Stacked Book Baby Shower Cake

An old coworker of mine asked me to make a cake for her friend's baby shower.  She had a whole list of ideas and themes for the cake.  The shower was a bring-a-book party but she also wanted to incorporate the Father-to-be's love of fishing and Alaska.  How the heck do all these come together and oh by the way also girly?  Well, I was stumped but she had a brilliant idea.  A stack of books cake with Alaskan/fishy titles like The Salmon Princess, Tough Girl Alaska and Big Fish Little Fish.  All in pink of course.  Cute idea right?  Sure, then I just had to figure out how to do it.  It was very simple in my head, and really it is, but sometimes you just have one of those cakes where nothing goes smoothly and you find your self yelling profanities at your boyfriend at one o'clock in the morning.  Not to worry, he's used to it and barley phases him.  The cake however turned out great, and they were thrilled with it. 

Spring is in the Air

It's Spring time, I had to make some sweet little spring time truffles.  These were a just make do with what you got hanging around truffles, 'Chopped' truffles if you will.  What were the mystery basket ingredients?  Store bought over cooked brownies and last weeks St Patricks Day truffles project (see last post).  So I mixed the somewhat dry & not so great brownies (I'm not against boxed brownie mix if it's Ghiradelli, this unfortunetly was Pilsbury,blah & blech), with some whiskey caramel ganache I had the fridge and they turned out quite tasty. 

St Patrick's Day Truffles

Sometimes I am more excited about the packaging then the actual treat.  I have a weird addiction to bakery boxes, labels and just cute packaging.  For St Paddy's Day I had this idea to make gold truffles tucked away in some sort of rainbow box.  Then in honor of this Irish holiday I had to make some sort of boozy truffles.  I found a recipe for Salted Caramel Whiskey Truffles here, and that sounded perfect.  They were a bit soft for truffles.  I had to freeze the balls then roll them in gold luster dust.  Tasty though.  I also made some Irish Cream Truffles, for those I just made a basic ganache but replaced the heavy cream with Irish Cream. So simple, yet I know...brilliant.  These worked a bet better for forming truffles and definitely packed a boozy punch.  The Irish would be proud. 

Sick little animals

A co worker asked me to make a birthday cake for his girlfriend who is the veterinarian here in town.  Of course I made the cake so it looks like its for a 12 year old because that seems to be my specialty.  I delivered it to her office and it was a hit none the less. I also may have copied the gum paste animal style from a pinterest search (Peggy Does Cake, a very talented lady) but they were perfect for my cake, and within my comfort area of sculpting, which is still pretty limited.

 



M-I-C-K-E-Y m-o-u-s-e, Mickey Mouse!

I made this guy for a little boys first birthday.  I just used a 12" pan for the face and two 5" cakes for the ears.  If I did it again I think I would have used a 10" pan for the face, but I needed to make it big enough to feed a small army of kids and still fit on my boards. 

 



Caramel Apple Cake

Remember my almost prize winning Caramel Apple Cupcake recipe?  Well I thought it would make a great fall time cake as well.  This was a donation cake for the Kodiak Arts Council, I hope it did well! Isn't it cute?

 

 

Ruffles

My first ruffle cake, not gonna lie, I was a bit nervous, but it went great.  Super easy and so beautiful.

I found a great tutorial here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Ruffle-cake/

Pretty Pretty Cake

I don't have a whole lot to write about this cake, except I love it.  I used a new technique to coat the cake before covering it,(find the directions here) notice my nice symmetrical shape on it?  I covered the fondant in sugar to give it a pretty texture, it was much easier to do then I thought it would be.  I mixed powdered sugar with water and, working in sections, brushed that on the cake then poured sugar over.  I didn't even have to hold cake on it's side, just barely tilted it then poured down. 
The inside is chocolate cake layered with a dark chocolate mocha ganache and a raspberry Italian buttercream. 

Here's a close up of the flower.  Again, so simple.  Just used my biscuit cutters in 3 sizes, thinned out on the edges then let dry ob an egg carton.  The 'seeds' are jumbo black sprinkles I just happened to have.  I knew stock piling every kind of sprinkle would come in handy one day. 

Happy Halloween

I love Halloween.  There's something about the Fall time that makes me so happy.  It's cozy.  I just wanna wear scarves, drink red wine, and get crafty.  Halloween is my absolute favorite.  I love the decorations, creepy cute treats, and of course all the candy floating around.  I was super excited to make this Halloween cake for a friend's daughter's birthday! And yes, I finally got my glowing cake.  The jack-o-lanterns glow!

The birthday girl said she wanted a Halloween cake with her name in spooky letters, so the bottom layer is her name made out of black candy and covered in black edible glitter.

21st Birthday Cake

I had a last minute cake order for a 21st birthday cake.  Guys are hard to make cakes for.  They can't be too frilly, pretty or childish, all the things I specialize in.  I actually really liked this cake.  It was simple and manly pretty, at least I like to think so.

It is a strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting with a bit of chocolate frosting just for the effect.  The bunting is made of miniature beer labels.