Pretty Lilies

This cake was for a close friend of my sister who is celebrating her upcoming nuptials. The invitations were covered in lilies so it seemed appropriate to cover a cake with lilies... I haven't made lilies before so I looked to my Wilton resources and found instructions in my gum paste book. I only had one style of cutter. If I make them in the future it would be nice to have different sized flowers to give some variance to the design.  I played around with my powder food colorings which was fun.  Because there was some distance and travel associated with the delivery of this cake, my sister added the flowers when she got to the shower. This way they stayed fresh and didn't flatten from the storage of the cake in the refrigerator.   Here are some pictures of the assembly.

From this cutting of gum paste the lilies are born...

 The lilies are stretched, smoothed and wrapped around to make the basic flower.  They are drying upside down to give them some structure.

The flowers are ready for their highlights.

 Ready for Transport...

 

This little cutie enjoyed the flowers and couldn't believe that they were edible. Too cute! 

Ashley's Graduation

My beautiful cousin graduated from High School this year. She is off to cosmetology school to start to build her empire...  We had a picnic this weekend to help her celebrate with friends and family.  The nail accessories on the cake are made out of chocolate.  The graduation hat and diploma are fondant.  The cookies were sugar cookies decorated in school colors.  I'll be posting more pictures from the party soon...


More cookies...

 The start of the cake...

 The chocolate and fondant accents drying...

 The cookies are drying...

 Everything is packed up ready to go....

Fabulous Four Turn 40

Four of my fabulous friends turn 40 this year so we had a celebration for everyone at our annual Fourth of July Picnic.  Each friend was represented in their own fondant likeness... Although I took some creative liberties I think they turned out pretty darn close to their likeness :)

The one in the upper left corner was an extra... She didn't turn out as cute so she got thrown in the trash...

The pieces of the cake drying

Held the faces on with royal icing. The toothpicks helped while drying and during transport to make sure they didn't fall off...

Fourth of July Cookies

This was my attempt at being festive for our annual fourth of July Picnic.  I experimented with sugar cookies again. This time the recipe I used had a little too much butter, my cookies never hardened and essentially crumbed on the way to the picnic.  I didn't get a picture of them nicely displayed in the tray because they essentially broke apart.  Surprisingly or maybe not so surprisingly they vanished in about 30 minutes of being displayed...  Guess it doesn't matter what they look like, as long as they taste good...:)

An Elmo 1st Birthday Celebration!

I made baby Kourtney's baby shower cake and now it is time to celebrate her 1st birthday. Time flies...  This cake presented a few new challenges for me, which I like.... It was harder to model Elmo then I thought it would be.  At first I thought he was going to turn out like a jaba the hut elmo but covering him up with a diaper for baby elmo and putting the bow in front of him made him look better I think... I also played with my funky letters and got better at using them.  Overall I was happy with the fun elmo cake and I'm sure little Koutney had fun eating it too!

 

All  of the pieces for the cake drying...

 The smash cake...

Getting better at using the funky letters.  The key is lots of corn starch powder on the letter mold and tylose powder mixed with fondant to make it easier to work with ....

The final cakes together

Father's Day

My nieces helped make the father's day cake this year.  They were so excited to help.  We made a cake in the shape of a fish... It was the best I could come up with on short notice and no planning... They also decorated cupcakes with some sprinkles (jimmies) and royal icing circles I had leftover from previous project.  We had lots of fun together.  I'm looking forward to our next creation.

 

An Animal Kingdom 1st Birthday

My friend's daughter celebrated her first birthday with a theme of an Animal Kingdom. After searching on cakecentral.com we found the perfect cake to go with the party theme.  The thing that made this cake tricky was the delivery. I was traveling for work and couldn't make the delivery.  Every thing went well in my absence and the cake made it to the party with no issues... Yeah!   Here are some pictures of the cake assembly and Celia devouring it!  I love 1st birthday cakes!

Celia's Smash Cake

  

 

 Action Shots of Celia enjoying her birthday cake!

The end...