Sunshine 1st Birthday Cake

I never thought I would say this but I am starting to fall in love with fondant!!! What?! I know.  I have been against it for so long because I love the taste of buttercream better.  But that is even starting to change for me.  When I cover a cake in fondant I use a fondant made out of marshmallows which many people who make cakes refer to it as MMF.  This fondant actually has a decent taste unlike the store-bought fondant that some others use.  The reason I enjoy using it is because as a cake decorator is really helps you to achieve that smooth finish you see in so many pictures.  If you know me I can be a little OCD about how smooth my cakes are and I can never get them completely smooth which drives me crazy.  This is where my love for fondant is growing.

With all that said I did a cake a couple weeks back for a little girl's first birthday.  Her theme was going to be a sunshine theme and they asked for a cake that would look something like the picture they sent me.  I really loved how this cake turned out.  It may even go up there with one of my favorites.

I will have to tell a funny story about this cake.  When the father and mother were emailing me they asked me to do a yellow pineapple cake.   So I made a pineapple cake and decorated it in yellow. The day before the party I was looking at the finished yellow cake a thought hit me which made me panic.  "Did they want a yellow pineapple FLAVORED cake or a cake decorated with a pineapple yellow?"  I was all in a panic and immediately searched for their email to see if I was going to have to completely redo the cake I just did.  But thankfully the email read a "a pineapple flavored yellow cake."  I am so glad they put in that extra word "flavored".  It reassured me that I had done what I was suppose to do.  Oh man!  Sometimes I can be such a stress bucket. ;)

Winter Onederland

Today I delivered a fairly big amount of baked goods to a former coworker's house. She had contacted me and said she had seen my cakes on Facebook and wanted to know if I could make a smash cake, 24 cookies, and 24 cupcakes for her son's first birthday.  (It is neat to think about how easily Facebook has made a way for us to get in contact with someone we haven't spoken to in a while. :)) Of course I told her I would love to.  She had picked out the theme Winter Onederland and did a winter theme which was very cute.  Our friends from church actually did the same theme for their son's first birthday as well or I would have thought about doing it for our daughter's first birthday. :)

The smash cake was a yellow cake and iced in buttercream.  I used MMF around the edges and for the number 1 on top.  I had made royal icing snowflakes to put on top but my son bumped the container that I kept the dried snowflakes in and broke my remaining ones and I didn't have time to make more. :/ So I improvised and piped on the snowflakes which was probably better for a smash cake anyways. :)

For the cookies she asked for mittens and a number 1.  Out of all the Christmas cookie cutters I had I didn't have a mitten.  I was able to find a mitten on an after-Christmas clearance rack which was excellent.  I actually had to buy a set of about 15-20 cutters to get the one mitten.  But now I have all sorts of Christmas cookie cutters for next year.  (I will have to think about whether I should do Christmas cookies for the family next year or not.  You can check out the post about that here.)  I actually made the number 1 cookie cutter because I couldn't find one in the right size without having to order one online.

The cupcakes were white almond and cookies n cream.  The cupcakes shown were just the white almond. The decorations on top were made out of royal icing.  The big snowflakes are the ones that my son broke.  Luckily I had the last cupcake topper in my hand when he hit the container.  I lost all the extras I was going to put on the cake but it all worked out. 

My Baby Girl Turns 1!

This past December my little girl turned 1.  It is such a bitter sweet thing.  She no longer is a baby but she is developing such a little personality.

 Of course I had to throw her a party but I told myself I was going to do something small and just for family so that I could enjoy the day and not feel overwhelmed.  I must not know myself very well.  I did enjoy myself but I maybe went a little overboard. 

The theme revolved around her invitation that I created on Inkscape. Of course I incorporated a little bit of chevron as well.

Instead of doing a big cake I decided to do a smash cake and then do some fun cupcakes.  The flavors I did were banana pudding, peanut butter cup, and cookie dough.

Since there was only family I decided to serve a lunch.  We had...

 

Crockpot Mac n Cheese (always a favorite in our house) 

 

PB&J Sandwiches shaped like elephants

 

A Salad bar which was originally going to be salad on a stick but I decided to save time and energy and do it this way.

A yogurt bar.  You filled your waffle bowls with yogut, mixed fruit, and granola.

 

Elephant cookies.  Which I cheated and used already prepared cookie dough and I won't do that ever again.  Or at least not use the brand I used.  They did not hold their shape very well. :/

 

Last but not least Mexican Fiesta Bites.  These were by far the party favorite.  Everyone seemed to love them.  Even my mother-in-law who has a little stricter diet.

I also made the decorations.  Here a glimpse at some of them. As well as a few other party ones. 

 Her aunt made this adorable skirt to go with the top that I made.

Little Red Wagon First Birthday

This cake was designed for a boy's first birthday.  The theme was little red wagon and the colors were blue, white, and red.  The mom wanted a cake for everyone and then also a smash cake for the birthday boy.  Here is how it turned out.

Jungle Animal Sheet Cake

A previous customer contacted me again to do another sheet cake for her but this time it was for her son's 1st birthday.  I was thrilled to hear back from her and of course agreed to do a cake for her son.  She told me that the theme was jungle animals and that I could come up the design.  My first idea was just to do a few animal heads on top of the cake but as I started working I got a little carried away with it.  But I liked the way it all turned out. 

It was a vanilla sheet cake, iced in buttercream and decorated with MMF and some buttercream piping.

Hot Pink, Zebra Stripes, and Cheetah Spots

This cake I did for a baby shower for a woman's sister who works with Billy.  She sent me a picture of the plates and the invitations to use as a guide. 

 

At first we decided that I would make a momma elephant shaped cake and a baby elephant shaped cake.  As the shower got closer Billy's coworker contacted me again and said that they might need another smaller cake because they were afraid that what they first ordered would not be enough. So we talked and instead of doing 3 cakes we decided on a two-tier cake that would feed the new number of people.  So I took the design on the plate and replicated that. 

This was the first time I did a cheetah print on a cake.  I enjoyed researching and creating both the cheetah and zebra prints on this cake.  Both tiers were strawberry with buttercream frosting.

Chevron and Baby Shoes

I would have to say out of the cakes I have done so far this one is one of my favorites.  This cake was ordered for a baby shower by the very first person who ordered a cake from me for her son's 1st birthday party.  (His cake you can see here.) I was so excited to have a repeat customer. 

The instructions for this cake was she wanted gray and white chevron and then accented in black and red because the mother-to-be was a big NC State fan.  So as always I started thinking about what a baby shower cake might have on it and I did a little research online.  I saw where someone did these cute little baby converse shoes and I was hooked.

I actually decided to make all white shoes and then paint on the NC State logo.  After making the white shoes I decided I didn't care for them so I spent the whole next day making another set of shoes which I made red and white. I also decided to not make them look like converse but just regular baby shoes without a logo.  I thought the second pair turned out a whole lot better and I am glad I put in the extra time.  I couldn't quite figure out where I was going to tie in the black until I came up with the idea to make the board it sat on black. 

I thought the chevron pattern would be very simple but once I started cutting the pieces I kept redoing them because I wouldn't like how they looked.  Finally I just gave up, cut them out, didn't worry too much about what they looked like, and put them on the cake.  Standing back looking at the whole picture they turned out looking OK.  Once it all came together I was pretty happy with it.

The shoes really made this cake.  This cake was french vanilla and iced with buttercream.  The shoes were a gumpaste and fondant mixture and the other accent pieces were made out of MMF. (marshmallow fondant)

First of Two

This weekend I ended up having two cake orders.  I thought it would be pretty easy since one of them was just a sheet cake but it ended up that the sheet cake took more time than I had imagined.

This was my first time just doing a traditional "sheet" cake.  Boy did I learn a lot about sheet cakes.  First off when ordering a sheet cake you need to know if they want a traditional sheet cake which is a 1 layer rectangular cake or a layered cake.  My first thought was it would be a single layer.  When the cake came out of the oven it probably was only about 1 1/2 inches high which I thought would be way too short for a single-layer sheet cake.  So I made another layer to go on top.  After doing some more research I found out that now I had a cake to feed 45 people instead of the 20-25 people that was requested.  Oops.  (But who doesn't love more cake.) The cake was also very high for a traditional sheet cake you would get in a store. 

The next thing that happened was when I had the cake all done I noticed some imperfections which I am sure no one else would have noticed but it bothered me so I tried fixing them.  I ended up messing up a corner so bad I had to re-ice that corner the day I was to deliver it. 

So the cake was ready to go or at least I had to go deliver the 2 cakes I had done.  I packaged up the cake in a cake box which I don't normally do but I thought since it was a sheet cake and there weren't any other tall decorations on top I would just go ahead and supply the box.  I placed it on my back seat which has a very little incline in it but I didn't think this large of a cake would move.  Well I didn't get out of my neighbor when I heard a sliding noise coming from the back seat.  Sure enough, I opened the box and it had slid forward and smashed up against the side.  I had to race home (now late to deliver the other cake) and get some tools to fix it.  I then moved it to the floor board where I thought it would have less chances of it sliding.  Luckily it didn't slide again and I was able to fix it after I delivered the other cake.  What I usually do is place the cake on a board that is exactly the same size as the cake and then later move the cake and the cake board to a bigger board.  This just gives your final presentation a better look.  What they usually tell you is to put icing down as a glue to hold the cake to the board and so I used the same concept for a board and a board.  Well the icing isn't that strong of a "glue" to hold 2 boards together without sliding. Now I am going to find a better way to secure the 2 boards together so it won't be prone to slide.

All this to say a simple sheet cake turned into a lot of little learning experiences. 

Here is a picture of what the top looked like.

It was a french vanilla flavored cake iced in buttercream and decorated with MMF (marshmallow fondant).

Snow that Leads to Freezing (A Cake)

This past Saturday we saw our biggest accumulation of snow here in and around Raleigh, North Carolina for this winter thus far.   Since snow is not often seen here and many southern people are unaware how to handle it there are many precautions that are taken.   I am sure many people back home in Ohio would have a good laugh to see what happens when we get a light dusting as they would call it.  But if you don't drive in snow very often you probably should take more precautions.

With that said, I also had a baby shower cake to do for a co-worker of my mother-in-law's.  The shower was to be that day.  Once the snow starting falling the mother-to-be's husband thought it would be best to reschedule the baby shower.  Which again if you aren't used to driving in snow (and are very pregnant) then you probably shouldn't risk it.  By the time I got the message, the cake was almost complete.  I had a few last minute touches to do but for the most part it was done.  So now I had this cake done, the shower was cancelled but rescheduled for next Thursday, and they would like to have the cake still.  I knew the cake wouldn't last if I left it out.  I could have remade it but that would mean more time and supplies.  So after some Googling and talking with my mother-in-law, we decided that we would try and freeze the cake.

I researched how to freeze an already iced and decorated cake.  I wrapped it up good and placed it in our freezer.  I am praying that when I unwrap the cake on Thursday that the cake looks as it did when I first made it as well as tastes just as good.  Check out what the cake looked like before placing it in the freezer.  I will post an update with a picture of when we thaw it back out.  I am really hoping this works, but I guess this is how you learn if things work or not, by trial and error.

The cake is iced with buttercream and decorated with marshmallow fondant and some gumpaste pieces.  The mother-to-be also requested Funfetti cake which is her favorite I was told. :)  I also received the baby shower invite and tried to model the cake after the invitation.

The invitation/inspiration

 

The cake before it was frozen...

The cake all wrapped up and ready to be frozen...

UPDATE:  So after I let the cake completely thaw to room temperature I unwrapped it.  It looked exactly as it did before it went in the freezer.  The only slight flaw was that a few fondant pieces on the cake board cracked because they became pretty flimsy and I accidentally bumped them when I was unwrapping it.  I didn't get the chance to taste the cake but the people at the shower told me it tasted great! That was a blessing to hear.  So it is possible to freeze an already-decorated cake.  I just hope I don't have to do that again!

First Fondant Covered Cake

Back in November my sister-in-law saw someone post on Facebook that they were looking for someone to do their son's 1st birthday cake.  She knew I enjoyed making cakes and I was also trying to start making a little money with it so she so graciously gave her my name. This was the first cake I made for someone I did not know and that made it a little more stressful.  To top it all off she wanted me to cover the cake in fondant which is something I had never done and usually try not to do because I prefer the buttercream taste over the fondant.  (I did use a marshmallow fondant which I have found to taste the best among other fondants.)  So this cake made me nervous.

The mom sent me some pictures of cakes that she would like and said that I could come up with whatever I would like.  The birthday party was going to be a transportation theme as I like to call it.  So I created a cake with a transportation scene and on top I had one big car made of fondant and gumpaste and an one and stars made just out of gumpaste.  There were a lot of things I was able to learn from this cake but the one most frustrating part was the car on top and getting it to be a red instead of a pink.  It takes so much Wilton red coloring to make something red so I took some advice I got from someone and went and got a color called Super Red made by Americolor.  This color gel is the best to use when trying to get a red and you don't have to use as much.  I had to go all the way to Clayton to get it but it was worth it.  Next time I might just order some online.  I made the car on top about 4 times.  I ended up throwing out a lot of fondant/gumpaste.  The first one I did I took a picture of it and sent it to my husband who told me it looked pink (which I agreed).  But after I finished the 4th car and time had run out, I looked back at the first picture I took and realized the first car (even though it was pink) was the best one I did.  Oh well.

After no further adieu, here is the cake I came up with: