Featured in CakeCentral Magazine (June 2013)

A Beatrix Potter Baby Shower Cake - The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies

 

I was completely surprised to be asked if I could to submit a cake to be possibly featured in an upcoming issue of CakeCentral Magazine.  Who could possible pass this up!  Well, I almost did.  I received the invite on a day that I had gotten hit really hard with the flu bug.  I briefly read the email not thinking anything about it and went right to sleep where I stayed for 4 days fighting a high fever.  It wasn't until later that I sat down and reread the email that it actually hit me...Cake Central had invited ME to submit a cake!  Me!  Oh my! and it had to be professional photographed and submitted by a deadline that was now less than 2 weeks away.  I pondered whether I could possible pull it off while being sick all while trying to figure out what was I going to do, am I even qualified to do this, how, when, where, who, ahhhh!

The theme I was given was a Beatrix Potter Baby Shower and the book was, The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies.  Beatrix Potter is the illustrator and writer behind the Peter Rabbit series of books.  I absolutely love her work and I was excited to take one of her stories and turn it into cake.  The design I came up with for the cake was my interpretation of the story - the top tier showed one of the baby bunnies sleeping under the lettuce plant after filling his belly up with lettuce (food coma or as Beatrix Potter called it, soporific) and the bottom tier showed farmer Mr. McGregor's window (the one the Flopsies used to peek in through) and I added mommy and daddy, Flopsy and Benjamin Bunny, walking along the farmers home.

A week went by in trying to fight off the flu and now I was on a tighter deadline.  With my head in a fog, and a flu that just stuck to me like glue in what seemed to take forever to get rid off, I was now on a mission to get this cake done.  And it never fails....Why is it that when you need something, you can't find it but when you don't need it, they're everywhere?  I had to go all over town to 3 cake supply stores to find cake dummies in the sizes I wanted.  All I wanted was a 6 x 4 inch round and 2, 8 x 4 inch round dummies!  Nothing complicated, nothing out of the ordinary.  Then, make another run to Home Depot to grab a pale of Patch 'N Paint (it's the stuff you use to spackle and patch walls with) and rolled up my sleeves to attempt prepping my first cake dummies.  Just a month prior, a fellow cake club member gave a demo on how to prep your cake dummies using Patch 'N Paint like buttercream to cover your cake dummies with, let it day a couple hours, sand it down smooth, rub in a light layer of shortening all over it and then roll out and smooth your fondant over that.

Sounds easy right?  Well, real cakes are heavy and stay put when you ice them.  Cake dummies on the other hand, are really light and move all over the place.  I rolled up packing tape to the bottom of the cake dummies and onto a board to help them stay grounded and just held the top of the dummy down with one hand while I iced and turned the cake with the other hand.  What a challenge that was!  The Patch 'N Paint is awesome and has the same texture and workability as buttercream.  It's super light weight too and dries within hours.  Just look at how neat it looks after sanding it down smooth.

A blank, white canvas....

It looks like buttercream without the extra effort and ingredients to actually make the buttercream.  I'm really loving this stuff.

For the cobblestone base, I rolled out balls of white fondant and smoothed them one by one next to each other around the board.  After it dried, I dusted it over with an assortment of 5 petal dusts to give it some depth and the illusion of a real cobblestone floor.  What's an English garden without cobblestone?

The baby bunny was hand molded out of marshmallow fondant that I mixed with Tylose to help it dry harder and faster.  I used scissors to snip the fur pattern around his body.

I cut out the lettuce leaves free hand (didn't have a cutter that was large enough for these) and veined them using a large orchid viener.  They were originally made in white then dusted with yellow and green petal colors to look like lettuce.

The larger lettuce head is what I assembled with the leaves I had made a day prior then at the last minute, I decided to add a couple small ones along the base of the cake.  I used rose petal cutters to cut these since they were smaller and dusted them the same way as the large one, assembled them and let them dry overnight.

The fondant name plaque was hand cut from a paper template I made and I added the ribbed texture on it by pressing down a skewer every 1/8 inch across it.  Upper Case and Lower Case Tappit Cutters were used for the "Baby" font.  I added 2 trees to either side of the cake and made each leaf on the tree one by one...

well, each leaf is actually a 5 petal flower molded and pinched in the middle to look like a cluster of leaves.  I wanted to illusion of leaves but without the work of having to make each and every single leaf  - cool right?

I used 5 different colors for the leaves to create some depth and made well over 200 of these blossoms for both trees.

They came out exactly how I wanted them to look.  I absolutely love how they turned out.

Mr. and Mrs. Bunny were also hand molded and I used a pair of scissors to lightly snip the hair markings around their bodies.

Aren't they just cute walking along the cobblestone path?

And here it is...3 pages in the June 2013 issue of CakeCentral Magazine (Volume 4, Issue 6).  What an honor and an adventure that I would do all over again in a heartbeat.

A special thank you to Bryan Ramsay (www.bryanramsayphotography.com) for making the time for my last minute request and for taking the beautiful photographs that made the cake magazine worthy!

We had to wait quietly for 3 whole months to find out whether the cake made it into the magazine or not.   It was torturous not being able to talk or share the photographs with everyone but now, I can finally show them off.  Hope you enjoy them.

See other pictures of the cake here:
Sugar Sweet Cakes and Treats Facebook Album
Sugar Sweet Cakes Google+ Album
Cake Central Album:  AngelFood4

I also got picked for Cake Central's Cake Decorator Highlight piece in June.  Read more about it HERE and find out a little more about me.

Bumble Bee Baby Shower Cake and Cupcakes

A few week ago, I got to make such an adorable cake for my Dad's friend.  I was given a picture of the invitation and given free reign to do as I wished for the cake and cupcakes - LOVE IT!  My favorites cakes are always the ones that I get to design and create and it's, for the most part, a total secret until delivery.  Type A and OCD-me would go insanely crazy if you were to do this to me, but when it's the other way around, I thrive on the unknown and love the surprise factor.  But, I do spend hours upon hours sketching and contemplating the design for days upon days too and usually, well, nearly always, change up something about it during the process.

The invitation design is so cute and one that you can find on Etsy by Note-able Chic.  I fell in love with the invitation and was completely inspired.

Baby Shower Invitation by Note-able Chick (Etsy.com)

I made 2 dozen cupcakes and a 6 inch round cake to match the invite.  There was so much involved with making everything for the cake and with staying up late (into the wee hours of the morning) working on it, I didn't get a chance to take photos of each step but here are the few that did make it into the camera.

Making the Marshmallow Fondant (MMF):
1) To make the Yellow MMF, I used Americolor Electric Yellow Soft Gel Paste
2) To make the Black MMF, I used Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips and AmeriColor Super Black Gel Paste.  Follow my steps HERE on how to make MMF using Candy Melts (super easy to get dark colors with).  You can use Black Candy Melts too but it also works with using any type of brown chocolate.  If you really take notice, the Black Candy Melts is really a dark brown so don't fret if you can't find any.  Any brown chocolate will work.

The Baby Carriage:
Cake Fixation has a lovely tutorial on how to create the carriage that you can follow HERE.  So I basically followed her instructions and then made my own modifications.  For starters, the piece of Styrofoam I used was very soft so I ended up taping it a couple times in shipping tape to keep in all together and since I couldn't "stab" the 18 gauge wire into it, I taped up all the wiring around the base of the stroller using lots of tape all over the place to make sure nothing moved and everything was secure and in place before covering in fondant.

Baby Stroller structure - all taped and secure.

I covered the entire stroller with back MMF that I attached to the stucture with piping gel.  I then added the stripes separately using Jessica Harris' (JessiCakes) technique found HERE.  To get the perfect shape I needed for the canopy, I lay a piece of paper over the canopy and outlined the shape and used it as a template (see the polka dot piece above, it was sort of an "eye" shape).

To get the polka dots on the canopy to look smooth, I added the yellow dots onto the black fondant, then rolled it out flat before trimming it to size and attaching it to the stroller with piping gel.

The flying bees are sitting inside coffee stirs inside the cake.

The Wheels:

I cut out the tire ring using 2 round piping tips close in size (1 to cutout the outside, another to cutout the middle).  I then added the spokes so that they fit snugly inside the tire ring and punched a hole in the middle with a #1 piping tip.  Brushed it all over in a thin layer of water front and back a couple times throughout the evening to make sure the MMF melted and fused to each other so they wouldn't come apart on me once dry.  You could also use gum-glue or tylose glue for this but water works fine too.

The Finished Stroller:

I painted the legs and handle with black gel colors and then bent the bottom 1 inch of the stroller legs so that they pointed straight down into the cake and not at a 45 degree angle.  Since the wires were not long enough to support the stroller securely, I pushed coffee stirs straight down into the cake and wrapped up the bottom part of the wire with an extra layer of floral tape to make them thicker and fit snugly into the coffee stirs - the stroller didn't budge and wasn't going anywhere:  It was as snug as a bug!

I then attached the wheels to the sides of the stroller legs using black royal icing and added the little baby head and hands.  Notice, I added lashes and a red bow to the baby to make it girlie vs. what the actual invitation had (all the little details really do make a difference).

Bumble Bees:

I made a couple bumble bees out of fondant (mixed the MMF with some tylose) and lay the bees with wings over various piping tips to dry so that they would have a natural curve to them.  Used thin wire wrapped in floral tape for the antennas that I later painted with black gel colors.

The wings, once dried, were painted over with piping gel that I thinned out with vodka and sprinkled with Rainbow Disco Dust.  I also brushed the entire body with yellow luster dust.

Damask Toppers:

This was my very first time using a stencil and I was honestly stressed out on how I was going to do black royal icing over white fondant - it's so unforgiving and unfixable if it doesn't work.  So, I Googled for help and found that Lesley from Royal Bakery wrote up the most informative tutorial on how to Damask a cake.  See it HERE through her Facebook Page.  The stencil I used is by Designer Stencils (link below).  I did practice on a couple pieces of fondant first before attempting it on white:  Roll out the fondant, rub it lightly with shortening to help the stencil stick to it (and help seal the stencil tightly against the fondant) then spread black royal icing over it, scrape off excess, carefully lift stencil off, allow to dry for about 10 minutes then use a round cutter to cutout the topper with.  Phew!  They turned out so lovely and I love the contrast between the black and white.

Here is the link to the Damask Stencil I used:

Black Royal Icing:

To get the royal icing really black, I always make it at least 1 day ahead to give it time to mature and darken.  Make your Royal Icing...

1)  Add a couple drops of AmeriColor Super Black Gel Paste

2) A drop of Americolor Burgundy Gel Paste

3) And a drop of Americolor Royal Blue Gel Paste

Black alone has a slight green shade to it and the burgundy helps remove the green while blue helps deepen the black.  Hope that makes sense.  It took some experimenting but this works for me every time without fail.

Rather than repeat what other great Cake Decorators have done already and explained so well, below are some links to some tutorials you can check out and also a quick recap on everything I did...

Cupcakes:

1) Damask pattern made with, Designer Stencils Damask Cake Tier #2 Cake Stencil.  Used Royal Bakery's Facebook tutorial to find out how to use a stencil.

2) "baby" stamped lettering made with, FMM Lower Case Block Alphabet Tappit Cutters Set

3)  Handmade Bees - I need to make a tutorial on this one day for you all.  I tried to use my iPhone to record a tutorial but it was bad, really bad.  I need to borrow my brothers camcorder one day and make you all a real video.  It'll be a first for me and we'll see how that works out.

4) Yellow/Black stripes on the bows were made by following JessiCakes Striping Tutorial.  The actual folding of the bows was made by using Royal Bakery's YouTube tutorial, Satin Fondant Bow.

5)  Smooth Polka Dot Toppers:  I rolled out the fondant, added the polka dots to it, rolled it out again so the dots are flushed with the rest of the fondant, then cutout the circles using a Double Sided Round Biscuit Cutter.

6)  Lately, I've been flat-top-icing the cupcakes (not sure on the exact term used) and I'm loving this look.  I fill the cupcake liners 1/2 way with batter so they don't grow taller than the actual liner.  I then fill the tops of the cupcakes with buttercream and with an offset spatula, scrape off the extra frosting straight across the top of the liner.  Add a small swirl of buttercream to the middle of the cupcake about 1 inch tall and top with the toppers - I just prefer to have the toppers "floating" above the top rim of the liners.  The toppers should be made a couple days prior to allow plenty of time for them to dry flat and hard.

Cake:
1) Baby Carriage Topper made by using Cake Fixation's, "How to Make A Stroller Cake Topper" tutorial.

2)  The white bee wings and white scalloped circle on the cake were brushed in piping gel thinned out with vodka and sprinkled with Rainbow Disco Dust.  I used a Double Sided Round Biscuit Cutter for the white, round, disk on the side of the cake.  

3) The "baby" stamped lettering was made by using, FMM Lower Case Block Alphabet Tappit Cutters Set

4) Petal Ruffle along the bottom border will be a tutorial coming soon.  I was trying to come up with something different rather than leaving it plain or using ribbon or piping something around it and after playing around a bit, came up with the ruffles.  I think they worked perfectly on the cake - don't you think?

Well, that's it for now at least.  The year's almost over and hopefully, LIFE won't have me super busy so I can do a better job keeping up my blog.  I'm so sorry for being MIA for so long and thank you all for sticking by me during my absence.

Happy Holidays!  Ya know, Christmas will be here before you know it.

Clothing Line Baby Shower Cake

An 8 inch cake made to welcome a baby girl named Gigi.  I just love it when I get free reign to design a cake, they usually end up being my favorite ones and this is one that I have wanted to make for a while - a clothing line with baby clothes.  I made the cake purple with the some low, green rolling hills and kept all the decorations in all shades of pink (except for the tiny splash of blue on the blankie).  Everything is made out of MMF.

For the bib, I used an old cutter that came with 2 tiny eyelets.  When I say "old", it used to be my mothers and I never had the chance to use it until now.  I wasn't quite sure of what to do with the eyelets so I just made up a little flower-like design along the bottom of the bib then painted it over with some pink luster dust (love that stuff)

The lettering is made with the FMM Lower Case Block Alphabet Tappit Cutters Set.   The cutter has the letters on a ruler-like strip and I had to cut out small little squares of the fondant to stamp out each letter one by one.  Roll the fondant too thick and the letters don't come out smoothly along the edges, roll it out too thin and the letters stick up inside the cutter and you have to pick it out with a toothpick that ends up ruining the smooth edges and stretching it...it took a couple tries to get the fondant the right thickness and consistency to stamp out right.  Not as easy as it seems, but then, I haven't used it very much and with some patience and trail and error, it finally worked out and came out nicely.

The clothes are hand cut and the flower blossoms are made by using an assortment of cutters (also  handed down to me from my mother so I couldn't tell you exactly what type of flowers they are for).

For the posts holding up the clothing line, I marbled brown and black fondant then etched some veins down it.  Topped them off with a little bow that I tied out of fondant and made some tiny wooden-looking pegs to hold up the clothes with....so cute!

A perfectly happy and cheerful cake to welcome a new baby girl...Welcome Gigi!