Happy Halloween, Happy Birthday!

Monday, November 1, 2010 by admin

A dear friend of mind has a Halloween birthday!

I made this cake as a birthday gift for a dear friend of mine, Pat. I know other people who have birthdays near or on holidays and I know how it can often feel as though the importance of your birthday falls behind the holiday. I wanted her to see how important she was and do something special for her just for her birthday. She told me she would LOVE a Halloween birthday cake! (more…)


Are You Read for Some Football?

Sunday, October 24, 2010 by admin

This cake was made for my cousin Jen. Her birthday was a bittersweet occasion due to some recent family losses. I wanted to give her my love and support by creating a cake I knew she would love and being a football fan & hard working football mom, I knew this was it!

This cake was delicious strawberry with a lovely cream cheese frosting I made from scratch. Fondant was made from my usual marshmallow fondant recipe. I added some texture to the football itself to give it a more real look and feel. Borders and football details were hand piped in the cream cheese & a chocolate frosting.

This cake was made in loving memory of my dear aunt Janice Tuomala. I feel blessed to be able to walk in her footsteps with my cake creating skills.


Finding Nemo

Sunday, September 19, 2010 by admin

This year for my son Evan's 3rd birthday we decided on a "Finding Nemo" theme. We had a joint birthday party for him and his cousin Susie who was also turning 3.

This cake was quite an accomplishment! This time around I did EVERYTHING from scratch! I baked my first yellow cake from scratch. I would like to add that I found bake much better for decorating. The cakes came out nice and even without any extra effort on my part! I also created my own decorating frosting. I made a lovely white vanilla frosting. I found this frosting a bit harder to work with as it is not as silky as it's store bought counterpart. On the plus side the frosting was extremely fluffy and delicious! The cakes themselves were much less sweet than store bought cake but created a nice harmonious balance with the super sweet frosting once decorated.

All decorative accents were created with my own handmade marshmallow fondant. I even created the "Nemo" fish on top (and on the cupcakes) by hand and piped the eyes and stripes. I created two small fish for two of the cupcakes for the guests of honor. I also added brown sugar to create a sandy feel to the bottom of the cake and as a spot for nemo to sit. All in all I have to say that this is quite possibly my best cake thus far.


iCarly Birthday Party

Friday, September 17, 2010 by admin

Ashley Rose had an iCarly birthday party this year!!

I knew I was going to have quite a crowd on my hands so I decided on 2 dozed cupcakes in addition the the cake.

I covered the cake with my handmade marshmallow fondant. I also used the fondant to create the logo background & decorative flowers. Everything else was hand piped in buttercream frosting. All cupcakes were hand piped. Each color had a different tip to add texture to the simple floral design.


Ashley Rose’s 7th Birthday

Wednesday, September 8, 2010 by admin

Today my daughter Ashley turns 7!

I made these cupcakes for her classroom celebration. I am extremely pleased with how they turned out considering the fact that I made them at 12:30 am!

I hand piped all decorations on these cupcakes. I also added a bit of pink sprinkles to the pedals of each flower to add a little something to them. I hope you all enjoy!


Legos & Dinosaurs

Thursday, July 22, 2010 by admin

This birthday cake was made for my little brother Andy's 11th birthday. There is nothing he loves more than dinosaurs and legos.

This originally started out as just a lego birthday cake. I iced the cake with blue buttercream frosting, then started to construct lego pieces out of handmade marshmallow fondant. Once I constructed the little legos, I made small balls of fondant to circle the bottom of the cake to finish of the decorations.

When I was shopping for my brother's birthday gift, I came upon these tiny dinosaur figurines. I decided to get a couple to just add a bit more to his cake. It turned out to be great because he LOVED it! I was very pleased with the multicolor aspect of this cake. I felt it was really appealing to the eyes.

I also also very proud of myself since I had managed to construct it in merely 3 hours, which is amazingly fast (especially for me). Because of my time constraint, this cake is definitely not my best work thus far, but I am still very happy with the final product. It definitely pleased the client.


Mermaid

Thursday, July 1, 2010 by admin

This was Cadie's 6th birthday cake. She decided on a mermaid theme since she was having a swim party. I decided to use fondant again, but this time after doing my research decided on using a different recipe. I have had disappointing experience with the taste of the fondant I had used. The already made fondant tasted the worst and the home made fondant I used for my previous cupcakes tasted much better, but it was still not GOOD.

I had learned that using marshmallow fondant was much more of a success as far as taste and worked as well as regular fondant. I decided to go for it. It was great! I covered the entire cake with blue marshmallow fondant, hand piped the edges of the cake, even creating a wave design on the bottom. I sculpted the mermaid on the rock and the mermaid jumping into the water by hand and hand piped her long brown hair.

The water texture on the top of the cake was created by using blue gel icing. I really enjoyed making this cake and didn't even feel it was extremely difficult. I did learn, though, that making your own gel icing is not the best idea. I think I'll be store buying next time. It was a MESS!


Baby Bug Cupcakes

Thursday, July 1, 2010 by admin

I made these cupcakes for the 1st birthday of my nephew Emerson.

My sister in law said that because of his nickname "bug" she wanted some little bug cupcakes. I hand piped the green buttercream frosting as the "grass" on the cupcakes in which the little bugs are standing.

This project was very much a last minute creation. I had only known the day before the party. Fortunately, this gave me the opportunity to create my own fondant from scratch since there is no store to purchase cake decorating supplies in Fort Bragg. I was happy with how they turned out.

Of course, I did learn some from this project. The recipe I used was a little bit soft for my taste. It also gave me the opportunity to do some more research and find exactly how I would like to make my own fondant. Everything on these cupcakes were hand created.


Mickey Mouse

Thursday, July 1, 2010 by admin

This cake was for my son Evan's 2nd birthday.

He really loved Mickey Mouse and so I decided to give it my best shot creating a cake of Mickey Mouse's face. This cake was a bit of a challenge. It is made of some buttercream frosting and some fondant. The only fondant I used was to create the head/ears and I hand piped the facial features.

I find it particularly difficult to add dimension to a character's face. I had this same issue when creating the Tweety Bird cake. The ears were purely for decoration made entirely of fondant. I suppose you could eat them, but you'd probably make yourself sick.


High School Musical

Thursday, July 1, 2010 by admin

This year, for Ashley's 6th birthday, she begged and pleaded for me to let her have a high school musical party.

After making the cupcakes with the gum paste wings, I decided to go ahead and try using fondant. Again, I bought the fondant already made by Wilton cake collection. I dyed it red and found that it actually was not that difficult to work with. I would say the hardest part of fondant is how much kneading it requires.

I made 3 adorable starts attached to 3 thin wooden dowels and purchased 3 star candles. I cut out the letters to spell "High School Musical" and decorated with edible sparkles & piping. I then added two small pictures of the lead characters to finish it off. I was amazed at how wonderful it turned out. Fondant was a success!