....and Fondant Fun

About a week before the gluten free cake was made, my mom had asked me if I might be able to help her with a cake.  My mom taught me a lot of the things I know about cake decorating, so I was excited that she trusted me to help her with something she'd never worked with before.....fondant.   She was making a lady bug cake for her assistant's daughter's 4th birthday.  The bugs would need to be smooth and shiny in order for everything to look perfect.  Mom and her assistant picked out the design they wanted.  We made the fondant, I started cutting out the shapes, and she iced the cake and got it ready.  Here is the final product!

One layer white, one chocolate, with buttercream frosting and fondant decorations.  How cute is this?!

Gluten Free......

Way back in April, an old friend from high school contacted me after seeing a few of my Facebook cake pictures, and asked if I could make a gluten free cake for her anniversary.  It would be her 1st anniversary this year, and they weren't going to be able to eat the original cake topper because she had recently found out that she was allergic to gluten.  Up until last month, I had never made anything gluten free before.  I did some research and looked for recipes before saying yes to this one.  She and I worked together on finding recipes for the cake.  I baked a couple different concoctions and asked my boss to try them, since he is the most selective eater I know, and he loves cake.  She sent me a picture of a cake design she liked, and I went to work!  Here is the outcome of the anniversary cake....

This anniversary cake is a gluten free white cake, with buttercream icing and fondant decor. 

I received one of the highest compliments a person could get on this cake- that it tasted great, especially for being gluten free, and that she would be recommending me in the future :)

  

Baby Shower

Babies, babies, babies!  I know of several lovely ladies who are currently expecting, one of whom I've known since I was 8 or 9.  Megan is my sister's best friend, and a former co-worker of mine.  She helped me get my first job in the legal field.  She has been on vacation with our family, hung out at our house growing up, and is kind of like a 2nd sister to me, and a 3rd daughter to my parents.  My mom had the privilege of making her wedding cake.  My sister was the organizing help of the baby shower, and asked me to do the cake.  It was a Huffman production!  Initially Stef (my sister), was undecided about whether to jsut do a diaper cake, or to make a real cake too.  We decided on both.  Each had a bit of surprise in them.  Pictures and descriptions below!

Here's both "cakes" and my gift.

This diaper cakes is made with just over 100 diapers.  In the middle of the cake, for the "core," is a surprise from after the baby is born.  A bottle of wine is hidden in the midst of all those diapers, an idea I took from http://alphamom.com/family-fun/activities/how-to-make-a-unique-diaper-cake-ha/.  Using the wine in the middle not only makes a nice surprise for mom and dad to be, but it also helps add stability to the "cake".  Brilliant!

For this cake each tier is one layer white and one layer chocolate cake.  To keep with the blue and brown decorative theme, the white cake was colored blue! (Funny side note, Megan got married on St. Patrick's day, and as a surprise for her husband, the cake was tinted green.  I didn't even think about that until my sister said something about it!).  The top tier is iced in chocolate buttercream, the bottom in white buttercream.  The decorations are marshmallow fondant, and the shoes on top are real shoes!

June, the month of AWESOME

It's June, the month of awesome.  Why awesome you ask?  Numerous birthdays, parties, and a wedding later in the month.  And let me tell you this first full week of June has been a doozie!  I had 3 cakes to do this week.  The first was for a friend or my boss's who wanted a cake for a co-worker/friend's birthday.  The second was for my boss who was having a political fundraiser on his birthday.  The third and final cake was for a neighbor friend of my boss's (are you noticing a trend here?).  It made for a very busy week, working during the day and making cakes 3 nights this week, in addition to working at the fundraiser and still attempting to have a bit of a social life.  Fortunately, for the sake of my need for sleep and relaxation on occasion, I think the rest of the month will be quieter.  Unfortunately, that also means that business isnt quote booming just yet!  Here's some pictures!  

This cake was white cake with buttercream frosting.  It was my first time trying brush embroidery and I think it turned out pretty well.  The lady I made it for liked it and let me know that the birthday girl loved it so much she didn't want to share!  

My boss had a fundraiser on his birthday for his political campaign.  He loves chocolate, and there were going to be several people at the fundraiser, so it had to be good!  Gotta market somehow!  His cake was chocolate, with chocolate ganache filling, and a layer of white chocolate ganache with fresh strawberries, covered in chocolate buttercream.  I thought it was pretty tasty if I might say so!

Last but not least, Haydon's birthday cake!  His parents decided on a baseball themed party, and his mom, Becky and I, messaged back and forth several times to make sure we had all the details covered.  I had found a few other baseball cakes that other people have done, and we ended up combining 2 of the ideas.  Haydon's cake is yellow cake with buttercream frosting.  The decorations are buttercream, with crushed graham crackers for the "dirt," and the large baseball is covered with marshmallow fondant.  He also got his very own baseball smash cake!

May Cakes!

Whew May has been a busy month!  I had sinus surgery the first week, and spent about a week and half after that recovering.  Luckily everything went well.  Also, having just moved, there was a lot of organizing to do.  In addition to all that, May had my friend Jordan's bridal shower, a surprise 60th anniversary party for my grandparents, and Memorial Day!  Below are the cakes I made for each!

Jordan's Bridal Shower Cake

Jordan loves daisies and the color green.  For her cake, we did the bottom layer chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling, the top layer was yellow cake.  All was iced in green buttercream!

Grandma and Grandpa's Anniversary cake

I had some help on this one from my mom.  She came up with the design and was nice enough to bake the cakes, and create the basket handle.  This cake is one layer white cake, one layer chocolate, with buttercream frosting.  My Grandma loves lilacs, so we had to put a few of those on the cake for her!  We didn't know this when we made it, but Grandma said later that this was the first "wedding cake" they ever had for the 2 of them.  So glad we could throw them a surprise party!

For Memorial Day weekend, I had my parents over for a cookout.  I wanted to make a simple, but fun and summery dessert.  This cake is white cake, with blackberry and raspberry filling, and a white chocolate frosting.  I kind of made it up as I went, but was very happy with the outcome!

Jack's 1st Birthday

O how time flies....this time last year, I was moving into my new apartment, back in Indy after being in Bloomington for 7 years.  And, one year ago today, little Jack was born.  Jack is my boss's son, he and his wife's first child.  After seeing some of the other cakes I had done, Heather (Jack's mom) asked me about doing his first birthday cake.  Of course I said yes, and the theme....Monkeys!  Monkeys have been a bit of a theme for the first year of Jack's life, so it only seemed appropriate to have a monkey theme for his first birthday.

I started looking online to try and get some ideas, and the main ideas I saw just sort of fell short.  Most of what Heather and I found was based on one flat, character type pan, which was cute, but I knew I could do better.  Thanks to a little help from the Wilton forums, and a little creativity, we came up with a plan.  Here's the pics!

 To make the monkey, I used the Wilton stand up bear pan.  I moved the ears down a bit,  and added a cereal treat arm and banana which was covered in melting chocolate to give it a shine.  The face, feet, and belly were fondant.  

 Every baby needs a smash cake for their first birthday, so I used the mini bear pan and added fondant arms and legs to make him look a little more monkey like.  Moved his ears down too!

 Set-up at the party

 Happy Birthday Jack!

Angela's Baby Shower

Angela wanted her baby shower cake to not be too overly "baby" so we used some brighter colors, and kept the design playful, and added some edible glitter to make it sparkle a little.  It doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but in January I made little Layla's first birthday cake!  Pics to come soon of that one!

White cake, with white buttercream icing and marshmallow fondant decorations. 

Mom's 50th

This is a cake I made in 2009 for my mom's 50th birthday.  We went to Hawaii in August that year, and I think all of us were enamored with the beauty of everything there, especially the vegetation.  We planned a surprise 50th birthday party for mom, and decided to go with a tropical theme since her birthday is on New Year's Eve when it's usually colder than heck out.  It was a chocolate cake with buttercream icing, colored piping gel for the waterfall, graham cracker crumbs for the sand, and lots of orchids and palm-like vegetation.

Chris and Hannah's Wedding

In early February, my long time friend Chris called me somewhat out of the blue.  I didn't think anything of it at first, because we frequently just randomly call each other to check in and catch up.  After a few minutes of getting the skinny on recent happenings, he said " the reason I'm really calling is to see if you might be interested in making Hannah and my wedding cake."  I was a bit surprised at first.  Sure I worked in a bakery for years, and made several wedding cakes while there, but this was different.  This wasn't a template based cake that the customer just gets to pick a design and the colors, that gets made production style and sent off to a destination that I would never see, for people I have maybe met long enough to consult with to get the essential details.  This was one of my best friends, that I have known since we were about 6.  This would be for a wedding that I would be attending, 2 hours away, responsible for getting the cake there in one piece and making it exactly what they want.  I was very flattered that they asked me, and asked him to send me sort of what they were looking for before I committed to doing it.  After several emails, texts, and phone conversations, a plan was in place.  The design was simple and elegant.  After many hours of planning, baking and decorating, the cake was completed, transported, and set up.  The only thing left to do was wait to see if they liked it.  After the beautiful wedding, we headed to the reception hall, and anxiously awaited the arrival of the bride and groom.  Because I was sitting towards the back of the reception hall, I was one of the last through the receiving line.  Before I even got up to Chris and Hannah, Hannah saw me, rushed over with a huge smile on her face, gave me a big hug and said she loved the cake, it was exactly what she wanted.  I made it up to where both were standing, and got a big hug from Chris as well.  I was so happy they liked their cake, because again, this was my first wedding cake for a friend.  Below are some pictures!  

The Happy Couple

The Main Cake

The Full Set-up

A view from the top

The main cake was carrot with cream cheese filling.  The others were chocolate and white.  All had 3 10" layers, and were frosted with white buttercream, and decorated with black buttercream, ribbon, and artificial roses.