in marshmallow fondant. The column was mostly styrofoam but I added the lined detail by layering marshmallow fondant "tubes" onto the styrofoam before covering the whole thing in more marshmallow fondant. Lastly, I made the Southern Butter Pecan Cake (butter pecan cake layered with caramel, chopped pecans, and cream cheese frosting) for the base and covered it in MMF. I painted on edible shimmery silver & gold to make it look like a galaxy and accented it with tiny dragees (fancy mini-jawbreaker type things).
It was a little tricky to assemble because I delivered to school so she could take it to her class. The book was a little heavier than the expected so the whole drive, I was afraid it would tip over. Don't worry, I drove a dowel straight through the whole cake to make sure it wouldn't. I still get nervous though :)

So I got it to my office where Sarah was coming to meet me. I had just got out of teaching and I had my students in my office asking for help with their homework when she came to get the cake. It was a strange moment with my students seeing the cake and thinking, "Wait, I thought she was a teacher." haha.

In the end, Sarah loved it AND I have to mention that she earned an A in the class. I like to think it was because of the cake but it's probably because she's a brilliant student. :)

Star Wars Cake & Cupcakes

2011-03-19T15:58:00.003-06:00

Will was having a birthday party and his mom, Holly, wanted a Star Wars themed cupcake set for him. Rather than doing people-like pictures, I decided to do a more cartoony-version of the main characters and here were the results. They were all topped with marshmallow fondant accents and each of them were hand-cut. So much fun! She ordered three flavors, White Chip (sweet yellow cake with white chocolate chips baked in and topped with buttercream), Chocolatey Chocolate (chocolate cupcakes with mini chips topped with chocolate buttercream), and Cookies & Cake (vanilla cake with Oreos baked in and topped with Oreo buttercream). Yum!

A few weeks later, I made my bonus son a Star Wars themed cake and thought I'd put them here together since they matched. He's completely obsessed with Star Wars although he can't watch them all yet. The cakes were covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and all of the designs and accents were also marshmallow fondant. Although I don't remember which flavors I made for his birthday, the kids ate it all up pretty fast at the party :) The characters were the real prize though because before we even sang Happy Birthday, each kid called a character. Hyrum got the light sabers. They were pretty energetic by the end of the pool party!

I have to thank Lucas Films for allowing me to recreate these images for this cake and cupcakes. Most of the time, when I email a company for permission, I never hear back from them. Thank you so much!

A Joke in Cake Form

2011-02-27T18:56:00.003-07:00

What do you get when you cross a brown chicken and a brown cow? Brown chicken brown cow! (Picture someone saying it like "bow-chicka-bow-wow") In any case, that's the joke that Abbi wanted to share with her boyfriend for his birthday cake. I guess her boyfriend had never had a birthday cake (how sad, right?) and so she wanted to surprise him with this cake with one of their favorite inside jokes. We decided that it would be cute to have little hearts around the cake symbolizing the love between the chicken and the cow (although I'm not sure if they actually get together in the end of that joke).

Abbi chose coffee flavored cake layered with chocolate buttercream and caramel while the other flavor was Lemonberry (lemon cake layered with raspberry filling). The whole cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and I cut the animals out by hand. Abbi was so happy when she saw the cake. I'm so glad she loved it and I hope her boyfriend did too :)

Alice's Toy Story Cake

2011-02-27T18:51:00.002-07:00

Laura wanted a fun birthday cake for her daughter, Alice. She was turning three and really loves Toy Story so we created this cake inspired by the movies. The cake was Ruby Red Velvet cake layered with cream cheese frosting and covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. The decorations were hand cut because I wanted the get the look just right and the clouds are not normal looking clouds. This cake was so simple and yet really fun to put together. Enjoy!

2006 Mustang Shelby GT 500 (that's a mouthful!)

2011-02-05T12:51:00.004-07:00

Jodie threw a surprise birthday party for her husband and wanted the cake to look like his baby.... his car :) At first I was a little scared because the cake needed to look exact. Ralph loves his 2006 Mustang Shelby GT 500 and if it wasn't exact, he would notice. Here's what I did...

The cake was Brownie Lovers (chocolate cake layered with actual brownies and chocolate ganache) and it was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. First, I went to the store and bought a small toy replica of the exact car. I had plenty of pictures that Jodie secretly took of the car but I thought a more 3-D replica would help. I started by layering the cake and brownies into a rectangle. I covered it in ganache and then let the ganache harden up a bit before starting the carving process. I carved, stepped back, carved some more, stepped back some more, and carved again. To get the dimensions just right, it took several hours of carving, frosting, and carving to get it right. Once I had that down, I added dimension on the cake like the spoiler and bumpers by rolling MMF and "gluing" them onto the cake with a little ganache. The idea here was to place fondant over these grooves so that they stuck out even further than the cake itself but could stand on their own. Then, I covered the cake in four separate pieces of marshmallow fondant (the front, the back, and the sides). Because this cake was so huge, I thought it best to cover it in pieces so that I could pay more attention to the grooves of each side rather than rushing through covering it quickly. I wanted the cake to shine like a real car so I painted the whole cake with edible red food coloring a few times until it shined. Ah, that was so much fun.

I cut out the windows and inserted black pieces of fondant to mimic tinted (yes, REALLY tinted) windows. I ran white stripes down the center of the cake (which was trickier than it looks because I wanted them to look just right). The wheels were made of rice crispies covered in MMF. I painted the rims with edible silver and waited until they dried before placing them on the cake. I added the rear view mirrors, and tiny details like the headlights, back lights, logos, and license plate. Wow, when I write it out like that, it sounds so easy! :)

When the cake was complete, it was so huge that I couldn't fit it into either of my fridges! To give you an idea, one of the guests of the party insisted on taking a picture of me with my cake (I rarely ever do this but here it is... me and Ralph's cake!).

Since it was a surprise party, I didn't get a chance to meet Jodie or Ralph but Jodie later wrote me this email:

Well, all I can think of to say is WOW. That cake was SOOO incredible! It got photographed more than Ralph did! You are truly amazing.....what was even more amazing was that it was unbelievably delicious! I actually think it was the best cake I ever had! Ralph had a seriously hard time making that first cut into it---in fact he tried his key fob first! I just can't thank you enough--you didn't have any cards left there by the end of the party! I was telling everyone how wonderful you were to work with--I soo appreciated your willingess to dive into the challenge, and it was just as amazing as I knew it would be. It was the hit of the party--there were lots of car guys there that were completely enamored!

Thank you, thank you, thank you again--the care and detail that you put into that work of art was so appreciated. I can't wait to take one of your classes!

Thank you so much, Jodie! I was so thrilled to have such a challenge and it was awesome working with you as well!

Gaming System Cake... Nerd Alert :)

2011-02-04T12:33:00.005-07:00

Corrinne needed a cake for the new Gaming department at the University of Utah and originally wanted it to be small. As we worked on the design, the cake got bigger and bigger going from just an Xbox to 6 different gaming systems. I wanted to go old school with a Nintendo and Super Nintendo and Corrinne wanted to represent the new generation of gaming like the Wii and DS. The "compromise" if we want to call it that, was that we do all 6 systems with four different flavors. (I must admit that I encouraged the growth of the design even more than she did :) I was so happy that she loved it in the end!)

Each of the cakes were covered in homemade marshmallow fondant with MMF accents. Because of the weight of the cake, I had to assemble it onsite so we wheeled in each tier and I stacked one on top of the other while a group of graduate gaming students watched. I don't even know where to begin so let's take it one step at a time.

The cakes were Banana Cream Pie Cake (banana flavored cake layered with banana cream filling and fresh banana slices), Mom's Apple Pie Cake (spice cake with baked apples layered with cheesecake cream filling and buttercream), Rainbow Bright Cake (vanilla cake dyed different colors to match the design of the cake layered with sprinkles and buttercream), and Mocha Java Cake (chocolate cake layered with caramel cream filling and coffee buttercream).

The bottom tier was an NES with the labels from the new Department of Film & Media Arts and Master Games Studio. The next "tier" up was an XBox and I have to admit that late into the night I realized that I had made the XBox upside down and couldn't do anything about it. I was nearly panicked because this was a cake for gamers. My man-friend and even Corrinne herself said "I'm sure no one will even notice!" Ugh, I still had lots of dissonance about it. So sad for me! Next up was a PS2 followed by a Wii. Next up was a Super Nintendo complete with the grooves and plug-ins and finally a DS on top. I made two DS's, one in Ute red and one that was blue. For those of you who don't know, BYU's colors are blue and the University of Utah's colors are red so there's a big rivalry. Unfortunately, the blue one was better looking (according to me) so I had to top the cake with the blue one. What can I say? For me, cake trumps colors.

Oh, this cake was SO much fun! I LOVED making each cake as perfect as I could (with the exception of that tiny little upside down cake... ugh!) and it really took me back to being a kid with all the gaming systems. All of us nerds out there can probably appreciate the combination of old school and new school gaming systems. Thank you, Corrinne, for being so open to having what was going to be a small cake turn out to be a show stopper. Good luck with your new position and know that we miss you already!

Fuchsia & Black Wedding Cake

2011-01-25T23:34:00.004-07:00

Kirsten & Jason were such a fun couple! When they told me they want a black and fuchsia wedding cake, I thought "Yeah, I'm in!" Then, they came to a tasting that was really just a great time (it was like I was hanging out with friends while getting a sugar high). We ended on this design which I loved and then they said they wanted to add a special detail at the top. They wanted me to cut a hole in the top in order to put a small flashlight so that they could shine a light through a crystal topper. It was a first for me but I loved the end product.

The whole cake is covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. The top tier was sprayed with edible pearl shimmer after I imprinted the diamond pattern. The black dots are actually edible dragees (basically like tiny little jawbreakers). The middle tier was a custom made ribbon with a jeweled broach and a special monogram that they brought to me. I thought it gave the cake a really elegant look. Lastly, the bottom pattern was stenciled on with a designer stencil and fuchsia buttercream.

The cakes they ordered were Brownie Lovers (chocolate cake layered with actual brownies and chocolate ganache), Spices & Cake (spice cake layered with cheesecake cream filling and buttercream), and Banana Cream Pie Cake (banana flavored cake layered with banana cream filling and fresh bananas).

They came back later to get the flashlight and said that the cake was a huge hit. I was so glad to hear that because we really worked hard to get the perfect cake for this beautiful couple. Thank you, Kirsten & Jason, for being awesome clients to work with on this awesome wedding cake!

Last Minute Steeler's Wedding Cake

2011-01-25T23:29:00.003-07:00

Courtney wanted to order a last minute wedding cake for a couple going through a rough time. She had seen a few wedding cakes on my website that she loved and wanted to throw the cake a "Steeler's" feel to it since the couple love the Steeler's. We decided to do a square wedding cake with gold and black stripes to keep it simple but modern.

The top and bottom cakes were 24-Carrot Cake (traditional carrot cake layered with creamy cream cheese frosting) and the middle tier was Deutschland Chocolate cake (chocolate cake layered with coconut, pecans, and chocolate buttercream). Because it was so last minute, she wanted to keep it very simple without anything other than a nice nod to the Steeler's. I hope they loved it! :)

Air Jordan Shoe & Basketball Cake

2011-01-24T23:55:00.004-07:00

Jenae wanted a really unique for her girlfriend's birthday. When we first talked and she said that she wanted Kristina's favorite shoe in cake form, I remember thinking "wow, how am I going to do this!" There is a specific pair of Jordans that Kristina really loves and so we decided to make that cake along with a Chicago-Bulls-esque jersey and a half basketball. The shoe was a strawberry cake layered with buttercream and the basketball was hand-shaped from vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream.

The shoe and basketball were covered in homemade marshmallow fondant while the jersey itself was marshmallow fondant. In order to make this cake look perfect, I printed out a ton of versions of the shoe from all different angles (I raided my brother's closet to see if he had these but he had several other Jordans.... not this one!). The real shoe has a lot of stitching, grooves, and tiny details and I wanted to make sure that I got all of those elements onto this cake. I spent a few hours shaping, cutting, and sculpting the cake until it fit the right shape (I have to thank Paul for this because he's also a huge Jordan fan and made sure that the shoe looked perfect). Then, I covered it in a nice layer of buttercream. Once the buttercream set up in the fridge, I covered it in homemade marshmallow fondant (it's quite a challenge to cover this shape in one piece of fondant and takes a lot of patience).

Now that it was covered, I had to work fast to get the right grooves and stitches into the cake. I used a pattern tracing wheel found in the fabric department of any store to make the "stitched" look. I had to trace the pattern while the fondant was still soft so that it left an indent into the side of the cake (because that's how the shoe looks). I set a large groove down the shoe to make the lip and then used more marshmallow fondant to mimic shoe laces. After I was happy with the grooves, I painted the red and black coloring on with food coloring. Although you can't see all of the details here, I was so proud with the finished product of the shoe. It really looked identical to the real shoe :)

The basketball was much easier to execute but not as easy as it looks! In order to make it look real, I imprinted a texture into the fondant so that it looked and felt like a real basketball. The biggest challenge with the ball was to get it to look perfectly round. There are pans that make balls easily but I wanted this cake to be larger than those pans so hand sculpting was the only way to go.

Lastly, the jersey was made of marshmallow fondant. I rolled it out, cut it into the right shape, added the name, number, and borders around the side. SO much fun! I have to say that I wish I kept this cake for myself because in the end, it was such a labor of love! Happy Birthday, Kristina!

2011-01-01T21:28:00.005-07:00

Janna was having a black and pink themed wedding here in Salt Lake but was planning it from Germany. She had seen several cakes with a dragon and castle and loved the idea for her wedding cake. We really wanted it to be a statement wedding cake so the bottom cake was a heart shaped cake nearly 15 inches wide with an 8-inch middle tier and a 6-inch top tier. The dragon and castle were both made out of rice krispies covered in marshmallow fondant. To give the cake a little more of a delicate touch, we added a small pink border around each tier with a tiny pink bow to match.

Because the bride was in Germany, she sent two "representatives" in her place for a cake tasting. Julie, the bridesmaid and her husband, had such a tough job of eating cake and deciding cake flavors :) haha. It was so much fun to hear them talk about the cake and what THEY wanted on it, even though it wasn't their wedding cake. Julie's husband wanted me to add a small Denver Bronco's logo on the cake and tried really hard to convince me of doing that but alas, I refrained from putting his suggestion onto the cake.

In any case, the flavors were Strawberry Cheesecake cake (strawberry cake layered with cheesecake cream filling and buttercream), and Rainbow Bright Cake (vanilla cake dyed to match the colors of the wedding layered with buttercream and rainbow sprinkles).

The castle had tiny little details that I loved including the little swags and windows. You can't see it much here but even the castle door had detail work and a tiny little door handle.
The dragon, also made of rice krispies and marshmallow fondant, was very tricky to make. Because his neck was so long, I had to shape him and then place him around a fake cake to allow him to firm up. Then, his "wings" had to be dried and hardened at an angle so that they could be placed into the dragon so that they looked realistic... or as realistic as a dragon can look. :)

On the day of the wedding, I finally had an opportunity to meet Janna for the first time. She loved the cake and it matched the decor of the wedding site really nicely with bright pink and dark black balloons. It was quite the challenge to make but in the end, very unique cake.

Two-Sided Grim Reaper Birthday

2011-01-01T21:08:00.005-07:00

Shona threw Sue an awesome surprise birthday party and had such great ideas about the birthday cake. Shona wanted a half-paradise, and half-grave birthday cake with the grim reaper on top. She even wanted the grim reaper to have Bermuda shorts on under his robe. I thought the whole idea was hilarious and so I was in from the start!

After a lovely cake tasting with Shona, her son and daughter, they decided on Emerald City Cake (light pistachio flavored cake layered with pistachio cream filling, chopped pistachio nuts, and buttercream), Coconut Cream Pie Cake (coconut cake layered with coconut cream filling, coconut flakes, and buttercream), and White Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cake (strawberry cake layered with white chocolate ganache). They were so much fun to plan with surprise birthday cake with and loved each new addition to the main cake idea. They were really shooting for a completely unique and fun cake and I think we achieved that together.

This first picture shows the cake with the stark contrasts between the two sides.

This second picture is the graveside shot. First, the marshmallow fondant was marbleized to give it an eerie feel to it. Then, I painted creepy trees and bats onto the cake. I added 3-D gravestones, each with a different names or phrase and some broken fencing.

This side is the tropical ocean side complete with a half-rainbow, birds & clouds, palm trees and flowers, and finally fish and coral at the bottom. This colorful side was so much fun because it really allowed me to keep adding and adding details until my little heart was content. Ah, it finally was :)

Lastly, I wanted to show you an up close shot of the grim reaper, made of fondant. He has little flip flops, flowers on his shorts, and a sickle to boot. This guy was tricky because I had to get his robe to look like it was flowing while still being made of fondant. His sickle also had to stand straight but stay in his hands. It took some messing around but I finally got him to come together.

The night of the delivery, it was pouring down rain. I was so nervous about getting this sucker into the restaurant because it was so heavy and detailed. Luckily, we got it into the room and into place before the birthday girl arrived. I later heard that she absolutely loved the cake and I know Shona did as well. Thank you so much for trusting me with this crazy vision!! :)

Mod Cake & Cupcakes

2011-01-01T20:52:00.005-07:00

Sarah was having a sex-reveal party for her future baby and wanted a modern cake and cupcakes to match. We decided early on that Sarah isn't much of a "pink ducks" and "baby blue rattle" type of mother and since it was her shower, we wanted the theme to match her personality. In our discussions of the party, she mentioned that this baby was her "VERY.LAST.ONE" which I thought was hilarious. I suggested that we integrate those words into the cake because it was too funny to let slide. You can hardly see it in this picture but the cake topper (made of marshmallow fondant) says "VERY LAST ONE" on it.

The cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and the cupcake toppers were also MMF. We went with yellow, orange, brown, red, and white as the color scheme because this was during the fall. The cupcakes are Chocolate Dipped Cherry Pie Cake (chocolate cake with baked cherries) topped with cream cheese frosting while the main cake was White Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cake (strawberry cake layered with white chocolate ganache).

Because this was a sex reveal party, Sarah had her doctor call me immediately after her ultrasound and told me the sex of their future baby. It was pretty crazy that I was the second person to know :) Anyway, I dyed the cream cheese frosting and the white chocolate ganache blue so that when they cut into the main cake and when the guests bit into their cupcakes, they saw bright blue all at the same time finding out that they were having another boy. Sarah later wrote and told me that the sex reveal was a huge hit and they are thrilled to have another boy. Congratulations, Nathan and Sarah! Very. Last. One, right? If not, I'll be here for another sex-reveal cake. haha

Polka Dots & Mouse Ears

2011-01-01T20:42:00.002-07:00

Jill wanted a fun and bright cake for Oakley's second birthday. She had seen a cake I made a while back with a similar pink, black, and white color scheme with polka dots and wanted something like that. This cake was so much fun because I love the colors and the design. The little bows and ears just make it so cute for a birthday party. The bottom tier was Brownie Lovers (chocolate cake layered with brownies and chocolate ganache) while the top tier cakes were Rainbow Bright (sweet vanilla cake dyed to match the theme of the birthday layered with buttercream and sprinkles). The whole cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and accented with MMF decorations including the bow and ears.

I have to say that it was pretty tedious to place each of those dots one by one on the borders and to make sure that they are spaced equally. Yes, I'm the type of person that needs there to be equal spacing between the dots :) In the end, this was a fun and bubbly cake for Oakley's 2nd birthday. Yay!

First Gingerbread Ever!

2010-12-28T01:48:00.006-07:00

South Jordan holds an annual Gingerbread contest mostly for kids and just for fun. This year, I thought I would enter because I've never made a gingerbread house from scratch before. It was even more fun than I thought it would be plus I loved the smell of the house after cooking gingerbread... yum! I decided to make a gingerbread bakery instead of a house considering what I do. I cut windows into the walls of the bakery and assembled the "house" with a mixture of buttercream and royal icing. I covered each wall with marshmallow fondant with a brick texture and added a shingled-type roof made of colorful MMF ovals. I used the same colors from the "shingles" as accents on the door, Christmas lights around the house and on the trees. Pretty much everything on this gingerbread bakery is MMF with the exception of the icing and the walls.

The trees are solid pieces of fondant shaped into a cone. Then, I used cuticle scissors to cut the sides of the tree making it look more like a Christmas tree. I added the Christmas lights and a solid fondant star on top. I accented the gingerbread bakery with my Salt Cake City logo on the window and a cake, cake slice, and cupcakes on a small table outside of the bakery (made from MMF). Lastly, I drizzled thick royal icing on the bushes (made from MMF as well), trees, and the roof. To add even more texture, I blended coconut flakes with granulated sugar and sprinkled that on the wet royal icing creating a thick snow fall.

This piece was so much fun to make because for me, the more color there was, the better it was. I wanted it to be really vibrant and festive :) I hope you like it and I also hope you have a lovely holiday season!

2010-12-28T01:43:00.002-07:00

I just finished this cake last weekend but I wanted to post it now since it’s so winter-wonderland themed. (Don’t worry, I will post the last 25 cakes ASAP J) Leah and Adam wanted a cake with deep blue and silver tones to it and since the wedding was so close to Christmas, we decided to do a snowflake and ornament cake. The whole cake is covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and accented with edible silver snowflakes. The blue border on each tier is also MMF as well as the hand-shaped Christmas ornaments. They ornaments were sprayed with edible silver and blue spray to give them an ornament shine. Then, the bride wanted to top the cake with a porcelain replica of the Salt Lake LDS temple. Originally, the cake was going to be 5 tiers but the replica ended up being nearly 8 inches wide so we had to go with the flow and make it four tiers. I hand molded their initials with MMF and then sprayed it with edible silver and blue to give it a little more depth. Although I didn’t get to see the bride’s reaction, the mother of the bride loved it!

As for the flavors, they had White Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cake (strawberry cake with baked strawberries layered with rich white chocolate ganache), vanilla cake with milk chocolate buttercream, and Lemonberry Cake (lemon cake layered with raspberry cream filling and buttercream).

I have to tell you a funny story about the tasting. The mother of the bride and bride chose the flavors for their cake tasting together. At the last minute, the mother of the bride emailed and asked to taste a Caramel Macchiato cake instead of one of the other choices. On the day of the tasting, I was ready to go with the three flavors they chose. Because they came straight after church, they ended up bringing the mother, father, two sisters, and brother along with the bride. My cake tastings include full 6-inch cakes so luckily, I did have enough for everyone. We started with the White Chocolate Dipped Strawberry cake that the bride loved. Then, I cut into the Caramel Macchiato cake (which is coffee flavored cake layered with caramel cream filling and buttercream). I noticed an interesting mood shift in the room as I described the cake flavors and asked if the siblings wanted to taste this flavor as well, considering it was coffee flavored (at this point, they explained that their wedding cake topper was going to be an LDS temple replica and most Mormons do not drink coffee). The mother of the bride said, “Oh, don’t worry, the coffee bakes out!” and began laughing. The family is LDS but the mom loves the smell and flavor of coffee so she wanted to try the flavor but the bride was not into the idea at all. I thought it was hilarious and the son almost gave his mom a lecture about Mormon beliefs. Haha…. They were such a beautiful and fun family to have a cake tasting with and every time I saw them before the wedding, it was a good time. The parents of the bride came over the day after the wedding and they looked exhausted but I could tell it was a relief to have their first child's wedding done and over with :) haha. Congratulations, Leah & Adam on your wedding!

Christmas Cake Ornaments!!

2010-12-18T00:15:00.003-07:00

Just in case you didn't know, I LOVE Christmas. Last year, I saw some cupcakes that someone had made that looked like Christmas ornaments and so I waited all year to make these. That was a bit more dramatic than it needed to be but I have been wanting to make these for a while. Rather than doing cupcakes, I decided to make full sized, round cake truffle ornaments. I made around 30 of them (phew!). Half were chocolate cake and half were spice cake covered in buttercream and then covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. They were accented with MMF decorations including the top gold hook, and then sprayed with edible pearl shimmer. I didn't have the pan that most people use to make these so I hand-shaped them... can you tell they aren't completely round? Ah! I hate that. Here's an up close shot of four of my favorites.

These were deceivingly time consuming. Because I hand-shaped them, I had to shape, cool, and then reshape them just to get them round enough for my liking. Then, I had to frost, cool, reshape, refrost, cool, cover, cool, decorate, cool, spray with shimmer, and top with hooks. In the end, totally worth it! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Baby Shoes Cake

2010-12-16T12:16:00.003-07:00

Chelsee threw her sister a baby shower and had a cake design and colors in mind. One thing she wanted for sure were a pair of baby shoes to sit on top of the cake. Chelsee was very organized, especially since she was doing the party planning and organizing from out of state and sent me several cake inspirations and ideas through email. We ended up with this colorful and vibrant design. The cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and decorated with fondant flowers and shoes. Each flower had a tiny little edible dragee in the center and although I tried to use the flowers sparingly, I tend to go overboard!

Both tiers were white cake layered with strawberry filling (the mother-to-be's request). The baby shoes ended up taking a few tries to get right but they were surprising easy to make. It's made from three pieces that I "glued" together (with water) and then stuffed with plastic wrap until they dried in shape. Fun, fun, fun!

Holiday Present Cake

2010-12-16T11:08:00.002-07:00

The Department of Communication was having its annual Holiday Luncheon and so to celebrate, I wanted to do a fun and festive cake. This cake ended up being much bigger than I anticipated but I had fun making it so that's all that matters. Rosie helped dye all of the fondant since I only had one day to put this all together. Consequently, her hands are still dyed red and green while mine are nice and pretty. (Now THAT'S a good friend!) Hmm, I'm not sure what else to discuss about the cake but if you have questions on how I did anything, just let me know. If you search for the other cakes with the "bow" tag in my cake blog, I have explained how to make these bow that I've done here.

The top cake was Peanut Butter No Cup Cake (chocolate cake layered with sweet peanut butter buttercream), the middle was Thankful for Pumpkin Pie Cake (pumpkin cake layered with pumpkin cream filling and buttercream) and the bottom was Rosie's favorite, Banana Cream Pie (banana cake layered with banana cream filling, banana slices, and buttercream).

The whole cake is covered in homemade marshmallow fondant including the top present bow and the bottom red bow. Each of these was made to look like a different type of present with different holiday aspects. I especially loved the blue box on top with the snowflakes. I had such a great time making this cake with Rosie and my department was so gracious with their compliments at the luncheon. A special thank you to Dr. Darling. You are always so supportive and I don't tell you just how much I appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Golden Flowers Cake

2010-12-16T10:12:00.005-07:00

Amber and Ben wanted a wedding cake that was a dramatic statement and centerpiece. Amber had seen a beautiful cake online and wanted to mimic the cake with her wedding colors (shades of yellow and gray). Additionally, this couple was having two receptions, one here in Utah and one in Oregon. Because of this, I suggested I make a predominantly fake cake with one tier real so that they could take this cake to their second reception in Oregon rather than buying to wedding cakes. Although four of the tiers are fake, everything is edible from the buttons, to the silver balls, to the big and little flowers. This is what we came up with in the end.

Amber wanted different heights in her cakes as well as different shapes. I also made four different shades of the small flowers along with three different kinds of borders for the tiers because each tier had a little different character. Above, I attached an up close picture of the big flower taken by Aria Photography. This picture really showcases the texture of the borders, the detail of the big flowers and buttons. There were over 100 edible flowers on this cake and over 20 silver dragees. In this picture, you can see the detail of the buttons and the flowers. It took several hours just to make the flowers but I really loved it in the end. (Plus, I really like tedious, time-consuming work... seriously, I do!)

Along with the fake cake, I made "kitchen cakes" for the wedding reception. Kitchen cakes are NOT sheet cakes because they are the same height and flavor as the main wedding cake (typically three layers of cake with two layers of filling and buttercream). They are in the back for the caterers to cut into in order to create a faster expediting process for the servers. The real tier of cake and some of the kitchen cakes were Lemon Supreme Cake (lemon cake layered with lemon cream filling and buttercream) and the other kitchen cakes were Almond Joy Cake (coconut cake layered with coconut flakes, coconut cream filling, and chocolate buttercream).

Just a funny little tidbit for you (I'm not really sure what a "tidbit" is but I wanted to use it here :) When I went to deliver the wedding cake, a crowd gathered behind me while I put the finishing details on the cake. (Not a scary or nerve racking situation at all! haha) A women came over and gasped in awe when she first saw the cake. Then, she said, "Wow! Is it all real?" I told her that four of the five tiers were fake since they were taking the cake to Oregon and she said, "Well, that's not NEARLY as impressive." I lowered my head, gathered my belongings and cried all the way home. Haha.... yeah right. No crying but I did think it was HILARIOUS that she said that to me. Ah, good times.

In any case, I had a great time working with Amber and Ben on this wedding cake and they were truly a beautiful couple. Technically Ben's biggest part here was tasting the cakes. He was great at the tasting.... hehe. Amber and Ben, congratulations on your marriage!

Art Deco Wedding

2010-12-12T01:43:00.002-07:00

Jessica and Jeremy wanted an art deco wedding cake for their red, black, and white wedding. She saw a cake that she loved and we altered it a bit and added her monogram to fit the decor of the wedding. The cake was White Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cake (strawberry cake layered with white chocolate ganache) covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and accented with silver dragees.

The topper was so much fun to make. I drew out the design I wanted and then basically used it as a stencil when cutting the fondant shape. I rolled out the fondant but left it pretty thick so that I could insert wires into the topper which would help hold it up on top of the cake. Then, it was all about mirroring the image with diamonds, odd shapes, and more dragees. It's hard to see the topper because it was black and the background was dark but it was over the width of cake and had lots of swirls and angles to it. Way fun for me :)

I ended up seeing Jessica at the reception site, which is quite unusual for me. I generally don't see the brides and only hear from them after the wedding but she looked absolutely gorgeous! She had this beautiful, elegant, and sassy wedding dress with a red and black headpiece/feather in her hair. With the red lipstick, she just looked drop dead gorgeous. Congratulations, Jessica & Jeremy!

Autumn Leaves

2010-12-12T01:35:00.002-07:00

I made this cake during a cake class I taught while the other students were making their creations. This was a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream (pretty simple stuff here) covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and MMF accents. The beads around the cake and the leaves are all edible. I made the leaves by cutting out the shapes and letting them dry over crinkled plastic wrap. After a day or two, they were hardened and ready to be painted. I painted them with a mixture of yellow, orange, and brown colors to give it more depth and to show the veins in the leaves. I thought this cake was fun for the autumn season when I originally made the cake (yes, I'm THAT far behind in my cake blogging).

Blue Brooch Cake

2010-12-12T01:16:00.002-07:00

I made this cake a while back as a wedding showpiece and it was inspired by another cake I had seen on cakecentral.com (my total addiction). The cake is covered in marshmallow fondant with a blue MMF border and bow. The brooch is made out of MMF and then I added edible silver dragees to give it a little more sparkle. There was a row of edible beads round the second tier. Other than that, there's not much else going on. Trust me, I wanted to put more but I resisted the urge and tried to keep it classy.

In order to get the bows to stay, I rolled out some fondant till it was pretty thin. I laid those stripes over a PVC pipe (clean PVC pipe of course!) and adhered the ends with a dab of water. I let them dry in place over night and then they were hard and ready to go. Wow, I think that's it. Wasn't that easy?! :)

Ode to my Public Speaking Students

2010-12-11T02:12:00.003-07:00

This semester, I was blessed with a great group of students for my Wednesday night public speaking course. On the first day, many students said that they hated public speaking and so I thought I had a hard road ahead of me. Turns out, the students were amazing. They came to class ready to discuss, learn, and have fun. I realize this sounds very strange considering how many people hate public speaking, let alone 3 hour night classes but we really did have fun. We had so many inside jokes and so I had to turn some of those into a cake for this great class of mine.

This was a pretty big cake but appears much smaller in this picture. It was pretty much the size of the real podium we had in class. There were two tiers of cake within this podium. One was Mom's Apple Pie (spice cake with baked apples layered with cheesecake cream filling and buttercream) and one was a Turtle Power Cake (chocolate cake layered with caramel cream filling, pecans, and chocolate ganache). The whole cake was covered in marshmallow fondant that was marbleized to look like wood grain.

The "paper" (made of marshmallow fondant) reads:

Comm 1020: Public Speaking

1. Take a deep breath

2. Connect with the audience

3. Use cue cards

4. Don't stare at Jennifer

I made a podium because I told the students near the beginning of the semester that I suggest not using a podium. Students tend to hold on for dear life when using a podium therefore limiting their movement and natural nonverbal behavior. During our second round of speeches, two of the students decided to use the podium. After they were done, one of the audience members said, "Why are you letting them use the podium? I thought you said that wasn't allowed." I thought it was hilarious that my suggestion turned into a rule. In any case, I made the podium to make my point stronger. As far as the paper goes, I always discuss the importance of taking a deep breath before giving speeches and also making a connection with the audience through topic selection and eye contact so I had to add those to the list.

As for #3 on the paper, one of the students asked who was going to hold his cue cards while giving his speech. I asked, "What cue cards?" He tried to convince me that I told the class that someone would hold cue cards in the audience while they speak. I swore up and down that he had made it up and the other students in class backed me up. Regardless, it was the first time a student has asked to have cue cards and so it soon became a reoccurring joke for the class.

Lastly, I oftentimes get students who speak to me (since I'm assigning grades and all), rather than to the audience as a whole which results in them staring at me for the length of their speech. When this happens, I write "Don't stare at me" on their evaluations. These students will almost always ask me after class, "What do you mean? I wasn't staring at you!" I tell them to watch their video so they can see how awkward I feel when they make a bee-line for my eye contact and practically stare at me the whole time they speak. It's fun to be a teacher :)

Anywho, I truly enjoyed this semester with my students and wanted to reward them for their hard work and for putting up with me for 3 hours every week. Thank you, Kyle, Rich, Jesse, Brooke, Kevin, Annette, Jared, Wade, Travis, Will, Shay, Jessica, Trevor, Casey, Brittany, Virginia, Stephanie, Duc, and Daniel. You were awesome!

Labyrinth Inspired Cake

2010-12-05T16:12:00.004-07:00

Does anyone remember way back in the day a little movie starring Jennifer Connolly and David Bowie? That's right, the Labyrinth! Oh my gosh! When Nathan emailed me saying he wanted to surprise Sarah with a birthday cake, I was already excited. When he said he wanted it to be Labyrinth inspired, I was REALLY excited. When he said he wanted it to be inspired by the crystal ball scene.... well, I had to go watch the movie again just to see what I could do. Nathan mentioned that Sarah loves the little work and owl in the movie so I had to add those too. Here's what I came up with.

A while back, Sarah created this completely unique flavor that she loved and so Nathan wanted the whole cake to be that flavor. It was Chocolate Cherry Cake with baked cherries layered with sliced almonds and coffee flavored cream cheese frosting. Yup, that's right! Apparently she loved it :) The whole cake was covered in marbleized homemade marshmallow fondant with marshmallow fondant pearls around the cake. To get the marble effect, you take a handful of white fondant, a handful of deep blue, and a handful of light blue fondant. Roll each of those into a long tube and then place them right next to each other. Roll the three tubes into each other for just a bit and then roll them out with a rolling pin (or PVC pipes, like I do). Then, just cover the cake in the marbleized fondant.

This is the little worm from the Labyrinth. You should check out the picture of the real thing because yes, it is this ugly :) haha. He has a blue afro-thing going on with a red scarf. He took quite a bit of time to complete with the hand-painting the colors on there and getting the hair to stand up straight. Oh, so much fun!

This is the owl from the movie. I hand-sculpted him and then painted him with brown food coloring to get the shading down.

This mask was completely edible and could have probably been worn as well. I painted the blue and light brown shading with edible food coloring and then accented the mask with silver dragees. I tried to match the pearl beads on the cake with a top line of beads on the mask. In the end, I was pretty happy with the cake and so was Sarah :)

Sun, Moon, & Stars Cake

2010-12-05T15:59:00.002-07:00

I'm always excited to make cakes for Bill because he's so trusting and supportive. Bill wanted a small but meaningful cake for his wife, Jody, this year. She loves sun, moon, and star decor so he wanted to incorporate that into her cake and basically said, "go for it and do what you think will look best." Bill loves the Brownie Lovers cake (chocolate cake layered with brownies and rich chocolate ganache) so he ordered that again. I think they both got what they wanted in this case :) The cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and then accented with buttercream stenciling, marshmallow fondant accents, and edible silver dragees.

It's always funny to me how the small and simple cakes end up taking me more time that huge wedding cakes. What's up with that? I had to redo the fondant job twice and the stenciling about three times. Ugh! Those darn little cakes! hehe.

A Moulin Rouge Wedding Cake

2010-12-03T19:36:00.004-07:00

Cayli and Brandon were having a really unique red, black, and white themed wedding complete with Cayli's red shoes and sash. She wanted a very bold cake to match and saw a Moulin Rouge/Burton-esque wedding cake that she fell in love with. I did my best to do her vision justice and had a ton of fun making it come together.

Two tiers were Lemon Supreme Cake (lemon cake layered with lemon cream filling and buttercream) and two tiers were White Almond Cake (almond flavored cake layered with cream cheese frosting and almond slices) and they were all tapered in just a bit at the bottom. This 6-8-10-12 inch cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant with MMF accents. I made the swirls out of fondant by rolling it into long vines and then shaping them into swirls. I inserted a thin wire into the end so that when they dried, I could just stick them into the cake to stay. The roses were another story. Each petal of each flower was hand-cut and then the edges of each petal had to be softened with a fondant ball tool in order to make the petals look soft and real. After they dry and harden a bit, I wrap individual petals around a rose "bud" (made out of fondant) using water to adhere the petals. There were about 12 petals per rose and around 15 roses on the cake (you do the math :) Very time consuming but I loved the end product and so did Cayli, so that's all that matters. After adding the marshmallow fondant swags, I added edible silver dragees to give it just an extra touch.

The original cake had a slight lean to it but I wasn't sure if Cayli liked that aspect of the cake so from one angle, I made it straight and from the side, there was a slight lean. Thank you for trusting me with your vision, Cayli! Congratulations!!

Oh, I have to thank Beck Lutz for her amazing pictures of the cake. If you're in Utah and need an awesome photographer, you can check out her work at http://photographybybeckylutz.blogspot.com/

1957 Chevy Cake

2010-11-27T19:46:00.003-07:00

Mona wanted to get a very special birthday cake for Ken this year. I'll be honest, when she first emailed I was quite a bit scared... she wanted me to make a 1957 Chevy for the cake because it's Ken's dream car. Now, I have to apologize to Ken because he got a cake, and not a car for his birthday (sorry man!) BUT it gave me the opportunity to take on a huge challenge. Although I was hesitant, Mona was so awesome to put her trust in me and encouraged me the whole way through (this sounds so dramatic, I realize that). It took many, MANY hours to complete this cake from the multiple sketches to measuring the specs to the sculpting and "fondanting," which I know isn't a word. In the end, Mona and Ken loved the cake so that's all that matters.

The cake was a deep purple-ish/blue-ish color with silver and white trim but the pictures came out a little darker/bluer (is bluer a word?) than the cake really was. It was a Chocolate Dipped Cherry Cake (chocolate with cherries baked into the cake layered with chocolate buttercream) and covered in all homemade marshmallow fondant. For those of you just looking for the pictures (like my dad), stop reading now but if you're interested in making a similar creation, here are my reflections on the process...
First, I have to say that I sketched this cake out several times. It's very different to have pictures of a cake rather than detailed sketches with measurements and dimensions. Generally, it's very tricky to take a 2-D picture and turn it into a 3-D thing so doing it in cake was definitely going to take a lot of planning. I baked rectangle shaped cakes first and let them cool. I stacked and layered them with frosting just as I would any other cake, making sure to put a little extra in the middle for the roof. I covered it all in chocolate buttercream and let it sit in the fridge for a while. This allows the cake to firm up a bit which makes it easier to carve. The whole process really took a lot of patience because it took several pairings of carving the cake and then icing the cake just to get it to look even remotely close to a car. (Don't worry, I bounce my ideas about 3-D cakes off of my man-friend, Paul, since he's WAY more of an artist than I) After we were both satisfied with the general shape of the cake, I covered it in one last coat of buttercream and then covered it in fondant.

Now, I wanted the car to shine like a paint job so I painted over the purple fondant with a deeper purple and then made the bumpers, windshields, headlights, roof, and wheels out of fondant. It's hard to see in these pictures but I cut the windows just slightly into the cake so that they had some depth. Also, the car was actually propped up so that Mona and Ken could see underneath the car and so the car looked like it was being held up by the wheels. The last thing I did was paint on edible shimmer and silver to the trim. Phew! It was such a great challenge and I was just so happy to hear how much Ken loved it :)

New Flavors!

2010-11-21T22:21:00.002-07:00

Hey everyone! I decided to have a few flavor brainstorming sessions and we came up with 11 new flavors. You can check them out under "Cake Flavors" here and I will try to upload them onto the website ASAP. Enjoy!

Blue and Purple Wedding Waves

2010-11-16T20:44:00.004-07:00

Chris and Annie wanted a big and fun wedding cake that reflected the two of them. Their wedding colors were baby blue and dark purple and they saw a beautiful cake done by The Cake Girls that they wanted to model their cake after. The cake was Old Fashion PB&J flavored (peanut butter flavored cake layered with strawberry filling... and it really did taste like a PB&J sandwich). The cake was covered in homemade marshmallow with marshmallow fondant accents.

A week before the wedding, Annie called to say she had a cool idea. She said she couldn't find a "white bride and brown groom" wedding topper so we improvised :) She sent me a picture of these ADORABLE vanilla wafer cake toppers. I made these toppers out of fondant and they have mini-vanilla wafer faces. We added some blue and purple flowers to match her bouquet and Chris's flower and tie combo. Congrats, Chris & Annie! You both looked so happy and beautiful on your wedding day! :)

Fall Leaves Wedding Cake

2010-11-11T21:55:00.004-07:00

Hillary and Scott wanted a fall themed wedding cake with marshmallow fondant leaves and branches. I had so much fun making this cake because leaves don't need to look exactly the same so I really just varied the look of them and adopted an "anything goes" attitude. I cut out leaves in yellow, dark orange, and brown. I placed them on top of crinkled seran wrap and let them dry in different shapes. Once they were dry, I hand-painted a darker shade of yellow, orange, and brown on all of them to give them some more character. FUN FUN FUN! :) I like that type of work. The whole cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and the swirls and dots on the cake were also made of MMF.

The top tier was Ruby Red Velvet cake and the middle tier was Chocolate Hazelnut Cake (chocolate cake layered with hazelnut cream filling and buttercream). Here is an inside flavor shot for you:

The bottom tier was Spices & Cake (spice cake layered with cheesecake filling and buttercream). Here is that flavor shot:
Hillary wrote me after the wedding and said that the cake was exactly what she was looking for. It really fit into her wedding scheme and reception area. It was beautiful with all of the leaves and deep oranges and browns. SO fall! :) Congrats, Hillary & Scott!

Quad Cake Tasting

2010-11-11T20:44:00.007-07:00

Amber and Ben had a cake tasting a while back to decide the flavors for their wedding cake (those pictures to come). As I've mentioned in previous posts, I recently started decorating the cake tasting cakes so that the bride & groom can get a good idea of what marshmallow fondant tastes like as well as a trick for myself so that I can tell what's inside the cakes :) The left cake was an Almond Joy Cake (coconut cake layered with coconut flakes, coconut cream filling, almond slices, and chocolate buttercream). I've attached an inside flavor shot for you below.... yummmmmm.....

The second cake was a Traditional Carrot Cake layered with cream cheese frosting. The third cake was a Lemon Supreme Cake. As you can see from the picture below, this cake is lemon with lemon cream filling and buttercream. The last cake was a Turtle Cake (chocolate cake layered with caramel, chopped pecans, and chocolate ganache). All of the cakes are covered in buttercream or chocolate buttercream with marshmallow fondant accents.

The cake tasting went really well and we solidified all of the details for a 5-tiered wedding cake with different shapes and cascading flowers. Just you wait, that picture is coming :) I apologize for being so behind but I have about 25 cakes to post before I'm caught up. I'm getting there, I promise. For pictures of my most recent cakes without the descriptions, you can check out my facebook page at www.facebook.com/saltcakecity

See you there!

Rainbow Bright!

2010-11-11T15:56:00.003-07:00

Drew's birthday was around the corner and Rosie and I didn't quite know what to make for her. She teaches 4 and 5 year olds during the day and is still capable of being energized and fun when she gets home. Because of her cheery disposition and bright personality, we decided to make the cake fun and bright as well. What better way to show happiness than with a rainbow. The cake was all buttercream and the colorful dots were made out of marshmallow fondant.

The cake was a German Chocolate Cake (chocolate cake layered with coconut, chopped pecans, and chocolate buttercream). I later heard that it was the hit of the night. Yay! Happy Happy Birthday, Drew! :)

Cowboy Cupcakes

2010-11-11T15:12:00.004-07:00

My bonus son (step-son) turned 4 last month and for his birthday, he wanted a cowboy themed celebration. Dallen LOVES cowboys and anytime he wears a belt, he says it's his cowboy belt. When he wears a hat (any hat), it's his cowboy hat. When he wears shoes (any shoes), they are his cowboy boots :) He even says "Howdy, Ma'am" as he tilts his hat. Oh, he's SO cute! I realize I'm bias but he's just the cutest kid EVER!

For his cupcakes, I made cowboy hats, horseys, cow patterns, cacti, lassos, and sheriff stars. The toppers were all made out of marshmallow fondant sitting on top of buttercream. I hand-cut each of these shapes with the exception of stars. Half of the cupcakes were chocolate and half were vanilla. He loved them and I loved making them for him. Got me some really good hugs with these puppies :)

Orange & Crimson Wedding Cake

2010-11-11T14:54:00.005-07:00

Jill needed a cake for her daughter's wedding and needed it pronto! We organized all of the details quickly and came up with this design based on a few different design ideas that they both loved. They wanted to alternate square and round tiers but also wanted to keep the cake very simple without too much going on. Each tier has a white-on-white pattern with just a thin orange border around each tier. I've attached a closer picture so that you can see the detail on each tier.

They chose three flavors for this cake. First, the bride and groom cut into a Ruby Red Velvet cake (red velvet cake layered with cream cheese frosting). Next, they ordered Mom's Apple Pie Cake (spice cake with apples baked into the cake layered with cheesecake filling and buttercream) and lastly, Lemonberry Cake (lemon cake layered with raspberry filling and buttercream). The whole cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and accented with MMF as well. I'm not a big fan of piping buttercream onto cakes so I simply rolled out fondant into thin ropes and curled them to make the pattern they are in on the cake. I also cut out small dots from MMF and applied those to the cake as well. The couple supplied the beautiful flowers and the monogram on the top of the cake. In the end, I thought the cake was very elegant. It's hard for me to resist putting more and more detail on cakes so I held back and loved it in the end :)