Little Monster Cake

This was a last minute request...really last minute.  I was asked Sunday afternoon and needed to deliver by Monday at 4pm.  The cake was for a little boy's first year birthday.  It was his little smash cake.  My friend who gives me the most business ever asked if I had a cake I could make her on hand, luckily I did, and I owed her a favor.  It all worked out!  I used the fondant and icings I had on hand from my sister's cake and took everything out of the fridge to decorate.  It was the easiest ever because I had everything done and just had to decorate it all.  The top is Mike Wazowski form Monsters Inc.  I used the Frozen Butter Cream Transfer method to achieve that result.  I used Marshmallow Fondant to make the doors  around  the cake and modeling chocolate to make the number.  This cake was super fun and worked out great. The inside was a devil's food with chocolate ganache.  I must say that this cake was one of the few I got to make with out scouring the internet for ideas.  It popped into my head and I just went with it.  I am certainly pleased with how it turned out and appreciate that I was able to practice techniques that I have learned.  Thanks dear friend for the opportunity!

My Sister's Flag Day Birthday Cake

This cake was for my sister's birthday.  She threw her party on Flag Day, and went with flag decorations and colors.  I decided to go with the theme too.  I got the idea and concept from a cake decorating class I saw on craftsy by Jessica Harris.  She has an awesome blog too.  The top was a chocolate cake filled with three layers of chocolate ganache, crumb coated with lots of ganache, and then covered in Marshmallow Fondant.  The bottom tier is an Old Fashioned Buttermilk Cake using a recipe I found on craftsy.com  I love this website for learning new tricks.  Anyway, the cake was delicious, and it was almost, ALMOST, like a pound cake.  I filled those layers with a Swiss Meringue Butter Cream (SMBC), another recipe I found on craftsy.  Now we Americans are used to the "butter cream" from Costco and grocery stores, or the kind that leaves a nice greasy slick on your lips.  Let me tell you that this stuff is not that stuff.  This is real butter cream, made by carefully cooking egg whites and sugar in a double boiler and then whipping it up to stiff peaks.  Then you add a pound of butter, two pounds powdered sugar, and some vanilla to it all.  It is so creamy and light and whipped.  My hubby and I found that this butter cream is well suited to fresh fruit filling.  So after using it plain on my last Jake and the Neverland Pirates cake, I decided to use sliced fresh strawberries in this one.  Yummy! Just what it needed. I did have to refrigerate the cake, but that wasn't a problem.  I also gave it a generous crumb coat of SMBC.  All the decorations are made of modeling chocolate.  I am in love with this stuff now!  How did I live without it for soooo looonng!?  I definitely need more practice, but I am well on my way.  I can't wait to see what it does on a trial trip to St. George.  A friend has asked me to make a cake she can take on the road with her to Utah, and since I will be going there soon, I am anxious to see how it will hold up in hot weather.

Here is the top tier by itself, I thought it was super cute just like this.  It's sitting on a piece of wax paper because I can move it around better that way without having to touch the cake.  Just a tip if you needed it.   It would make a cute little smash cake for a one-year old.  Or for a young woman's birthday.  In any color.  It is a perfect size for a small party, 6" round by 4" tall.

Here is the bottom tier by itself, chillin' in the fridge.  Pun intended, heh heh.  I think it looks good on its own too.  Almost good enough for a bridal shower or something of that sort.  It was a tall cake, 6" high and 8 inches round.  I had to take a shelf out of the fridge for this one.  Thank you hubby for helping me with that.
Til next time!

Birthday Cake, Jake and the Neverland Pirates

I apologize for the bad photo, best I could do with my phone cam.  Jake and the Neverland Pirates cake.  Top was chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling, bottom was white cake with Swiss Meringue Butter Cream filling.  Has fun with this fondant covered cake with fondant decorations.The figurines were provided by the client.  The only things that weren't edible were the stick used for the flag, and the palm tree fronds made out of wired paper.delicious and fun!  The client provided a photo of a cake she wanted done, and I looked into it a little more and saw that the photo cake was inspired by Sandra's Cakes blog.  So I put my own spin on it a little bit and made it the way I thought would look cool.  The top tier I imagined was a map, so I gave it an old map look.  My waves were big, and I tried a new technique with the letter color.