Giraffe

A coworker was having a birthday and I asked for some help with ideas.  I asked for his different favorites.  He said his favorite animal was Giraffe, so I thought I'd try it.

The cake itself is chocolate with raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream.  For the Giraffe, he is made of cereal treats, wrapped in fondant.  Around the cake is chocolate!

I had a lot of fun working with the cereal treats trying to figure out how to get them to work with me and how to assemble the pieces together.

He sure isn't perfect, but I had a lot of fun with this one and he was so delicious!

Halloween, Boo!

I saw so many creations and inspirations from Wilton, that I had to make a Halloween cake.  Inside, I made the Halloween themed funfetti and outside is vanilla buttercream.

I started with the mini-cake and decorated a web.  I bought a Wilton icing for this, since it's hard to get a true black.  The icing would be crazy from time to time, but overall, it got the job done.

Then after frosting my cupcakes, I worked on what I thought was color flow.  I guess I didn't pay that much attention on tv when I saw Cake Girls do this trick.  I thought they just used Royal Icing.  I think what they actually used was Color Flow.  Either way, about half of my tombstones came out alright, so I was proud to use them.

I was so excited about the tombstones, you have no idea.  Then, I finished up the remaining cupcakes and moved on to the challenge:  the spider.  I made the spider completely out of fondant.  I just modeled him how I wanted and layed him on the cake.  I couldn't be more proud of how he turned out.

Overall I loved everything about this cake / cupcake creation.  I think it's my best so far.

Finding Inspiration

I'm now that person at the office that makes all of the birthday cakes.  I wanted to make something that my boss would enjoy, but since he is blind certain creations I would make wouldn't mean anything to him.  So, I searched for inspiration of something I could do that he could enjoy.

There is a sculpture in our lobby that a client and friend made for my boss.  It's blown glass and each piece is different and unique.  You are suppose to be able to touch each objection and "see" all the differences in each piece.

I decided to use this for my inspiration for the cake, so that no matter what piece of cake my boss got, he could enjoy it.  In starting the cake, my lily-like creations weren't dry in time so I was unable to use them.

The cake is as chocolatey as you can get, since that is his favorite.  All of the decorations are made out of fondant.

I love this cake because it is so different and there is so much to look at.

Teacher Appreciation

Our primary had a Teacher Appreciation dinner and I offered to make cake.  I tried to make a tiered cake.  I will still need to work on it, but it worked out alright.

The cake was chocolate and vanilla for one and vanilla and vanilla for another.  My husband helped a lot with this since the cakes seemed to not want to work with me.  Overall I think they turned out alright.

I loved the little apple out of fondant with a chocolate candy for the stem.

Train Wreck

We had family coming over and I decided last minute to make a Thomas train cake.  I thought, it's probably easy enough.  Boy was I wrong.

The cake was another Coca-Cola cake called the Chocolate Coca Cola cake and the key ingredient here was cinnamon.  The cake went very well, which was good since I had to hurry to do the rest.

I rolled green fondant semi-successfully over the cake.  It was better than my very first try, but not that great either.  Then, I molded trains out of cake that I carved and wrapped them in fondant.

At this point, I should have realized that this cake wasn't turning out how I wanted, but for some reason I kept going.  The black Wilton frosting I had bought to draw the train track exploded and would not cooperate.  There was black everywhere and no where were I wanted it.

I also dug a whole out of the cake, thinking it would give the illusion that the train was going into the cake.  Instead, it looked as those someone ate part of the cake.

All in all, this was a train wreck.  Nothing looked right and the train characters were barely recognizable.  However, the kid I made the cake for knew what I was attempted for, and for that, it was successful.

Store Bought

For the final of Cake Decorating Basics, I had to decorate a cake using ribbon roses.  I HATE ribbon roses.  I don't like anything about them.  I did pass the class, but when I went home I did classic Wilton roses.

The cake is simple as far as the decorating.  I wanted it to look store bought or good enough to buy in a store.

The cake itself is the Coca-Cola Cake.  For this cake you need Coca-Cola and marshmallows.

Inside I had cherry filling, to make it a Cherry Coke cake.  It was interesting.  I think I need more practice in cooking with the marshmallows since I didn't know how to work with them.  Overall, it was a good cake.

Cupcakes

I tried out cupcakes for the first time.  I was unsure on how much batter to place in each cup, so some of them were off in size.  They were very tasty lemon cupcakes with vanilla frosting.

However, the cupcakes themselves are super easy to decorate.  I was kind of disappointed by them.  I did shaggy mums and some other flower I kept calling the Rockstar.

There are cake people, cupcake people, and dessert people.  I am cake people.  However, I now know I can do cupcakes if I need to.

Decorating Basics

Now that I’ve passed the second Wilton course, I thought I should go back and do Basic’s with the instructor I enjoyed.  However, it would be my last since she doesn’t teach Fondant & Gum Paste or Tiered cakes.  I’ll have to do that on my own.

For basics everything started to make sense!  I had been missing out on helpful quick tips and things that save a lot of time.  This is one of the cakes we made using a #12 tip.

We were suppose to trace the design and do one, but since things were finally clicking, I free handed the fish and made a coral design.

This cake isn’t nearly as impressive as the Rose cake, but know that it made me proud.  I’m so glad that I finally have learned some basics and can do things that every cake decorator should be able to (like make dots!).