Super Mario Cake

Andrew's Super Mario birthday cake
(question box is suspended by the magic of Kimi) 

This cake was not quite finished when Andrew came over for his birthday party so all the kids had a chance to add their own mushrooms, turtles, and goomba characters.  The first thing Andrew said was "Where's Bowser?"  So my talented friend Robin saved the party by completing the question block for me (made of cake covered in fondant) and a mushroom or two while Kimi and I scrambled to comply with the birthday boy's request.


Andrew kept coming over to the counter to look at HIS cake!
 There's no question...I think he liked it! 



Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi are toy figures, this goomba is modeling chocolate, and the rest were fondant.  My toddler 'helped' by helping himself to the painstakingly cut out blue border (you can see the remaining border in the picture above, bottom right) and a couple other characters to make himself a squished up fondant 'shamburger'.  The bottom tier is a Betty Crocker funfetti mix with sour cream added and a yummy white chocolate pudding filling.  The upper tier was made sugar free for Andrew's Grandparents.  I owe them many thanks for jumping in to help finish supper so I could focus on the cake chaos with the kids!  Happy Birthday Andrew!

  

How to Train Your Chocolate Dragon

How to Train Your Dragon cakes for Logan and Hunter's birthdays

I had a wonderful time at Grandma and Papa's house as I was able to thoroughly enjoy a relaxed morning assembling these cakes with Hunter and Logan's help.  They did a great job mixing fondant to make rocks and pebbles and I thought Trinity's insistence on the lake, and her use of piping gel to make waves was the perfect touch.

It is in fact, more difficult to train a chocolate dragon than I expected but I am glad I made the effort.  Toothless was very melty to work with but in the end, I thought he looked sweet.  The trouble I had, will not deter me from attempting modeling chocolate again.

Colleen said it had to be chocolate all the way so both cakes were made from Duncan Hines Devil's Food with raspberry chocolate milk to replace the water.  My first homemade chocolate frosting was used for the filling as well as underneath the cliffside fondant, and under the cookie crumbles on the volcano dragon egg nest. 

I lucked out (grossed out) to find the oreo cookies with bright red centers on sale.  I scraped them off to create the lava in the center of the dragon egg nest while the remaining bit of frosting added a nice 'glow' to the lava rocks.  Multicolored fruit leather flowed over the edges.

The shrieks of joy when we finished were enough to melt any Aunt's heart into a puddle of chocolate lava.

Happy Birthday Logan and Hunter!

 

Despicable Cake

Happy Late Birthday Danilyn!  Too bad you are too late to eat any...mmmmm...sorry!

For my second Wilton cake decorating class, we were allowed to choose our own pattern for the top so I chose the 'Despicable Me' minion in honor of my niece Danilyn who asked me to make her one for a late birthday cake. This cake was the most despicable assignment I have ever had in a class!  If you have seen my favorite blog, Cake Wrecks, you will see many examples of this particular dimensional technique gone wrong.  There really is no way to use the number 12 tip and not have it look disgusting.  

The inside was devil's food chocolate cake with Kozy Shack creamy chocolate pudding for the filling.  I was told to make my frosting using a decorating buttercream recipe especially for this class.  However, I couldn't bring myself to use trans fatty shortening so I used my healthier coconut oil instead.  It smelled and tasted lovely but the coconut oil is pickier about temperature so by the time we were decorating, the little room we were crammed in had warmed up so my frosting was a little gooey-er than it was supposed to be.

The cake doctor is in....

Dr. Pepper and Movie Theatre Popcorn cakes

Happy Birthday Juls!

Julia's extreme passion for Dr. Pepper and movie theatre popcorn should have made for an easy birthday cake design decision but I was really torn at the thought of giving her an ipad of her very own to eat.  In the end, the whole family voted that it had to 'be a Pepper!'.
  

After doing my research, I chose America's favorite Duncan Hines Devil's Food cake mix that I 'doctored' with an extra egg yolk, real butter, and Dr. Pepper instead of water.  The popcorn cake was also a doctored Duncan Hines Butter Golden cake mix.  In keeping with the theme, I couldn't stop at the cake; I added real Philadelphia cream cheese to the store bought frosting.  Still lickin' my fingers!

Both cakes were exceptionally moist and tender, melt in your mouth yum; but I should have used a more stable frosting underneath the Dr. Pepper fondant.  She got a little saggy when it warmed up.  The logo was a challenge, but the hardest part was waiting for the marshmallowy popcorn to cool so I could add the final touch to the movie theatre bucket.  Mmmmaarrshmallllows...





Dr. and Mrs. Pepper...no, she's not pregnant...just a little too much cake lately!

I know, I totally copied you Robin!  Thanks!

Itsy bitsy teeny weeny...

Last night my ward had a Relief Society Service Auction and I made this teeny cake to donate with the promise of an AMAZING custom cake sometime this year.  I did warn them that this was only my third cake ever!  I am making a birthday cake for a sister in September so that gives me plenty of time to practice...I hope.  Doug took this blurry picture before I was quite finished putting the little balls around the bottom.  Do you recognize the little purple flowers from my 'Tangled' cake?  Both the flowers and leaves were made using my new extruder tool.  It also came with a teeny little bird that I meant to use with each cake as my signature but I keep forgetting!  This fancy fondant 'cake' is actually hiding yummy Walmart brownies with cream cheese frosting.  Mmmmm.  I almost bid on it myself!

'Tangled' Tower

Tia's Tangled Cake

As soon as I knew Disney's Tangled would be in theatre's for Tiana's birthday, I decided her cake had to be a tower.  In this case, we were lucky to eat the 20 layers of cake before it toppled but it was a wonderfully fun group effort putting the fondant flowers, rocks, and shingles on.  Next time, I will remember the dowels for more support.  I wish I had been able to take more time with the details but we couldn't be late for such a great movie!  Many thanks to Auntie Julia for showing up at just the right time to help with my favorite finishing touch.  I had dehydrated, and then crumbled, moss colored royal icing which we applied with a wet paintbrush to the cobblestone fondant. 

20 layers!



This was my very first homemade (no mix!)  crazy good banana pound cake per Tiana's request, with sliced bananas in the top of the tower.  Sadly, (but, so funny) Tiana got her hair all 'tangled' in the batter beaters.  We whipped up a batch of my friend Robin's favorite italian buttercream frosting to put between the layers and underneath the fondant.  Individually I thought they were divine, but together....too rich for my taste.  That didn't stop me from eating too much.

Go Seahawks!!

Seahawks Jersey Cake for Jimmy's 1/11/11 Birthday



Jimmy with the Seahawk

Jimmy's love for the Seahawks inspired my first cake of 2011.  It is made with store bought white cake mix dyed blue and green like his fan hair at Saturday's earthshaking game and covered with blue dyed store bought fondant.  I used gel food coloring to paint the logo onto white fondant as well as the darker portion of the sleeves.  The idea for a Seahawks Jersey cake was copied from someone online who did a more professional job but I am pretty proud nonetheless.  The best thing about using fondant for the first time was the forgiving aspect of my design, it was just a t-shirt after all.  So mixing colors, and even laying the fondant were very relaxed.  In fact, I had to make a deliberate wrinkle or two to make it more realistic.  The most challenging part was painting the logo but also my favorite creation.  Thanks to my own dedicated fans, who chose the 12th man theme, we finished this before 11pm on 1/11/11.  Happy Birthday Jimmy!