Brown and Baby Blue Floral Wedding Cake

Lindy got married yesterday and needed a pretty big cake to celebrate the occasion with her friends and family. Originally, she wanted a cake that was very simple with zombies crawling up the side, awesome right? Then she and her future-husband realized that might not go over so well with the older generation of family members and so thoughtfully opted against the semi-bloody cake. Instead, she wanted a cake with some floral design on it but not too much so that it was overwhelmingly busy. Here is the final result.

This cake was very challenging. Four tiers tall and a 30 minute delivery time makes for a lot of planning up front. The top tier was Cookies & Cake (vanilla cake layered with crushed oreos and buttercream), second tier was Tall Vanilla Latte Cake (vanilla cake layered with coffee cream filling and coffee buttercream), third tier was Ruby Red Velvet Cake (red velvet cake layered with cream cheese frosting), and the bottom tier was Spices & Cake (spice cake layered with cheesecake filling and cream cheese frosting). That is quite a variety! :)

The cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. The floral pattern on the cake was done using brown buttercream and a few unique cake stencils. I hand-piped the blue accents on to the brown buttercream and around the design. Finally, I added a baby blue border to each tier to add just another little touch of color to match Lindy's wedding decor. In order to transport the cake safely, the bottom two tiers were together and the top two tiers were together for the drive. The wedding site was at a beautiful location up in a canyon here in Salt Lake. It rained and snowed pretty hard all the way up there but we made it and the cake made it in one piece (well, technically two pieces :) Here's an up-close picture of the top tier's design. I hope you likey!

Robot Cupcakes

Gabe was turning two and his mom wanted some cool cupcakes for the party. I had saved a set of really unique cupcakes a while back that had the robot's head on a top cupcake, body in the middle and feet on the bottom. I always wanted to try them and so it was great when Shannon asked to replicate that idea with her son's robot design. These robots here match her design as closely as possible and ended up being pretty simple, once I got the little pieces all figured out :) There were 30 cupcakes in total and two flavors, Peanut Butter No-Cup Cake (chocolate cupcakes covered in peanut butter buttercream) and Chocolate Chip No-Cookie Cake (vanilla cake with chocolate chips baked in, covered in buttercream). The designs on the cupcakes are made out of marshmallow fondant. Fun!!!

Mad Hatter Cake

Dominique needed a special cake for her daughter's Alice in Wonderland themed birthday party. The group ate the cake to celebrate and then went to watch the new movie Tim Burton film. We both thought that a topsy turvy "Mad Hatter" style cake would be perfect. The top tier was a Banana Cream Pie Cake (a light banana flavored cake layered with banana cream filling and fresh, sliced bananas and buttercream). I had a little cake left over and made some for my man-friend and best friend and they loved the new flavor. The bottom was a Cookies & Cake Cake (sweet vanilla cake layered with chopped Oreos and buttercream). The cake is covered and decorated with homemade marshmallow fondant.

I had so much fun making this cake. It was really about the colors for me because I had to make sure they were vibrant and fitting for a birthday party. The swirls on the bottom were marshmallow fondant scrolls that I rolled out and placed on the cake. The hat was made out of rice krispies covered in marshmallow fondant. So much fun! I hope you like it!

Hand Painted Flower Cake

I'm not much of a painter... especially on fondant so this was an experiment. This cake was modeled after one by Carrie's Cakes that I think is beautiful. I thought I would try it out. It took several hours to paint but was very calming and was what my man-friend would call a "flow" activity (a balance of enjoyment and challenge). It was a petite cake, I think it's a 4-5-6 inch square cake. For those of you who want to try this (and have the patience) all you need is food coloring and paint brushes to make it just simple water coloring. FUN!

Yo Gabba Gabba.... Who?

Marianne wanted a cake for her son's birthday. Since Charlie loves Yo Gabba Gabba, she wanted the characters on a simple little cake for the party centerpiece. I had never heard of these folks before (Gabba Gabba folks, that is), so I had to do some research. Turns out, the big red, cyclops dude is in a car commercial so every time I see the commercial now I think of this cake.

This was a 6-inch round, White Almond Cake (almond flavored cake layered with cream cheese frosting and sliced almonds) covered in marshmallow fondant and handmade characters. These were so fun to make because they were really unique looking characters. In order to make the characters, I cut out basic shapes in the fondant and then simply layer on other the details. I say simply but it's very time consuming to get these just right. Luckily I like doing little meticulous jobs like this (haha). The robot, in particular, was really fun because of all of his buttons and bars (I don't know what to call those... antenna? Yeah, let's go with antenna).

Marianne wrote me afterwards and said she felt bad eating the cake because it was so cute.... haha... Well, it's all sugar so I'm glad they ate it and enjoyed it :)

Green Dots & Bows

This is a four tiered wedding cake accented with green and black. The green turned out to be darker than I had anticipated but the men in my home say this is one of their favorites. Everything on the cake is made out of homemade marshmallow fondant and the green accents are hand painted with green food coloring to get it a better shade of green (yet not exactly what I was looking for). This cake is modeled after a beautiful cake I saw on Cake Central and hope I did that person proud. It was actually very simple to make, it's a lot of dots and circles along with three small bows, but it took quite a bit of time to get the dots perfectly aligned. I was practicing with these colors because I have a few upcoming wedding cakes with green and black accents... exciting! Oh, and in case it's unclear, the bottom is the cake base that makes it look like the cake has a little character... I like that :)

It's HERE!! SaltCakeCity.com!

I'm so excited to finally announce that I've created (painstakingly, hours upon hours, yelling, screaming, calling tech support, late nights, etc.) www.SaltCakeCity.com! Finally! Please check it out and let me know what you think... :)

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! :)

Dave Matthew's Dancing Nancy Valentine

Bill wanted a unique Valentine's Day cake and thought that Dancing Nancy would be a good way to personalize this holiday for his wife. When he started describing what he wanted, I finally had to ask, "Is this a Valentine's Day cake...?" :) He wanted the Dave Matthews Dancing Nancy on top and DMB on it (Dave Matthews Band). I added in a few roses and hearts and Bill was pretty happy with the end result.

This was my first attempt at a cake that's shaped this way (Ah! I don't know what it's called!). It's wider on the top and tapers in on the bottom. It's amazing what an electric turkey carver can do in the right hands. haha. All of the decorations are made out of marshmallow fondant, including the roses. I modeled the hearts after a cake I saw on Cake Central (I apologize for not getting your name). I cut red fondant into tiny strips and then rolled the ends inward. After letting them dry for a bit, they were nice and east to put on the cake. The letters and the Dancing Nancy are painted with silver shimmer dust to make it shine just a little more. It was red velvet cake to match the holiday layered with buttercream. Happy Chocolate Eating Day everyone!

Silver Dots & Bows

I love silver in general so I definitely love silver on cake. It's more time consuming than people probably think because fondant doesn't come in silver... instead we have to paint on edible silver "paint" essentially. It's a four tiered cake covered in marshmallow fondant. The dots are a mixture of black and white dragees (they're basically fancy versions of tiny and shiny jaw breakers) and dots of fondant that are painted silver. The trim and bows were also painted silver (hopefully that's noticeable :) This cake is modeled after a beautiful cake from Pink Cake Box. They do amazing work there and so I've always wanted to recreate some of their cakes. I hope I did them justice!

New Amazing Flavors!

Hey all, I'm just writing because I'm so excited about these new flavors on my flavor list. Thanks to the brainstorming of my man-friend and best friend, Salt Cake City has more cake to offer :) Please let me know what you think!

* Almond Joy Cake: A light coconut cake layered with coconut cream filling, chocolate buttercream, and almond slices.

* Banana Cream Pie Cake: Vanilla cake layered with banana cream filling, banana slices, and crushed vanilla wafers.
* Chocolate Hazelnut Cake: Chocolate hazelnut cake layered with hazelnut cream filling and buttercream.
* Cinnamon & Sugar Cake: Light cinnamon cake layered with cinnamon buttercream.

* Coconut Cream Cake: Light coconut cake layered with coconut cream, coconut flakes, and buttercream.
* English Toffee Cake: Sweet yellow cake layered with Heath toffee bits and rich chocolate ganache.
* If You Like Piña Colada Cake: Pineapple cake layered with coconut cream filling and buttercream.

* Lemonberry Cake: Lemon cake with raspberry filling and raspberry buttercream.
* Old Fashioned PB & J Cake: Peanut butter flavored cake layered with strawberry filling and buttercream.

* Strawberry Lemonade Cake: Strawberry cake with a tart lemon filling and buttercream.
* Tuxedo Cake: Alternating layers of chocolate and vanilla cake with buttercream.
* White Chip Cake: Sweet yellow cake with white chocolate chips and layered with buttercream.

* White Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cake: Strawberry cake layered with white chocolate ganache

Twins who Love Purses

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

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

A College Book in Cake

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

Elmo Box Cake

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gourmet Ding-Dong Experiment

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

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

is, if you like chocolate!

Luke... I am your Father!... in cake form

My step son turned 9 last week and has been telling me he wants a Star Wars themed cake since I can remember. In an effort to pull through on that promise, I tried to make a Darth Vader helmet. Turns out, that's a hard thing to do! Darth is made out of rice crispies and covered in marshmallow fondant. The dimensions of his face are hard to see because of the lighting and because he was really dark in the first place (get it, he was dark... the dark side... get it? Sorry, that was my feeble attempt at a Star Wars joke. In the words of my best friend, Rosie... I don't get it.)

Anywho, the cake to the right is a lemon cake layered with buttercream and the stars, logo, and light sabers are made out of marshmallow fondant. My brother emailed me to say that technically speaking, one of the light sabers should have been red for some nerdy Star Wars reason.... haha. So I apologize for the inaccuracies of this cake in the realm of Star Wars :) Hyrum loved the cake and the first things that went were the marshmallow light sabers. Yummy! Thank you for checking it out!

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!!

Christmas Present Cake

I had a work party this morning and decided to make a cake at the last minute. I found the inspiration from a cake I saw on Cake Central (my favorite website addiction). The cake was a Mom's Apple Pie Cake and all of the decorations are handmade from homemade marshmallow fondant. The presents are fondant and the "snow" is buttercream covered in crystallized sugar.

My friend brought his two daughters to the party (ages 3 and 5, I think). They ate all three of the main characters and loved it! I kept telling my friend that I was sorry because that was going to be two little kids on a giant sugar high. Ah, it was fun to watch. :)

Treasure Chest Cake

Summer needed a huge cake for her huge luau party (around 400 guests!) for her son's 1st birthday. The party was a pirate themed extravaganza with a kiddie "walk the plank" and pirate costumes and decor everywhere. I knew I had to make something awesome when Summer asked me to recreate a pirate treasure chest that she'd seen online. Although she didn't want it to feed all of the guests, she wanted it to be a nice centerpiece. Here's what we came up with. This cake was a foot long, over 8 inches wide, over a foot tall, and super heavy! The picture doesn't do the size any justice.

The cake was a chocolate cake layered with buttercream and chocolate chips. Because the base was so tall, I made two separate layers of cake stacked on top of itself. Now for the nitty gritty... if you're not interested on how to make cakes, no need to read on :)

The top lid of the cake was made out of rice krispies and covered in marshmallow fondant. In order to keep the lid opened, I put in support under the lid and then skewered it into the cake till it was steady. The whole cake is covered and decorated with MMF. I first colored the the fondant brown and then let is sit till it dried. I "scratched" the dried fondant with a knife and made sure to leave nicks and different lines. Once that dried, I painted on layers of brown food coloring making sure to dye some areas darker than others until I thought it looked like wood. Then, I took the hardened fondant and simply adhered it to the side of the cake that was covered in buttercream. This gives the cake a pretty crisp edge.

The corners of the chest were painted with gold food coloring. The pearl necklace, "gold coins" and sword are all fondant. The green and red gems are peanut M&Ms and the yellow gems are both reeses pieces and fondant. The silver nuggets are tootsie rolls and dove chocolates covered in tin foil and the sand on the bottom is crushed graham crackers.

Hmm, I think that's about it :) It was SOOOOO MUCH FUN to make this cake. Summer was amazing to work with because she basically said, "here's kind of what I'm looking for but do whatever you think is best." I tried to make it look as "pirate treasure chest" as possible and really just loved every second of making this. I wasn't able to be there when Summer came to pick up the cake but she called me immediately after picking up the cake. She kept screaming (in a good way) and just told me how much she loved it. I wish I could've made it to the party to see the amazingness of a 1-year-old-Pirate-themed-Hawaiian-Luau :) Maybe next year, right?