Sweet Sushi Cake!

I get so excited when we get to make something new and different, even when I don't know how to do it. The table/tray didn't require anything new and different.  I made it easy on myself which is how I priced the cake, so not everything was edible.  I covered two pieces of cardboard for the two layers of cake (9"x 13"). For the "legs" I used several strips on cardboard hot glued together and then covered in black contact paper.  I combined several shades of modeling chocolate to get the marble/woodgrain look.  I cut panels to fit all the sides and the legs (except the inside pieces-I just left them black).

 

Now for the fun part!  The only real plan I had was to use a new product called Deco Gel for the orange roe eggs.  I was going to buy orange, but they only carry a bronze (with glitter) color so I bought clear.  I used a little of the product and added one drop of orange food coloring.  I used a syringe to fill up some pearl border molds.  They came right out after they set up, super easy.

Cut an indentation into marshmallows for the "goodies"

I did a little research and found a few tips for making sugar sushi, but most didn't really apply.  Using grape fruit roll ups as the nori (dark seaweed paper used on most rolls) was one suggestion.  That was a good idea but they don't seem to make grape roll ups anymore.  Many people just used black fondant and that's what I was planning to do, but Chad had a better idea!  He suggested coloring the deco get black and just poring it out onto a Silpat mat.  I should have used the bumpy side for more authenic texture, but I had time for one trial.  I just poured it out and tilted the gel until it was all spread super thin.  When the Deco-Gel is heated, it's a pretty thin consistency.  When it set up, I just used a pizza cutter to make strips in the width I needed.  You will want to give yourself a little overhang (1/2" or more) because it sticks best to itself.

You can see some of the Deco Gel on Silpat. 
You can make it nice and thin

I bought some jumbo marshmallows and cut a big hole out of the middle for all the "goodie" to fit into.  I tried placing them on top of the marshmallow and trying to make the "seaweed" higher than the marshmallow and filling in with buttercream and rice, put it just didn't look good.  Recessing the fillings looks way better.  I made some fake wasabi, cucumber, crabmeat and tuna and glued them in with buttercream.  For the rice, I used white sprinkles and not as many as I thought.  I only used a bit more than one small containers worth.

My second attempt (back row) is much better
than my first attempt (front row).

The more I made, the better the sushi looked.  I kept the first three in case of a sushi emergency.  One of those pieces I used a piece of black gel on the outside of the marshmallow, then added a thin layer of buttercream and rolled it in the sprinkles.  It looked fine, but the next day the black color bled a little bit and it was not pretty anymore.  I think everything else is pretty easy and doesn't require more explanation.  I saw a tutorial that used a mold for a California roll.  I would not waste your money, this is too easy not to give it a try on your own! 

3D Acoustic Guitar Groom's Cake

     We have made three musical instruments to date.  A simple acoustic guitar, a fantastic banjo, and this cake.  The bride was limited on her budget, so to cut costs/labor we didn't make any type of armature for this cake.  The neck is entirely made out of cereal treats and then "faked out" by using black fondant to represent the underside of the neck.  I like the look of it, especially since I didn't have to do a bunch of woodworking that isn't much fun to me.  The sides of the guitar are buttercream.  The top and neck are all covered in modeling chocolate.

     For the cake board, I did use a power tool and cut 1" thick Gatorboard with a rotozip tool.  Gatorboard is a lot like foamboard, but instead of paper on the outside, it's this really hard surface.  You can't cut it with a box cutter.  I used to use it all the time when I was in visual merchandising.  Look at the letters in a department store and you will see this material.   It was not my most brilliant plan :(  It was messy, bumpy, and not a good structural idea.  I was moving the cake from the cooler to the table and hit the neck cake board on the side of the table.  It was heavier than I expected and I was just trying to hurry too much.  My accident caused the neck of the cake board to break but not come off.  At this point, the cake was carved and iced smooth so moving it to another board would have turned it into a pile of crumbs.  For a solution, we cut a 1/4" piece of plywood about the size of the cake and glued it underneath to brace the original cake board.  It gave me a lot more structural integrity. 

For the strings, well my husband is a damn genius!  We were so running out of time to finish this cake and I was going to do something that would not have been so pretty.  I'll give you the short version and we can follow it up with a little tutorial.  Since the Gatorboard cake board we could stab wooden skewers into it and they would hold in tight.  Chad drilled the tiniest of holes in the skewer and tied fishing line in a knot.  Then with both of us holding it so as to not damage my fancy paint job (heaven forbid we try this before the cake is otherwise done-silly baker).  We used a tall piece of modeling chocolate at the top of the neck to hold the string up so they didn't lay flat on the neck and it held them in the proper order without wiggling around.   We then put the line through another tiny hole in a wooden skewer and hammered it into the cake and board.  The tension was good and the line didn't move.  We then put some trim pieces over the top skewer to hide the skewers. We ran out of time to figure out camouflage for the bottom skewers.  We used real guitar string on the banjo, but know that we have figured this out, it will be our go to method.  I will say that when we moved the cake the strings got looser because the flex of the very long cake board but then got tight again as soon as we laid it on the display table.  I'm lucky the saggy, traveling strings didn't mess up my paint. 

 

Lastly, my lesson of the day is to paint with colored cocoa butter onto modeling chocolate.  Chef Rubber (http://www.shopchefrubber.com/Cocoa-Butter-Painting-Kit/) has a great kit that will last for a while.  ANYTIME I use an edible marker on modeling chocolate, once the cake comes out of the fridge and has a little condensation, all the details run like Alice Coopers mascara!  Cocoa butter painting takes a little practice, which is what I'm still doing, but once it firms up, the details won't move or get smudged by anything.  I hope you take something helpful away from this because one day you may have to figure out guitar strings on a cake!

Minnie Mouse Cake for Icing Smiles

We are a volunteer with the Icing Smiles organization. We just had the opportunity to make a 6th birthday cake for a sweet birthday girl. The family wasn't picky, they just wanted Minnie Mouse on the cake. We aren't exactly Angels when it comes to following copyright law, but we don't dare to mess with Disney. But since this cake was a donation with no charge to the family, we are allowed to recreate copyrighted characters. We checked with the Icing Smiles folks and their lawyers said it was okay to make these cakes.

 

The Minnie Mouse was the most time consuming part of the cake. I'm not proud to say it took me about eight hours. I don't make figures very well, so I'm slow and sometimes I have to "redo". This Minnie had three sets of ears and two bows. I used Choco-pan modeling chocolate just for the face because it's great for sculpting. I'm sorry, but it's too soft for other things that I use homemade modeling chocolate. I'm happy that she looks like Minnie and not a generic version, but I think I could do better next time. I also forgot to put on her blush.

I found a cool color palette on Pinterest and that was it! NEON AND SNOW LEOPARD. The pink was "sexy pink" from Elite. For both of the greens, I used mostly electric yellow with a touch of electric green for the day glow color and a little more green for the darker shade. Use a lot of yellow!

The 3-D hearts were made from the same concoction that makes cake pops, which in this case is a cooked chocolate cake layer, melted chocolate and a little buttercream. I chilled it, formed the hearts and then popped them in the freezer for about and hour. Once firm, I smeared a little piping gel and covered in fondant. All of the gathering and ugly part of the fondant was in the back.

I really enjoyed making this sweet cake and I hope it helped make the birthday girl's day more special!

Millennium Falcon Birthday Cake

If you follow our blog, you will know that each year we get to make a fantastic cake for a sweet little birthday boy named Kaben.  His Mom gives us lots of freedom in terms of design and budget, so the cakes are fun for us to make.  This is the first year that we haven't done a tiered cake, but we spent more hours than ever before.

The biggest challenge making sculpted cakes can be figuring out the structure under the cake that will hold everything up.  It is scary and feels like you are more of a handyman that a baker.  Having a cake with pipes and plywood also cut down the amount of servings in the cake.  Our commercial refrigerator has a 22" wide door opening, so that limits our cake size and cake board.  Most sculpted cakes are built on the board with the armature screwed in and everything secured down.  When a customer needs a lot of servings and wants sculpted cake, you have to know your bakery's limitations.  You may need to add sheet cakes or smaller matching cakes to fill the order.  For this cake, I did need a lot of servings, about 100, and started the cake as large as I could while using my 22" cake board.  To get as many servings possible and avoid making an internal structure, I used a sturdy mud cake and sculpted the cake out of one BIG hunk of cake.  There were no supports, boards, wires or anything non-edible in the cake.  All the rectangles of cakes shown are 11x 14" layers.

This pic shows the cake structure underneath... Barely visible, right?

We've made a little movie to show how the progression of the cake sculpting.  Since the "real" Millennium Falcon is fairly flat and pizza like, we decided to sculpt it at an angle to get more cake servings.  We made the ships "stand" a little smaller and covered it in black Fondarific.  The idea is that it kind of disappears and isn't very noticeable.

A video posted by Jenniffer White (@cupadee) on Dec 12, 2014 at 6:14pm PST

I did get distracted and forgot to keep taking pictures once the decorating got started.  I will give you a few words of advice if you decide to tackle a cake like this:

1. Use a firm cake.  Soft boxed mix type texture will not hold up to the process, even if you keep it cold.
2. Find templates, blow them up to the correct size, cover in packing tape to laminate, and use them the very best you can.  Cut smaller than the template because when you add buttercream and then modeling chocolate it will "grow" into the template.
3. Use only modeling chocolate.  These are all panels that are fit together so you can cut sharply and maintain sharp corners.  You also have unlimited working time to go back and add lines and such.
4. Use icing tips, #0, #00, #1 and #2 to add lots of very little details like "rivet" marks.
5. Since the add on pieces are so very small and thin, your hands will melt them really fast.  You can put an ice pack under your cookie sheet with the pieces on them.  We applied these tiny pieces by picking them up and positioning them with a pin.  That way you don't melt or distort them.
6. Print out a piece of edible image paper 1/2 black and 1/2 red.  We used this to add all the little colors.  It looks MUCH sharper than painting the small details.  Those details are not all accurate.  At that point, I was "winging it" just to make it look good.
7. Dry brushing will get into the scored lines and bring out the details.  It also makes it look more authentic and less showroom new.

Lastly, if you want to make this cake, schedule 40 hours of decorating time.  That's not including baking, making templates, and research.  I've seen a similar cake done in all buttercream and it was nice, but I like sharper look and cleaner details.  If you want a simpler version (I don't mean that ugly), that might be the avenue to take.  If you get it done in 20 hours, send me a picture so I can give you a shout out!

Thanks to all of you that stop in and read my little old blog from time to time.  I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a joyous 2015!!

Workout Weights Groom's Cake

This workout inspired groom's cake was finally a chance to do a little something different!  The actual working out does not interest me in the least, but a cake about it? Heck yeah!

There are a few things that I still can't do well and spheres is one of them.  I try and try, but they come out "wonky" in shape and the fondant coverings are terrible.  What I have learned is that making the bottom half of the rounds out of pre-made half spheres is the way to go.   Cake does not like being upside down so gravity is not your friend.  Dallas Foam  has all kinds of sizes and I always keep a few on hand for sphere "emergencies". 

I've really noticed this year that black fondant can fade really fast.  In a day it can go from dark black to dark gray.  My first advice is to work extra black color into it before you get going.  Someone mentioned adding baking soda or baking powder and that would help, but I can't find the actual instructions, so please let me know if you have a clue what that tip is all about!  The weights are all covered with modeling chocolate.  I did not have any problem with it fading.   The medicine ball is fondant and I had to paint it with petal dust just to get it back to black. 

 

The other "new" technique that I am trying to use is painting with cocoa butter.  I've had super bad luck using edible markers on modeling chocolate.  It totally runs when it gets condensation on it.  For the weights, I marked the letter with cutters and then painted in the lines with white cocoa butter.  You have to keep it warm as you are working, but that is the only "tricky" thing. 

I used the jump rope as a "border" to hide the yucky bottoms of the top tiers.  Also on the three weights, I wanted a "lip" but when stacking them, I had to cut away the areas that would have been squished from the tier above it.  All my technical cake talk is so complicated :)  Hope you enjoy looking and learned something from my experience.  If you have any tips on spheres or fading fondant, please share with us all in the comment section. 

The Grill Master Cake w/ Coal Mini Tutorial

Happy Labor Day!  We hope everyone had some down time to relax and grill some yummy foods.  Segue into a grill cake! See what I did there? So subtle....

A sweet bride gave us some artistic freedom and the basics that she wanted:  gray, grill master on front, and meats on the grill.  The easy part is the simple gray buttercream round with two fondant ribbons on top and bottom.  If you don't have to use fondant, people will love just buttercream. Remember that with a cake like this, you don't have to put any effort is smoothing the top since you're just covering it up.  We added a gray THICK (1/2" ish) piece all around the top.  It's what the grate is sitting on.  This way, like the cigar box we did a few weeks ago, we didn't have to carve into the cake to get the inset look.  We needed a place for our coals and 1/2" was plenty.

We used these new flat Jet-Puffed Chocolate Brownie Marshmallows for the coals.  We airbrushed the marshmallows black.  It didn't take much color.  If you don't have an airbrush, buy a Preval Sprayer or buy a Wilton can of black spray.  We then mixed about one cup of powdered sugar with about a tablespoon of cocoa powder and teaspoon of black powdered food coloring.  Once mixed, these will give you  good looking "charcoal and ashes"!  We all want that!

We arranged the coals all flat and added heavy ash in the middle fading out to just a little on the outside.  We then added a little yellow, orange and red disco dust/edible glitter.  I wasn't crazy about the glitter, but time was ticking and there was no time for experimentation.  We did not have time/money in the budget for an edible grate, so we used Wooden dowels, hot glued all the pieces and painted them with silver spray paint.  A small saw would be best to get pretty, not squished ends. We used wire cutters and it made them ugly.  Next time we will know better.

Lastly we made no-bake oatmeal/ peanut butter / chocolate cookies for the hamburgers.  We used the most popular recipe on Food Network.com for ours.  We pressed in a skewer and airbrushed the black lines since we already had it out.  The could be painted on with a brush just as easily.  The hot dogs are modeling chocolate with the same technique for the lines.  We used a toothpick to make the details on the sides.   I hope this project seems easy enough for anyone to give it a try.  I promise it's not hard and is lots of fun!

If you want to see a few in-process of the marshmallow coals, hit Read More.

Happy Grilling!

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.

Tennis Shoe Cake

We made a pair of Air Jordon shoes and their box as part of a larger groom's cake.  We have made two other shoe cakes.  A pair of Converse All-Star's and a pair of fancy high heels with a shoe box.  Lucky for us, the bride let us pick the shoe design, it just had to be accurate as the groom was a collector.   The easiest avenue for any 3D cake is to have the item in front of you, or at least a 3D model (like a car).  I find it so helpful for all those little things, like accurate measurements!  We picked these because they looked easy compared to all the rest of the Air Jordon line.  Shoes are notoriously deceiving so keep that in mind when you're planning.  It took us eight hours to make the pair.  Some people may think that is crazy long, but I have not figured out a way to "hurry" on a project like these.

Let me tell you what I learned/did wrong with this project.

1.  Black fondant FADES!  I added extra black food coloring when I started but I truly believe that the fondant faded just in the time it was exposed to lights.  I saw these girls on "Amazing Wedding Cakes" practically working in the dark to avoid their black from fading.  I thought they were crazy!  I'm sorry ladies, you are sane and black fondant is stupid.  MAYBE if I was doing this exact same project again, I would airbrush the shoes before adding the soles and edible images.  MAYBE that would have helped.  They really didn't fade until I had the details on and at the point the air brush ship has sailed.

2. Make paper templates of sections so that all sides are exactly the same.  For example the side squares with the dots and without the dots.  I should have made all the templates and pinned them on one of the shoes before I started scoring the lines.  I wouldn't have gotten "off" had I done it that way.  Every cake has a backside!

3. CK Edible lacquer is super awesome!  The shoe had shiny parts and I sprayed some lacquer in a paint cup and used a small paint brush to apply it precisely when it was supposed to go.  Lesson here, the stuff dulls the longer it sits.  What until a couple of hours before the event to apply this if possible.  It won't go away over a day or two, it's just less shiny.

4.  Edible image paper is my friend!  Chad found a little dot pattern and printed out one page.  I used my templates to cut the pieces a tiny bit larger and then used a clad tool to bend them into the seam. 

5.  The sole is so important!  I used straight fondant for the black parts, but the red and white parts were 100% modeling chocolate.  The white part was put on as one big, thick piece and I took a ball tool and carved the lines and details in.  I should have spent much more time on the sole as the real shoe had more ridges, but I was out of time.....

6.  I have lost my ticking tool.  The one that makes it look like you have a sewn line.  I used some Wilton tool, but it just looked bad so I didn't add anymore detail with it, but once it's done you have to live with it. 

Remember to plan EIGHT hours or more and charge accordingly :)  Now I have to go and order my missing tool!

Easy to Make Chinese Takeout Box Cake

I had to make these Chinese takeout box treats for a larger cake recently (coming soon!) and they were actually pretty easy to make!  Want to make your own?

I started with a couple of clean takeout boxes from my favorite Chinese restaurant.  We went there for dinner one night and I just asked them for a couple of extras.  They didn't even charge for them, so that's a bonus!

OK, we're going to use the boxes for 2 reasons - to mold the cereal treats and to make the patterns for the outside of the box, so treat it carefully!

The boxes are wax-coated, but I still gave it a good spray with pan spray so the RKTs wouldn't stick.  Then just pour in the cereal treats, let them come almost to the top (leave maybe 1/2 an inch) and then close the box so that it keeps it's shape nicely while it dries.

Once the cereal treats have set up, you'll want to coat the sides to smooth things out.  In this case I used royal icing.  While that's drying we can make our patterns.

To make your patterns, start by taking out the wire handle.  It was a little difficult to do without messing up the box, but keep at it and you'll get it.  Once the handle is out, the box unfolds nicely.  I used a piece of card stock to draw out the panels around the box, including the top flaps, but not the very bottom.  I then used those patterns to cut each side piece out of white modeling chocolate.  Once you have all your pieces, you can start assembling your box!

I used a little tylose glue on the royal icing start putting on the panels, just make sure you save the overlapping flaps until last.  Now you can start putting in the food!  Use whatever you want for food, but my extruded fondant noodles really did look the most convincing, and I had a blast making cute little noodle loops coming out of the box!  Add your desired logos using edible images and your almost done!

Almost done, why just almost?  Well, at this point you can be done. but my "food" wasn't looking saucy enough until I hit it with a little edible lacquer.  I was really surprised at how that little bit of shine really brought a lot of realism to the piece!

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.

Cigar Humidor Groom's Cake

The entire time I worked on this cake I called it a cigar box cake, but it is in fact, a humidor cake.  A humidor is more than just a fancy cigar box; they have a hygrometer that helps keep the cigars at the perfect humidity for maximum freshness.

I had this cake on the books for a while and the week before it was due I saw an ad for Sharon Zambito and Wayne Steinkopf's humidor class.  I was very interested in how they did did the lid mechanism for the cake.  I have made cakes with "lids" before and each time I have used a different technique with varying complexity. Here I used a simple piece of foamcore as the back lid of the humidor.  It was much easier than making the lid hinge forward or back  I'll definitely be using this in the future.

I did use a little different technique for the cigars though.  I had some chocolate cigar molds and while they were tasty, they didn't look anything like cigars.  I made some tobacco colored fondant very very thin, and rolled each of the chocolate cigars.  Some scans of the groom's favorite cigar bands on edible images completed the look.  When they were done they looked very similar to the cigars I purchased as models.

This was a fun cake to do, but making it sure brought back a lot of memories of my dear father, Ray Sills.  Daddy loved to take a few puffs off his cigar or pipe every night after dinner.  A cigar would last him a month or two.  Like most dads, he was almost impossible to buy presents for, but I always knew I could get him a good cigar and he would be happy.  I can't stand the smell of cigarettes, but any time I smell a cigar or pipe I always smile and think of my Dad; he would have loved this cake!

Going on a Bender Cake

Photo courtesy of our friend Jim Pankey

Very recently I helped a very good friend of ours with his wedding day. I even spent a couple of days acting as bridal planner, coordinator, and decorator. It certainly gave me a new found respect for those people, but that's another post.

This post is about this crazy groom's cake! Our friend Chris has a million interests; he's a lawyer, into martial arts, electric guitars, South Park, Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama - he's into a little bit of everything. So when we met with him we had no idea what might come out of his head when it came down to the groom's cake. I was delighted when he said "You guys know me and what I like, just work your magic." We had already been kicking around the idea of a Bender cake, so that sealed the deal.

In my mind, this seemed like such an easy cake; he seems like such a basic shape. The execution proved to be much more difficult. Here are some notes on exactly how we straightened out Bender!

We based this cake on a 6-inch base. I looked at my domed pans and I had a six and an eight inch domes. 8 inches was going to be WAY too big. We printed out some large images to us as templates and used those to determine where the visor would be located. I made a custom cardboard cake board for that section so the visor would have something to rest upon. I also carved out the mouth area and covered the whole thing in fondant.

Our only in-progress shot of the cake!

Now for the visor, man that thing was tough! I started by making a rice crispy treat puck that fit against the side to the cake, but still came straight out. Think about how a scuba mask is made. That puck rested on the extended cake board and I used royal icing to glue it to the side of the cake.

I then took modeling chocolate and made a band that was wrapped around the puck and the board it rested on. It stuck out more than the puck, but not a lot, just enough to allow for the eyes, which we used candy melts to make. As I type this, it makes it sound easy since this is what worked, but there were several attempts that didn't.

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???

My First Shoe Box Cake

A very sweet friend of ours gave us a glorious recommendation to his good friend.  Unfortunately he didn't realize that we really only make wedding cakes.  But still I just felt like I had to make this shoe box cake.   We were given a picture to follow very closely.  I wish I knew the original cake artist.  If you do, please let me know so that I can credit her.

I know that prices can vary greatly by zip code and baker so I don't talk about it much.  For this cake, I charged $250, which is my minimum order price.  After I told him the price, the customer said he called the original cake artist and she wanted $850 for the cake and that a local bakery had quoted $150.  He said the $850 lady was "crazy" for wanting that much.  His words, not mine.  Even later he told me that he didn't think the $150 baker would be able to replicate it with great detail.  After looking at her previous work he didn't have confidence in her abilities.  So the extra $100 I was charging was for an "insurance policy" that he would not be disappointed.  As we all know, you get what you pay for!

I baked  three layers of 9 x 13" and cut a couple of inches off to make it more shoe boxy.  It was white/chocolate/white cake with raspberry buttercream.  Yum!  The whole cake was paneled with modeling chocolate.

For the signature on the side of the box, my client wanted the birthday girl's name in a very similar style of the original shoes.  I couldn't find a suitable Louboutin font online, but Chaddy did use an app to recreate it to the best of our abilities.  The app is called Adobe Ideas, and is a free app.

The font with the signature was so small there was no way I could pipe it and I didn't want to mix mediums, so we wound up printing out an edible image to cover the entire side of the box.  We did a lot of test swatches on paper to find a color that was an exact match to the box color.  BUT!  It darkened over night!  So let that be a lesson to us all!  Luckily, since I covered the entire side of the box with the image, you could hardly even tell!

Stop back in next week and I'm going to talk a little more about that sexy shoe and what went into the making of it!!

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!

Guest Blogger: Beata from My Sweet Passion Cakes

Even though I have made it my mission to help out cake decorators just getting their start, it can still be a daunting task to find help online.  I frequent more than one cake forum and lots of times I see a a basic question turn into a heated debate over some minute detail that has nothing to do with the poster's question.

But sometimes the planets align perfectly and two people thousands of miles apart connect to make something special.  That's how I met Beata Khoo from My Sweet Passion Cakes in Brighton, UK.  She posted a question on CakesDecor asking for assistance on how to make a cake like a dragon sculpture she had a picture of.  It seemed like a daunting and ambitious task, but I answered and what unfolded was a really satisfying month-long collaboration.  Even though Beata says she's just a hobbyist, she took instruction well and learned to work with modeling chocolate and make her own structure, something she had not done before.  I was so impressed with the work that Beata did that I asked her if she would like to write up a post about her experience making this awesome cake.  And now without further ado, here's Beata!

My name is Beata Khoo and I started to decorate cakes about a year ago. I have always loved to bake cakes, but never really decorated any cakes.  I was always so busy in y everyday life and never had the time, until last year someone gave me the most gorgeous cupcakes. And I thought -this is what I can do... and rest is history ;) I am hooked! All I want to do is bake and decorate cakes.

I have been doing a few cakes since then but I really crave a challenge to see how much more I can do. Then one day this lady calls and asks me if i can do this Amazing Dragon.  I really wanted to do it too, but I wasn't sure where to start, so I decided to write into Cake Central and CakesDecor.  I also wrote a private message to Liz Marek on Facebook, hoping someone will have some idea on how to make it.

Unfortunately i didn't get anywhere with Cake Central, but very lucky on CakesDecor.  Jenniffer from Cup a Dee Cakes wrote to me and gave me advice how to build the structure and the best way to use modelling chocolate. On top of that Liz Marek gave same idea and was kind enough to answer my message. In that moment I felt so happy that there was someone giving me guidance and I knew that I could do it ;)

And this is the way I did it...

1. First I bought a wooden board and copper tubing. Drilled seven holes (size of the copper tubes) in the base, not too close to one another.

2. Then I made modeling chocolate white and colored it. (I have never worked with chocolate before and thanks to Jenniffer - I love it now)

3. I applied the chocolate on to the copper and created his skin with scissors

4. Next, I made the heads, which was a little tricky, but with a lots of determination they came out lovely. After finishing modeling, I put them in the fridge for 10 minutes to set.

5. The body of the dragon i made it with a chocolate cake and the wings I made with rice crispy treats.

6.Then I wanted to paint the MC so again I was asking Jenniffer and Liz Marek, then I thought best to try on little test MC before I painted the dragon.  I tried mixing petal dust with vodka and then vegetable oil. Vegetable oil looked the best so my decision was made. I painted my dragon with petal dust and vegetable oil, it took 2 days to dry but it looked fantastic!

So before i put it together - I covered my wooden base to look like wood and then put my heads together and held it all together with dark modelling chocolate. I then created the body and wings and painted them last. Hope you like the way I finished it off with the Enchantica book and message on each side of the dragon. Most of all I would like to thank Jenniffer and Liz Marek for all their help.

Didn't Beata's cake turn out great!?

Beata can pass out all the thanks she wants, but in the end, she was the only person in that kitchen doing all the work.  And she she did an exceptional job, didn't she?!?  I was super glad to provide her with some assistance; I was excited every morning to get online and see what progress she had made.  It's this type to collaboration that the Internet was invented for.  Please stop by Beata's Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/mysweetpassion, LIKE her page, and let her know what great job she did!  Lastly, I want to thank Beata for guest blogging here today!

For more pictures please visit www.facebook.com/mysweetpassion

Banjo Groom's Cake

 

I met with Rachel and Daniel several months ago and as soon as they mentioned they were interested in a banjo cake, my eyes lit up.  This is the kind of cake that I rarely get to do, but always look forward to making.  Almost immediately, I called our good friend Jim Pankey, who is a professional banjo player.  He was kind enough to lend us a banjo for a couple of weeks.  Chaddy went to work taking measurements, making cardboard templates, and taking pictures and detailed notes.  He even made some silicone molds of the tuning pegs!

Details on a cake like this is what can take it from great to incredible, but none of it will come together without a proper structure.

In instruments I have made from cake in the past, I used extruded fondant for the strings, and I never liked the look.  This time I wanted to use real strings, which meant that extra structure would need to be in place.

Luckily, our couple didn't care a great deal about how many people the cake fed, they were much more interested in a realistic final product.  The cakes are comprised of a 14" and a 12" rounds, but each "tier" is less than 2 inches high.

The neck is made of 1/4" wood, covered in modeling chocolate.  There's a small block of wood at the top and bottom of the banjo to hold the neck and strings.

 For the neck, all the decorations needed to keep a very low profile to keep the strings from damaging them.  I used thin strips of edible image paper for the frets, and gumpaste rolled super thin for the inlay.  I looked at lots of pictures of banjo inlay, and they were ranged from very simple to very ornate.  In the end, we wound up using a standard fret dot with a heart on either side.  I thought it added a nice hint of romance (it was a wedding, after all) but without being too "girly" or over the top.

So, is anyone interested in seeing the structure used to create this cake?  If so, drop back in here next week and I'll talk a little more about how we made the structure and show a few in-process shots of the cake.  If you have any other questions about the banjo cake, leave a comment on this post and I'll try my best to answer it next week.

Review of Mike McCarey's Advanced Cake Sculpting Craftsy Class

Full Disclosure:  The review of the following Craftsy class is purely my own.  I am not being paid or compensated for my review, but Craftsy is offering my readers a chance to win a free class.  Read on to find out how!

MY HISTORY WITH MIKE
There is all levels of skill for cake artists.  People that are just trying the Wilton Courses, some that have been to culinary school, and some that learn "on the job".  I  started with Wilton Courses, then self taught using great books, then on the job as an Assistant Pastry Chef.   I still have a lot to learn and a great desire to learn more.  However, I might want to know how to make a botanically correct garden rose, but my customers don't ask for or want to pay for them, so I focus on learning things that I can actually use in my business. 

Like every other cake person, I used to love Food Network's "Cake Challenge".  There were many great competitors, but my favorite by far was Mike McCarey.  His work was always flawless, well thought out, and perfectly executed.  He was one of the few contestants that would make the cake BEFORE the show and work out all the kinks.   There was no drama or stressing, just perfect execution.  Can you tell that he is my cake idol? 

When I saw that he was teaching a two day modeling chocolate class in Atlanta, I came up with $1000 (give or take, it's been 3 years) and took that course.  I learned so much!  It was worth every penny!  So when he came back to teach a cake structure class/Big Bird, I scraped the money up, again around $1000 (OK, I charged it and dealt with it later...) and skipped down to Atlanta.  Again!  The most-best-awesome class I have taken.  The things I learned help me every week.   I also bought his car making video and it's awesome too!  On the downside, I had to "close" my business while I went to school, had to get accommodations, food, travel and the cost is a lot.  I still think those classes were worth every single penny! 

So when I saw that Mike McCarey was offering a class on Craftsy, don't you know that I jumped right on it!  He is my cake hero and favorite teacher!  That being said, I'll try to be objective and give you a little review on the class. 

THE REVIEW
I think this is truly an advanced class.  This is a hard cake for most people with a lot of techniques.  If you are just a cake hobbyist and Wilton Classes are your current skill level, then this is maybe not the class for you, just yet!  You should have carved some cake in your life, worked with real butter-buttercream, have some ability to use tools.  Mike doesn't go over basics, like how to cover fondant.  Thank God, because some of that "filler" has put me to sleep on other classes.  If you have never done a cake with structure in it, this is a great place to learn.  He does this great thing where he blows up the picture to the size that the cake will be and draws in the exact size hardware that he needs.  It's a great learning tool, and it makes the sculpting SO much easier!  I have brought a blown up picture with me to Lowe's and sat in the aisle of the plumbing department trying to find the exact right pieces. 

Mike goes over everything you need to know to make a great Bobble Head Style cake.  It's the most entertaining Craftsy class I have seen.  He is just so comfortable in front of the camera and talks just like he does in person.  I didn't get bored at all, even though I have been taught a lot of the information before.  I still picked up some great new tips and refreshed my memory on structure building.  When someone teaches me something, I'm that type that wants to know "why" and not just how you do it.  Mike helps me truly understand so that I can carry those lessons on to other situations.  His bobble head cake strategy can be used for making so many things.  If you learn these techniques of planning, blueprints, patterns, structure, refining, and finishing you can use them on every cake that isn't a traditional stacked shape. 

My favorite thing about Mike's style of making cakes is that it's very well planned, which will lead to good execution.  Carving cake is very scary, but when you have an exact blueprint that will get you 75% done, it becomes less scary.  He doesn't take chances with a cake structure and that's a really good thing.  I would hate to have 4 days worth of work fall over during the delivery.  Learning his methods are like having "cake insurance". 

I've heard of a little complaining because the head doesn't actually "bobble".  He does go over how you could make that happen if it was important to you.  But, if people aren't impressed that you made a birthday boy into a bobble head "style" cake then a extra spring isn't going to impress them either.  A cake doesn't have to move or shoot sparks to be awesome!  Please!

I am not bitter....but this class will pretty much teach you what I learned in a two day/$1000 hands on class....only it's not $1000!!!  It will take 292 minutes to watch it all!  It's a long time, but it's a lot of fantastic, non repetitive material.  After watching the entire video, I can't find one thing that it's missing compared to the Big Bird class I took (other than his awesome assistant, also named Mike.  I missed him!).

Mike does recommend that you take Lauren Kitchens "Modeling Chocolate" class.  I haven't taken it yet, but since they are big buddies, I'm sure that it's similar to what he taught me in the two day/$1000 class.  So, run and take it!  Modeling chocolate knowledge is the single most important thing I've learned for making sculpted cakes.  I could NOT make a clean, well executed sculpted cake without it.  Learn about modeling chocolate! 

As with any video, please watch the whole thing before you leave a comment or questions.  I don't know how the man is so patient with some pretty crazy questions.  I'm sorry to be harsh, but man,  if you can only ask "The great and powerful CAKE OZ" one question, do you really want to waste it on something silly or that has already been answered three questions up?

As you can tell, I highly recommend this Craftsy class.  I am so excited for all of you to be able to learn from Mike McCarey.  His is the BEST at what he does and is a FANTASTIC teacher.  I cannot wait for more classes!

The best of of all this is that the fine folks at Craftsy have generously offered to gift Mike McCarey's Advanced Cake Sculpting class absolutely free to one of my readers!  How cool is that? Use the link below to register for the giveaway.  In order to give everyone time to enter, we are going to run the giveaway from now through  Sunday April 21st.

http://craftsy.com/CupaDeeCakes_CraftsyClassGiveaway

 Don't forget to enter and have an awesome week!

Valentine's Day Chocolate Bake Off

A few weeks ago I was called about a Valentine's Day Bake off that Hamilton Medical Center (the local hospital) was hosting for their associates.  The employees could enter their best chocolate dessert to see who would be crowned as "Hamilton's Chocolate Champ!"  All the employees would get to sample the goodies too, so they were making a little party out of it.  I thought it sounded like a really cool idea, and so I offered to donate a cake.  I didn't spill the beans at the time, but I have been really chomping at the bit to make this Eiffel Tower cake for a while (since my Mike McCarey Big Bird class - WOW!).  The cake is actually pretty small, I would say it would feed 6-8 people, but I had fun making it!

But they also asked if I would be one of their chef judges too and I was more than happy to help them out.  I really expected that their might be only 20-30 entries, but I was surprised t hear that 80 people entered their various cake, cookie, brownie, and pie recipes.  There were so many entries they decided to get a second set of judges (one set for each category!!)  It took me an hour to sample 40 cookies, brownies, and pies!!

Here is the Eiffel Tower Template I purchased from Mike McCarey. As you can see, it is very simple, but the effect is incredible. It's just 2 cutting guides and an impression mat, but man, are they effective! I think they give you an instuction sheet when you buy these templetes, but they were out and I have failed to follow up.  So, I winged it!  Make sure you use a dense cake as the only support is the master dowel going through the center.  Box cake will not hold up, so don't even waste your time.  Use cake drums or foam core so you have something to stab your master dowel into for support.  Lastly, use modeling chocolate for the outside coverings.  You know I love the stuff and it did not let me down here!  It made the tiny bit of cake much more sturdy and I was able to carve more lines and details after I let the cake chill up.  We also found a cute blog where the author gave some great information and pictures.  Take a look at it if you decide to make this cake.  http://www.sweetdreamscakeapp.com/2011/05/21/amazing-classes-with-mike-mccarey-day-1/
 I have said it before and I'll say it again -- If you ever get a chance to take a class with Mike, jump on it!  The man is a genius!

Smokeless Tobacco Groom's Cake

THIS CAKE AND POST HAVE BEEN REMOVED BY REQUEST

Threadcakes Contest Entry

I'm sure by now that most of you have heard of Threadless, the awesome T-Shirt company, and as cake people you're probably familiar with Threadcakes, the annual contest where people make cakes based on a T-shirt design.  If your not familiar, then go check the links above and then come right back - I'll wait...  ;-)

Seriously, I have been wanting to participate in this contest for at least 2 years, and this year I finally made the commitment to participate.  I literally spent days just looking through t-shirt designs to find the perfect one.  I finally found Bonsai Cats, a shirt I had seen previously and fell in love with.  I'm a big gardener, Chaddy likes his ninjas, and we're both big fans of kitties, so this design worked for everyone.  The design also lent itself well to cake, and I thought that while challenging, it was something we were capable of creating.

The Threadcakes rules require LOTS of photo proof during the baking and assembly of the cake.  That was an unusual addition to my workflow, but I managed it OK.  My biggest problem was one that most of you are very familiar with - TIME.  I didn't allow myself enough time and we were both rushing around the night of the deadline.  We finished the cake, took all the photos, and then cut and ate part of the cake (one of the rules) and got all the photos uploaded with only 20 minutes to spare before the midnight deadline.

So now all the entries have been turned in and the judges are now scoring each of the entries.  Hopefully they will announce the winners soon,  There are some super talented people with some great entries this year, but I remain hopeful that I at least have a shot of placing.  Keep you fingers crossed for me, OK?

UPDATE: A day before this post went live, Threadcakes announced the winners of the contest for 2012.  We didn't place in the top five slots, but we were selected as a finalist!  Considering all the great cakes that were entered, we can be happy with that!  If you want to see my entry along with the original t-shirt design and my progress shots, just click here to go to my Threadcakes entry.