Cupcake cake

allet Slipper Cupcake-Cake:
So, here is my first attempt at a cupcake cake. The order was for ballet slippers that were PINK and GLITTERY, with a BIG bow on top. I had some images to work with from the little girl's favorite ballet bag, that was in all sequins, so I new the glitter part would be a test. Hmmm. I need to remember that I am in the South. And the South is humid. Glitter doesn't hold up well! And ballet shoes were not easy to create in a 2D format. Don't know how well they translated....

Here are some pictures of the cake and cupcakes that didn't make it into the design... there were dark chocolate cupcakes (a new favorite recipe) and strawberry cupcakes. I used the Sprinkle's published recipe for that one and thought they could have used a lot more strawberries. Here is the link:
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/candace-nelson-strawberry-cupcakes

The frosting is a whipped cream frosting also flavored with a bit of strawberry puree. The ribbons and bows are all marshmallow fondant painted with pink pearl dust for a shimmery effect. You can see the difference with the before and after shot of the bows. Hope the birthday girl is happy!

Gustafson 70th birthday

What a fun cake! I had an awesome challenge from a new friend, Mark. His dad's 70th birthday party... cake had to travel 2+ hours to Apex, NC and he wanted something unique, that encompassed his father. So, he gave me a list of activities and hobbies (and this man IS ACTIVE!!!) and we went from there. Since Mark had to do the actual on-site construction of the cake, I do not have final pictures yet. Argh! I will post them as soon as he gets them from family members.


Represented in these pictures are a love for the Red Sox (the hat is life sized), softball (he still plays in two leagues!), puzzles, card games, chess, genealogy and his family (I forgot to photograph the poker chips and baseball!). The "W" puzzle represents places he lived, his wedding, his birth, his employment with IBM, his love of math, his life time of involvement with Jaycees and his service in the Army. This cake was a true celebration of the man. I hope he had a splendid weekend with all of his family!

The Red Sox cake was a red velvet cake and the base cake was a light lemon cake with raspberry filling. Buttercream frosting under the marshmallow fondant on both cakes. This cake was a ton of fun and I also learned how to rescue fondant... so a valuable learning experience!

Here are some pictures of the composed cake that made the trip easily to Raleigh. Whew! I am told it was a hit!

Installation cake

This cake was done for friends at the UUF in Wilmington for the installation of the new minister, Rev. Cheryl Walker. Let's be honest. Not every cake is perfect! This cake was definitely not one of my proudest moments. It was too heavy and the middle layers started to bulge more than I would have liked. Lesson learned. The columns that the top two layers were designed to stand on were too tall (i.e. unstable) and lasted about 20 minutes before we decided to lower the middle layer onto the base layer and support the top layer with a clear, square, glass bowl. And the color. Originally I had a beautiful ivory, but when I whipped up a second batch of icing (yes, I managed to not make enough the first time around and yes, it is next to impossible to match a color...), I used the wrong color... added too much... and didn't account for the color to deepen throughout the course of the day. But I went with it and it did taste scrumptious. I think the flowers saved it all. Had I not just told you all these disasters, maybe you would have even thought it was suppose to look like this! Minus the frosting mishaps of course. Long story short, it's no where close to perfect, but it was another lesson learned and people came back for seconds and thirds!

Anyway, here are some shots of the assembly process. It was a lemon cake divided by a sinfully yummy almond-meringue layer that was sandwiched between dams of sweet orange marmalade. The idea is taken directly out of Baking with Julia, and the original concept cake is from Martha Stewart. I didn't make her almond cake though, but stole the meringue and preserve dam idea. I also made a chocolate cake with the same meringue layer, but used raspberry preserve instead of the marmalade. So yummy..... =) No pictures though, sorry!

Lastly, I made 497 rolls for this event! They were the first yeast bread I have ever made (apart from pizza crust)! They were beautiful. I was quite proud of myself. =)

Four more orders rolled in this weekend, so I will have more posts soon!

Valentine's Day

It's been a while since I posted anything and several events have come and gone without notice. Sorry about that. Here are some of the projects that have been keeping me busy this Valentine's weekend. Apart from our awesome snow fall last night, I have been consumed by flour, sugar, and heart shaped anythings!

Transformer Bumblebee cake

Jonathan is a great little guy we met at a friend's birthday recently. He asked if I could make a cake like "Bumblebee" and before admitting I didn't know who he was, I said "Sure!" Well, for those of you like myself who have yet to be introduced to the new Transformers.... here are the two pictures I based the cake off of and the final product. Jonathan loved his cake and I hope everyone else did as well. Thanks for the challenge! The cake itself was a lemon cake with butter-cream frosting under the marshmallow fondant.

More baby showers and boy birthdays...

Here are a few photos of the last two cakes I did. The baby shower was for a small gathering of women, so I did an old family and home-town favorite cake called the Lemon Cloud. It is basically a sheet cake with an almond meringue top layer that is further topped with a layer of lemon curd infused whipped cream. I layered the cake into a 5"x5" square cake, with six layers of cake and five layers of curd whipped cream. I then wrapped the cake in dark chocolate fondant and topped it with fondant that I made to look like a baby blanket. The guest of honor is a huge Peanuts fan, so I incorporated Snoopy and Woodstock into the design by making them "gifts." All the structures were made of fondant, with the exception of the box, which was gum paste. I hand painted the foot prints on the box with food coloring and made a fondant ribbon to top the box lid. I then made cupcakes to go with the cake (a pregnant woman always needs a little bit more to eat, right?!), which were Red Velvet cupcakes with a cream-cheese icing. The lettering and flowers were also all done in homemade fondant.

I also had an order for a 6-year old boy's birthday cake, and like my own sons, this child LOVES Clone Wars and Star Wars. So the Clone Trooper was a quick and easy pick for this cake. The difficult part was deciding which version of the Clone Trooper to do --- I had no idea there were so many variations of them! Not like when I was a kid and all we had were the black and white Storm Troopers... =)  This cake was fun to do just to see my own kids' reactions to it when I was done. And it spawned an order for a Transformer cake, too, so I will post that one next week!

 

Halloween!!!

I think Halloween is the funnest holiday by far. The possibilities are endless for fun and adventurous food! There are so many great ideas out there and we went to some pretty great parties with awesome looking (and tasting) food... here are only some of the desserts I did for schools and family gatherings...

Cupcakes were either chocolate or pumpkin and again I used a simple home-made buttercream icing on everything. The blue eyes on the mummies were blue M&M's. The pumpkin candies were store bought... a last minute panic purchase. =)  The sugar cookie was all dine in melted butter-cream frosting - a technique that opens new doors!

Hope your Halloween was as fun as ours!