Happy 1/2 Birthday to you!

Sarah wanted to take advantage of having family in town for the holidays and chose to celebrate her son's 1/2 birthday. That's right, not one, not two, but half birthday. :) She came up with this awesome idea of having the cake look like it had been cut straight down the middle, like in the end of the Willy Wonka movie where everything in his office is sliced down the middle. She wanted the cake to be fun, colorful and whimsical and here's what we came up with. It looks like a totally normal cake from this side and then as you turn it, you realize it's a bit odd. The cake was a Coconutty Almond Cake with a light coconut cream cheese frosting layered with sliced almonds, coconut cream filling, and coconut flakes. All of the decorations are made out of marshmallow fondant, including the "1/2" sign on the top. I hope Evan loved the cake (or at least registered that he was the luckiest kid in the world to get a half birthday).

Here is another shot for you to check out:

The Andromeda Galaxy in Cake Form

Sarah wanted this cake for her friend's birthday. The first was the Alien Head (below) and the second was a cake of the Andromeda Galaxy. Hmm.... how will I ever do that? That was definitely my first question. If you're unfamiliar with the galaxy, google it and see if I did it justice. In order to make this cake look as "galaxy-like" as possible, I placed dragees (edible pearl-sized balls) around the cake to be like stars. Then I hand-painted the swirls of shimmery stars with edible pearl dust as well as pearl and silver edible paint. It was pretty cool to see the shimmer. Again, my photography skills are AWFUL so I tried to get as good a picture as I could of the shimmer but there's something with shimmer and flashes that just don't like to go together.

The cake was Mom's Apple Pie flavor (one of my faves) which is spiced apple cake with apple slices baked in layered with cheesecake cream filling and buttercream.

Here's another shot for you.

It's an Alien Head... I warned you!

Sarah wanted to have two cakes to surprise her two friends for their birthdays. She wanted the first to be an alien head. Yup, an alien head. This was a really fun cake for a few reasons. First, I had to sculpt this cake and then I had to paint the cake. Sculpting the cake wasn't too bad because it was just a giant dome-head! :) In order to get the contours of the face, I shaped and then layered fondant directly onto the cake. Then after I covered the cake in fondant, I smoothed out those areas so that it looked seamless (does that make sense?). I didn't have to paint the head but I wanted there to be shading with the green. Taking a picture of the cake did the color and the shading no justice.

In any case, the cake was a Strawberry Cheesecake Cake so when they cut into it, it was slightly pink. It's hard to see the angle of the cake and just how big this dude's forehead was so I'm attaching another picture. Sarah said they loved it! Yay!

Champagne and Chocolate Cake

Have you ever wondered what a 25 pound cake looks like? Well here it is! Lacey got married today and wanted a Champagne and Chocolate colored cake to match her theme. We went through a few designs and came up with this one.

She chose the three flavors that I would likely choose if I were to order a wedding cake (I kid you not! These are the three flavors I would've ordered too!). The top tier is a Lemon Supreme Cake (lemon cake layered with lemon filling and buttercream), the middle tier is Mom's Apple Pie Cake (apple spice cake with apple slices baked into the cake layered with cheesecake filling and buttercream), and the bottom tier is Brownie Lovers Cake (chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache and a middle layer of actual brownies).

Now for the funny part... When Rosie and I went to deliver the cake (because I clearly couldn't carry this puppy!), we walked into the room and Lacey's aunt walked up and said, "Did you know that this is what she does for a living?" It turns out that Lacey is a pastry chef and she withheld that very important information from me so as to not stress me out. I totally felt like I was being punked! haha. Then everyone in the room swarmed around the cake before I even had a chance to move it to the main cake table. I learned two valuable lessons with this cake. 1. Always deliver the cake WAY earlier than expected so that people don't start taking pictures of you when you walk in with the cake and 2. Always ask if the bride is a pastry chef! :) In all honesty, Lacey was SO awesome to work with because she knew what she wanted but was also really flexible with the details. In retrospect, I remember saying, "wow, you totally read my mind!" when it came to cake construction, which makes so much sense now! I keep lucking out with my brides and haven't had to deal with a bridezilla yet (Thank goodness for that!).

The cake is covered in marshmallow fondant and if you're interested, I'm going to go into quite of bit of detail on the decorations so if you're not into it, read no further :) Here we go... The bow on the top is made out of marshmallow fondant. In order to get the bow to stay, I roll out the fondant into strips and then lay the strips over a rolling pin until they dry in that shape(be sure to connect the ends of the piece so that it almost looks like a look) . After they've all dried, I place each loop into the shape you see using a 6-inch baking pan that is lined with wax paper. I spray the whole bow with water (or vodka, because it dries faster) and again, let the bow dry in place. This takes a few days to complete but when it's done, it's totally worth it!

In order to get the edges of the cake to look so crisp, I roll out fondant to fit the sizes of the cake (so four of each size, 6x6x4 for the top, 8x8x4 for the middle, and 10x10x4 for the bottom). Then, I let those rectangles dry so that they are hardened. Meanwhile, I covered each tier of cake with marshmallow fondant as I would any other cake and then I simply adhere the hardened sides of fondant to the cake with buttercream or water and decorate.

Now for the color... Champagne is a very odd color to make from white fondant. In addition, the color swatch that Lacey gave me was a shimmery, shiny color. In order to match this color as best as I could, I first tinted the fondant a slight tan-pink color. Then, I brushed on an edible gold luster dust to each piece that's champagne colored. After applying the pieces to the cake, I sprayed the whole cake with edible pearl dust to give it an extra shine. In the process of applying pieces, moving the cakes, stacking the cakes, etc., I smudged several places and couldn't dare leave smudges on the cake. In order to fix that problem, I painted on a second layer of edible gold luster dust. Then, I wanted to make sure that the chocolate color stayed dark chocolate so that it contrasted with the champagne. In order to do that, I had to remove the luster dust that was sprayed onto the chocolate colored pieces of fondant using a paintbrush and water to remove the shimmer.

Although this all sounds like a lot of tedious work, I really LOVED making this cake. Hours flew by and in the end, I was pretty pleased with the result. Oh and check out my new cake stand! Woo-hoo! I'm WAY excited about that beauty. Lastly, I have to thank Lacey for being truly wonderful to work with and making my job fun and (relatively) stress-free. I appreciate all of your support in my work and faith in my ability. Congratulations!

Lots of Pink and a Horsey Cake

In addition to the Elmo cake (read below), Keri wanted to order a cake for her niece, Makyah. This cake was a bit of surprise to Keri and to me so we had two days to come up with something cute. Keri said, "she loves horses but anything would be just fine." With all of that freedom and so little time, this is what we came up with. The cake was chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream covered in fondant. The horse is made out of marshmallow fondant as are the flowers and the rope. Keri and her husband were really excited about this one too :) I guess they were expecting a small picture of a horse on a cake. I'm glad I could exceed their expectations!

Elmo Birthday Present Surprise

Keri emailed me several months ago (yes, that's right, several MONTHS ago) and asked for the Sesame Street Cake that I made a while back. I love it when people plan ahead! Instead of remaking the same cake, I suggested we create something new and unique for her daughter, Tahlen. This was the result.... a giant Elmo (made out of rice krispies covered in fondant) popping out of a cake. Elmo was quite the challenge because the sheer weight of his head made it almost impossible to keep together (which kept reminding me of that scene in "So I Married an Axe Murderer" when he says, "head! Move!"... Anyway....). We ended up putting skewers into his head in order to stop him from splitting in half because that would've been quite traumatic for the kids at the party. This cake was so colorful and fun to make... a challenge, but VERY fun!

The top tier was Rainbow Bright Cake (colored red, blue, and green, with vanilla cream filling and buttercream) and the bottom tier was Strawberry Cheesecake Cake (Strawberry cake with strawberries baked inside of the cake layered with cheesecake filling and buttercream).

I really couldn't have asked for a better reaction from Keri and her husband. Although the week has been very long and hard, they made this cake pick up so wonderful and just expressed how much they loved it. I didn't get to see Tahlen's reaction, I hope she bit into Elmo's arm and just loved it :) Thank you so much, Keri!

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!!!

Halloween Shadows

Corrinne wanted to surprise her husband with a birthday cake. She wanted it to be zombie-esque and just something in the Halloween spirit. The cake is an All Caramel Cake (caramel flavored cake layered with caramel filling, and caramel buttercream) and is covered in marshmallow fondant. Some of the shadows on the cake are cut out of fondant (I simply found examples of spooky trees and houses and tried to mimic those here). I hand-painted all of the other decorations (clouds, tombstones, zombies, etc.) and it was so much fun! The moon is made out of marshmallow fondant that I dried really well. Then, I simple cut into the cake to place the moon. All in all, I really enjoyed making this cake. I rarely get a chance to use new techniques and the hand painting was really exciting (yes, I'm a nerd).

Corrinne was pleasantly surprised by the cake because she was expecting a small one-tiered cake. I hope it tasted delicious and that her husband was totally excited too!

Polka Dots and Roses go so well together

A while back, I made a Batman cake for Gabriel. I guess Reena, Gabe's mom, told her husband, Spencer to have me make her a birthday cake (getting all this? :) So Spencer called me recently saying that his wife wanted a black and white polka dot cake. Spencer wanted to surprise Reena and so he took her on a birthday date and said that the date was a replacement for the cake. Then, he threw her a party and had the cake ready to surprise her. He drove 50 minutes each way to get this cake so I hope the surprise went over well. I threw in the roses to give it an extra little touch. I hope she loved it!

The top tier is Cookies & Cake (sweet white cake layered with crushed Oreos and buttercream) and the bottom tier is Chunky Monkey (chocolate cake layered with banana slices, banana cream filling, and chocolate ganache).

Here's a shot of the mini-roses. I wanted to keep them very simple and delicate.

Phineas and Ferb Cake

Never heard of Phineas and Ferb? Me neither! Turns out, it's a pretty popular show. Ian was turning 4 and his mom, Sarah, thought it would be good to have his favorite show in cake form. In fact, she wanted his favorite episode of his favorite show in cake form and so this was the outcome. In the episode, Phineas and Ferb build their own rollercoaster (pictured on the bottom tier) while Doofenschmirtz is being apprehended by Perry the Platypus (depicted on the top tier). At the end of the episode, Phineas and Ferb are about to be caught by their parents but luckily their rollercoaster car falls into the backyard tree leaving the two boys sitting innocently under the tree (on top of the cake).

Last year, I made a set of cupcakes for Ian's 3rd birthday (the Blues Clues Cupcakes) and so I was really excited to have them want me to make his 4th birthday dessert as well. The top tier is Cherry Pie Cake (cherry flavored cake with cherries baked layered with cherry filling and buttercream) and the bottom tier is Chunky Monkey Cake (chocolate cake layered with banana slices, banana cream filling, and rich, chocolate ganache). The cake is covered with marshmallow fondant and all of the decorations are handmade from MMF. The tree on the top is rice crispies mixed with puffed rice covered in MMF.

Will you....?

For those of you that don't know, I am a PhD student by weekday and a caker by weekend. In graduate school, asking a professor to be on your committee is like asking someone to the prom, if the prom lasted 4 hours. Asking someone to be the chair of your committee is an even bigger deal because the chair works with you day and night to make sure you pass the 20 hour or so comprehensive exams and also write your dissertation. Because of this, my man-friend wanted to really surprise his future committee chair and ask her in a creative and fun way (and so that she really couldn't say no :) The professor he chose to ask is one of the most amazing instructors I've had and is just such a strong support for us grad students. Paul told me that he had scheduled a meeting with her to officially ask her to the metaphoric graduate school prom and so we started of thinking of cake plans. What emerged was a Tiffany's themed engagement ring box. The cake was a Strawberry Cheesecake Cake (Strawberry cake with strawberries baked into the cake layered with cheesecake cream filling and buttercream). The lid to the box is styrofoam covered in fondant with a fondant bow and the "box" itself is cake covered in fondant. The ring is also completely edible and made out of fondant. The whole cake was then sprayed with edible shimmer dust so that the whole cake sparkled.

Paul told me that he walked into the meeting with her and said, "oh, could you wait one second? I forgot something." He went out to get the cake and when he returned, she was looking down at her desk writing something. He got down on one knee, held out the cake and said, "Will you chair me?" haha.... I thought it was hilarious! She turned bright red and of course, accepted his offer. Here's a shot of the lid of the cake box.

Happy Anniversary, Liz and Daniel!

Liz and Daniel have ordered several cakes from me now and I was so honored a few weeks back when Liz emailed me about their latest cake order. The couple was celebrating their anniversary and wanted to order each other personalized cakes as their anniversary presents. I had each of them email me their ideas and made sure that the other didn't know what they were receiving. Daniel wanted Liz's cake to have a black fleur de lis on a very pink background. Liz wanted to center her cake around their favorite game, rock-paper-scissor. They both wanted Ruby Red Velvet cakes with cream cheese frosting and all of the decorations are handmade from marshmallow fondant. Making the paper was actually really exciting for me (yes, I'm a nerd) because I deal with paper all day long as a student. Ah, the joys of mixing my two jobs :) Anyway, I packaged the cakes separately in boxes that said "His" and "Hers" and sealed them up so that they could open them together on the night of their anniversary. It was so cool to be a part of their special day and I just thought it was the cutest idea. Here are the pictures of their celebration. Enjoy!

Transformers Bumblebee Cake

Last week, I made the Fish Tank cake for Nychole's husband's birthday. This week, Nychole's son, Brayden is turning 5 and wanted a Bumblebee themed cake, not the insect but rather the Transformer. A while back, I made another Bumblebee cake and thought it looked more like a taxi than what I had envisioned. Because of that, I really wanted to make sure this cake made up for my inability last time. I'm trying very hard to know when to stop when I'm doing cakes and really focus in on a few elements rather than including everything under the sun. What do you think? I hope Brayden and Nychole love the cake!

The top tier is a Ruby Red Velvet cake (red velvet cake layered with cream cheese frosting) and the bottom tier is a White Chocolate Chip Cake (sweet white cake with chocolate chips baked in and layered with buttercream and more chocolate chips). In case you didn't notice, it's suppose to look like the front grill of Bumblebee the car. No? Yes? I hope so :)

Birthday at Tiffany's Cake

Sarah was having a birthday party and called me up to ask for a cake. She said, "Do whatever you'd like." She told me that she likes black and white colors and Breakfast at Tiffany's. I tried to blend those as nicely as possible. I didn't tell her today how difficult this cake was but it was literally my worst nightmare. I covered the cake three separate times with fondant and for some reason, it just would not cooperate. At around 2:30am, I ripped off all of the fondant and started over yet again. I did the border detail four times and screamed a dozen times. Naw, just kidding (well, not really kidding :) Without getting into too much detail, let's just say I went to sleep at 4am completely exhausted! I hope the Audrey Hepburn look comes across on the top. Oh, I have to say that Sarah had the most unique cake flavor I've ever had to make. She wanted a chocolate cherry cake (chocolate cake with cherries baked into it) layered with sliced almonds and coffee flavored cream-cheese frosting. Sarah said she wanted a gourmet flavored cake so hopefully the flavors all worked together. I'll keep you posted!

Addison's Birthday Cupcakes

My friends, Kyle and Jen, have a one-year old... Wow! Addison is ONE! One year ago I went to the hospital to hold the tiniest most adorable baby (and to bring the new parents pumpkin bagels). We celebrated her birthday yesterday and she went to town on the blue monkey. It's so fun to see a baby cover themselves in frosting :)

These cupcakes are modeled after the monkeys, Ooh and Aah, from Playhouse Disney. They are Rainbow Bright cupcakes with buttercream frosting. Here's a picture of the inside of the cupcakes. I meant for them to be pink, white, and blue to match the colors of the cupcakes but they look more patriotic than I was anticipating. Haha. Oh well.

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.

Tinkerbell's Fairy Garden Cake

Carey wanted a cake for Cadence's third birthday this weekend and wanted it to be Tinkerbell themed. We decided on a cake that used lots of pinks, purples, and greens. For those of you who haven't watched the new Tinkerbell movie, well then you clearly don't have kids :) In any case, the top tier was a Spices & Cake cake (Spice cake layered with buttercream) while the bottom cake was a Brownie Lovers Cake (chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache and a layer of brownies). I wanted to show another side of the cake so that you could get a feel for the whole design, and not just the leading lady. I also wanted to show what the inside of the Brownie Lovers Cake looks like. It's SO decadent and chocolately that it would fix anyone's chocolate craving (especially mine).

Dallen's 3rd Birthday with Lego Batman

One of my step-son's birthdays was this weekend and so we celebrated his third year with a Lego Batman Cake. He was totally thrilled and it was just really fun to see the kids love a cake and be there to witness it. As I was cutting into the cake, the kids got a hole of Robin's arms and legs and downed those before I even had a chance to limit the amount of sugar intake. Ah well, birthdays don't come around that often, right? This was a Rainbow Bright Cake (this flavor is really popular with kid birthdays... I think it's all the sugar!) which means it was a vanilla cake colored to match the decor of the cake and then layered with buttercream and sprinkles. Each side of the cake is supposed to look like a different building from Lego Batman's Gotham city. I made the characters out of fondant and I found Batman's abs the funniest part to make on these characters!

Here are another few pictures for you.

This is an inside shot of the Lego Batman Cake. Many people who ate the cake thought that the bottom layer was chocolate. Interesting idea... I'm not sure how I feel about a Neapolitan Cake flavor but if anyone's interesting, let me know!

This was Dallen's mini-cake so that he could tear apart his own little cake which is why it's pretty simple and fun for him. He didn't even care about this cake after he saw the Lego Batman cake. Oh well, more cake for me.

Scooby Dooby Doo, Where are you?

Apparently Scooby's right here! Shandell wanted to celebrate Brady's 2nd birthday with a Scooby inspired birthday cake. Brady and Scooby both love hamburgers so instead of Scooby eating a cake, he was eating a hamburger for his birthday celebration. Brady specifically asked for a rainbow colored cake with orange frosting (I know, smart kid, right! I KNOW!). So I made a Rainbow Bright cake (vanilla cake with sprinkles baked into the batter with a layer colored blue, yellow and green to match the design) and layered the cakes with orange buttercream. This cake ended up being 5-inches tall! Here's another look for you of the other characters. Alex and Rosie were diligent in helping with this cake as well. It's like I throw a cake-making party and we sit in the kitchen for hours just cakin' it up. haha. Anyway, I hope Brady loved his vanilla and orange cake :)

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