Cutie Vampire Halloween Cake

I have mentioned many times before on this blog that I sometimes get my cake inspiration from the strangest of places.   When I saw this vampire kitchen timer on Pinterest a while back, I thought he was so cute that I knew I would use him as cake inspiration one day.

Fast forward a few months and I get a call from my friend Amanda.  Her daughter birthday was coming up, and she wanted a scary Halloween cake, even though her birthday was in early spring.  But I still remembered my cute little vampire time and I recreated him in modeling as best I could using chocolate.  He needed a few pumpkins and some black ribbon roses to complete his look.

For the scary mouths on the bottom tier, I started by molding crazy mouths to get a good size approximation.  Then I scooped out a little cake and put in a little red fondant.  Then I just out the lips over the hole I had made and inserted fangs, tongues, blood, etc.  It looked very cool once I was finished.

And I have held on to this little vamp's photo since then, knowing that it would be the star of my Halloween post!  So, what are you doing for Halloween?  Dressing up?  Handing out treats?  Or tricks???

New Life to Old Dummy Cakes

The life of a cake decorator is all about learning.  Learning new skills, new techniques, new ways to overcome obstacles.  At some point, every cake decorator will learn that purple fondant is horrible about fading.  And they'll also learn that decorating dummy cakes can sometimes be harder than decorating a real cake.

Take this cake for example.  I made it some time ago and initially it was the most beautiful shade of lavender.  But only a few months later it had faded to almost white, with just the faintest hint of purple.

Dummy cakes use styrofoam and can be costly, so you really want to get the most mileage out of them as you possibly can.  I wasn't quite ready to trash this cute little cake, so I used petal dusts in several shades of purple to give it what I thought was a nice watercolor effect.

I took it to a small bridal show soon after its renovation and one future bride just had a fit over it.  She called out to her future husband and said "Hey honey, come here and look at this awesome tie-dyed wedding cake!"  Hey, who am I to argue? 

Rustic Burlap Cake

As a cake decorator, every client you meet will have a budget.  Big budgets can easy and fun to work with, but that doesn't mean that limited budgets can't be fun too.  A client with a limited budget can still get an elegant, gorgeous cake, but it might require just a little but of resourcefulness on your part.

Take this cake for example.  This cake is so pretty, and so elegant, and it's available to my clients a my base price, which is $3.75 a serving.

This buttercream beauty is anything but plain, and the burlap ribbon and flowers give it that rustic feel that's all the rage these days.

Buzzy Bee Birthday Cake

It's been a while since I have done a birthday cake, but when I got a call from a previous client recently with a request for her daughter's 1st birthday I just couldn't say no.  I based my design on a napkin the client provided me.

I know that most people don't like fondant (especially one-year olds) so I did most of the cake in buttercream using only fondant for the beehive and the cake's accents.

I really enjoyed making the bees the most.  I used stamens for their little antennae and used my wafer paper again to make their little wings.  I just thought they were SO cute!

Woodgrain Buttercream Wedding

One of the most often heard comments I get during bridal consultations is "I don't want fondant."  The problem is that most of the inspiration photos they bring me are fondant.  There's the odd occasion where I have to tell them no, but more often than not I can come up with some way of replicating the design in buttercream.

When I met with this couple they brought an inspiration cake that was buttercream with lots of lines in it.  It was supposed to be wood grain, but I didn't think it was woodgrain enough.  I discussed it with the couple and we decided to make it wavier, with some knotholes so that no one would wonder.  It was a design I had only done in fondant before.

Here's a closeup of the final effect.  Pretty convincing, huh?  I started with my standard buttercream recipe.  Once it was nice and chilled, I started by cutting in my knotholes with a small sharp knife.  Once they were finished, then I started cutting in the lines around the knot holes first and then moved outward.  Nothing fancy, just happy little lines.

In these photos, I used some silk flowers I keep around the bakery, but the cake received fresh flowers when we delivered it to the venue, which was DeBarge Vineyards.  It was a lovely venue and this rustic wedding cake fit in well sitting on a wine barrel with the vineyards in the background.