C is for Cookie, and Z is for Zarek!

It's so much fun getting cake orders for birthdays. This time last year I was making my first topsy-turvy cake for a little guy named Zarek, and this year I was asked to make a cake for his 2nd birthday. I can't believe he is 2 already. Where has the time gone?

This cake was considerably smaller and less complicated than the cake I made a year ago, but just as fun. It stars one of Zarek's favorite characters - Cookie Monster! I have to admit, I'm a fan of that silly blue cookie lover myself.

When Ratna, Zarek's mother, asked me to make the cake, I immediately thought of making a cake recipe that my friend Ann uses - chocolate flecked cake. It looks like a chocolate chip cookie when you cut into it and I thought that would be perfect for a cake featuring cookie monster. Then I looked up the recipe and calculated the cost - as wonderful as the cake sounds, it is a lot more expensive than most of the cakes I have made. Probably because it's a Martha Stewart recipe. Dang that Martha Stewart and her expensive tastes! Well, since Ratna had just ordered Bollywood cupcakes from me and wasn't ready to spend the amount of money that the chocolate flecked cake would cost, we went with a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling. And then, an added twist - in the past year Zarek has developed an egg allergy, so Ratna was requesting a small egg-free smash cake just for the birthday boy. Having just made a vegan cake two weeks ago, I was all ready to take on this extra request.

Here are the cakes - I had so much fun decorating them, because they use my favorite tip.The smash cake was especially fun. If I'd had enough icing, I would have done the same with the big cake, but my 5 year old daughter insisted that the cake would look much better with smooth sides. So I added some "fur" at the base and stuck some cookie crumbs in the front. Very cute!

Happy Birthday Zarek!

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!

A cake fit for a king!

Or rather... the king of the jungle!

Now, have I mentioned how much I love referrals? Because I do! This cake order came came to me by way of Nekia, who I made the whale cake for at the end of August. Her friend Ratna wanted a cake for her son Zarek's first birthday at the beginning of October. (If you are beginning to see a pattern here of first birthday cakes . . . never fear, I can make cakes for any occasion!)
She sent me a picture of a very cute topsy-turvy cake with a fondant lion and elephant, and after researching how to make a topsy-turvy cake, she sent me another message with a few changes to the design, all centered around the party decorations she had bought. Instead of a lion and elephant, she wanted just the lion, and a palm tree. I, being the roll-with-the-punches type I am, said, "no problem!" After all, it was still a few weeks before her son's birthday. And I made a few suggestions to make the cake even better!

The cake itself is chocolate with oreo buttercream - my first time making it and I had some left over so I used it on a 6 inch cake I had in my freezer. It. . . is. . . divine!

The top tier is covered in chocolate fondant, the bottom with plain green fondant, and all of the dots and stripes were fondant as well. One of my favorite parts of this cake though, was making the lion. All gum paste, and it was a lot like making something with play-doh! And since it's gum-paste, it dried hard and can be stashed away in a keepsake box for years and years. The trees are pretzels covered with chocolate fondant, and then I stuck gum paste leaves on the top with a little extra fondant to hold them in place. I had to do a little bit of "digging" to get them in the cake itself, but the end product was pretty cute. I even got to use my favorite decorating tip to pipe grass around the trees and lion on top and and around the base of the top tier. Ratna provided the candle, which I stuck onto the front of the cake since it wouldn't have fit on top without falling over.

When I delivered the cake, I was greeted by this adorable sign, so I knew I was in the right place

And here we are, all set up and ready for the birthday boy!

And of course, a first birthday wouldn't be complete without a smash cake! Same cake flavor and filling, but with orange buttercream since that was the other main color in the theme of the party, and fondant polka dots to tie in to the main cake.

Happy Birthday Zarek! I hope your birthday was wonderful!

A whale of a cake!

A little over a month ago, I received yet another referral -  Nekia, a friend of a friend who had heard about my cakes. She needed a cake for her son Kenneth's first birthday and at first, she sent a picture of a 3D whale cake. After looking at the cake itself, which was surrounded by fondant waves on a huge cake board, I told her that I could do it, but there would be a lot of waste from the fondant waves, which would comprise most of the cost. I then suggested a two-tiered cake with a smaller 3D whale on top that would be made out of rice krispies treats. Everything would be edible - less waste! She loved that idea, and after agreeing on the cake flavor and size needed, I set to work.

First I made a batch of rice krispies treats - my kids got to help with this one too! I pressed most of them into a pan for them to eat later, and took a couple handfuls to mold into the shape of a whale. I had only one problem with it - the tail. I took a piece of spaghetti and stuck it in the tail to hold it up, but it kept falling down. Then I put it in the fridge and that helped, but when I started frosting it and then covering it with fondant, the tail began to sag again. So this time I stuck a toothpick inside, and that did the trick. Then I added a few wires to the top with drops of gumpaste for the whale's spray. I had to explain to Nekia when she picked it up that there were a couple of reinforcements in there and to be careful when slicing it up!

The cake itself was lots of fun - I figured with the ocean design of the cake, what better cake than a blue and white marble! I filled and frosted it with blue buttercream, so when cut into, it looked like the ocean. The cake itself was a two-tiered cake with two smash cakes. One was for the party itself, and one was for a photography session before the party started.

For the decorations, I have my friend Ann to thank yet again. When I met her to pick up the cake pans she was lending me for the wedding, I mentioned this cake to her and she told me about a new product from Wilton - a silcone fondant mold for under-the-sea shapes. It included molds for waves, seaweed and starfish, so the only things I had to free-hand were the fish and the turtles. It was perfect!



I love the way the cake turned out, and I hope Kenneth did too! Thanks Nekia for thinking of me for your son's special 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!