Cornhole Groom's Cake Photo Tutorial

Whether you call it cornhole, bean bag toss, or Baggo, people are playing this toss game everywhere - tailgate parties,family picnics, and even weddings.  So I guess when a client asked for one as a groom's cake I shouldn't have been surprised.  And since it's basically a sheet cake on an incline, they're actually pretty easy to make.

 

We'll start with a board to fit our cake (a 12x18), a larger board for the cake to rest on (17 1/2 x 25 1/2) and a small foam wedge to give us our height (8 1/4 x 9 - 2" high).  Start by using the 12x18 cake board to determine where you want your cake to land on the larger board.  I have marked mine on the image above with some temporary masking tape.

 

Dry fit all your pieces together to make sure they all fit the way you want.  Make sure to mark the placement of your styrofoam wedge.  It should hold the top board flush against the styrofoam, while being centered across the board.  Once we start securing things down there's no going back!!

 

Normally, styrofoam and hot glue don't mix very well, but I didn't have any extra "gluing chocolate"so I put some down on the board and gave it a couple of seconds to cool down before I plonked down the styrofoam wedge.  Let it dry and make sure the wedge is very secure on that bottom board.

We don't want that old foam wedge to be seen, so the next step is to cut some black modeling chocolate and put it on all 3 sides using piping gel.  We now have the base to place our cake on!

OK, so now the cake is on our 12x18 board and has been iced smooth.  Place it on the board using your masking tape guides and make sure everything is sitting nice and flush.  Once you like what you see, put a couple dowels through the cake, board, styrofoam,  and bottom board.  This will add stability and keep your cake firmly in place.

Now we just simply finish decorating the cake, and that part can be as simple or complex as you like.  I put modeling chocolate (MC) panels on all sides of the cake, but I put a thin layer of black MC on top.  then I covered that with a regular piece of modeling chocolate, making sure my top extended over the edge of the sides, just for a realistic effect.  Use a cookie cutter to gingerly cut out your bean bag hole, and the black from underneath will look just like a hole.  Now just decorate with your particular theme or team until you've got it just the way you want it.  Don't forget to make a bean bag!!

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.

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!

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.

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! 

Kaben's Fifth Birthday - Snake Edition

Well, all good things have to come to a close, and so it goes with the trifecta of cakes for Kaben's birthday.  The last reptile on display is of course, the snake.  I saved making the snake for last because I really thought he would be the easiest to make, but there's more detail to a snake than you would think!!

I did "cheat" a little and put my snake on a cake board that I covered with modeling chocolate as the lid to the crate.  It allowed me to make it and keep it separate until I was finished with the cake.  I also cheated a little on that
"second" snake going into the crate at the bottom.  He didn't take nearly as much time as the big daddy on top of the crate.

For the snake, there is a small rice crispy treat "core" to him, that I then covered in modeling chocolate.  I then used my impression mats to give him is scaly appearance and then painted the bands using petal dusts and PGA

Well, this completes the "Reptile Trilogy" (as it will come to be known).  If you haven't enjoyed the creepy crawlies, make sure to stop back in next week - we'll be discussing a very important business topic!!

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??

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???

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