Fall Shower of Flowers

My cake making is connecting me to more and more people, which is exciting for me. It isn't social networking, it's cake networking! I made this cake at the request of my friend Leigh. She and her office are celebrating the pending marriage of one of their co-workers. I was excited to learn that some of Leigh's co-workers have checked out my blog... I hope the cake lived up to the expectations...

The top layer was chocolate, bottom was yellow. Covered the cake in buttercream and then smoothed with Viva papertowel method. Made mums and roses out of a 50/50 mix of gumpaste and fondant. The ribbon was regular fondant. I used my pasta maker for the first time with this cake. It make it a lot easier with less rolling with the rolling pin. Thanks Mom for finding me a pasta maker!

Here are some pics of the cake in progress:

Most people have pizza cutters to cut pizza- Not me... I use them to cut fondant!

I also don't use my ice cream scooper for Ice cream, mine fills cupcake's to the perfect height...

To give the cake some stability, I insert plastic straws to hold the top layer of cake, then cut to the desired height. It's a lot easier then wooden dowels. The top layer is sitting on a cardboard cake circle which then rests on the straws...

The start of the mums...

Flowers and Butterflies

Happy Birthday to Blake! I had to make this chocolate chip cake for Blake after hearing that she specially requested an "Amy Cake" for her birthday. I feel honored!

This was a chocolate cake (with added chocolate chips, yum!) with buttercream icing and royal icing accents. Used Tip 352 and the grass tip for the greenary, piped rosettes out of royal icing and piped the butterflies with tip 7. I spray painted them blue then realized they needed something else so I painted the outlined in red.

I got the idea from a monthly cake newsletter I get called "monthly slice" here is the .pdf in case you are interested... Here are some pictures of the cake in progress:

You may or may not have noticed the ClusterMap in the lower right hand portion of the top navigation bar. I started tracking visitors to my website in June. It also shows the visitors computer location, which is pretty neat. I've had some international visitors which is always cool to see... If you have met me, you might know that I have a "thing" for numbers. When I look at the clock it's usually (not on purpose, just randomly) 11:11, 10:10, 1:11... You get the idea. Anyway, I checked my blog on 9/16 and I have 666 visitors and the previous day I had 6 visitors. Sort of wierd... At least it's an even number... I prefer those...

A slightly cross eyed mickey...

Made this cake for a co-workers daughter who is turning 2 years old. My co-worker was so excited when I showed her the cake, it really made my day! Of course there are things I would want to do better, but overall, I was happy since she was happy....

It's an 8x3 and 2- 6x3 vanilla cakes with buttercream icing. I drew an outline on the cake free hand with a toothpick and then filled in with tip 16. I used an image of Mickey I found from a fellow cakemaker on cakecentral.com as a guide. If I were to do it again I would have printed out a template for the eyes and traced it onto the cake in a more accurate manner... Lessons learned, I think he's cute, but he doesn't look as exact as I wanted... (I know I need to relax, one day I will... )

Here are some pictures as I filled everything in....

Mickey ready for transport... Lifesaving cake transporting tips- 1. Use a non-skid mat under the cake board to prevent cake from shifting in the box. 2. If you don't have a flat surface in your car, bring pillows or other props to create the flat surface- It's important if you want your cake to arrive unharmed...


Here is the birthday girl!!! Isn't she sweet! I LOVE the pink party hat!

In other cake news...

I was at the Crayola Factory in Easton today with my Nieces. We had a great time which was only made more exciting by the discover of an "ACE OF CAKES, CAKE!!!" on display... I watch the show every week, but I've never actually seen one of his display cakes. It was Made in April, 6 months ago, Some of the fondant fell off a few crayons, but overall it's holding up well. The detail is unbelievable. It's really impressive in person. Just one of the many highlights to a great day...


My Nieces looking soooooo cute in the hats we crafted!!!

40 years of Marital Bliss

My parents have been married for 40 years... and to celebrate they are going to Aruba... Sounds like fun times, doesn't it? I mean Aruba, not marriage :)


How cute are they cutting the cake?

Cake is vanilla with buttercream icing. Used tip 3 to write and added piping gel to the icing to make it thinner, Roses are tip 104 and leaves are 68. Top shell boarder is tip 16, bottom border is Tip 21 with Tip 104 sweet pea's between every thirds shell. Added smalled dots with tip 2 to finish it off the top of the cake.

Sara's Birthday

It was Sara's Birthday on Friday. She took her name off the work calendar so we wouldn't have a party for her in the office, but that couldn't stop me from making her a cake (in this case, cupcakes...)

My sister Michelle helped me with the covering and smoothing of the buttercream icing for the cupcakes. Michelle did an excellent job!

I didn't get a picture of Sara eating her cupcakes but I know she enjoyed them.

They were Red Velvet cupcakes covered with buttercream with buttercream flowers made with tips 103 , 3 and 67.

On another note... My friend Jacquie got me this cool t-shirt for my birthday. It's from the website http://www.threadless.com/. It was designed by Matt "the Cake Comrade" Palmer. I love it!

Here is a picture of Sara (the birthday girl) and Jacqui (t-shirt giver) together... Two Peas in a pod...

SuperBryant

We had another going away party at work... I know, it seems like we have a revolving door...

The theme of this party was Superman... Bryant will be missed by many in our office. He is moving on to bigger and better things but we are thankful for the work he has done for us.

My sister Michelle came over last night to help me with my cake making. She did an EXCELLENT job pipping the stars around the cake. She also helped me find the superman logo, which was helpful.

Can you tell what I did wrong with this cake? That's right... I didn't transpose the image when I printed it so it's a backwards "S". Does that mean that Superman's powers would be turned toward evil? Perhaps, but I think we will all survive.

This cake was a red velvet cake with a frozen buttercream transfer of the superman logo.