Flower Power!

  Another week, and another cake!  After last week, my housework got WAY behind, and I was sort of looking forward to just chilling out and cleaning the house...okay.  Maybe not looking forward to cleaning the house, but you get the picture.  Then I got an email from a lady asking about a rush job for another Sweet 16 cake!  I love these kind of things.  You have people that have almost given up hope on getting the cake they want.  You can almost feel the resignation that they will end up either paying $600 or just going to Walmart for their cake through the internet.  At any rate, They sent me a few pictures, and I gladly accepted the challenge!
  I had a heck of a time with the fondant.  The first two tiers I covered I messed up on.  They just dried out too quickly.  In order to re-do them, I had to make more fondant and wait 8 hours for the batch to cure.  ARGH!  But I eventually got it and covered and stacked the tiers.  Blank slate.  White cake.

I rolled out a black fondant ribbon 1.5" wide and wound it around the bottom tier.  Then I started putting on the vines.  It was relaxing work, but definitely something different.  After putting on the vines, I placed the ribbons around the cake and secured them at the back.  Since they are satin, I couldn't use water or gumpaste glue under them.  I secured one end, wrapped the cake, and secured the other end with a dab of the glue.  This left an ugly little mess at the back of the cake.  Probably not noticeable to anyone but me, but gosh I didn't want to leave it there.  Anyhoos.  I cut and placed the flowers.  I had moulded the numbers for the top of the cake on Monday night, the night the clients came over, so they had ample time to dry.  They had craft sticks pushed up into them before they dried, so they were pretty secure.  I wound a few vines around them and attached flowers.  Then I covered the cake board with black fondant and placed the bottom (orange) ribbon.  I made a template for the name on the board, then scrapped that.

Block lettering didn't seem to fit the vibe of this cake, so I rolled out another long snake of fondant and wrote her name in cursive.  For the tittle, I made a little tye dye fondant using all the colors I used on the cake and cut out a little flower.  It was uber cute, I think!

  I then turned my attention to the back of the cake.  It was very plain.  The birthday girl had told me she didn't mind if it was just plain, but I really wanted to spruce it up and I had extra fondant, so I started playing with it.  I cut out a massive amount of flowers and went to work sprucing it up!
I love how the back turned out.  It reminds me of the back of a wedding dress, you know the ones that have the buttons going all the way down the middle of the back and down the skirt?  Anyway.  I had a good time!

Then when the Mamma and Daughter came to get the cake, they LOVED it and the girl gave me a wonderful letter telling me how pleased she was and how thankful she was.  It truly made my week!  My husband was so happy for me, too.  That is just really thoughtful for a 16 year old, you know what I mean?

Well, this week is over and I made another cake for a family member, but we ended up not getting together, so I'm probably going to give this cake away on Craigslist tonight.  It's kind of a bummer but no real biggie.  It was a fun little cake and I really enjoyed doing buttercream grass on it.
  With the leftover cake from the soccer cake, I experimented for the first time with cake balls.  What you do it crumble up cake, mix it with buttercream frosting, and ball it up on the end of a stick.  Then you freeze it nice and hard.  Then you take milk chocolate and melt it on a double boiler, add a teaspoon of shortening, and stir it up.  Then you swirl the frozen cake balls into the chocolate until they are nice and covered, then you put them in the fridge, then...you eat them!  I'm really looking forward to making these more often.

What a good use of that extra cake you cut off the top of the domed cakes and the extra little bit of buttercream you're invariably left with.
  I'm contemplating using ganache to cover the next cake.  I'll keep you posted.

Wu-Tang parties with SpongeBob

 This week I had two cakes on my agenda. There was a SpongeBob smashcake for a little boy's 1st birthday and a Sweet 16 cake for a big party!  SpongeBob first, because I'm just aching to write about the Wu-Tang  cake and it's such sweet expectation!

  Dean is turning 1!  Grandma wanted a special cake just for him.  It's nothing incredibly outlandish, but it was a fun little cake.  It measures 7"x5".  I never watch SpongeBob so I had to go completely off of pictures, but I think it came out well.  The original cake we decided on was out of fondant, but of course, the one year old doesn't want fondant!  So this is me trying to make buttercream look more fondant-y.

The Wu-Tang cake was a MONSTER cake!  It weighed about 50 pounds.  The tiers are 12", 10", 8", and 6".  It took over 15 hours to decorate this cake (without baking times included).  It is all yellow cake with two layers of buttercream filling and two layers of strawberry filling.  There were five pictures we took inspiration from when the clients came to order.  From those five we came up with this concept drawing that became the Wu-Tang cake.  Why Wu-Tang?  Do you see the tops of the Wu-Tang symbol?

Well, I do!  It was truly wonderful working on this cake and I was so happy to see it's completion.  It feels like I haven't done laundry or answered emails since Tuesday!  On this cake I tried out a new technique of covering the cake board with fondant.  It was fairly simple and I really enjoy doing something new.  The stars were difficult to figure out how to put on.  I made the stars out of gumpaste and pressed two together to sandwich the wire, then painted them and let them dry.  I was going for a more "puffy" kind of look to the positioning of the wires, but the gumpaste proved to be just a little too heavy for the gauge of wire I selected.  I think it looks pretty good anyway, though!  The clients loved it, and that was the best part!
Well, my back aches and I'm ready to cuddle on the couch with my hubby for a while.  Long days and pleasant nights, everyone!

Princesses and Pirates!

This great little coffee spot in Carytown does kid's parties, and they have given me a chance at making their cakes.  This is the second party I've done, and I'm so excited about it!  The place itself is small enough so you can see everything, and yet large enough so your kiddo has room to romp around.  There is an infant play area and a "big kid" play area, and everything is clean and kept tidy.  The coffee is excellent and the staff is SO friendly!  They are affiliated with the church that meets at the Byrd Theatre on Sundays (I can't think of the name!) and it's just one of the best places to take your kid when you need a little "me" time.  They also have activities like story time for the little ones.  Their parties are reasonably priced, too!  So I just really like working with them.  Anyway, I'll get on with the sweets!

The theme was a Princess theme (with pirates for the boys), so I made some gumpaste crowns by using a large cutter that comes with the floral kit from Wilton, then shaped and cut, and put in a weird holder that I got from the Children's Museum to dry...I know, weird.  I don't even know what this thing is.  But it worked perfectly!  After they dried for two days, I thinned different colors with alcohol and painted on the gems.  Then I let the alcohol evaporate completely over the course of four days (just to be sure, this IS a kids party!)

For the pirates, I cut circles of gumpaste, then used the leaf cutter and rolled the results LONG.  I used those for the bandanas.  I then drew on the faces and decorated the bandannas using the aforementioned thinning technique.

After baking over 40 cupcakes (you have to always make a few extra for the ones that don't make it for whatever reason) and cooling them, I made the buttercream, colored it, piped it, and placed the crowns and pirates on.  I think they're adorable!  Except when some of the princesses went hussy and  joined the pirates.  That was just uncalled for!

Happy Birthday to my Husband!

My husband is a truly special sort of guy.  He works full time, goes to school nights, and is a great daddy when he's home.  I wanted to get him something really special this birthday.  He has wanted a T5-1000 Voltmeter for about two years now, but hasn't wanted to spend the money on it.  Perfect gift idea, right?  So I got him one ($60 off!) on EBay.  I let it slip that, well, IF I had gotten him, say, an 8GB Ipod, would he use it?  He started to get all excited...the trap was set!

Two days later I told him I'd opened the Ipod to charge it for him and put some songs on it, and the screen was broken and I'd had to send it back and hopefully the guy would fix it and not rip us off.  (Tee hee hee, I was all upset).  So then I set about making his cake.  I used that same spice cake I made last time I wrote.  I had cut it to size and frozen it.  Then I placed the voltmeter in the middle of the plate and decorated it to look like an Ipod.  Last year we were pretty broke and I made him a cake that looked like a voltmeter, so I thought it would totally throw him off.  We sang Happy Birthday, and he cut into the cake.

Only, the knife stopped and he couldn't cut any more!  So the jig was up!  He knew something was going on, but he thought I had an Ipod in there!  He scraped off the top of the cake and, VOILA!  Only the best present EVER!  He was so excited.  I'm pleased.  Notice the empty battery, that made me laugh for about an hour.  The cake was sort of a rush job, but I like it anyway!

Gumpaste Flowers and Basketweave

This cake is for a baby shower.  I am so pleased to be able to be a tiny part of this!  I was given a few pictures and pretty much free reign to design this cake.  I have been in love with basketweave for so long, so I decided to do the topper as a basket of gumpaste flowers.
The yellow cake recipe I've been making recently has baked funky and has been incredibly domed (which means more cake gets tossed out to level the cakes) the last few times I've made it, so a new recipe was in order.  I found it on Zaar, baked it up, and taste tested it.  Really really good.  I think it's better than the SeriousCakes yellow cake recipe.

 

This past week I made a cake aptly named "Eggless, Butterless, Milkless Cake."  I was a tad concerned that it would come out gross...boy was I mistaken!  The recipe came about during WW1, when those three items were in very short supply.  It was an amazingly flavored spice cake.  I made up some fresh blueberry syrup and layered it in, then topped it with some freshly whipped cream.  My hubby was so pleased!  I baked it in a jelly roll pan and layered it 4 layers high.  I had to add two dowels to keep it from toppling.  We ate up 2/3 of it right there...after Stinkie went to bed...we are mean parents!  The next morning, I ate the remaining third for breakfast.  I kept telling myself it was good for me somehow because it had blueberries on it.  Yeah that doesn't make sense!  Anyhow, I'm off like a dirty shirt!  Be back another time with my husband's birthday cake!

Edited to add:  The person who ordered this cake did a no-call, no-show for pickup, so I gave it away on Craigslist in the free section.  I will ALWAYS collect 1/2 down from now on!

Princess Castle Cake

Okay, talk about a rush job!  For some reason, I got it into my head that, because of the snow, Doll Baby's party was going to be postponed...and I neglected to make her cake!  Then yesterday at 3pm I got an email from my Mother In Law, affirming that the party is still on!  So, I started baking like crazy.  By midnight, I had a cake.  Granted, by the end I was exhausted and the turrets could have been smoothed better, but overall, I am pleased with the outcome.  My good ol' hubby took care of Stinkie the whole time!  (Rousing round of applause for my husband!)
This cake is made with the castle setup from Wilton.  I am less than pleased with the directions on the package and the fact that you are supposed to attach 1/4" dowels to the bottom of these heavy tower pieces with frosting.  Yeah, that didn't work.  I shoved the towers into the cake where possible and frosted the heck out of the ones that are set on the cake board.  Wilton's instructions stated to place all the towers, THEN add the gumpaste flowers and decorate.  After trying to put leaves on the top towers while avoiding the other standing towers, I gave up on the directions and built as I went.  There are something like 250 gumpaste flowers on this cake, and more than 700 piped leaves.

There are a few things I will do differently next time.  I will cover the turrets with fondant (buttercream was a PAIN in the rear).  The set comes with a pattern for cutting it.  The bottom layer needs to be tall enough for the door, which stood almost 1/2" above the top of that layer.  The bottom layer is about 4.5" tall...so I guess it's a three layer cake.  I had to draw on the door.  Also, there is a pointy roof thing that was too deep to fit in the 2" space left around the top tier.  I think I will not center the cake in order to leave enough room.
I had a pain of a time baking the cakes.  I used my regular recipe.  6c of batter in the 10" pan, 2c of batter in the 6" pan.  It took an hour for the 10" cake to bake!  It ended up rather overcooked on the outside and undercooked in the middle!  I must get myself one of those core heat distributer things.
It was an experience and I did enjoy it.  But soon I need to make another cake, a very special cake for my very special Husband!  His birthday is the 9th!