Princess T-Rex!

I've done some pretty interesting cakes in the past two years (yep! two years!) but I have to say that this one is one of the funnest cakes I've ever made. It all started when I saw a new friend of mine, Meghann, post on facebook about planning her daughter Mollie's upcoming first birthday. Being the savvy businesswoman I am, I sent her a message asking if she needed a cake. Why yes she did! Upon asking what her theme was, she replied, "Princess Trex". At first I thought it was some new kids toy... and then I realized, this was T-rex. The mean, carnivorous, vicious dinosaur. I did a google search of images and didn't come up with much, but then I saw a link in a regular search for Princess T-Rex puzzle and clicked on it. I showed it to Meghann and she loved it! Here it is:
 
I was going to get a different template for the dinosaur, but the more I thought about it, the original design was just more fun. And it worked so well with the final cake, it's like it was meant to be.
Here it is: two layer cake with chocolate on the bottom, yellow on the top and creamy chocolate buttercream in the middle. Buttercream on the outside with fondant and gum paste decorations.

But something was missing. And the more I looked at that dinosaur, the more I realized what it was. The way she was standing on one foot, she almost looked like she was . . . dancing! I found a piece of lavender tulle in my sewing basket from a tutu I made for my niece last year, got my trusty needle and thread, and made a tutu for the dinosaur. And here is the final result.

Pretty cute, huh? And of course you can't have a first birthday without a special little smash cake for the birthday girl! Same flavors of cake and filling, in a smaller package. I even put diamonds on the side to tie in to the "regal" feel of the main cake.

As a side note, I want to throw out a shout-out to Meghann's sister Beth, and her business Lylas Designs. She had posted a picture of an adorable sunflower pin shortly before Meghann placed the order, and I ordered one for myself to put on my purse. When I dropped off the cake and asked how much her sister wanted for the pin, she said it was taken care of. An extra little bonus for making such a wonderful cake! And here it is on my purse.

Happy Birthday Mollie, aka. Princess T-Rex! Hope you're birthday was amazing!

Elmo loves birthdays - and sharing!

The First Communion cake I made came with an added bonus - one dozen cupcakes and a smash cake for Kim's son who would be sharing the spotlight with his big sister. So nice when you can combine celebrations like that. I'd do it with my own children, but their birthdays are in opposite seasons - summer for my son and winter for my daughter. The only combining that happens around here is for my daughter's birthday, which is four days after Christmas.

Anyhow, after looking through all of my cake pictures and having a hard time deciding on what she wanted for her son, she chose something that I had never done before but have always wanted to - Elmo!  Since the First Communion cake was plenty to feed the 20 adults that would be at the celebration, she decided that a dozen cupcakes would be perfect for the 10 children that would be there. Strawberry cake in adorable  red, yellow and blue cupcake liners, frosted with a vanilla buttercream swirl and topped with an Elmo candy. The smash cake is the same, with fondant circles (which are oddly reminiscent of the design on a bag of Wonder Bread - don't you think?) and a fondant number 1 to mark this milestone for little Evan.

Happy Birthday Evan!

Bawk! It's Angry... Evan!

Well, I hope he's not angry. It's his first birthday after all.

So what am I talking about, you ask? None other than the game that has become a widespread phenomenon, Angry Birds! If you haven't heard of it, check it out, but be forewarned, it is addicting!

Anyhow, this cake was sooo much fun to make. Even my kids had a hand in the design, since they are such experts on the game itself. Of course, if it had been up to them, the scene on the cake would have been completely functional, but seeing as it was for a one year old, I had to keep it simple. The cake itself (and the smash cake) are both yellow cake with vanilla buttercream filling and frosting, decorated with fondant clouds (and stars on the smash cake). The birds and piggies, and frying pan are all marshmallow fondant, and the slingshot and logs are chocolate fondant reinforced with toothpicks. The only snag I hit was the border on the bottom of the cake. I pulled out my favorite tip for making that grass border I love so much, and in the process of cleaning and prepping my work station, it vanished. I still have no idea where it is. It was late at night, all the stores were closed, and I wouldn't have time to get a new tip the next morning before I needed to deliver the cake - but did I give up? Nope! I improvised - using my small star tip, I made long, drawn out strands around the base of the cake. Not exactly like the effect from my grass tip, but I think it looks pretty good!

So here's the cake and smash cake, ready to go.

Happy Birthday Evan! Hope you had an awesome day!

Bright, beautiful, butterflies!

A few weeks ago when I was at choir practice at church, my friend Jen asked if I would be interested in making a cake and cupcakes for her daughter Madeline's first birthday. Would I? Of course, I'd love to! She said she wanted to go with butterflies so I told her to take a look online and send me pictures of any cakes she liked, to give me an idea. I did some searching as well, during which I found a really cute idea for the cupcakes. Well, two days later, she e-mailed me a ton of pictures, some more intricate than others, and in the end, she decided on a really cute cake with lots of bright colors.

Then came the baking part. Jen requested yellow cake with raspberry buttercream filling. Now let me just say that this was my first time making this particular cake recipe.I already had a good recipe for the filling, but for the cake - every time I'd made a yellow cake from scratch in the past, it came out very dense, like pound cake. Not exactly what you want for a one-year old's birthday. So I looked everywhere, and then I saw a post that my friend Ann made about a new cake recipe she found for yellow cake that was very moist and not overly dense. Jackpot! I asked her for the recipe and she was happy to share (thanks Ann!). Several hours later - I had all of my cakes and cupcakes baked and ready to frost and decorate.



The decorating was so much fun - I have seriously missed decorating with fondant and gum paste, almost as much as I've missed making royal icing flowers. (which will be coming up soon for Easter!).
All of the flowers and decorations on the side of the cake were made with fondant - the butterflies are a fondant/gum paste mix. I originally dried them in a box, each butterfly in one piece, bent in the middle. They dried okay, but then I realized I would have problems putting them on the cake this way. So I broke them in half and pressed each wing into the cake, with the body in the middle. Not perfect, but pretty darn close!

For the smash cake - I knew I wanted to make it simple. Not a lot of fondant, but cute nonetheless. So I put two ladybugs on the sides, a butterfly on top(to be removed before the birthday girl got to work!), and front and center - the initials of her name - MVP (her older sister has the initials VIP!). It's obvious that she liked it, don't you think?






 Finally, the cupcakes were iced by me with a simple swirl and then decorated by the children at the party (I did the rest while the kids went to burn off their sugar rush!). Pretzels for the wings, an M&M for the head, icing for the body, and for the antennae, I took some black chocolate fondant, rolled it into a rope, cut out little pieces and let them dry so they'd be easier to work with. Much more kid friendly than black licorice.

Thanks Jen for allowing me to be part of your daughter's special day - Happy Birthday Madeline!