Hello Kitty & Friend's Cake

This was for my daughter who loves Hello Kitty but then again, it may be all because of me since I grew up loving and owning practically anything Hello Kitty.  She was very adamant about having these specific characters on her cake:  Tammy (monkey), Keroppi (frog), Pochacco (dog), and My Melody (bunny).  I had done all of the characters except for Tammy one night, and when showing them to her the following morning, she right away asked, "but where's Tammy?" Just too cute!

The cakes were a 9" and 6" round, Strawberry/Vanilla Marbled Sour Cream Cake.  Filled with fresh strawberries and covered in Strawberry Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC) - it smelled and tasted delicious!  The recipe for the IMBC is posted under the last cake I did, the 80th Birthday Music Themed Cake.  All the decorations were handmade with fondant (actually MMF mixed with Tylose).

I traced out each character over a piece of parchment paper and used them as a stencil to mold each character by hand.  With a little bit of shortening on your fingers, you can rub each piece of fondant smoothing them and shaping them easily (just like the teeth on my denture cake).  Use a little bit of either water or piping gel to adhere each piece to one another.

When ready to add them to the cake, poke the back of each character with a piece of dry spaghetti (around 2 inches long) at an angle that will point down into the cake - I never use toothpicks in any of my cakes or decorations!  and slowly and carefully attach each pieces.  Since the cake was covered in IMBC, I didn't need to add anything else behind it to help it stick.

Note:  I made these characters 2 days prior so they were still a little soft.  If you make them much earlier, you may want to stick the dry spaghetti into them or at least make a hole for it before they dry rock hard.

I finished off the cake with a purple, fondant ribbon around each tier, approximately 60 fondant ribbon roses in 3 different colors and a fondant butterfly added above her name which was dusted in pink luster dust.

I loved the how these characters turned out and Caitlyn was very, very happy.  Next year, she wants Strawberry Shortcake....hmmm, we'll see, that's 365 days away but it's never too early to start planning :)

Making Fondant Cutouts: Kai-Lan and Friends

There is so much to learn out there about cakes, so many different tools and techniques and from so many wonderful and talented people!  And although I'm still learning myself, I am all for sharing and helping others, so ask and you shall receive.  A request I get alot is how I make the Kai-Lan characters on 2 of my favorite cakes (pictures are posted on my Facebook Page).  So, here they are, detailed and complete with pictures so you too, can make them.

I use the web most of the time to find pictures of what I want to use but most of the time, I end up standing in front of the TV, camera in hand, and shoot away capturing any image that looks like something I would want to replicate. I then upload them and select the ones I want to use, insert them onto a sheet at the size I need (I use Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop) then print them out on regular paper. Here is one I used for this tutorial...

How to make Kai-Lan out of Fondant and/or Gumpaste:

Step 1 (Face/Body) - Trim out the paper to make a stencil, roll out the fondant to about 1/8” thick, dust the top of the fondant with some corn starch to keep the paper from sticking to it then lightly trace out the outline.

Remove the paper then, use a sharp blade to trim the face and body out, remove the excess fondant and lightly indent in some of the details such as the outline of the face and arms here.

Step 2 (Hair) – Roll out, very thinly…paper thin, black fondant, dust w/cornstarch, lay the stencil back over it, carve out the outline of the hair lightly, remove the paper, trim out the bangs 1st then trim the outline for the rest of the hair about ¼” larger than the actual outline. Brush the back with a little bit of water and carefully place the hair over the head area. Fold the black fondant down and over the sides of the cutout and trim off the excess (this way, you won’t have any of the beige showing on the sides).

For the strands of hair hanging over the ear, fold the extra piece along the sides underneath to almost create a tube and at the same time to give it some height then trim into shape: This will help raise the hair to the same level as the ears and you won’t get a weird dip below the ear.

Step 3 (Eyes) – the dreaded eyes! I love and hate this part. Love it since I don’t get those bulging eyes like you see in this picture on the left; hate it since you have 1 shot to get it right. I stack the 3 colors of the eyes one on top of each other (white, brown, black). Make each piece slightly smaller than the real eyes. I use piping tips of different sizes to cut these out then trim off the side’s straight to create ovals. Make 2 eyes at the same time so they look alike and lay them next to each other (see picture above on the left). With a rolling pin, gently and carefully with even pressure, roll the eyeballs flat (picture above on the right). If it doesn’t work and eyes get all wacky looking, you have to start all over again (the hate part). I don’t use any water between the layers to make them stick.

Step 4 (Assemble) – Roll out very thin snakes of fondant for the eyebrows and lashes or draw them in with an edible marker. I used fondant for the eyebrows, nose and mouth, then the marker for the lashes. Wet the back of each eye and carefully place on the face.  I then painted the highlights on the eyes with white gel color diluted with almond extract. Add the shirt. Use a small petal cutter for the red flowers in the hair but let them dry separately overnight so they get hard and sit flat. The following day, attach the flowers to her hair.

Repeat with the other characters…Tolee, Rintoo, Hoho, Dolphin, the Platypus…

Cut out various sized flowers; lay them over a piece of wrinkled foil to give it some shape and let everything dry overnight. I like to put everything in the oven with the pilot on overnight so that they dry faster and are also out of the way.

I made these to be raffled off at a Cake Club meeting complete with a sketch of what I was envisioning the cake to look like if the winner decided to make a Beach Themed Kai-Lan Cake.

Each piece was glued with piping gel to parchment paper then stacked in a box lined with tissue paper.

I realized until much later and only when I was going through the photo's that Tolee the Koala bear looked a little off...I had forgotten his eyebrows!  Poor little guy.

Let me know if you have any questions…I'm here to help!

Rock n' Roll Guitar Cake

I love the design of this cake. My little niece asked for a chocolate cake and a pink guitar standing up and her mom asked for a small, 6" cake and she would bake the cupcakes.

Here are some pictures I used for inspiration: Rock and Roll and girly, lots of pink and black, a guitar with some swirls of hearts and butterflies.  I also found these adorable cupcake toppers that I wanted to try replicating (check out, Cakes by Steph, she also made the cake in the picture).



I designed a template over Photoshop using all the cool brushes and fonts.



 I have not had much practice with piping aside from some writing and very little decorations over a cake. The guitars for the cupcakes were made using Wilton Color Flow Mix since I read it dries harder than with royal icing. The colors were all made the night before so the black could have a chance to mature completely – the black was more of a murky gray the day I made it but turned perfectly black by the time I needed to use it.

I printed out a template and taped some parchment paper over it on a cutting board. These little guys took me 3 hours to get done…30 guitars, 3 hours, not very efficient but what a learning experience! The 1st 2 hours alone was spent trying to get the right consistency. I tried to outline the guitars 1st then fill with a softer icing but it was so messy and looked just awful as you can see in the picture.

The ones on the left were outlined first then filled; the ones on the right were just filled in without an outline…so much better! I pitched the outline method and went straight to filling these in.

  

All the black, pink and light pink was done in one night and the white details added the following day...30 guitars for 30 cupcakes! Phew!

  

The cake was chocolate filled with chocolate mousse, coated in milk chocolate Ganache and then covered in hot pink marshmallow fondant. The background was painted with pink and red gel colors mixed with almond extract. I had made the black cutout decorations 2 days earlier.

A trick I learned while at a 3C’s meeting in January was to wrap the fondant cutouts and store in the freezer until you need them: The freezer keeps them soft and pliable. I pulled them out of the freezer and used them right away…they were perfectly soft and bendable like the day they were made and not hard at all….lovely tip! The photo here is of the cutouts sitting on parchment paper inside a freezer bag.  All the details was hand-cut (stars, 7, guitar, leaves), no Cricut here but it would have been so easy to have had a Cricut to make these. Silver dragees were added in the middle of the stars and to make out the name.

 

The guitar standing on the top was hand-cut out of marshmallow fondant mixed with Tylose (to help it dry harder). I don’t like using toothpicks in cakes and instead, use dry spaghetti as you can see here.

Kayla loved her cake and her big sister has already put in her request for her cake, baseball’s and bats - ideas are spinning in my head.



08/24/10 Update - The big sister changed her mind and wanted the Alice In Wonderland Eat Me Petits Fours...I surprised her with a Mad Hatter Hat Cake. 

Polka Dot Mod Monkey Cake

Such a cute and tiny cake: A 4" round with 6 cupcakes! I made this for my brothers friend whose son turned 1. I had to fix the "2nd" when they came by to pick up the cake and wasn't able to get a picture of it with the "1st" on there - yikes but alas, easily fixed! The cake was vanilla with fresh strawberries and Rich's Vanilla Bettercream (tastes a lot like the whipped cream Sam's and Costco uses...stable and delicious). The outside was covered in Bettercream and decorated in marshmallow fondant (MMF). I usually make fondant covered cakes and covering this one smoothly in Bettercream was a challenge. I may have spent about a half hour just trying to smooth it out perfectly but maybe it was because it was just so small (4") or maybe the Bettercream was too fluffy - not sure but it turned out pretty good. I made all the fondant decorations 3 days prior to allow for plenty of time to dry. I also brushed the backs of each piece with a little bit of white chocolate to help add a barrier between the "wet" bettercream and the "dry" fondant since they picked it up the day before the party and I was worried about the fondant softening up. I hope little Hayden enjoyed his FIRST birthday cake....it matched all the "Mod Monkey" party decorations perfectly.

Rich's Bettercream note:  Finding the Rich's products is difficult.  Here is a UK Rich's website with some good information about the cream itself.  Smart and Final carry the Chocolate version.  I was luck to have found the Vanilla at a Cake Supply store far away from me and I may have to make another trip out there soon to grab some more.