Character Cake

I'd never made a character cake before, so I decided to finally make one so I could add it to my repertoire.

We've had the pan for this little guy sitting away in a cabinet since my older sisters and I were toddlers and my mom made him for our birthday cakes. So, since we already had the pan, why not make it? Not to mention, he's pretty cute. 

I used Wilton tip #18 for his whole body and the bow, and for the lines of his mouth I used tip #3. For part of it I tried using tip #2010, which pipes 3 stars at a time, but I didn't feel like I had as much control as I did with tip #18 and I couldn't see exactly where the stars were going, so I switched back to #18. Yes, it took longer, but I liked it that much better.

Just look at that cute face!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ok, we don't normally have cake on Thanksgiving, but I really wanted to make this guy. Now we have too many leftover desserts and too many over capacitated stomachs, but what is Thanksgiving without those?

Trying to get the right colors took a little while, but I had some help and we finally got there. I had 6 colors: red, orange, yellow, black, white, and brown.

After piping all the icing on, I dragged a spatula through it to give the turkey the look of the feathers.

Well, I don't have much else to say, mostly because I'm practically in a coma from eating too much food.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Roses - Take Two

I recently whipped up some royal icing and decided to try piping roses again, since the last time I made them, I failed miserably. I was quite excited at how these roses turned out.

After my previous attempts, I took my teacher's advice and spent a little time squeezing tennis balls, and since I've been piping a lot more lately, no jagged edges on these roses!

Sorry the pictures are so dark, if I had used more light, they would've just looked like round white blobs.
Anyway, I like the white color, but next time I want to try variegated petals so the tip of the petal is a different color than the rest, or striped petals. That should be fun!

I can't wait to see these guys on a cake! 

Kit Kat Cake

I saw this cake idea on Recipe Girl and absolutely had to make it. It is such a fun looking cake and so easy to make.

There are so many different variations you could do. I think it would make a fun groom's cake or even the top tier to a wedding cake, using white chocolate kit kats and M&M's the color of the bridesmaid dresses. Or you could put something in the top besides m&ms, like crushed up pieces of your favorite candy bar or flowers. The possibilities are endless.

I wish I could dive into that pool of M&M's.

Practice, Practice, Practice...

...That's what I've been doing lately. I've been practicing working with bigger cakes, i.e. baking them, stacking them, transporting them, and eating them. I know, shame on me for that last one. 

Anyway, this past weekend I made another two tiered cake. I thought I was going to make a three tiered cake, but there is only so much time in a day. However, this cake was much bigger than the two tiered ones I've made in the past.

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but this cake was 12 x 4 inches on the bottom and about 8 x 4 inches on the top, whereas the previous two tiered cakes I made were about 8 x 3 on the bottom and 6 x 3 on the top.

Another thing, I completely underestimated the amount of icing it would take to fill, ice, and decorate a cake this size, so I had to be really skimpy on the icing because we ran out of butter. And sugar. That's why you can see the layers of cake through the icing.

Oh, and don't worry, I didn't eat the whole cake, but let's just say next time I'm practicing, someone should come take the cake from me when I'm done.

The Winner

Alright, so I finally got around to decorating the cake that won the poll, which was...(drum roll, please!)...the Masquerade Ball cake! I learned several things while decorating this cake, among which are:
I'm really bad at draping fondant to make it look like a tablecloth
Fondant 1/4 inch thick takes a long time to dry. A really long time to dry. 
How not to get fondant a nice red color
And how to make fondant taste like a cherry Tootsie Pop while trying to make it red. Seriously, exactly like it.

Originally I wanted the fondant to be a deep red color, like the jewel on the mask, but it just wasn't going to happen, so I had to settle for the mauve-y color it ended up being.

 The rose is a black fondant ribbon rose.

I hope this meets everyone who voted for the Masquerade Ball cake's approval. :)

Basket Weave

The other day I finished my last class in the Wilton cake decorating courses. I learned how to do the basket weave which was something I had been wanting to learn for a while. It's so pretty and really fun to do!

The flowers are apple blossoms made out of royal icing. They're really fun to make as well!

 

I think I have a new favorite.

You Decide

Ok, so my next cake I want to design with a theme. I came up with a few ideas, narrowed it down, but can't quite decide on one, so I thought I'd ask you guys. I put a poll over there ---> with my ideas, so if you pick one, hopefully you will see the winner on here before too long. Thanks!

More Flowers

I started my last level of Wilton classes a little over a week ago. This level is learning how to make even more flowers. The first class we made button flowers and pansies out of gum paste and fondant, and the second class we piped the Wilton rose out of royal icing. My piping definitely needs more work.

Here are the button flowers and pansies:

These are all my attempts at piping the Wilton rose:

Like I said, my piping needs more work.

Out of all of the roses, this one is my favorite, so it gets the close up.

No, the edges aren't supposed to be jagged, I just wasn't squeezing the icing bag hard enough because I hadn't done any serious piping lately, so my hands got out of shape. I was told to squeeze tennis balls in my spare time to strengthen the muscles, so I'll work on that. 

When I got home I decided to try piping some flowers that I hadn't yet learned in class. I tried daffodils and lilies.

The lone pink one was before I decided to make a new batch of icing, and it was what I had left over from the roses. When I made a new batch of icing I fiddled around with different color combinations to see which one I liked best. I think the white petals with the yellow middle is my favorite.

Any tips and suggestions are always welcome!

Another Birthday Cake :)

This one was for my friend, Alaina. As I was making it I said, "This one's not blog worthy" but here I am putting it up anyway. It's a French Vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream.

For the "A" I just printed off a picture and traced it with melted chocolate chips onto parchment paper and chilled it. I wanted to stand it up on the cake, but it kept flopping over, so I just had to lay it on top.

Let me know if you like it!

First Attempt at a Two Tiered Cake

This past weekend was my mom's birthday, so I decided to attempt a two tiered cake for her. With it being my first ever attempt, it was an all day project, but I was quite happy with the result.

The bottom tier is a Swiss Chocolate cake and the top tier is a Dark Chocolate Fudge cake. It is all covered with chocolate buttercream icing. :)

Happy birthday, Mom!

Daisy Cake

This weekend I made a chocolate cake with raspberry filling for a potluck and here's what it looked like when it was all done and decorated:

I know, the lighting is really bad, but you get the picture. :P Also, the pastel yellow color of the cake really clashed with the color of the cake tote bottom, but I wasn't about to move the cake off of the tote for pictures after I had just put it on. I didn't want any mishaps occurring.

Hope you like it!

Putting it All Together

In the last class of level 3, we brought a cake and put what we had made throughout the course on our cakes.  This is what mine looked like when it was all finished.

 Flower cascade

What actually took the longest out of the entire cake was the bead border.  Making each one and attaching it to the cake was a pretty tedious job, but I really like the way it turned out in the end.  

Flowers Galore

In my last gum paste and fondant class I made flowers strictly out of fondant. Then a few days later I decided to make a few more at home and also add to the ones that I had made in class. Here are some pictures of them all together.

 This is a mum and my first attempt at a rose that didn't turn out too well.












Calla Lily

 Carnations. These are one of my personal favorites.

 The pink rose was my second attempt and I think it turned out much, much better than the white rose. Every time my sister sees the white rose, she laughs.

I later decided to switch out the middle of the daisy to make the yellow a less bright yellow, as well as to match the other flowers. This is the product afterward and I like it a lot better than the first color.