McCallie Graduation Cake

Well, it's that time again... summer is just around the corner and millions of high school students across the US are closing one huge chapter in their lives and starting a new one.  Yes, it's graduation time!

This graduation celebration cake was made for a young man who went to The McCallie School in Chattanooga.  He was very into football and baseball and will begin his new chapter in life at Auburn University in the fall.

The bottom tier was all about his high school experience, his school's logo along with their team logo.  The sports memorabilia sits around and atop the first tier, as the great memories he'll carry into college.  The top tier contains the Auburn paw prints along with their battle cry "War Eagle!"  On top of the cake we made an Auburn University topper from modeling chocolate.  The graduate's favorite treat, peanut butter cups, adorn the entire cake.

The footballs, were made using chocolate molds, and I made the baseballs using a cakepop (cake and icing) mixture.  It was pretty firm and I thought it held its shape reasonably well, although after sitting for a while I got a little droopage.  The Tornado logo was printed on edible image, and that was really just because it didn't lend itself well to any other method.  All the other logos and text were cut from modeling chocolate using the cutting machine.

Equestrian Bat Mitzvah Cake

We've been lucky to make some fun Bat-Mitzvah cakes lately!  They are way more fun than birthday cakes because they are MORE!  They are bigger, sparkly and more sophisticated than most birthday cakes.  Our birthday girl is a fantastic equestrian and took her favorite theme into her party.  I wish we had picture of the fantastic barn they decorated and used for the party.  It made me want to be the birthday girl!
  
It's hard to tell but each tier is an oval shaped tier. We did not taper the tiers inward but we did angle the tops of each.  The cake was buttercream with modeling chocolate cut outs.  We found the silhouettes off a background website and Chad converted them to use in the Cricut.  We printed out a couple of pages of edible images for the pennant flags.  The riding hat on top was hard only because I had to come up with something to go under it so that it wouldn't sit flat.  That was a customer request.  The pink, coral,blue and navy was very pretty in the barn and the cake looked great there.  Looking at it now, I would liked to have had more color on the cake as a whole, but I don't take liberties with the conditions of the contract. I know it's not always ideal, but I would hate to add stress to a family the day before an event.

That's when it's

great to have longtime customers that can trust you enough to change the design when needed. The blue ribbon, hat and riding crap were all made from fondant with a little tylose to firm things up.  I hope you can draw some inspiration from our little cake!

Book Collection Groom's Cake

 

Can you believe we've done five book themed wedding or groom's cakes?  Who knew it was such a big thing?  The sweet little couple that wanted this cake knew exactly what they wanted, titles and colors.  All I had to do was make the cake.  The groom wanted raised letters, so no edible images. We cut these out of modeling chocolate.  We used all modeling chocolate in fact. Not only does it taste better, it cuts so nice and clean with no stretching.  Great for sharp edges!  We have a line cutter that we use to mark the "pages".  You kind of go back and forth and all over with it, but it scratches up the surface to look like lots of pages. Way easier than a knife!  You can find it online here.   It was a pretty large and HEAVY cake! I hope the couple loved it!

A Groom's Cake Collection

What happens when a bride can't decide on ONE main thing for her Groom's special cake?  This cake happens!  We had two meetings, the second one solely to nail down only what HAD TO BE included on the groom's cake.  The only item we "lost" was changing a Lakers jersey to just using logos on the sides of the stage like cake.  Here is the list of items we had to include:

Accurate pair of Air Jordon tennis shoes in black, red or white

Air Jordon box for the shoes

Beats Audio head phones in black, red or white

Panda Express box with orange chicken

Panda Express box with Lo Mein

Pokémon ball

Lakers team name and the number 24

Guatemalan flag

Blue power ranger helmet

If you are a cake decorator, take a minute and figure out how many hours it would take you to decorate this cake from crumb coated cake to finished project.  I find it's easier to figure each element and then add it all up.  I'll tell you how long it took me at the end of the post.

Due to all of these items,  I was very worried that it was going to look terrible and like a big pile of stuff.  Luckily I was able to coordinate the colors so that helped the cohesion.  I originally planned on a 12 x 18" cake, but a 16" square base cake just looked better.  It was also supposed to be buttercream, but I added the fondant over it since everything else was covered.  We used modeling chocolate on the box because it just makes a sharper looking box.  The take out boxes and head phones were rice krispies treats.  The shoes were white chocolate pound cake.  The shoe box was pumpkin spice and 16" square  was chocolate (I think...it's been a few weeks).  She had a bit of trouble deciding on one flavor too :) 

We have talked about the takeout boxes and shoes in our previous two blog posts.  There isn't much exciting to say about the rest, I guess it's more about how it all plays together and how long it took to complete.  I've said before that I charge by the serving and then charge by the hour for extra artwork and supplies.  We aren't new or particularly slow at our job.  I am better at charging the right amount of artwork for a cake, but not this time.  We spent 44 hours decorating this cake.  I was tired for a week and mad at myself for bad planning for at least as long.  It is the nature of the beast and we have to learn more and do better with our skills in cake decorating and business.

Another Bottle Cap Groom's Cake

I've blogged about bottlecap cakes on several different occasions.  They are a great option for clients that enjoy their brewskies (or any drink for that matter!)  The great part is that they're relatively easy to make and they're budget friendly.

The funny thing about these bottle cap cakes is that once the groom hears that I offer a chocolate cake with Guinness stout beer they are sold.  There's just something about a cake with beer in it that reaches out and grabs men by their tastebuds!  If you haven't tried the chocolate stout cake yet, you can get the recipe at King Arthur Flour's website.

This cake offered us a mildly different challenge.  Normally we just cut out the pieces we need.  This logo was more of a negative image; it took up all the space and the pieces we cut out were the pieces that got thrown away.  And the graphic is based on a 16-inch round, and our cutter will only cut a 12 x 24 inch graphic.  So we had to make a common cut and cut the logo in two separate pieces.  It really helped to have the graphic printed out full size when pulling out the "unwanted" pieces.

Thanks for stopping by and have an awesome week!

Bottlecap Groom's Cake

We made a repeat cake last week, so there isn't a ton to say about the design.  We did so a little better job on carving the sides by making the indentations a little closer together.  I also chose not to airbrush the sides because I didn't think it needed it.  It is so much easier making a cake design for the second time!

The "big" story on this cake is the flavors!  It was an "Irish Car Bomb" cake.  The chocolate cake is made with lots of Guinness stout.  The filling was chocolate ganache flavored with Jameson whiskey.  The buttercream was flavored with Baileys Irish Cream.  Yum!  It takes a lot of these alcohols, so if you sell cakes, you should know that it is an "expensive ingredient cake".

I'm sharing the recipe I used for this cake as well as for all the cakes I carve (that need to be chocolate).   The cake tastes like a brownie and cake got married and had a yummy little baby!   I can't throw away the scraps that I carve out because it's so yummy!  We found the recipe in a King Arthur Flour catalog.  They have such awesome ingredients, gadgets and even mixes.  I've tried so many of their recipes and they always seem to be great!   I hope you try the recipe and love it like we do!

Try the recipe here:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/chocolate-stout-cake-recipe

Gotcha! Groom's Cake

I have said it before, and I'll say it again, I really love it when a client gives me some artistic leeway with a cake.  This couple really liked this topper and the term "Gotcha!"  It reflected their playful personalities.  We kept the design simple, which is what they wanted.  We just cut the letters using the Cricut Cake.

I have talked about how much we use our Cricut Cake because we have a program (no longer available) that allows us to cut any image or font we want.  I have been very worried lately as to what I would ever do if/when my Cricut Cakes decides to die.  As luck would have it, Cake Central user JackiSto mentioned in a thread that she is using a Cricut Explore with Cricut's new design software to do the same thing.  It was a great relief that I now have an option if something were to ever happen to my precious Cricut Cake.

ITEMS USED:
Wilton's "Now I Have You" Cake Topper

FULL DISCLOSURE:  As a member of the Amazon Affiliate program, I receive a small commission if you buy a product from the links on my blog.  I actually own the products I recommend and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

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!

The Caped Crusader vs The Evil Cake Genius

Most of us have heard of Robin Martin and the amazing cakes she makes at Gateaux... But have you seen some of the awesome cake toys she offers over at Evil Cake Genius?

They make some of the most awesome stencils I have ever seen!  They are a little expensive, but they are really nice!  Some are standard stencils, but some are printed on a ribbon type material and works a lot like a silk screen.  I haven't tried the silk screen types yet, but I used the Skyscraper Windows stencil to make this birthday cake for a huge fan of the Caped Crusader.

Everything else on this cake is either buttercream or modeling chocolate.  Speaking of modeling chocolate, you guys know that I love the stuff, but lately I have been having some pretty fierce condensation issues with my modeling chocolate.  Anybody else experience this?  If so, let's talk through it in the comments! 

Lions Football Grooms Cake

Football field cakes can be a great way to showcase a groom's interests and it's much more economical than a sculpted football helmet or stadium cake.  For this cake we used a combination of edible images and Cricut cut-outs as the main decorations.  The cake stand was awesome, and was made by the grooom's mother if I remember correctly.  We delivered this groom's cake to Trevitt Hall in Dalton, GA.

But I just fell in love with these chocolate covered strawberry "footballs".  I have seen them before, but this was my first time making them.

They are your basic chocolate-dipped strawberries, but with a twist (or a spiral!).  Once the chocolate firmed up, I used royal icing to pipe the lines and the laces on the "footballs".  I think you will agree that it is a pretty convincing effect!  And the word from the wedding party was that they were very delicious!

Any of you have any other ingenious disguises for chocolate covered strawberries?

Wrigley Field Marquee Cake

I made this cake recently for our good friend John.  He is the host of our weekly trivia tournament, and an all-around super great guy. When we found out his birthday was coming up, one of the guys on another trivia team told us what a big fan John was of the Chicago Cubs.  Paul was the one that suggested the Wrigley Field marquee.  Chaddy and I aren't sports people at all, but once I saw the marquee, I knew we could knock it out of the park!  That's a sports saying, right?!? :-)

Chaddy went to work on the graphics, and determined really quickly that it would fit just right on a 12x18 cake.  He then cut the letters out with the Cricut, found a font and printed out the "LCD panel", and printed out a life-sized template.  I used the template to carve the top of the marquee, and to place the letters on the cake.  I extruded a small square rope for the edges of the marquee.  I made small pin holes in my template to help me place the letters and the lines.

After that, I thought the cake still needed a little something, so I put a small Cubs ribbon as a cake border (also an edible image).

And for the record, John was really stoked about his cake!

Stag Head Woodland Wedding

Click to Enlarge

I made this dummy cake recently for a bridal show.  My goal was to make a very elegant cake, but I also wanted to give it a really rustic feel, since those seem to be all the rage these days.

My inspiration for this cake was a necklace a friend got a while back on Etsy.  I borrowed it from her and Chaddy used it to make a cut file for the Cricut.  From there I took the 2 half height tiers and used an impression mat to give them a good wood graining.  I know it's hard to tell from the photo, but if you click on it to enlarge it, you should be able to see it better.

For the borders, I used some leftover rhinestones for a punch of bling on the wood grained tiers and I used a twig mold on the plain tiers.  When I was finished I really liked the monochromatic look.  The cake got a lot of response when it debuted at the Chattanoogan's Wedding Showcase.

Have your signed up for our Craftsy giveaway yet?  This is the last week to register to win Mike McCarey's Advanced Sculpting Class; don't miss out on your chance for free cake training!!  Click here to see the post!!

Super Bowl Cake Strategies

So most of my regular readers know I'm not here to talk about the Super Bowl, but since football has been all over the news lately so I thought it was worth discussing.  Lots of grooms are into football, and as much as I like making sculpted helmets, a lot of times our clients are looking for something more economical.  A football field cake can show the groom's love of his team while not breaking the bank.  Here are some tips I have learned through trial and error that I thought I would pass along.

It's pretty easy to figure out that you can print team logos using edible images or even using cricut cut outs, but getting the field just right can be a difficult task.  I have struggled with the field lines and in the end I have found that using small strips of edible paper.  They lay very flat and stick well to the fondant underneath.  The yard markers can be hard to get just right.  In this case, the cake was large enough that I was able to use my small number cutters and they looked good.  If this cake was any smaller though, the letters would have been too large.  What to do then?

Well, it was a problem SO many times that I finally found myself a high quality image of a field with all the lines and numbers.  That's what I used to make the cake above.  If I'm not mistaken, I had to use 2 pages and piece them together, but it makes for a good look.  With minimal skills on the computer, you should be able to print this to match whatever size cake your making.

And since this isn't the Super Bowl and we can all be winners here I wanted to provide all my friends here with my football field image to use however you see fit.  You can download the image here.

Hope you guys have a great week!

Thanksgiving Football Cake

This week is Thanksgiving week, so I thought this would be the perfect cake to showcase as many of our family members will be watching football as they fall in and out of turkey-induced slumber.

But it's also a time for self-reflection, and a time to give thanks.  I have so many things to be thankful for - I am thankful that my small business has thrived in a struggling economy.  I am thankful for the skills I have learned and the people that have supported me and my business.

When I first started, there wasn't a lot of information out there.  I bought every cookbook I could find, but there were still specific questions I had.  As far as I know, there was no CakesDecor or CakeCentral to fall back on.  Out of desperation I e-mailed a few specific questions to some well-known decorators.  Some I never heard from, but I was surprised that several answered me back with an answer.  I always responded back with a gracious "Thank You" and never pushed my luck.  I also vowed that I would "pay it forward" when my skills were more developed.

Nowadays I must get a couple of e-mails a day from aspiring decorators asking me questions, and sometimes I have to remind myself of my vow. Most people ask very pointed, specific questions and I try to answer than as quickly as possible.  Some people though ask questions like "I have never baked a cake in my life and I want to make a 4-foot tall sculpted animatronic dancing armadillo cake.  Can you please send me recipes and a step-by-step walkthrough with diagrams?"  OK, so that scenario is a little inflated, but you get the idea.  I'm never exactly sure how to answer these types of emails, and honestly more times than not, I just ignore them.

So please remember this next time you e-mail someone with a question, and they can continue to be thankful to share their information.  And don't forget to thank them if you get a response!

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!  Spend some time with people you love!!

Smokeless Tobacco Groom's Cake

THIS CAKE AND POST HAVE BEEN REMOVED BY REQUEST

Grandview Wedge Wedding & Oklahoma Sooners Groom's Cake

A couple of weekends ago I delivered these cakes to The Grandview on Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga.

I think this wonky wedding cake thing must be a trend and this has been my second in a month or so.  I do like the look and the challenge of getting it just right.  This time I used small styrofoam wedges to raise the tiers into the proper position.  You just have to make sure that you make the wedges small enough to allow for the placement of the roses (which were provided by the florist). 

The rest of the cake went together rather easily; some buttercream quilting, fondant stripes and ribbon, and some initials cut out using the Cricut finished it up.

When I was setting up the cake, one of the family matriarchs commented that she didn't think it was a real cake, just stacked boxes, which I really considered a compliment! :)

This was the groom's cake that accompanied the bridal cake.  The helmet was provided by the groom's family.  We cut out the Oklahoma State logo using the Cricut and also also printed out some smaller ones for the chocolate-dipped strawberries.  The edible image sheets blend in very nicely with the white chocolate we used to dip them in.

One thing worth noting, if you place one of these mini helmets on a buttercream cake, you should consider placing a couple of supports under the helmet.  I always place the helmet on the cake, and then remove it, noting the small indentations it leaves.  I'll then put a straw at each indentation to help support it.

As always, thanks for visiting, and pop back in next week to see what we've been up to!

Montana Cowgirl Cake + Mini Tutorial

A few weeks ago I was lying in bed trying to get sleepy while looking through Pinterest when I saw the cutest Cowgirl Cake by Ana Beatriz Carrard.  I repinned it immediately tn my "Cake Inspiration" board, even though I don't do very many birthday cakes these days.  Wouldn't you know, the VERY next day, I got a call from a former client looking for a cowgirl cake.  I sent her a link to Ana's cake.

Of course, she loved it, so we took several elements from it and created our own cake.  The bandana tier went together much easier than I thought.  I covered the tier with fondant like I normally would and just left a little excess fondant for the folds.  The knot I made separate and just tacked it on to the front.  I made the belt buckle out of modeling chocolate and cut the the birthday girls' name using the Cricut. I searched the web over for a how-to on a fondant cowboy hat, but never found a good one.  In the end it as pretty easy.  I rolled out a gumpaste circle and then just gave it another roll with my rolling pin to "oval" it a little.  For the hat, I sorta made a wide taco shaped piece and molded it from there.  The rhinestone "hatband" ad the crystal heart were pieces left from past projects.  Yes, I have a flotsam bin... don't judge!! ;-)

The horse head is what I really dreaded making.  I'm just not someone that can draw a horse, or even horsey features on a horse-shaped cut out.  But Chaddy and I did something pretty awesome to get the look on those horses.  If you want to find out how, click the link below to finish reading and see the full tutorial!

Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity Cake

When I met with this couple, the groom was quite certain that he wanted his fraternity featured on his groom's cake.  He showed me a picture of this fraternity pin, and my mind started churning.  Chaddy started the process by finding a graphic and blowing it up to my particular proportions.  I used that to carve out the heart shape from a square cake.  We cut the letters and the insignia using the Cricut.  I had Chaddy roll the modeling chocolate super thin because I didn't want them to stick up too much from the black.

Original Inspiration pin

The surrounding pearls are very import to the fraternity.  There must be 20 pearls surrounding the heart and my Googling skills inform me that it represents the 12 founding members of the fraternity as well as the first 8 pledges.  I carved an indention around the cake before I covered it with fondant.  This gave the gigantic pearls a nice resting place and kept them where I wanted them.  I used a cookie dough scoop to scoop out Fonderific so that each pearl would be the same size. I rolled them out and gave them a good dusting of super pearl with the airbrush.

I decided to expand the pearl motif and cover the cake board with dragees.  It gave it a nice, finished look.

I hope you had a safe and fun Halloween and I hope you have a great week!!

UPDATE: As the fates would have it, I just found out that Sigma Phi Epsilon was founded 110 years ago TODAY!  Happy Birthday guys!!  You don't look a day over 80!! ;-)

Ultimate Fighting Grooms Cake

I make a lot of cakes, and almost every weekend I take my iPad and show my in-laws pictures of the cakes I have made during the past week.  Most of time, my father-in-law looks over them and says "Those are some pretty cakes".  He's the fisherman/hunter type and certainly not into baking, so I don't expect a lot of "oohs" and "ahhs" from him.  But when he saw this cake, he immediately perked up and said "Wow, now that's an awesome cake!  What did you charge for that, $1000?"

Unfortunately, I charged a lot less for it, but I definitely appreciated the sentiment.

Of course, this cake was for a groom and his favorite thing was Ultimate Fighting.  While it was no UFC fight, this cake presented a few challenges.

I started with a square cake and used a paper template to cut it into an octagon.  The cake was covered in blue fondant and then modeling chocolate panels around the sides made things nice and clean.  Chad broke out the Cricut and cut some UFC logos.  But what about the posts.  We sat down and did some brainstorming on that little bit.

We finally decided on extruding the posts from modeling chocolate.  We could skewer through the middle of the post and all the way to the base of the cake.  I used gelatin sheets and an edible black marker to make the fencing and cut slits in the sides of the modeling chocolate.  These slits would hold the edges of the gelatin panels.  We were certainly in untested waters, and luckily for us, it turned out great and held up just fine.

As always, thanks for stopping by!  I appreciate your comments, your readership, and especially your friendship.  Have a great weekend!

Family Crest Grooms Cake

All of my regular readers know that I enjoy doing unique cakes, and this one ranks ranks right up there!  When I first met with this couple they mentioned the possibility of us doing a replica of the groom's family crest.  Family Crest?  I had heard of them, but I guess I didn't realize that people still had them.  In my family, the only family crest was the tube of toothpaste in the bathroom!  ba-dum-pum!

Anyhoo... on to the cake!  This was a big goom's cake; the picture you see above is on a 22"x22" board.  The main shield design was fairly basic, so we chose to print a template of the crest and hand cut the larger pieces.  We used the open-source program PosteRazor to enlarge the image to my specs.  The lion (I guess that's a lion!!) and the family name?  They were much harder and more intricate, so we used the Cricut to cut those. 

Once the letters and lion were cut, it took a while to remove all the little pieces without messing the graphic up.  We started by cutting the modeling chocolate while cold, and then immediately after cutting (which seemed to take FOREVER) we put it right back in the freezer for a 10 minutes.  We alternated working on it for 10 minutes and then freezing it again for 10 minutes until we had all the pieces removed and cleaned up all the cuts.  Then it was on the cake and FINISHED!

Hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you back here on Friday, K?

And... Happy Anniversary to my beloved husband Chaddy!  Today we have been married for 14 fun-filled years!