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!

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!

Mad Hatter Hat Cake #2

My 2nd Mad Hatter Hat Cake.  The 1st one was for my niece, this one was for her best friend.  A lot of improvements made from the 1st one; One of the many benefits from making the same cake again - learning what to do better the next time around!

I baked 3, 6" round cakes (each layer was 2" tall) with 5 layers of Strawberry Buttercream filling: Chocolate - Vanilla - Strawberry Sour Cream Cakes.

Here are the 3 cakes stacked.  Through the insanity of working on 2 different cakes at the same time, I did an ganache dam then filled the layers with strawberry buttercream.  NOTE!  Don't do a dam when you will be carving the cake!  It made it very messy and very difficult to cut nice, smooth sides with.  Work on a frozen or at least a very well chilled cake - makes it easier to carve.  The hat is sitting upside down here with a 4.5" circle that will become the bottom base and used as a guide to carve the cake to.

 

Next, cover the cake with ganache and make the hat's rim.  I rolled out a 9" round circle and lay it over a 9" board that was heavily dusted with corn starch to keep it from sticking.  I then cutout a 4.5" round out of the middle for the base of the cake to sit in.  Brushed the entire rim with chocolate ganache then let it sit overnight in the fridge to firm up with some balls of foil in various spots around the rim to give it some dimension.
Tip:  Using the same size board as the rim helped keep the hat's rim perfectly round and not get twisted or stretched out of shape.

Once the ganache was set and dry, I used the same technique as on the previous cake by using a ball tool to swirl the pattern all over the hat.  Used piping gel to attach the rim to the cake board then placed the cake over that.  The cake was very tall (7") and not very stable so I hammered a dowel right down the center and into the cake board (you can see the cake bulging at the bottom).  I rolled a piece of modeling chocolate and wrapped it around the bottom (around 1/2" tall and 1/4" thick) to give it some extra support.

Making the board was tedious but well worth it.  I was trying to come up with something in the movie and fell in love with the checkered board and had always wanted to make one.  I used a diamond impression mat to cut out the squares and then patched up the pattern directly on the cake board.  Another reason to use a diamond impression mat and to also get perfectly uniform and perfect squares....worked like a charm!

The entire hat and rim was dusted with patches of Dark Chocolate Brown Petal Dust and Avocado Luster Dust.  The little trinkets were dusted with gold, pink, and white pearl dust and the modeling chocolate ribbon was dusted in pink pearl dust and painted with white gel colors.  The stick holding the date is a skewer while the other 2 sticks (black and white) were dried pieces of spaghetti painted with gel colors.  The feather was made out of fondant and dusted in various colors.

I used the Alice In Wonderland font for the name and age.  And made 2 dozen assorted "Eat Me" Petits Fours to go with the Hat Cake.

The "Eat Me" Petits Fours were cut from a Vanilla Sour Cream Cake baked in 10" square pan = 24 pieces each 2.25"L x 1.5"W x 1.75"H.  They were filled with Strawberry Buttercream then covered in MMF.  Royal Icing was used to pipe the white swirls and "Eat Me".

My other Mad Hatter Hat Cakes:

my first Mad Hatter Cake

My third Mad Hatter Cake

Diamonds and Pearls 50th Birthday Cake

I wanted to share with you one of my favorite cakes made last October for a friend who loves jewelry and diamonds.  There were a lot of firsts with this cake:  1st time making a tiara, 1st time working with pearls and sugar diamonds (diamond shaped sugar glass), 1st time making the scalloped edge on the bottom tier, 1st time carving the top tier, 1st time doing a diamond pattern...a lot of firsts!  But all in all, it has been and still is one of my all time favorite cakes.

 

The tiara!  There is a great tutorial on CakeCentral.com by carrielynnfields on how to make one with Royal Icing.  I used the same technique but with gumpaste instead.  Draw a template, tape over a cylinder and in this case, I used a candle wrapped in saran wrap then in foil to keep any scent from escaping or leaking out - LOL, it was the only thing I could find with the right diameter!  Tape a piece of wax paper over that then roll out ropes of gumpaste using sugar glue (melt a piece of gumpaste in a little bit of water to make sugar glue) to attach each piece to each other.  I didn't have a clay extruder to make the ropes with so instead, I used the fondant smoother to roll out the gumpaste over a smooth, flat surface:  Using the fondant smoother helps with getting no finger grooves in the gumpaste.  Once I got the whole thing assembled, I brushed the entire tiara with another layer of glue and let it sit for 2 days in the oven with the pilot light on to dry.  I then took the tiara out of the mold very carefully and brushed the back side with another layer of glue and let that sit overnight to dry again.  I only made 1 tiara and did not want to risk it breaking...it was hard as a rock and was not going anywhere!  The tiara was finished off and painted with a mixture of almond extract and both disco dust and shimmer dust...I wanted it to really sparkle and shine.

The top tier was 2, 6" rounds carved down to 4" along the bottom.  Sugar pearls were glued one by one using piping gel and then sugar diamonds were added below each strand.  I searched all over the city for a mold to make the sugar diamonds and failed miserably.  I was lucky enough to have stopped by a cake supply store, far far away during one of my business trips, to find an assortment of premade diamonds.  I bought a few of each size - they were not cheap either and stored them right away it an airtight container with a silica gel pack to help absorb any moisture which would make them sticky.  The sugar glass diamonds were placed around the top tier, a large one was added to the front of the tiara, and another one was added to the name plaque placed beside the bottom tier.

I used Satin Ice for the 1st time too.  The top tier was Dark Chocolate that I tinted black.  I had such a hard time working with it and couldn't get the sides of the cake smoothed out.  I improvised and added a white, ruffled collar around it to hide the imperfections and finished it off by adding a sugar pearl to the front of the collar as a button.  I loved how it turned out!  Completely unplanned and a perfect addition to the cake.

The middle tier was Red Satin Ice and a nightmare to work with.  And although a lot of people suggest to buy the red and black premade, I have since figured it out and make my own with marshmallows - see Marshmallow Fondant Recipe (honestly, I love the way MMF works and tastes over Satin Ice).  I got so many hairline cracks with the Satin Ice, it drove me insane!  I used a diamond impression mat to get the outline of the pattern in then went over it with a ruler to press the diamond pattern in more then added silver dragees to each corner.

Here is a picture of the tools used:  a fondant smoother to roll the fondant ropes with for the tiara, leaf cutters and a scalloped cutter used for the bottom tier, and a diamond impression mat (or grid) used on the middle tier:

The bottom tier was a challenge to get the scalloped edge to neatly and evenly sit over the cake.  I tired several things and ended up mixing the white MMF with tylose to help it not be as stretchy and to also help it dry faster.  Cut out a circle (about 15" round) and then used a scalloped cutter to cut out the pattern flat on the table.  Let that sit for a 1/2 hour to dry and set a bit, then loosely rolled it over onto a rolling pin and carefully rolled it back onto the cake.  Letting it sit helped the fondant not stretch and loose it's shape once picked up.  It looks very odd at this stage but once the black beaded pattern and leaf pattern were added, it came together very nicely.  I made fondant leaves with the black Satin Ice and attached it to the sides of the cake and the black piping was done in Royal Icing.

Cake:  Bottom 12" tier was Vanilla with Lemon filling, 9" Middle and 6" top tiers were Red Velvet with Vanilla Bettercream.  The entire cake was covered in Vanilla Buttercream then with Fondant.

Mad Hatter Hat Cake

My niece tuned 9 and loves the new Alice in Wonderland movie.  Her only request for a cake was to have "Eat Me" Petits Fours in different colors.  I surprised her by including some cake truffles and a Mad Hatter Hat Cake.

Making the Petits Fours was difficult but I think that my cake may have been a little too large and soft (2"x1.5"x1") to cover with poured fondant.  I also tried using melted canned frosting and melted chocolate.  The photo above shows the cake covered with a layer of MMF and then coated in chocolate.

All 3 techniques failed at giving a very nice and perfectly smooth covering so I ended up just covering them one by one with rolled fondant instead.  I have to give Petits Fours another try with poured fondant and hopefully in the much more traditional, 1"x1" size.  JoesPastry.com has a nice blog with detailed instructions on poured fondant and petits fours.

In addition to the Petits Fours, I made some cake truffles (aka cake balls) dipped in white chocolate dyed pink then drizzled with dark chocolate.  Bakerella.com has the basic recipe but I don't like mine being too sweet so instead of using a can of frosting, I use a little bit of simple syrup and cream cheese...just something to give it a little bit of added flavor and a little moisture to help the cake stick together.

The hat was made by baking 3, 6" round cakes:  2 layers chocolate and 1 layer vanilla filled with Nutella buttercream.  I froze the cake for a few hours to make it easier to carve.

I then covered the whole thing in chocolate ganache, let it set for about an hour then used a warm ball tool (just rub the tool against a hot, moist towel for a few seconds to warm it up), and created various swirls around the cake.

For the hats rim, I rolled out the MMF, cut out a hole in the middle to match the size of the bottom of the cake, dusted the cake pedestal (or cake board) with corn starch to keep it from sticking, spread some royal icing directly in the hole in the middle for the cake board to stick to, then placed the ganache covered cake over on top of it.

Cover the hats rim with ganache, add the swirls, wait for the ganache to set then dust with moss green petal dust and gold dust all over the cake.  I then added the ribbon and rolled up balls of foil and lifted the hat's rim in various spots for it to dry with a little dimension to it.  I then put the cake in the fridge overnight to set and get it nice and cold for the drive to the party the next day.

As for the little details:  Painted the ribbon with white gel color thinned out with almond extract, piped out her name to match the Alice in Wonderland font with royal icing, and used skewer sticks to hold all the other little decorations.  For the tag, I dusted it with an assortment of colors (moss green, sunflower yellow, gold, lavender) to get it to look aged, poked a hole in the corner, let it dry overnight then thread it through one of the skewers.  All the little trinkets at the end of the skewers including the feather were made in fondant and painted with various colors and gold dust.

Allison was so excited and absolutely loved her cakes.  The Mad Hatter Hat Cake is one of my all time favorites....I would love to do this one again.

Update:  Had the wonderful opportunity to make this cake again for her best friend, see Mad Hatter Cake #2

Link to another:  Mad Hatter Cake #2 

and another:  Mad Hatter Cake #3

Mini Clutch Purse Cake-let

I made this for a friend who loves purses.  Tiny, 4" wide x 2" deep x 4" tall.  I baked one 6" round cake (2" high), cut it in half then stacked the 2 halves together to get a 4" tall, 1/2 circle.

I then carved the shape of the purse out.  The filling was fresh strawberries with strawberry Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC).

I then covered the whole cake with IMBC and put it in the fridge for an hour to firm up.

Covered the cake with marshmallow fondant and added the little details and decorations.  This was completly inspired from http://www.cupcakeenvy.com/ where she has a youtube video tutorial posted.  So cute and so fun to make!