3D Basketball

This was my first attempt at a sphere shaped cake and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to go about it. I ended up baking two cakes in glass bowls and one in an 8″round pan, then stacked them all together and tiered it in the middle to support the weight. I covered the whole thing in fondant and added the black lines and logo (in this case for the birthday boy’s favorite basketball). I used a gold glaze to outline the logo. Then I cut up a real basketball and pressed it into the fondant to get the right texture.

The cakeboard is covered in fondant and painted to look like the wood floor of a basketball court. This is such an easy technique. Try it yourself by following Elisa Strauss’s video tutorial here!

Overall, I’m pretty happy with how this one turned out, and I have a whole list of ways I can make it better next time!

Baseball Cap

 

This weekend we celebrated my brother’s 30th birthday. I’ve had this project in mind for quite a while and figured this would be a great opportunity to try it out. The idea is from Elisa Strauss’s book “The Confetti Cakes Cookbook”. I baked 3 8″round cake layers and then carved them into the shape of a hat. I took out some divots in the sides so the fondant would lay more like fabric on top. The bill is made out of a 50/50 fondant – gumpaste mix. I used a stitching tool for the detail on the bill and cap. The dimensions were a little off on this first attempt, but I know how to correct that now. Overall, a relatively quick, fun project that I’d love to do again.

Happy Birthday little  brother!

“Cars” Birthday for Carter

A friend of mine graciously asked me to make this cake for her grandson Carter’s 2nd Birthday. The party was at Discover! Children’s Museum in Chehalis. It was my first time inside the Children’s Museum since they started their pilot program and I was so impressed! Taking my own kids there is on my short list of things to do this month. There is a great party room in the back and no shortage of fun things to do for all the little guests and their parents. I played on the logo from “Cars 2” for the topper of this cake. As the birthday boy’s name is Carter and he turned 2, it was just too good to pass up 🙂 This cake is hand carved into a spiral and frosted with buttercream. The decorations are made out of fondant.

Motorbike Tire Birthday Cake

My nephew is a hard core motorbike fan. I’m pretty sure this has been the theme of his birthday cakes for the last several years. I took the opportunity try my luck at making a cake shaped like a tire. I had to do some research to figure out the best way to do the treads. I ended up cutting out several small rectangles and attaching them to the crumb coated cake in the pattern I wanted. Then I covered it all with black fondant and used a modeling tool to go around each rectangle to get some definition. The center of the cake is covered with chocolate cake crumbles and a little “grass” piped with royal icing. The checkered flags and cake board were very time consuming, but so worth it for the finished product.

Around the rim of the tire I added 8 layered stars with holes in the center for the candles and embossed the birthday boy’s name with letter shaped cookie cutters (although this doesn’t show up very well in the picture).

I make my own fondant and this batch didn’t turn out the greatest. It was dry and kept cracking on me. Fortunately, since it was supposed to look like a rubber tire anyway, the little cracks and creases weren’t a big deal, but I’d love to give this one another try sometime.

Pink and Purple Princess

 

I had so much fun making this pink and purple princess cake for my good friend’s twin girls. They were born a week after my son and every year I think about how quickly they’ve all grown. The days are long, but the years are so short!

Here’s the quick version of how I did it…

First, I covered the board she is sitting on with pink and white marbled fondant, then cut out the letters from fondant and coated them with white sugar sprinkles and attached them to the board. For the doll’s dress I baked 1 cake in a glass bowl and 2nd layer in an 8″round pan. I torted the white velvet cakes into 4 total layers, filled them with strawberry jam, then did some hand carving to get the shape I wanted. I frosted it nice and smooth with purple buttercream, then decorated it with little fondant flowers and some piped dots. I trimmed the dress with strips of white fondant coated with pastel sprinkles. There’s a sprinkle-coated fondant bow with ribbons trailing down the back of the dress, too, but for some reason it didn’t occur to me to take a picture of the back. I made the bodice of the dress out of purple fondant and a tiara out of gumpaste painted gold with mix of vodka and gold lustre dust.

Happy 5th Birthday Hannah and Clara! I’m so glad I got to make this special cake for you!

Princess Party

The doll cake is a very popular design. Do a simple internet search and you’ll get hundreds of results. But what I love is that not one of them will be the same because the decorating possibilities are endless, just like with real dresses.

Obviously, this birthday girl loves orange, which was a refreshing change from the typical pink or blue that is used so much for kid’s cakes. Other than the color I was given free range with the design, so I took the opportunity to try out an ombre ruffle, which simply means graduating the color of the ruffles from light to dark. I tossed around about 10 other designs before settling on this one so I’m looking forward to doing this cake again with a different twist.

Toy Car

This hand carved toy car cake was done for my nephew’s first birthday. It is lemon cake with raspberry filling and lemon buttercream frosting. It was my second attempt at a 3 dimensional car shape and was a hundred times better than the first. I’ve already thought of several ways to improve on it again. With so many nephews I’m sure I’ll get the chance to give it another try soon.

The details are my favorite part of any cake. I could have spent 2 more hours adding more personalized accents to this cake, and I think next time I will.

Pickle?

I don’t think these things up, I just make them. The truth is I have 100 different ideas for cakes swirling around in my brain at any given moment. But I have to admit that this has never been one of them. Leave it to my husband to come up with an off the wall design like this. An inside joke for a friend’s birthday, this one did allow me to hone my carving and fondant covering skills. Some of it doesn’t show up well in the picture, but there are lumps and lines in the fondant to imitate the texture of a real pickle. I was happy with my first attempt and was able to make some notes to improve on this design next time. Do you think it’s possible I could be asked to make a pickle cake a second time?

Carved Spiral “Car” Cake

This was my first attempt at a carved spiral cake. I had wanted to try this technique for a while and when my son asked for a car cake for his birthday it was the perfect opportunity. I used fondant to create mile markers and placed them along the road ending in the number 4 which was, of course, how old he was turning. I definitely learned a lot with this project and will hopefully get another chance to try it again. I love trying out new things with my kid’s cakes because no matter how it turns out they always think it’s the greatest  thing ever!