Boston Red Sox Cake

A 6 inch Boston Red Sox Cake with a wood grain board (to resemble the wood of a baseball bat).  Although simple, hand cutting the logo and font were time consuming!

I used a transfer method to get the logo just right that I adapted from Jessica Harris on how she makes perfect stripes on the sides of her cakes.

I printed the logo backwards and taped up it inside a sheet protector.  I then lightly rubbed the surface of the sheet protector with shortening to help the fondant stick.  Using a clay extruder, I extruded the red band around the entire logo, the blue outline around the baseball and the red stitches.  Using a tiny bit of water, I attached all the stitches to one another so they wouldn't move out of place (they were very tiny and thin).

For the "Boston Red Sox" font, I printed out the letters on regular paper, cut them out and used them as templates to cut out the fondant with.  There were so many angles and curves in the font that it was easier to use various piping tips to cut some of the parts rather than trying to use an exacto knife.  Once the letters were all cut, I lay then in place over the sheet protector template.  I did this a few days ahead and just let it air dry.  

After the cake was covered in fondant, I put it in the fridge for a few hours, removed it, let the cake sit on the counter for a couple minutes to get a little bit of condensation on it then flipped the logo template over the cake and carefully pressed and peeled the sheet protector off.  The little bit of condensation on the cake helped stick everything in place perfectly - I didn't have to mess with brushing water to the fondant to get it to stick.

With the cake being simple, I wanted to do something creative with the board and thought of a baseball bat.  I made the wood grain board by marbling fondant together then scoring lines with a thin tool and poking some holes in it.  I then brushed it over with a tiny bit of white gel color that I diluted way down with vodka.  It help give the board a white washed look and made the wood grain pop.

The entire cake is decorated in Marshmallow Fondant (MMF).  I did add Tylose powder to the pieces that I used to make the logo with so that they would dry harder and not be too stretchy for when I was cutting them out.

Hope you like it!

A Painted Curious George Cake

Where have I been?  Life has been busy, very busy that I haven't had time to keep up the blog or do many cakes.  This years resolution (and with it being February already), I'm going to try to post more stuff.  2012 went by in a flash and I'll post a little recap on the few 2012 cakes that were done.  I've also got the painting itch back and started, on New Year's day, to paint a mural along one wall of our dining room.  Although I had originally planned to take a couple days to complete it, it has turned out to be a unfinished project - where has the time gone already!

A couple weeks ago, I got the opportunity to take my painting itch and paint a little cake - at least this one was completed.  The theme was Curious George and with one of my favorite scenes in the movie being the one where he paints the room walls with palm trees, giraffes, and butterflies, I knew it would perfect on the cake and cupcake toppers for a little boys 2nd Birthday.

And how exciting was I to find my cake was picked and featured on Cake Central's Friday Faves (Feb 8, 2013) - giddy as can be!  Curious George is a cutie!

Here is a 360 degree view of the cake, a 6 inch Red Velvet covered in MMF and painted with AmeriColor Gel colors.  I also made 4 dozen Funfetti Cupcakes with matching MMF Toppers.

The inspiration for the cake - A scene from the movie - Curious George's painted wall.

Mr. Fluffy's Bakery (Ni Hao Kai-Lan)

My niece turned 1 and after doing a couple Kai-Lan themed cakes and decorations, I wanted to create something unique and different but especially cute for her 1st birthday.  I love the show and one of my favorite characters is Mr. Fluffy and his adorably cute bakery so I designed her cake to look just like his bakery.  I think it turned out really cute!

I had scoured the Internet and watched online videos of the show trying to find a really good picture of his home to duplicate and failed.  There were a lot of photos of the toy but none of the home as seen on the show.  As I was telling my brother about it, my 4 year old jumps in and says she has a picture as she runs into her room and comes back out with a Kai-Lan book and there was Mr. Fluffy and his bakery right inside that book - it was perfect!  My little hero!

My two kids picked out which of Mr. Fluffy's cakes I got to replicate for the decorations along the side of the cake and since we were in the midst of a heat wave and with the party being outdoors at a park, I kept everything pretty flat and two-dimensional to be safe.

The house was built and carved out of 2, 6 inch rounds and an 8 inch round for the roof.  Everything is covered and decorated in MMF including the handmade, giant chocolate chips sitting on the roof.  I'm so sorry for not having pictures of the step by step process - it was such a busy and stressful week that the camera and I just did not find each other but hopefully all of these "after" photos will help paint the picture....a 360 view around the cake.

Included below are the table center pieces made by my cousin - The lollipop flowers are so adorable and too cute!

And my sister-in-law decorated this large box to hold the birthday envelopes.  The characters were hand cut out of construction paper and glued together!  So creative and perfect - they don't look like cutouts at all!

Emily had a beautiful birthday filled with tons of family and friends, lots of delicious food and beautiful decorations made by her artsy and crafty Aunties and Mommy =)  Happy 1st Birthday Emily!

Running Sneaker Shoe Cake

One of my favorite cakes.  I have wanted to make a shoe cake for a while and jumped at the opportunity to create this one for a friend.  The shoe measures at about 11" L x 5" H x 4.5" W and is carved entirely out of cake and covered in MMF.  It's modeled after the New Balance MR817 men's running shoe.

I baked the cake in a 10x10 square pan, cut it in half and stacked it to create a rectangular block to carve the shoe out of.  With the shoes footprint, I used it as a template to carve out the sides of the cake and eyeballed the rest of it.

Covered it over in vanilla buttercream and let it rest overnight at room temperature to set and crust nicely.

I was so nervous with starting on the details and must have spent at least an hour trying to figure out how to piece everything together and where to start.  In the meantime, I put the cake in the fridge for an hour to firm up making it easier to decorate over with the MMF.

Tip:  I find it easier to decorate a cold cake.  You don't have to keep it in the fridge overnight, only an hour is needed to harden the BC (I use a 50/50 mix of Hi Ratio Shortening and Butter - recipe can be found here by Edna at Design Me a Cake).  I then used pieces of parchment paper lightly pressed over each individual section to sketch the shape I needed over it, put the cake back into the fridge to stay chilled, prepped the MMF to the size I sketched onto the parchment paper, removed the cake from the fridge and lay the MMF piece over it to double check the fit, removed the MMF if needed to trim it some more (as long as the BC is cold hard, no dents or smudges will be left behind), then once you have the perfectly sized piece, place and smooth the MMF into place.  Repeat a couple dozen times =)

Once I got the first couple of pieces on there,  the shoe took shape and everything else came together slowly and perfectly.

Total time spent on carving and decorating it...12 hours (not counting the baking, making the MMF, and covering the board) but well worth every minute of it!

For the fabric/mesh print on the shoe, I used a piece of a plastic/silicone drawer liner that had the perfect pattern on it as an impression mat - thank goodness!  I spent a couple days trying to figure out how I was going to recreate the mesh pattern.  I used the same mesh pattern on the name, "Bino!".  The entire shoe is put together using 4 colors of MMF:  White, light grey, dark grey, and orange.  The light grey panels were dusted in white pearl dust to look shiny and "reflective".  The stitches were made with a sewing stitching wheel.  I also used the stitching wheel along the "50th".  A piece of tulle was used to make the fabric print on the orange part along the inside of the shoe.  For the shoe laces, I used a veining tool to score the various thread marks on it - I love bringing out all those little details =)

The cake board was covered to look like a track field floor.  I used a dish cloth as an impression mat against the board to create the little bumps that you find on a track floor.  I was going to dust it over with some brown petal dust to add some scuff marks but it looked a bit more like dirt and opted to not do it - although you can see my sample patch in the photo above).

I just wanted to slip my foot into it and go for a run.  Can't wait to tackle another sneaker cake again - I really enjoyed creating this one!

Christmas Reindeer Cake

The Orange County Interfaith Shelter was holding their annual Christmas Luncheon and asked the Sweet Arts Cake Club for some cakes to be donated as table centerpieces which would be auctioned as a fundraiser.  This is the cake I made for them.  I sketched up the design back 2 months ago in October and just waited, and waited, and waited to get started on it.  Usually, I make all my decorations by hand using pictures as guides and inspiration but I was so lucky that at our cake club meeting last month, one of the ladies was selling gumpaste decorations and she had a few of these reindeer's - I was so excited since they're were so perfect and exactly what I needed for the cake!  No need to hand-cut them!  I later asked her where she had purchased them but unfortunately, she had bought a case of these a while back from a cake supply store that has since closed.  I have scoured the internet looking for at least a similar mold but have not been able to find them...please let me know if you see them.

June 2011 Update:  A friend found a reindeer on Fancy Flours and they're the closest thus far.

December 2011 Update:  I've recreated the Sleigh and made silicone molds of both the Sleigh and Reindeer - both available for purchase now.  See tab above named, "Shop Sugar Sweet"

The cakes are a 10-inch and 6-inch White Almond Cake with Chocolate Hazelnut Buttercream (Nutella).  Covered in MMF made red with Candy Melts (about 1/3 cup melted), about a 1/4 teaspoon of Americolor Super Red, 3 drops of Americolor Maroon, and about 1/4 teaspoon of Chef Master Pink (I just squirted these straight into the melted MMF so they're approximate measurements) - I didn't want the cake to be a bold red but rather more of a cranberry red with a slight pink shade to it.  For the complete recipe and instructions on how to make MMF, please see my previous 2 blog posts:
1)  Recipe: Marshmallow Fondant (MMF)
2)  Recipe: Red Marshmallow Fondant (MMF)

The sleigh was hand cut out of MMF (mixed with Tylose for instant gumpaste) and painted with pearl dust to match the pearly reindeer.

 

I used piping gel to attach the reindeer up against the cake.  9 total reindeer's and off course, I had to add the red nose with a tiny ball of MMF dusted in pearl dust for Rudolf.  For the reindeer that floated higher off the cake, I used Royal Icing to attach sticks of spaghetti to the back of the bodies then inserted those into the cake for added support (I usually make cakes for kids and avoid using toothpicks).  I did have to use toothpicks behind both of Rudolf's feet since he was free-standing and needed more support (you can see one behind his front paw that I painted red to blend in with the cake).

The board was covered in Royal Icing and I used a small trowel to texture it to look like snow that also went up the sides of the bottom tier.  Snowflakes were piped with Royal Icing then dusting of edible disco dust.  I also added small dots of the disco dust mixed with some diluted piping gel randomly around the cake for more sparkle.

I absolutely love how the cake turned out - so simple yet elegant and all for a good cause.

Character Head Cakes

 

Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, a Harry Potter LEGO and Haunter from Pokemon....3 character head cakes for 3 boys celebrating a joint birthday together:  Matias (9), Dante (7), and my son, Andrew (7).

I had to go out of town for a few days on a business trip and came back with only 2 days to pull the cakes and final party details together.  The other mom and I had decided that with the time constraints that we would buy a Costco sheet cake that I could decorate up really simply - yes, I actually did not bake these cakes.  It saved me tremendous time with cutting out the prepping, baking, making the frosting..clean up - a huge, huge, time saver!  Each kid gave me their requests the week prior and I spent the week trying to figure out how to incorporate 3 different themes into 1 sheet cake.  The cake was ordered on Thursday for a Friday noon pickup...a vanilla cake with cream cheese mousse filling and plain, white buttercream - "NO DECORATIONS!" was written on the order slip in big letters.  I didn't have a clue as to what to do with the cakes until late, Thursday night.  I figured I could carve 2, 6-inch cakes and 2, 5-inch cakes off the sheet cake (11x15) and make character heads out of it - what a perfect resolution and each kid gets his own cake!

I picked up the cake Friday at noon and stuck it into the freezer to firm up for carving.  6pm I pulled the cake out of the freezer and scrapped off as much of the buttercream as I could - boy, they are not kidding when they say there's 2 lbs of frosting!  I used a 6 and 5 inch cake circle as a template to cut down the cakes and stuck them back into the freezer to stay firm while I worked on shaping each cake one by one.

I used the extra cake pieces to build up the front of  Toothless (front middle) and the base of the spikes on Haunter (back left).  Harry Potter were 2 stacked 5-inch rounds (back right).  I used the buttercream I had scrapped off to cover the cakes with then let them sit at room temperature while I covered each of them.

I used mostly modeling chocolate to cover them with (recipe can be found under the How to Make Modeling Chocolate post).

Tip:  make sure your cakes are at room temperature when covering them with modeling chocolate.  A cold cake will make the chocolate set hard really fast and give you no time to work and mold it into shape.

I usually just roll out fondant directly over the table dusted with powdered sugar but the modeling chocolate kept ripping every time I tried to pick it up.  So I ended up rolling it over parchment paper dusted with powdered sugar instead to help keep it together and in one piece.  Then flipped the rolled out modeling chocolate over the cake, peeled off the parchment paper and smoothed it out, trimmed off the excess, then build up the features with additional modeling chocolate.  I used a small, metal, ball-tipped tool to smooth and blend the seams in since my fingers were too warm to use - the tool got into the small areas much easier anyways.

Toothless from "How to Train Your Dragon":  I used Blue, Wilton Candy Melts to make the modeling chocolate then kneaded in a little bit of AmeriColor black gel paste and some of the purple modeling chocolate into it.  I used white modeling chocolate for the eyes.  The board is covered in MMF and impressed with Duff's Brick Impression Mat.  His name is piped in a modified Dragon Font with Royal Icing.

Harry Potter LEGO:   Harry's head and board is covered in MMF.  His hair and other black features are modeling chocolate.  I used Wilton Dark Chocolate Candy Melts and kneaded in some AmeriColor black gel paste.  His name is piped with Royal Icing.

Haunter, a Pokemon character:  I used Wilton Lavender Candy Melts to make the modeling chocolate.  I used white modeling chocolate for the eyes.  The red mouth is MMF.  The board is covered in MMF and impressed with Duff's Cobblestone Impression Mat.  His name is piped in Royal Icing in a font called, Unown - Unown's are actual, evil characters in one of the Pokemon movies.  My son loved his cake, especially his name in the Unown font.

I was finally done with all the cakes at 2am Saturday morning, just hours before the party - 1 night and 8 hours in total - phew!!!  I was actually able to pull it off!

The cakes were a huge hit at the party.  Matias, Dante and their mom were expecting a sheet cake with some simple characters on them and were completely surprised that they actually got their own, customized cake - they loved their cakes!  I just love surprising people like that...one of the best things about decorating cakes - making people happy and smile really big on their birthday - it makes for great pictures!

Toy Story Cake and Cupcakes

I loved making this cake!  7 Toy Story characters:  Woody, Jessie, Mr. Potato Head, Slinky the Dog, Buttercup the Unicorn, Ham the Piggy Bank, and Rex the Dinosaur.  Plus, 2 dozen assorted cupcake toppers, 2 cubes with their ages on it, a wood grained board, a name banner, a bracelet, and Happy Birthday piped in the Walt Disney font...phew!

Woody's and Jessie's head and torso were modeled using RKT (Rice Krispy Treats) and the recipe I used can be found here under the Barney and Friends Cake as well as under the How to Make Modeling Chocolate post.  They were then covered in modeling chocolate and molded into shape by hand.  Modeling chocolate works wonderfully in filling in all the grooves and creveses from the RKT and at the same time, gives you a smooth surface and easy surface to mold and model.

 

The bodies were covered in modeling chocolate then decorated with MMF mixed with Tylose.  The stripes on Woody's shirt were painted with gel paste food color mixed with almond extract (you can use vodka).  I used bamboo skewers down the body and into the dummy to dry (and into the cake later) to help support them in place.

 

Woody's boots were hand molded (I made it up as I did them trying to find a way to make them light weight since they were going to be attached to the side of the cake...They turned out and worked perfectly).  Woody's legs slid right into the boots and I used clear piping gel to attach it to the legs and up against the cake.

I also made 24 Cupcake Toppers using a 1.5" round biscuit cutter.  These were done 3 days prior to allow plenty of time to dry hard.

Made Mr. Potato Head piece by piece with MMF mixed with Tylose...same thing with each of the other characters.

Covered the board with MMF.  I marbled MMF in different shades of tan and brown then cut it out into 3" wide panels and laid them side by side to look like a wooden floor.  Once it was all dried, I dusted it with Dogwood Brown Petal Dust to give it more depth which you can see in the final photo below in the assembled cake.  I also have another post about wood panels named, Wine Bottle in a Crate Cake.

 

The red tier is a RKT rather than a cake since they originally didn't need much cake (4 days before the due date, we added 2 dozen additional cupcakes and I just kept the top tier as a RKT).  The top tier is also covered in Red MMF made with candy melts.  See post called, Red Marshmallow Fondant.

I was not happy with how the blue MMF on the bottom tier turned out.  It was very humid and the pieces were rather heavy.  I had covered the cake and let it sit for about 4 hours before decorating it but it was still really soft and the decorations stretched the MMF and made it look saggy and wrinkly - I had never had this happen before and was really bummed out (the back of the cake looked perfect).  Luckily the cubes were placed on either side of Mr. Potato Head and helped to disguise it a little bit.  The cubes were made with RKT and covered also in modeling chocolate.

The cake was a 9" round Chocolate/Vanilla marbled Sour Cream Cake filled with Oreo Buttercream.  The top tier was a 6" round RKT.  Chocolate and Vanilla cupcakes were topped with Oreo Buttercream.


Recipe:  Oreo Buttercream is one of my favorite.  Just take Oreo Cookies, scrape off the cream center and crumble the cookie in a food processor (the more cookies you use the stronger the flavor).  Fold into your buttercream or IMBC/SMBC, spread and enjoy!

Tip:  I also crumb coat the entire cake with the Oreo Cookie Buttercream then add a final layer of plain buttercream over it (as you can see in the photo above) so that any crumbs of the cookie won't show through the MMF - you don't have to worry about any "chunks" showing through.  For tips and photo's on how to get the tall, straight sides and really flat tops, see my post named, Covering a Cake in Ganache.  I use this same technique with buttercream, IMBC, and ganache.