Easter Egg Basket

As a donation for a Baseball group, I made an Easter Basket Cake.

It’s German Chocolate with Coconut-Pecan filling.  Chocolate Buttercream for the basket weave.

Then, it’s green colored coconut for the grass and peeps and jelly beans.  It was really simple and took no time at all and came out really cute.

Last Minute Holiday Cake

I gave myself way too short of time to do this cake.  I was amazed that I turned it out so quickly, but it was a mess and I wish I could have taken the time to fix it more.

It's red velvet with cream cheese frosting.  I have never decorated the cake fully with the cream cheese.  This recipe I found was half buttercream and cream cheese.  It appeared to work well at first and tasted very good.

However, I even got the frosting to a whipped stage and there was still little chunks of cream cheese that I couldn't get rid of.  They were so tiny, but when you are piping, they find their way out.  If you can see my lettering, I was doing okay until the bag burst on my very last letter!  So, I went over it and had to call it a day.

This was a very simple cake, but a feat for sure.  It's suppose to be a wreath and have poinsettas on it.  Below the rope border looks great though!  Even with all the flaws, it tasted great with the berry medley in the center.  I don't know if I would recommend the mix with cream cheese, but it does taste so much better with it.

Happy Holidays!

For a Holiday cake, I decided to do chocolate with mint filling.  For the filling, I chopped up Andes mints and it was so delicious!

For decor, I tried a rope border that was new for me.  The rope work came out much better then my dots and even my shell border on the bottom.

I did better with the writing, but I should have taken the time to mix in a little piping gel to make it smooth.

For the top, I made cake pops for the first time!  I have an autographed book by Bakerella that my mother got me.  The pops are actually much harder than I expected them to be.  You have to be very fast when you work with the candy coating.

I just loved the cake pops once the hard work was over.  They were made out of red velvet and they were so cute!

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.

One Technique

After my 2nd Wilton class, we figured out that we were going to move to Oregon from Southern California and I was going to go...now!  It was crazy, but I had about 2 days of packing and I was on the road to be at a job the next Monday.  That Tuesday was going to be another kids birthday in my mom's class, so the night before my long 16 hour drive to Oregon, I stayed up late making him a cake.

I have no recollection as to what kind of cake it is.  All I know is that he wanted a Book of Mormon cake and I only knew one technique.  That was a lot of stars.  I did accent decorations and font with a Wilton Sparkle Gel and it was very messy.  I'm sure there are tips out there to how to better use it, but I didn't like it.

Wilton 1

I finally signed up for Wilton cake classes!  I was so excited to take them!  My first week was just explaining what would happen for the other classes.  The thing that was most important is the explanation of how to make buttercream, the consistency, and differences of brand and product used.

The following week, we were suppose to bring a cake and already have it frosted.  I think I did quite well.  Did you know you really shouldn't just grab a spoon and smother the cake, there is actually technique and a few ways to be successful with it?!  Amazing!

We learned a few different techniques and then were told to make this rainbow cake.  I was very proud of my results.

It's just a star tip over and over and over again.  However, when you take a step back and look at it, it's quite pretty.  I even did little clouds and attempted a border at the bottom of the cake.

I was so excited for this class and absolutely loved the teacher!  She was so helpful.  I couldn't wait til I went back again!

Basketball Attempt

I was asked to do another cake for my Mother's class.  The boy loves basketball and chocolate.  So, I thought a basketball cake could be easy enough and clearly I'm good enough to fondant a cake again.

I made a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream painted orange.  I measured the top of the cake and rolled the fondant accordingly.  I layed the fondant on the cake and *facepalm*.  I measured for the top of the cake, the 9" not enough to cover the entire cake!  I didn't have enough for the rest so thi was now a semi-fondant covered cake.

I thought I could add texture now that the fondant was on the cake and it wasn't working well.  So I gave up and focused on the lines and writing the boys name.  I was pretty proud of it, even thought it wasn't perfection.  It was still pretty okay.

Then, I showed everyone my cake and my mom said something like, "Is this wet?"  She left a nice streak on the cake.  I fixed it, but it made it just a little more less perfect.

All in all, I can't be too upset with myself because I don't know what I'm doing, I'll I know is the next one has got to get better!

Heart Cake

This was for a birthday cake for one of my favorite cousins.  To begin, I decided to make sponge cake.  I did one little heart shape of that and...fail.

I got over that pretty quickly.  So, I moved on to just a white cake in a heart shape.  That was much more successful.  For the frosting, I had vanilla buttercream and I mixed in strawberries.  I think it's better to have strawberries on top, though.  This made the consistency very thin and watery.

I then colored fondant and covered the cake in pink fondant.  I was impressed with how easy this was!  However, it was only one layer of cake, so I'm sure this isn't the reaction every time.  Then, I cut out little free hand hearts and starts with more fondant.

It looked super cute and I added her name, Sienna.  Amazing.  But, of course, I couldn't stop so I kept going!  I added food color to some of the hearts to add variety (lesson learned:  do not put food color on top like that, it stays like that and gets EVERYWHERE!).  I also did little stars or something with royal icing.

All-in-all, best cake yet!  It tasted great, however, there are still a lot of things I am learning and trying to figure out.