Daffodil's and Daisy's

Happy Birthday Cindy! The crew got together (minus Michelle who is at school-we missed you!) to celebrate Cindy's birthday. Bernie, Grandmom, Aunt Kay and Uncle Mike joined our family for dinner and cake. It was a beautiful day, slightly cold but nice enough that the kids played outside after dinner. It always makes me feel that all is right with the world when I spend time with Lilly, Avah, Lindsey and my family. I truly enjoy it and I'm glad we are able to do it as often as we do...

The cake was inspired from a cake I saw on cakecentral. The website was down today I couldn't compare how I did... I was happy with my first attempt at daffodil's and daisy's. They are made with buttercream using tip #104. I used a flower nail for both flowers and froze them for about a 1/2 hr before moving them onto the cake. To form the daffodil pointed petal I used a paint brush dipped in a little cornstarch to gently form the peak. I added two daisy's straight onto the sides of the cake and attached an extra daffodil to the side with icing. Tip #104 is also the rose petal tip. I have trouble getting the right consistency of icing. The icing that comes out of the smaller end is always jagged. I think it's because my icing is too thick. I need to investigate this question on cakecentral. I'll add this to my list of things to practice...

If you have a second check out this video I added to my favorite things list. It's a little girl eating a pretend "scrumptious" cake. It's really cute...

Easter Cupcakes

I had trouble making the flower that looked so easy in the video... It didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I used tip 104, narrow side out and did the back and forth motion as they show in the video I found on youtube but mine didn't work the same way, Oh well... I tried.

I copied the other cupcakes from cakecentral. My favorite are the yellow flowers.

All the icing used is buttercream. I used the viva papertowel to smooth the blue icing and then decorated on top. The eggs are just lumps of buttercream. I spent a lot of time looking for cake videos on youtube today. I was suppose to get a lot of work done but I didn't... Oh, well... The cakes just call to me... Keep on decorating. Happy Easter.

Pink Ipod

Happy 14th Birthday to my cousin Lauren. She wanted an Ipod cake and, I hope she likes my version... We were going to tell her that I couldn't make it since I'm traveling this weekend and then surprise her at her birthday party with the cake but I felt bad, I didn't want her to think I didn't care about her birthday! Anyway... the writing is my weakness. I guess I'll keep practicing. I was happy with how smooth I was able to make the buttercream. The earphones are fondant. If I had more time I would have modeled them after a real pair, but you get the point with these. Lauren was born at 4:16am on 3:14 which I used as the "song length".

Michelle's Little Cake

Couldn't forget Michelle's birthday... Doesn't grandmom look great for 89 Years and 10 months old? I made this cake using some batter I stole from Avah's cake as well as the leftover icing :) I'm not happy with the writing of course but I guess that will improve with time. I used a toothpick to outline Michelle’s name but it didn't look the same as the script I had imprinted above it... I used tip 21 around the base, 61 for the vine, 5 and 104 for the rose. I also couldn't get the petals of the rose to not be jagged. It has to do with the consistency of the icing, but I just can't seem to get it right... Overall, I'm happy with the way it turned out...

Little Mermaid

Avah's 4th Birthday Party was fun. Good food, good times with family... Played CandyLand, Chutes and Ladders, talked with aunt kay, uncle mike, grandmom, dakota, mom, dad, cindy, joe, lilly, lindsey, michelle and luke… I made two cakes- one for our family, the other for Nicole's. One of the funny/potentially scary moments was Avah lighting her hair on fire (just a little bit) when she blew out her candles. We all saw it happen and leaped in to put it out... Yikes!

Nicole sent me some pictures of cake ideas and bought the figurines of the little mermaid characters. I found chocolate candies that looked like rocks, the rest of the decoration is buttercream icing. Used Tip number 5 and 16 for the boarder. Used tip 61 for green stuff(never used that one before, and like how it works), Used Tip 3 for red coral, tip 2 for white coral. The most time consuming part for me is coloring the icing, filling the different bags, changing tips etc... The more colors on a cake the more difficult. I think I need to get a different brand of colors, non-wilton, to see if it's easier to find the shades I like...