Gold Sequin Wedding Cake

I'm so glad to make a cake that is new and not made from someone else's design.  I can't even tell you how this design came about.  I think the bride liked so many popular wedding cake trends that we just used them all.  All tiers were buttercream and about 5" high except for the gold tier which was about 3.5". We used an Evil Cake Genius lace cake stencil and outlined each piece with a #2 tip.  We then added some pearls and silver dragees on top.  The bottom tier was buttercream with fondant "fabric ruffle" look.  We didn't want to  cover the entire tier because it would have been too heavy looking.  It was a 20" tier, so it took a long time!  We made the fantasy flowers with gold button centers and the fondant teardrop shapes. 

I'm sure you have seen lots of tutorials on how to do a tier with a sequin-like look.  There are so many ways of doing this and since I've only done it once, I can't speak to the other techniques.  I used some very large quins.  I highly recommend buying them from  cakedeco.com because the 5 lb carton is a LOT and cheap!  These were 1/2" big and I tried to push a handful into the buttercream covered cake and it was just a mess!  I ended up having to put them on one at a time and that was big fun......not!!  So I then chilled the cake really well.  Some people use a paint brush to get these completely covered.   I then airbrushed this old gold and bronze over the entire tier.  I had to cover the neon colors and it took a while.  You want to do this is several coats and not in a couple because you will have drips.  Now, my complaints.  It looks a bit like scales, probably somewhat because I'd been looking at it a long time.  I may do it in smaller quins next time, but I've got 4 lbs of the giant ones left!   I was happy with the look of the cake, but I couldn't stop wondering what people must have thought of "the baker" if the were served a piece of the gold tier.   The quins were NEON COLORED on the backsides!  They aren't very tasty either.  I'm just saying, the more I thought about it, the more embarrassed I was.  I am not judging anyone that does this technique.  I am not saying I won't do it again if time is a factor.  Next time  I really want to make my own sequins out of fondant or something else.  I just don't want the wedding guests to think that the baker is crazy when they bite into the cake :) 

Easter Cakes and Spending Time with Family

 

When I was very young I knew an older lady that made cute chocolates by painting those plastic molds with colored chocolate and then filling them up. They were so "fancy"!

She got me so interested in it and it really sparked my love of pretty sweets. We have a very sweet niece that came to visit from Portland, Oregon. She wanted to make a cake and I found a simple design that a 14 year old and I could make in a few hours. I baked some layers and made the buttercream early that morning. We tried some different fillings, made fruity pebbles treats for the little stumps, made chocolate icing, filled, iced, and airbrushed. We made some grass, flowers, butterflies, a bunny and a cute fluffy bunny butt!

We had a great time and made a bunch of dishes. This would be a really cute design for someone that is learning and wants to try a cake with lots of wiggle room for error. I hope you are inspired to try even part of this Springtime cake with a special younger family member. You never know what desire you may spark in them!

HAPPY EASTER!

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.

Kaben's Fifth Birthday - Frog Edition

I have blogged about sweet little Kaben several times before here on this blog.  To date, I have done all of his birthday cakes.  His parties are always the best and he picks his very own themes for his parties.  This year was reptile themed.  His Mom asked for 3 separate cakes.  This week we'll focus on this tree frog cake.  Now I should add that she wanted very realistic looking animals.  It was a little out of my comfort zone, but I was up for the challenge. 

I started out with a trip to the toy store to get some toys.  I walked every aisle of Toys R Us, and wouldn't you know it I found all the toys I needed in the dollar bin by the register!

I started by making a rice crispy frog body and then covered the whole thing in white modeling chocolate.  From there it was just molding and sculpting.  I finished him up with a texture mat and some airbrushing / petal dust painting.

As for the cake, this was basically a 2-tiered tree stump cake with rice crispy limbs.  The cake is rough iced in buttercream and then airbrushed with several shades of black and brown to give it a realistic bark effect.

I hope you enjoyed the frog cake, stop back in next week to the see the second of Kaben's 3 cakes.  What reptiles do you think are on the other 2 cakes??

Smokeless Tobacco Groom's Cake

THIS CAKE AND POST HAVE BEEN REMOVED BY REQUEST

Guinness Bottlecap Grooms Cake

I have been making some extremely "normal" cakes lately, especially groom's cakes.  With all of the awesome choices out there, couples keep going with plain chocolate with chocolate covered fruit or a Georgia or Tennessee theme.  I hate to blog about something that we are all tired of so at least we have one fairly cool cake for this week, but I can't promise what will come next! 

This grooms cake was a less expensive option for my couple than a bottle of Guinness.  Also, since it's got a low profile and minimum carving I was able to use my normal soft cake instead of pound cake (the bottle would have to be pound for strength).  I baked a 16" and 14" round dark chocolate cakes, filled them with Bailey's Irish Cream buttercream and crumb coated. I made a small cardboard template with a rounded end and just went around the cake and cut out the bottle cap indentions.  Super easy.  The hardest part was figuring out how many sections we were going to have and marking them.  Chaddy and his geometry skills were very helpful. 

I then covered in Elite Ivory fondant.  Have I mentioned lately how much I love Elite fondant for covering a cake?  It's so soft, never cracks, tastes yummy and I can roll it SO thin.  I am also using "The Mat" from Cal-Java for rolling out big pieces of fondant.  I don't have the room in my bakery for a fondant sheeter, so this mat system is perfect.  You can roll fondant, walk away from it for long periods of time and because it's covered it won't dry out.  It's a very inexpensive tool that I really do love!  But, it doesn't work well with Fonderific, go figure!  I decided to use my new fancy airbrush to do some highlights on the edges.  I used a gray after trying a few other colors. 

Lastly, but more importantly, Chad got the logo and using modeling chocolate and the Cricut Cake, he magically made me a logo!  Do you know how long that would have taken to do by hand?!  Much longer than I was getting paid for that's for sure!  I hope you like the cake and can make a differnt logo or size for an event in the future.  There's a lot of soda and beer fans out there, so this should be a pretty good generic cake design! 

Happy decorating!