Saturday, January 23, 2010

Fancy Nancy


This is an 8-inch, 3 layer chocolate cake frosted in chocolate icing and covered in lime green MMF.  The pink and purple flowers are mmf with silver dragee centers, there are white mmf daisies on the right side.  The pink feathers, light pink plume, feather boa and butterflies were all found at Hobby Lobby and Carolina Pottery.  I attached the feather boa to a glass cake stand using hot glue.  The cake stand helps add height to the cake and dress it up even more.  Hope the birthday girl loves it!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Spiderman

This cake is made from a 10-inch 3 layer chocolate cake and an 8-inch 3 layer vanilla-butter cake.  I carved each tier to be more narrow at the bottom and tilted on top.  The 10-inch is covered in white fondant with black, blue and red stripes.  The 8-inch is covered in black fondant with white buttercream spiderwebs piped on it.  The Spiderman face is hand-cut from red fondant... I drew the webs on the face using a food marker and added fondant eyes.  NOTE:  The black fondant was a nightmare to deal with this time.  I have noticed in the past that black fondant has a different texture than other colors (so does red) and I theorize it has something to do with how much color you have to add to get it black (or red)... after fighting with a batch of my own black fondant, I gave up and searched the web for another recipe... and found one on Cake Central (posted in response to someone having the same problem I was having with reg. black fondant).  I rushed out to walmart to get the items I needed (thanking my lucky stars that walmart is open 24/7!!).  It came together beautifully, thank goodness!  I am adding the recipe for "True Black Marshmallow Fondant" to the bottom of my blog with my other recipes for future reference... and I highly recommend it!

Dump Truck

This was for a little boy's 2nd birthday.  I made this by baking and stacking 3-9x13 inch sheet cakes.  I placed the cake on a single cake board cut exactly to size.  I carved the front into the windshield and hood.  I used part of the carved-off cake to elevate the top of the "dump-bed" of the truck (the elevated part right above the windshield).  I used my cake-icer tip to completely cover the cake in yellow buttercream.  I added the fondant windshield, grill and bumper.  I added borders and details in buttercream, and fondant eyes to the windshield.  The side mirrors are made from fondant with a "V" shaped wire between the front and back parts of each mirror.  I placed drink-stirring straws into the cake to secure the wires (and keep the wires from being directly in the cake.  For the base, and to elevate the truck off the board, I stacked and covered 3 large cake boards, then hot-glued to that a 1-inch tall stack of boards (that was approximately 2 inches smaller in length and width that the cake).  This stack of boards was covered in a black napkin (for lack of anything else black on-hand).   I used black hoping that it would be less noticeable.  I then hot-glued the board with the cake on it to this black-covered board.  Voila... elevated dump truck.  The tires were molded from 2 store-bought Rice Krispie treats, each.  I iced them lightly in buttercream and covered them in black fondant, and added the yellow wheels.  I stuck them onto the cake with just a little bit of buttercream frosting, and added the fondant fenders.  The pencil is hand-sculpted from fondant and was placed on top of the wires for the mirror and glued on to the gray fondant window with water/fondant mixture.  The "dirt" in the dump-bed is crumbled cake.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Mickey and Minnie

Two cakes for a two-year old's birthday party!  I just love these! Both are 8-inch rounds with Mouse ears on top.  The actual ears are made from mmf- I cut 8 circles using a round cookie cutter.... I bent wire into circles, leaving attached about 6-inches of length straight wire.  I placed one circle behind the wire circle and wet it slightly, then placed another circle on top, the water glued them together.  I did this 4 times to make 4 ears and allowed them to dry over night propped up by sticking the wires into a Styrofoam block.  The head part of the mouse ears is cake baked in a sports ball pan, frosted and covered in fondant.  The dots on the Minnie cake and the buttons on the Mickey cake are fondant.

Lion Face

This was made as a smash cake for a first birthday.  The face is carved from a 6-inch round cake, the mane is made from mmf.   It is based on an image from mylar balloon that matches his party theme.  :)