Happy 2013!

I've never actually done a New Year Cake.. though it's been on my wish list the last couple of years, I never seem to get to it with the hecticness of the holidays and my other cakes.  This year though, I did get to oversee my hubby's granddaughter make one.  My birthday gift to her in November was a Panny Cakes gift certificate - good for one cake creation of her choosing.  She chose to make a NYE party cake! ..and came to our house for 3 days straight to work on it.  There was some supervision on my part, but she pretty much designed, baked, frosted, and decorated the cake on her own!

The cake was chocolate with peanut butter oreo filling, and buttercream icing.  We had seen the number candles on a New Year cake when looking for designs she liked, so she decided to incorporate that, as well as candy confetti.. because what says NYE better than confetti, right?!  She also wanted a 'silver' icing, which is difficult to achieve, but we dyed the icing a light gray, then sprinkled it with luster dust, which gave it a nice shimmer (though it's hard to see in the pics).  The other decoration she came up with were shiny silver streamers (which she cut off a door curtain sold in the celebration section of walmart).  She tied a few of them onto the Duff curly cake wires I had and stuck them into the cake.. they were super cute!  Here are some pics I took along the way :)

..taste testing of course

..it's all about the details ;)

 

Ahhh.. workin' the most remarkable piece of baking machinery!

 

Yup.. she is txting AND mixing.. which you can only do with a trusty KitchenAid!

 

Frosting is Fun, right K?

And we're smoothing...

Adding the finishing touches with her bff :)

 

Here is the completed cake, which I thought turned out very festivious - perfect for NYE!

~HAPPY NEW YEAR~

 

 

 

The Castle Cake

My latest cake creation, last week, was for my niece/goddaughter's Birthday.  She wanted me to make a 'castle' cake that was in her Dora & Diego children's cookbook.  I looked at the picture and thought "how hard can this be.. it's in a children's cookbook after all."  Well, let me tell you, it wasn't as easy as it looked.. but of course totally worth every challenge because my niece loved it, as did many others!

The cake is chocolate with whipped cream icing.. and assorted candies, as you can see, for the decorations.  The castle points were made by dipping sugar cones in melted frosting, then rolling them in sugar sprinkles.. and they were the yummiest part of the whole cake in my opinion ;)  ..the flags are made with shiny white scrapbook paper I had, and toothpicks (in the cookbook they were 'ribbon flags' which are made out of ribbon, but I didn't have the right size ribbon on hand so I improvised, and no one was any the wiser ;)    

    

More 1D Cupcakes, Coming Up!

Ok so I'm slightly behind in my blog posts, but with the holidays on top of cakes, it's been a little crazy to say the least!  Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of working once again with my wedding couple from back in October.  They wanted a 'One Direction' Cupcake Cake for their daughter's Birthday party.  They liked the fondant toppers I made for the previous 1D cupcakes I did, so we went with them for this creation as well.  They wanted a cake made out of cupcakes, in the 1D shape.  

The cupcakes are chocolate and yellow with whipped cream icing.  In keeping with the 1D color scheme, I wrapped the board in red wrapping paper and used Wilton black & white 'color cups' for the cupcake liners (which work very well, meaning they look just as good after baking the cupcakes as they did going into the oven.. so I'm sure I'll be using them again since they come in a variety of cute designs).  Here are a few pics of the finished product!

  

pre-Toppers

 ..and post Toppers :)

The birthday girl and her favorite 1D member ;)

Here is a shot where you can see the Wilton ColorCups a little better.. they looked great with this color scheme, and they don't get all yucky looking after baking (like most cupcake liners do).. love these!

 

Korean Dress (Hanbok) Cake

Last week I made a Cake and Cupcakes for a Korean themed 1st Birthday.  The customer wanted a replica of the birthday girl's Korean dress, also known as a hanbok, on the cake.  When she sent me pictures of the dress I thought to myself "wow, that is gorgeous.. how will I ever do it justice on a cake?"  Well I studied the pictures for days, mulling over how to get such detail out of fondant. 

Here is the actual dress.. the red skirt is underneath a green vest-type top with long striped sleeves 

(the sleeves are folded under in the pic but you can see them a bit) 

      

Here is what I came up with for the cake.. I was very pleased with how it turned out :)

The customer also ordered 2 dozen cupcakes and a smash cake for the birthday girl.  In addition to the Korean theme, they were doing a pink and lime green color scheme, so I incorporated that into the cupcakes and smash cake (though the pink looks almost red in these pics - it was actually a dark pink).  I had fun with this one!  I had never done anything like it before, and while the dress was definitely a challenge and a lot of work, it was so worth it in the end.  The customer said I did an amazing job with it!  The cake is fudge marble with chocolate mousse filling, the cupcakes are confetti, and the smash cake is vanilla.  Everything is iced in whipped cream icing.

 

Peace

Next up was the birthday cake for my lovely niece miss Liv.  She wanted a light blue peace sign, pink & purple hearts, and her name 'in cursive' :) ..for the Cake itself, she chose Vanilla with Peanut Butter filling and Chocolate buttercream icing.  She said 'I love it' when she saw it, which made my day because she can be a tough critic ;)

Her name is made of melted candy (Wilton candy melts).. it looks white in the pics but actually has flecks of color in it (confetti-ish) which looked so cute with the colors on the cake.  Since Liv wanted her name 'in cursive' I did the same method as on my cupcake tower a month ago with the "M" monograms.. I love how it turned out!

 

'One Direction' Cupcakes

I had a super busy week last week.. two cake orders for one weekend! (which is craziness for me)  First up, 'One Direction' cupcakes as a surprise for my hubby's granddaughter (the same one I did the zebra cake for the previous week).  She was having her 'friend' birthday party/sleepover this last weekend.  Her mom told her she was getting a Dora cake from Walmart ;)  ..I told her mom to video the reaction to her 1D cupcakes because I wasn't going to be there, but also because they were a surprise and she's obsessed with 1D!  OMG the video was hilarious!  When her mom revealed the surprise cupcakes, the birthday girl and all her friends were screaming like crazy!!! (made me think back to those clips you see on tv of women's reaction to the Beatles, lol!)  ..I told them I wished all of my cakes got that sort of reaction! :)

Here are the completed cupcakes, which are vanilla tie-dyed cake with chocolate custard filling, 

and chocolate buttercream icing.

 

The birthday girl's fave ;)

 

Zebra, Music, and Dance.. Oh My!

Last week's cake was for my hubby's granddaughter, who was turning 12.  Her mom wanted to incorporate zebra print (the birthday girl loves it) along with music, dance, stars, pink, purple, and of course sparkle!  So I went to work.. I made some dancer silhouettes, which were traced out of fondant and placed on some hot pink stars.

Then I hand-painted a microphone and music notes onto some stars.  I used fondant markers to draw them on first, then painted over that with edible paint (black icing color mixed with vanilla extract).. and of course added some sparkle.

I added her name, age, and some sparkly starbursts to the top of the cake.  The cake itself was covered in zebra stripes.  It's a Chocolate cake with Cookies & Cream filling (the birthday girl LOVES oreos!), iced in vanilla buttercream.