Collaborations Can Be A Blast!

I have talked before about the importance of having cake friends.  It's nice to have someone to complain to and to bounce ideas off of, but sometimes you get to collaborate on really cool projects.

Our friends Kimberly and Andrew of Couture Cakes were asked by country music super-station US 101 to do a cake for the Heartstrings for Hope concert benefiting St. Jude.  On these types of cakes there is SO much to do, and they asked us if we would like to help out.  In return, we would be their guests at the concert.

 

They know of our (OK, Chaddy's) prowess with logos and the cutting machine, so they gave us a list of words and the US 101 logo and we started rolling out modeling chocolate.  I came up with a really cool trick while working on all these millions of letters.  I used strips of parchment paper with some vegetable shortening on it an used that to adhere the paper to the FRONT of the letters.  The spacing is kept in tact.  They were easy to apply to the cake too - just apply a little tylose glue to the back of the letters and place them against the cake.  Hold your hand over the paper and the heat from your hand will release the shortening.  Easy peasy!

We ONLY did the words & logos on this cake...

So here's the cake and it turned out amazingly, don't you think?  Andrew did an absolutely perfect job sculpting each of the artists Which included Randy Houser, Tyler Farr, Kelly Lovelace, Jared Neimann, and Sheryl Crow!  We were also treated to a backstage meet and greet - getting to meet all of those talented artists was almost as much fun as helping out our friends!

Kaben's Fifth Birthday - Iguana Edition

I have to admit that this scaly little monster was my favorite reptile to create for young Kaben's fifth birthday party.  Like the frog before him, he started off with a rice crispy body, which I then covered in modeling chocolate.  He was also based on a toy iguana I bought at the toy store (thank you $1.00 aisle!!).

This little iguana had lots of details, and I made almost all of them out of modeling chocolate.  I made his back "spikes" (that's their real-life name - the fact that I referred to them initially as that was just dumb luck!) out of a thin strip of modeling chocolate that I then used my precision scissors to cut the spikes.  This little guy also had his share of time with the texture mat and the old airbrush gun.

This iguana was sunning himself on a rock, you know, the way iguanas tend to do!  The "rock" is a 2-tier cake which I carved into a jaggy rock shape and then covered in buttercream with a few green mossy bits thrown in for some color.

So what do you think?  Did you guess iguana as the next reptile on the list?  Can you possibly guess which reptile will be slithering your way next week?  Thanks for stopping by - feel free to ask any questions you might have in the comments.

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???

Crawfish Boil Birthday Cake

We had such a fun time making this cake.  My friend Amanda, that owns Divine Designs called me up recently and wanted a birthday cake for her husband James' 40th birthday.  When she mentioned that they had planned a crawfish boil, I immediately had a design in mind.

This is a 2-tier cake, with the entire top tier being an edible cooking pot.  The cake was wrapped in modeling chocolate and then painted with silver luster dust.  The lid and handles were also made from modeling chocolate.  The effect was really nice; people at the party thought it was actually a mini pot!

When we got ready to take our pictures, I was looking for a suitable cake stand, when Chaddy came into the kitchen with one of our big Calphalon pots.  I thought it made for the perfect cake stand to take our pictures on!

Sittin' on a Dock with a Cake

So I have made cakes for young Kaben on several occasions, but when Tara (his Mom) from the Car Barn called and told me that her Dad was turning 70, I knew we would make him an awesome cake too!

One of Kaben and his grandfather's favorite activities together is sitting on the dock of their beach house.  That's a theme I can work with!!

I don't want to go all Jerry Seinfeld here, but what's the deal with molded figures?  I work and work on them, and I'm still never 100% happy with them!  I spent at least 6 hours working on these 2 figures alone.  Like most things, I guess I just need more practice to get better and faster!

For the other bakers out there that do wedding cakes, how do you price "other" cakes (like birthday cakes)?  Including the figures, I spent a good 11 hours on this cake.  The artistic side of me really enjoyed making it, but the business side of me thinks that the same amount of time could have made a (higher-priced) wedding cake.  Do you price differently for wedding / birthday cakes??

Chattanooga Outdoor Camping Groom's Cake

A lot of you are much better at sugar figurines than I am, so when I got this order for a "less cartoony" representation of the bride and groom, I was visiting lots of places on the web and printing out tons of examples.

Our couple here loved the great outdoors and were very specific that the cake include a black bear, a tent, a canoe, and some fallen tree logs.

This was a one of those cakes where I got the hubby involved, and as usual, he came up with some neat (unusual) ways of doing things.  He made the rocks by tearing some hunks off some modeling chocolate that was still hard and had not yet been kneaded smooth.  I was very surprised at how "rock-like" the crumbly modeling chocolate looked.  He also made the hollow logs.  He started with a piece of rolled brown modeling chocolate.  He made some "bark" lines and then flipped it over.  He then took a log of modeling chocolate (think big Tootsie Roll) and then rolled the thin bark piece around it, letting the thin bark hang over the tootsie log and ripped the ends to make it look jagged and natural.  Again, I was impressed by my little hubby.  I guess watching all those cake shows and keeping me company in the kitchen really paid off!!

Have a great week!