Topsy Turvy Flowers and Duckys

My apprentice, Alex, needed a cake for her sister's homecoming party and she's always wanted to make a topsy turvy cake. This was the perfect opportunity! She wanted to personalize this cake to her sister's likings and so the top tier has hand painted gerber daisies, the middle tier has doormats (because her sister collects photos of doormats and we specifically modeled these doormats after the ones her sister took pictures of), and the bottom tier has rubber duckys swimming in bubbles. The cake weighed 20 pounds and took hours upon hours to complete. The top tier was a Ruby Red Velvet cake, the middle tier was Chocolaty Chocolate Cake and the bottom tier was a Rainbow Bright Cake (with each layer of cake colored to match the design of the cake, so blue, pink, and yellow layers of cake with buttercream). Here's another view so you can see some more of the doormats.

Now for a little more detail. The gerber daisies were made by using a flower cookie cutter and simply layering two flowers on top of each other to give it some depth. The doormats were really fun because Alex spent a ton of time really getting the details right. They look identical to the ones in the pictures. Essentially, it was like using food coloring as water color painting. Took a while but was totally worth it. Lastly, the duckys were shaped by hand to look like rubber duckys. This is where it takes me back to being a kid and playing with play-doh. I use homemade marshmallow fondant for my cakes and it was really fun to mold that fondant into ducks. The beaks were then painted orange, we put little eyes on them and Alex painted cute eyelashes on them. In total, the cake was really a great reflection of Alex's sister and I hear the cake was a huge success at the party. Great job once again, Alex! :)

Shoutout to my apprentice

My apprentice, Alex, made a cake for her dad's birthday last week. He loves to golf and bike (is it called biking? I just never know about those darn active sports things :) This was completely her design, completely her work, and I have to say, I'm SO impressed with her skills. That golf bag there is REALLY impressive, especially with the details and the golf clubs coming out of the top. The balls around the top tier also say, "Titleist" (I hope I spelled that right). All of the decorations are made out of homemade marshmallow fondant and the creative genius of Alex's brain. It was a spice cake layered with cheesecake filling and buttercream. Great job, Alex!!

Haunted Halloween House Cake

My apprentice, Alex, technically made this cake. I made the decorations for another cake order that fell through so she made this cake in its stead. She covered the cakes in marshmallow fondant and placed all the decorations lovingly on the cake just where they belong. She did an awesome job! The colors of the decorations are just muted enough to have the house stand out against backdrop. I had to take this picture without the flash because the purple kept looking blue in the photos with the flash. Isn't she doing wonderfully? This was the first time she tried covering square cakes and she covered them both perfectly! There wasn't a single flaw! I was totally impressed! Great job, Alex!!!

Fish Tank Cake.... harder than it sounds

So it turns out that making cake look transparent is quite difficult so making a fish tank cake was pretty darn challenging. Nychole's husband has several salt water fish tanks and so she wanted to celebrate that hobby in cake. The cake was 8-inches tall, 8-inches long, and 6-inches wide. It has two separate cake flavors, one stacked on the other. The top flavor is a Coconutty Almond Cake (coconut cake layered with coconut buttercream, light coconut cream filling, sliced almonds, and coconut flakes... I know it sounds like a lot of coconut but it's actually quite a nice balance) and the bottom flavor was Chunky Monkey Cake (chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache, banana cream filling, and banana slices).

In order to pull this off to look as much like a real fish tank as possible, I layered fondant to look like coral popping out of the cake then I covered the whole cake in marshmallow fondant. Then I molded the fondant around the coral so it really looks like it's coming out of the tank. I sprayed the cake with a light sky blue color even though water in a fish tank doesn't look blue at all (weird!). The sand at the bottom of the tank is brown sugar stuck to the side (a genius idea by my new apprentice, Alex). I have to thank Alex for all of her help on this cake. She's more of a perfectionist than I am!! Anyway, here's another view of the cake for you.

A Topsy Turvy First

Vanessa wanted a unique cake for her 16th birthday. She wanted teals and greens and a touch of black. Vanessa's birthday was 09-09-09 which is pretty cool so we wanted to highlight that as well. The top tier was a Cookies & Cake cake (vanilla cake layered with buttercream and crushed oreos). The middle tier was a Brownie Lovers cake (chocolate cake layered with rich chocolate ganache and a layer of actual brownies in between the chocolate cake). The bottom tier was a Mint Chocolate Chip Cake (vanilla cake with chocolate chips baked in layered with lightly flavored mint buttercream with chopped chocolate chips).

This was my first attempt at a topsy turvy cake and I was surprised at how subtly easy and subtly difficult it was at the same time. My two lovely assistants, Rosie and 13-year old cake-apprentice, Alex, were awesome in helping with this cake. We worked late into the night to make sure that every detail was right. I wanted to show another view of the cake without the writing on it so that you could see the design. Rosie said this cake reminded her of Alice in Wonderland. Awesome! haha

My New Apprentice

I'm breaking a personal rule of mine to not put photos of myself on the internet... and I might take this off later but I promised my new apprentice that I would show off her skills. This is Alex who helped me with the last cake I did that had the various super heroes on it. That same night, Alex made her second fondant cake ever and came up with the design on the spot! It was amazing to watch her work and I was so impressed with the outcome. This is a Spices & Cake cake (spice cake with cheesecake filling and cream cheese frosting) covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. She put the cake together, covered it in the fondant that she made and decorated it with her genius ability and creativity.

Although we both look like we're 13, I'm the one on the left with the proud mama smile and she's the one on the right with the glow of self-satisfaction. We will continue to work together and I'll keep her progress posted on here as well. Great job, Alex! I'm still in awe of your intrinsic talent!!