Christmas Reindeer Cake

The Orange County Interfaith Shelter was holding their annual Christmas Luncheon and asked the local cake club that I was a board member of for some cakes to be donated as table centerpieces that would also be auctioned for their fundraiser.  This is the cake I made for them, an original design.

Character Head Cakes

 

We did a joint birthday party with 2 brothers and my son.  Each kid told me who their favorite character was and these are the cakes I made for each of them:  Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, a LEGO Harry Potter, and Haunter from Pokémon.  The cakes were actually carved from a Costco sheet cake, re-frosted, then decorated in Marshmallow Fondant and Modeling Chocolate.  Here is how I made them.

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!

Leopard Printed Hello Kitty Cake

I love, love, love how the cake turned out!  I made a similar one a few months ago for my daughter who turned 3 which was all in pink (and without the leopard print).  With Meilaneeh turning 11, I wanted to make Hello Kitty a little older and found a perfect picture of her over the web wearing boots and with long lashes so I had to recreate her.  The tutorial on how I made the characters can be found here.  I dry-dusted Dogwood Brown and Buttercup Yellow Petal Dust directly onto the cake free hand to create the leopard print:  I wanted a light, dusted effect and not something that would be bright and overpower the characters that I had spent so much time making - hah-ha!

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!

Recipe - Red Marshmallow Fondant (MMF)

Alas, I needed to make another batch of red MMF for a Toy Story Cake and decided to try making it with candy melts instead of Jello (see one of my posts about using Jello including tips and tricks).  Also, with Crisco greased hands and a camera, carefully wrapped in saran wrap, I took photos of the step by step.

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... just a lot of firsts!

Superman Kryptonite Cake (and Sugar Glass Recipe)

This is one of the first cakes I made (2009) and I had so much fun trying to figure out how to get everything I wanted to do made in sugar!  I knew I wanted to make something unique and different for a friend's can, and this is what I came up with, a Kryptonite Superman Cake!  I spend weeks researching sugar glass and gelatin in figuring out how best to make Kryptonite crystals that were edible and tasty.  You just know there will be a kid who is going to try and eat it!

Recipe: Marshmallow Fondant (MMF)

As requested, here is the recipe I use to make Marshmallow Fondant (MMF) including hints and tips I have learned along the way in making MMF.  The recipe is simple, economical, uses ingredients found at a local market, tastes much better than store-bought fondant, and is easy to color and flavor.

Barney and Friends Cake (and Modeling Chocolate & RKT Recipes)

A Barney, BJ, and Baby Bop cake for little Evan who turned 1.  Although I find Barney quite annoying, after playing a couple episodes to get an idea of what the dinosaurs looked like and to capture all their little details, my own 3 year old now loves Barney too, and requests to watch it EVERY day...oh well!  He does have very catchy songs that kids love singing along.

Mad Hatter Hat Cake

My niece tuned 9 and wanted, "Eat Me" Petits Fours for her birthday party.  Now, as being an aunty who happens to be into cake decorating, how am I just supposed to just show up with a try of mini cakes when I have been itching to get her hands dirty, and try making the Mad Hatter Hat in CAKE!  So, I surprised her.  Not only did I make the hat, but I also made cake truffles with all the left over cake pieces from carving the hat out.

Tennis Court Cake

I made this for my Father-in-law who plays tennis daily.  Last year I made a tennis racket, this year the tennis court, next year...hmmm, it'll most likely be tennis related.  I've been wanting to make a pair of sneakers but didn't have any time and I had to do a much simpler cake.

Update: I did make him a sneaker cake and the tutorial can be found under, Tennis Shoe Cake.

Super Mario Bros Cake (and Oreo IMBC Recipe)

This was a cake I designed to pull together all the birthday boy's requested characters: Bowser, Mario, Luigi, and Goomba's.  The storyline was laid out around the cake: Bowser chased Mario and Luigi out of Bowser's Castle, and while the brothers ran, they caught super stars and a mega mushroom, as they aimed toward the warp pipe to escape from Bowser.

Hello Kitty & Friend's Cake

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

Music Themed 80th Birthday Cake (and IMBC Recipe)

My Great Uncle was a singer and has sang in choirs his entire life.  So, for his 80th birthday with family, I made him simple, 9" round cake:  White Almond Sour Cream (WASC) filled with fresh strawberries and Strawberry Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC) - Delish! (recipe is below).  The outside was covered in Vanilla/Almond IMBC, hand-piped black Color Flow/ Royal icing and finished off with a red fondant bow.

Mini Clutch Purse Cake-let

I made this for a friend who likes purses.  It's a tiny, individual cake measuring 4" wide x 2" deep x 4" high.  I baked one 6" round cake (2" high), cut it in half down the middle to get two, half circles, stacked the two halves together for a 4" high cake.

Making Fondant Cutouts: Kai-Lan and Friends

There is so much to learn about cake decorating, the different tools and techniques, and from so many wonderful and talented people!  Although I'm still learning myself and have only been decorating a handful of cakes for family and friends, I do enjoy sharing and helping others, so ask, and you shall receive.  One request I get a lot is, how did I make the Kai-Lan characters used on my cakes.  So, here they are, detailed and complete with pictures so you too, can make them.

Dental School Grad Cake (and Pink Lemonade Cake Recipe)

This was very unique and fun cake to make for a friend’s husband graduating from Dental School.  Below is a brief explanation of how we pulled the cake together by baking a doctored cake mix, carving the dentures from the cake, covering it in marshmallow fondant (MMF), and making anatomically correct teeth with fondant.

Rock and Roll Guitar Cake

My little niece asked for a chocolate cake with a pink guitar standing up on it, and this is the design I made her, a 6" cake with matching, hot pink electric guitar-topped cupcakes.  Super girlie, very pink, and very rock and roll.

Polka Dot Mod Monkey Cake

Such a cute and tiny, 4 inch cake and matching cupcakes to match their Mod Monkey party decor!  The cake was vanilla with fresh strawberries and Rich's Vanilla Bettercreme (tastes a lot like the whipped cream Sam's and Costco uses...stable and delicious).

Covering a Cake in Ganache

Love, love, love using Ganache under fondant! It tastes incredibly delicious and it’s so much easier to get nice, straight sides and edges with compared to using buttercream.

1st Communion Cake with Rosary and Chalice

I really love how this cake turned out!  My husband's coworker's 8-year-old daughter wanted me to make her 1st Communion Cake.  A few months prior, I had made her a Minnie Mouse Christmas Birthday Cake and she didn't forget - how sweet is that!

Speed Racer Mach 5 Cake

A couple of years ago, I made a Speedracer Mach 5 Cake for my son, and since I now have a blogging platform to share the process, here are the pictures.

Recipes - Banana Cake and Chocolate Ganache

I absolutely love this banana cake recipe.  It is super moist, very delicious and goes perfect with chocolate ganache…yum yum!  The cake recipe is doctored and uses a white cake box mix as its base.  The chocolate ganache is a 50/50 mix of bittersweet and semisweet chocolate chips.  I've used this recipe to make both the Ferrari Cake and Baby Shower Cake shown.  Here are the recipes...

Wine Bottle In a Crate Cake

And here it is, through multiple requests from you all, the start of a blog to share the lessons I have learned, and to document my failures and successes, through playing with cake and sugar as a new art-medium.  Take note of this date, April 2010, as the start of my very first blog post shared with you... How I made my dad's, Wine Bottle Crate Cake.  Cheers!