3-d elephant

This turned out so cute, but it was a big challenge!  It is made using the 3-d Cuddly Bear pan by Wilton.. cutting off the bear ears and added cardboard elephant ears and an icing trunk.  It is not an easy pan to bake or decorate, but the results are so cute!

NOTE:  if you use the 3-d bear pan, the directions call for 6 cups of batter in the bear and 2/3 cups batter in the heating core.... it actually took about 8 cups of batter in the bear, 2/3 in the core, otherwise it would not have filled up while baking ( I imagine this will vary depending on your recipe)...it should bake over and leak out a little during baking to ensure that it fills out completely.  Also... all you should have to do to ensure a firm cake for this pan is reduce the amount of oil you use by 1/2... this worked great for me, and I didn't have to use a different recipe at all.  Follow all the included directions for assembling the pan and cooling the cake, though... otherwise the cake will fall apart.

New Moon Cake

I really enjoyed making this one!!  I am another Twilight fan, afterall!  This is an 8-inch round in vanilla butter, frosted in buttercream then covered in black fondant.  I added a red fondant ribbon around the bottom (there is a red bow at the back... not pictured... to hide the seam where the ribbon meets).  The orchid on top is made to look like the one on  the New Moon book cover.  I made it by first shaping a little white fondant to add dimension to the petals (like a rough flower-shaped blob, lol)... I then rolled and cut out the petals individually and gave shape to the edges using a spherical measuring spoon (pressing down along the edges to thin and shape the petal).  I added veins using a veining tool and painted the red on using a mixture of about 1/4 teaspoon vodka and 1/4 teaspoon red-red icing color (the vodka thins it just enough for painting with brush).  "And so the lion fell in love with the lamb..." is on top, "new moon" is on the front of the cake.  I hope the girls love it!

Big Ladybug Cake

I love all the girlie colors and the lime green paired with the pink on this cake!  This is a 14-inch round topped with a 10-inch round and a ladybug carved from 2 6-inch rounds.  They are frosted in buttercream with fondant dots and accents.

I get so many emails about this cake, that I have added a couple more photos of the ladybug portion that were taken from different angles. 

Halloween-Birthday Cake!

This was so fun to make.  I love the ghost on top!  It is an 8-inch round and a 6-inch round, both carved down slightly on the sides and tilted on top into a topsy turvy style cake.  It is covered in MMF.  The ghost on top is cake covered in white chocolate (to prevent it from collapsing under the weight of the fondant) then draped in 2 layers of MMF--the eyes and mouth are fondant.  The little ghosts visible on the right side of the picture are simply large marshmallows with a drop of white chocolate on top, then draped in MMF.  I used a food marker to draw on their eyes and mouths.