Los Angeles Lakers Cake

Who loves the Lakers?  We do most definitely, especially with being so near to LA.  This was created for Blake who turned 10 and loved the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team.  It's an 8 inch round, Chocolate cake filled with Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC) - recipe linked HERE.  It's covered and decorated in Marshmallow Fondant (MMF).

The logo was made using the same technique on my Boston Red Sox Cake (click HERE to see it).

The only difference is the "Los Angeles" font and the dashes around the "Lakers" was pipped (these were just too tiny to cut out of fondant).  In order for the purple piping to match the other purple on the cake, I diluted the MMF with a tiny bit of hot water and mixed it up really well until it was evenly melted.  I then piped it using a #1 round piping tip and a toothpick to help move each stroke into it's proper place as I tried to copy the logo as exact as I could.

Those wonderful basketball bumps...to achieve the basketball texture I used a #5 round piping tip and punched them one by one around the entire cake.  It took an hour alone to get the texture done - doesn't it look neat!

For the black striping along the sides of the cake, I first impressed the pattern on the sides of the cake using one of those tear drop shaped flower shaping tools (don't know the name for it), used an clay extruder to extrude the black "rope", then smoothed them "into" the impression on the cake so that the stripes were more flushed to the surface rather than protruding way out.

This is the extruder I like using - it comes with a clear acrylic box that conveniently keeps everything together:Walnut Hollow Clay Extruder Set

As for the base board, I was trying to achieve the basketball court flooring.  I cut out the individual panels, scored them with the thin tool to get the wood grain, assembled them on the board, then brushed it over with clear piping gel that I diluted way down with vodka that was mixed with a teeny drop of brown gel color.  The piping gel dries glossy and helps the board resemble the shiny basketball floor quite well I think.

I hand cut the Laker's Jersey's (one purple home jersey and one yellow away jersey) and added the birthday boys age to them using the FMM Tappit Cutter Set.

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!

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!

Mom's Knitting Basket Cake

A birthday cake for my mom who can knit, crochet, or embroider practically anything....

The basket was made out of 2, 9 inch round Carrot Cakes filled with Cream Cheese Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC) that I tinted brown with some AmeriColor gel colors.  I didn't want the white IMBC to peak through the basket weave but in the end, with a white "liner" hanging over the basket, it would have technically been OK if it was kept white - if you get what I mean - live and learn =)  For the basket weave pattern, I cut out strips of MMF in 2 sizes (one size for the vertical pieces and a another, wider size, for the horizontal pieces).  I had never done a basket weave before but once I got the pattern down, it all came together pretty easily.


(Recipe for the Cream Cheese IMBC can be found at the bottom of this post:
Korean Hanbok Dol Cake from March 2011)

Once done, I brushed the fondant over with some Chocolate Brown Petal Dust and added the white fondant trim around the top rim.  I used a stitching wheel to add the stitch pattern around the top and bottom edge of the white trim.

The balls of yarn were made out of Lemon Cake that were filled and covered with IMBC.  I finally got around to using a cupcake pan my husband bought for me two years ago like the one pictured on Amazon below (Wilton Multi Cavity Cupcake Pan).  They were the perfect size to create the balls of yarn with for the basket.

I put together 2 of the cupcake tops to form a round ball.

Trimmed off the pointed tops of the cupcakes to help make the ball look more rounded.

Used the bottom halves of the cupcakes to make a larger, oval, yarn of ball.

I then frosted all the balls of yarn with IMBC and popped them into the fridge for about an hour to firm up while I prepped the fondant.


There's a really neat post on Vegan Yum Yum on how to make balls of yarn and clothing with marzipan.  I used the same technique but with MMF that I mixed with Tylose and a Clay Extruder to help extrude the miles upon miles (as it seemed) of fondant-yarn.


After trying out a couple of the disks that the extruder came with, the 2 disks pictured below worked out the best in creating the yarn look especially once the fondant was twisted.

I used the smaller disk (pictured left) for the green and purple balls of yarn and the larger disk (pictured right) for the pink ball of yarn.

Extruding the fondant, twisting it to look more like yarn, piecing it together into sections.  Trim to size and add to the ball of yarn.  Repeat and repeat and repeat until the entire ball of yarn is covered.

Spirals of fondant yarn to attached to the ends of the balls.

The finished ball of yarn.  I later dusted it with Pink Luster Dust.

To get the gradation of color on the purple and green balls of yarn, I stuffed the extruder with a small amount of colored fondant followed by a small bit of white, then back to color, then white until the extruder was filled up.  As you extrude the fondant, it comes out with a really nice gradation of color.  The idea come to me after I had made the pink one and realized that it would have looked much better with some variation in color added to it.  It actually worked perfectly since my mom had always preferred using the yarn that had a variation of color versus the solid ones =)

The purple knitted piece attached to the needle was something I improvised on and made up in trying to figure out how to show the gradation in color with.  Hopefully these pictures below make some sense.

Marble purple fondant with white.  Cut it out into strips, fold the strip in half, twist, then roll between your hands until you get a nice, thin, piece that looks kinda like yarn.

Brush a little bit of water between each strip to help hold it together then fold over every other piece like in the photo.  Make sure the pieces sticking up are long enough to curl over the needle.

Roll the long pieces of fondant over the skewer using piping gel to help it stick to the skewer.  Flip it over and use a toothpick or a scoring tool to create the knitted pattern into the fondant.  For the knitting needle, I used a wooden skewer and painted it in Gold Dust.

The completed piece.

For the top of the knitting needles, I rolled out a piece of fondant into a cylinder shape and poked it into the end of the skewer using piping gel to help it stick together.  I also painted it over with Gold Dust then imprinted 6's on the top of each needle: shhhh, my mom turned 66 - a little discreet and very personal.  I don't think the party guests caught that.


The 6's were made by pressing a #10 round piping tip into the fondant and a scoring tool to shape out the tail of the 6.

I added a little cross-stitch heart to the front with Royal Icing.  A little tip to help the royal icing from not breaking on you as you pipe lettering or something thin is to mix a little bit of piping gel into it.  It helps the Royal Icing stretch and not break on you.

Happy knitting...eating!

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.