2 layer Baby shower

My sister-in-law was throwing a shower and found these adorable napkins, so we modeled the cake after them.

The bottom layer is a 3-layers, 8" round. The top is a 2-layer 6" round. All devil's food chocolate cake, with white buttercream frosting. The dots and stripes were fondant (with a hint of peppermint extract). The little duck on top was fondant.

I will admit, I really love having a napkin or plate to model the cake after. It makes it so fun to do, and I think it's fun for the host  and guests to have coordinating party stuff.

It was a crazy weekend, I feel like 10 tornadoes went through my kitchen, one at a time, and I cleaned up after each one. I baked 3 cakes this week. One for Wednesday, this one and then one for Teresa and Hannah today.  While finishing up yesterdays baby shower cake, I started to make scalloped potatoes and ham casserole for a dinner with the in-laws. I am a little glad to have the weekend coming to a close, but the chaos has just begun. We head to St. George, UT on Wednesday for a Family Reunion and Thanksgiving. Have a great Holiday!

Halo Warthog Cake

This was a grooms cake for a teacher at Teresa's old school. It is the vehicle from the Halo game. I'm not going to go into detail, it's too exhausting. I will tell you I baked 2 8x8 square cakes, and 3 15x11 cakes - 8 cake mixes - yes, I use cake mixes. I did that twice. I had to know it was going to be sturdy enough for the day of, so I made it twice :) I started decorating it this morning at 9am and didn't finish until 1:45pm

So here it is, I drew the Halo symbol in the corner of the cake board.

Front view

Back view

The tow hitch with it's horns, giving it the warthog name

The gun and ammo

I will be honest, it didn't turn out how I had hoped. There were things I had to rush, because other things didn't go as smooth as they should have. But over all, I think it came out nice and I'm sure the groom recognized it and appreciated that his bride wanted to surprise him with this cake. Plus, I was pretty excited to be part of such a special event.

Birthday Celebration!

This cake is for a 50th birthday celebration, but also a celebration of life. She recently finished successful chemo too. Another one for a teacher from Teresa's old school. I was told colorful and given the words it should say.

It's a 2- layer 10in round triple chocolate fudge cake with a 2-layer 6" round on top. All the decorations are fondant. It's frosted in buttercream.

Bridal Cake

I got a call from a friend at Teresa's old school asking if I would be willing and able to make a cake for two brides at their school. YAY!!! I was thrilled to have another cake. I've been working on a groomscake, which will be really cool, but it's difficult. This was going to be fun! Sometimes it's nice to get exact instructions on what people want, but this time it was nice to be able to do what I wanted.

It's a 3 layer cake, chocolate, white, chocolate. With chocolate buttercream frosting. The bride is fondant, and the veil is glaze.

The idea came from a bridal shower invitation

In record time

I know, haha, I'm so funny. But really, I had very little time to make this cake (of a record label). Things were/are busy around here.

It's nothing fantastic, but personal. It's the label of one of his favorite albums. He started collecting vinyl's about a year ago. So we thought it would be fun to do a record. But to do the whole thing was going to be a lot of cake, so I settled for just the label.

Guitar Cake

I offered to make Teresa's best friend a cake for her Birthday. She wanted a guitar, so we thought it would be really cool if it looked like the actual guitar that she wanted, and was getting, for her birthday. Then I saw the picture and my first thought was - No way! I can't do this. But Jonathan saved me and offered to paint the picture on for me, using water and food coloring. He did a great job, and I'm so thankful for the help.


So here are the photos




The base of the guitar is the cake, the neck is made out of rice crispy treats. That was interesting too, I have used the rice crispy treats before, but didn't like how they came out. This time I took freshly made fondant(still warm) and wrapped the rice crispy treat, filling in the cracks with fondant. Then I wrapped it again in the desired color. I was pretty happy with the way it turned out. Connecting the neck to the base didn't go as nice as I had hoped, but it still worked out fine. All the little details are made from fondant.

Peace of Cake

This was another quick cake, which I'm finding quite fun, bake it one day decorate it the next. Partly because it's fun to do cakes and the quick ones can't be too complicated. So I get the chance to make a cute, fun, yet simple cake. This was for a 10 year old girl.

Just a simple 2 layer 8" Lemon cake with pink buttercream frosting.

The peace sign is a marble green and purple fondant. The flowers, name and border are also fondant.

Race Car Cake

This cake was so much fun to make. I saw a "2" like it online, and thought it would be perfect for a friends 4 year old. He wanted a race track with 2 cars. I used a lot more fondant that I usually like to. But it was needed to get a cute cake. This is one of my favorites.

Diego Safari Cake

This cake was for Nathan's 4th birthday. We had the party at a place with a jungle theme, so we through Diego in there as something familiar. This was pretty simple, 3 -6" layers of chocolate cake, frosting with chocolate and then fondant trees, leaves and animals(eyes too). The Diego is a candle I bought at Party City.

Cupcake Birthday Cake

This was for Teresa's 12th birthday. I didn't purchase the pan, I just stacked layer after layer. I learned some valuable lessons, lemon cake can't be carved or stacked, it just isn't sturdy enough(I was also told not to attempt it with strawberry). I should have bought the pan, or borrowed it. But it was fine. We got pictures before the party. (it ended up falling) And we were still able to serve it. It was modeled after the party invitations we made.

Pool Party Cake!

I was asked to make a cake for a 6th grade pool party today. It took me a long time to decide what to do. Originally, I thought it would be cool to make a swimming pool cake, but I couldn't think of anything that wasn't going to look cheesy. So this was the outcome. Nothing fancy, just simple and cute. I'll admit, it's not my favorite, it didn't come out how I had hoped. But it tastes so yummy. I think I'd call it a lemon cream, just because it's not a very strong lemon flavor. I took 2 white mixes and added one lemon pudding mix. Then I made 1 white cake mix and took the white and used it as a marble for the lemon. Then the buttercream has lemon extract in it, just enough to make it oh so yummy!

It's a 4 layer 10" cake (very tall)

It says "Splash in to Summer"

6th grade Grad cake

Today is Teresa's big 6th grade party. I offered to do a cake for it. Here it is, they are the Rosedale North Roadrunners. I really like the way it came out. I thought it would be really fun to put all the kids names on it.

So here are the 4 sides with all 84 names on it

It started out as a 16x16, 2-layer cake, but 2 of the sides fell because I didn't get it level enough. It's hard to level such a large cake. I spent most of yesterday baking, frosting, and fixing the cake - oh and making the cake board(it's 2 layers of cardboard ducktaped together, then wrapped in paper with clingwrap over that). I spent about 2 1/2 hours this morning putting all the decoration on it.

Animal Cakes

For the carnival cake walk, I had to do some cakes too :)



These are very simple, I used an 8" round for both, with the top of a cupcake as the snout. The giraffe was cut smaller and ears cut out. Then I used a star tip and some dark brown fondant to do eyes, noses and mouths.




Since it was just for a cake walk, I went super easy.

Rainbow Cupcakes

I saw this in a magazine while at the orthodontist with Teresa. We thought it would be really fun to try for the carnival cake walk.

It was easy to do, just time consuming. We chose to do 5 colors. I seperated the cake batter in 5 plastic cups(for easy clean-up). Then colored them. I used the liquid coloring and it was really easy to get the darker colors. Then you just layer it. It was interesting because the cupcakes baked in the metal pan looked tie-dyed on top. The ones baked in the silicon pan(in a glass pan) came out just red on top. The kids loved them, we thought they were very cool. We'll have to try different things now, I think camo cupcakes would be cool.

Here's the finished product

Our carnival theme was jungle, so we picked up some plastic animals to top the cupcakes

Yellow Roses Birthday cake

I had a woman who works at Teresa's school ask if I could do a birthday cake for her sister. All she wanted was white cake with lemon filling and yellow roses. I don't like to do roses, not because they aren't pretty - I think they're just so overdone. You go to the store to buy a cake, it's going to have roses or balloons. But I figured it would be simple enough. But then I decided to take the opportunity to practice making gum paste roses. They take more time than buttercream flowers, but they look so nice. This was a fun, no stress cake to make. Even if the gum paste flowers didn't turn out, I could do the buttercream ones. Plus it gave me the chance to test a lemon filling recipe I had.
I think it turned out nice. I probably could have done a few more flowers



Just a close up of the flowers. They aren't too difficult, just time consuming. I think I'll be practicing the flowers.


March 12, 2010

Masculine Birthday cakes

I recently made two different birthday cakes for guys.

One was for Jonathan's birthday. His was supposed to be made with optical illusions - one on top, one on the sides. But that morning I started to get sick, so I decided to skip the top one. It didn't come out to look like the optical illusion, but it did turn out to be a nice birthday cake. Just simple and masculine.

2 layer 10"round marble cake with buttercream frosting and fondant design

This one I made for Teresa's Principal's birthday. I don't know him very well, so I couldn't make it personal. I had to settle for simple. But I like it, it came out nice. Teresa helped me cut the dots, I had to get up early so I could get Teresa and the cake to school by 8am. We managed :)

3 layer 10" round chocolate cake - with a 2 layer 6" on top. Buttercream frosting with fondant dots.

Bridal Shower Cake

I did a cake for my sister-in-law who was throwing a bridal shower. The colors were pink and silver. We decided to use the napkin as inspiration.




Specifically these two designs


The flowers are fake with curled ribbon. You can't tell, but I made the little silver balls with grey fondant and then used silver pearl dust to make them look silver. I dusted the design with the dust as well. If I were to do it again, I would make a lighter gray. When I was coloring it, it seemed really light, but when I put it against the pink, it was much darker.


It's an 8" round 4 layer devil's food cake with buttercream frosting. I tried something different, and flavored the fondant with cherry this time. It probably made it a little sweeter, but added a flavor - not necessarily noticeable as cherry

Sports Themed Baby shower cake

This cake is for a baby shower at Teresa's school. One of the teachers is having a boy and they wanted the cake to have a sports theme.


It's 4 chocolate cakes mixes





It gave me some trouble, but I think it will do.