Saturday, December 11, 2010

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Margarita/Girl's Night Out Cake


For my friend, Autumn's 30th birthday, I made a coconut cake with a lime filling. Covered it with fondant. I just placed a margarita glass with a salted rim and lime. Plus a couple of umbrellas. Very simple and cute :)

Thursday, October 21, 2010

My new Cricut Cake

Last night, I recieved my Cricut Cake. I'm very excited to see what it can do (which according to the advertisements - is a lot). I'll give my thoughts about it a little later but I'm really excited to try it out :)

Friday, October 15, 2010

Grandfather Clock for Pink Tea (Drive for the Cure)

   Pink Tea is an annual event held by Drive for the Cure, a foundation that help fund women to get mammograms. I first learned about this event a few years ago while my mother was in the midst of battling breast cancer. I haven't been up to going until this year when I offered to help decorate one of the tables along with some of my coworkers. The theme for our table was "A Moment in Time". My coworkers made beaded watches for the women at the table and I volunteered to make the center piece which would be raffled off.
   I asked my friend, Kami, to help with this because I knew she would be excited about another cake project. So with her help we created this grandfather clock. We were very pleased with the results and received many compliments at the tea party. It was an elderly couple that won the cake and they were excited to be able to share it with their support group (the lady was currently undergoing breast cancer treatment).


Our table.


"Bra Art"
These are amazing. These are the competitors from this year.


Saturday, October 9, 2010

Gross Skull Cake

My nephew loves everything video games and just gross, weird things. So I thought I would try the gross, weird cake. He loved it. Skull: complete with empty, black eye sockets and white candy melt teeth. But don't forget the giant knife in it's head with blood oozing. Yes, I realize that a skeleton wouldn't bleed but nothing else wouldn't be gross enough :)

Horse Cake for Uncle Craig

My Uncle Craig likes horses. This horse was an attempt to try using fondant again. I think I did a pretty good job. Instead of dyeing the fondant, I painted it with a mixture of Wilton gel dye and pure Lemon extract. I used a paintbrush to paint it, but it gave it an illusion of wood grain. Really cool affect if you want wood so maybe next time I'll see if sponging would work better.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Friday, September 24, 2010

Rainbow Magic

Rainbow Magic is a fairy themed book series (one of my girl's favorites). Here's our very simple design (thanks to Amber "The Idea Woman").
Had to post two views so the shimmery top could be seen. (We all know it's all about the sparkles :)

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Horse Cake

With the help from my friend, Kami, I made a shaped cake with fondant. So proud, even though she did the most work. I'm glad that I found her, she is an awesome person and now I have a cake decorating buddy. I can't wait to become more comfortable with fondant. It's all fondant with the exception of the mane.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Dog Agility Cakes

These cakes were made by my friend, Wendee. With her dog, Benjamin, she is very active with a group people that do agility training. She wanted to make something special for the birthday of a lady in the group. She designed the cakes and set up the course. I helped her by making the large dog heads. They are made with Royal icing, marshmallow snouts and candies for the eyes, nose and tongue.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Stonehenge

"Happy Birthday to one who has stood the time of time"
For my grandpa's 87th birthday. My aunt asked me to make a cake for him and said to do something having to do with "old" and "history". This covers both. The blocks are made from rice krispies covered with melting candy. No need to worry about making it smooth. Rocks have texture :)

Kirsten and McKay's Wedding

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Rice Krispie Dinosaur

I made this so that my little nephew and niece, who are allergic to eggs, wheat and milk, could party at the Dino Party. Rice krispies were made with a milk-free margarine and allowed to set in the Wilton Dinosaur pan. I carefully took it out and outlined the Dino with decorating gels.

Dinosaur

This cake I made for my family's Dino Themed Party. It turned our pretty cute. The body of the Dino is made with the Wilton Wonder Mold pan. The face and neck is a cupcake and the tail - I formed out of marshmallow. The legs are made by just piping icing out from the body. Covered him with stars. Then melted down candy melts and designed spikes on wax paper. Let the spikes be in the fridge for awhile and they will be good and hard but make sure when you are transporting, you pay attention to sun :)

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Spiderman vs Elmo : )

My youngest two(5 and 2), both with multiple food allergies, birthdays are one day apart. We combined parties this year, celebrating with their favorite characters, Spiderman and Elmo. I came up with a sugar cookie recipe that is not only delicious to these kids, but passable to everyone else :)
(The recipe will be included at the end if anyone is interested.)

Cookies are pretty basic. Egg shaped cutter. Frost red. Add design. Does take a bit of time to make so many :)
Sugar Cookies
1/4 c milk-free margarine
1/4 c shortening
1/2 c sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
3 T oil, 3 T water, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp xanthan gum - mixed together (added all at once)
1 1/4 c - 1 3/4 c white rice flour
Roll cookie 1/4 inch thick. Cut as desired. 350 for 10-12 min on parchment lined sheet. Makes about 20.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Leprechaun Hat

I cut out a round piece of modeling clay for the rim of the hat. The cake portion, made from half of the Wilton Sports Ball cake pan, was placed on top of that. I frosted the cake with buttercream frosting. The black and yellow buckle is made from fondant.

Kyndall and Wade's Wedding

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Viking Helmet

I baked the cake in a large mixing bowl. Covered it with a chocolate buttercream frosting. The reinforcements on the helmet were made from modeling clay. The horns I shaped from rice krispies and used long sucker sticks and buttercream to anchor them on the helmet.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Viking Dragon Ship

For my brother's birthday, I made him a Viking ship. I just used the large loaf pan for the main body or the cake and carved it out to look like a boat. The bow and stern I formed with chocolate modeling clay. I painted sucker sticks with melted chocolate and attached some modeling clay to the end for the oars. The shields are made from the discs candy molds. The sail is candy clay. (I did have the sail shaped bowing out when I brought it to my brothers house but it came in contact with moisture and lost it's shape, so you see it as it was just laying flat. So frustrating. I draped the sail over a roll of paper towels to harden. It gave it the perfect shape.) Last, used blue and white buttercream frosting to surround the cake to look like water.
We moved the sail aside so it wouldn't melt with all the candles. We shouldn't a have taken so long to sing to him :)

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Sleep Cake

Loaf pan with frosted cookies for trees. Everything made from frosting. Bendable wire ribbon for lawn mower handle.

Lion

Best part is the 3D whiskers made from inserting spaghetti noodles into bag with round tip and slowly squeezing out. Let dry and insert into cake. Cool effect.


Princess

Thankfully you can decorate the dress however you'd like. This one didn't quite turn out the way I'd imagined but my 4 year old didn't mind. Don't forget to add your crown.

"Fancy Nancy"

Super simple tiered cake. Add ribbon around edges and coordinating flowers (real or artificial). Same idea could be used for wedding or shower.

Rock Star

Goat or Unicorn : )

Wilton 3D Lamb pan used. Frosted ice cream cones for the horns. (We couldn't decide if we liked the goat or unicorn better.)

Art Party w/Cupcakes

I'm putting this with the alternative to cakes just for those who don't want to spend the time decorating. Let your guests decorate their own cupcakes with frosting and candies. This was such a fun activity for everyone and went perfectly with our Art Themed party.
Plus, it was my daughter's favorite cake ever (she was so proud)!

Lightning McQueen

"Cars" Lightning McQueen . Larger cake made with Wilton 3D Cruiser pan. Chocolate donuts added for the wheels and frosting used to build up the spoiler.
Smaller cake is where the alternative to traditional cake comes in. Because the only grain my son could eat was corn, I baked a sweet corn bread and dairy-free frosting to built a car shape (I imagine this would work with any bread type). Was a bit crumbly, but no two year old with his own car cake is going to complain! : )