Dora, Dora, Dora, the Explorer... - November 2007

I made these Dora the Explorer cakes for my daughter, Carissa's, 3rd birthday.

I made the cake for Backpack in a batter bowl.  I carved the cake some on the sides to make her pockets.  Backpack is iced in buttercream.  The backpack flap, straps, eyes, eyebrows, and mouth are made out of fondant.  The outline around the eyes and eyebrows is painted on with food coloring.  The outline around the different parts of Backpack (straps, flap, pockets, etc) and the outline around the mouth is piped on with buttercream icing.  I used dowels or straws (I can't remember which now) to hold up the backpack flap.  I covered them with purple fondant because you could see them some when you looked from the side, so that helped them blend in a bit better.  Map and all of his features are made out of fondant.

 

For the hill I also used a batter bowl to bake the cake in.  The hill is iced in buttercream.  The grass lining the path and the flowers are piped on with buttercream using different tips.  The stars and their eyes and mouths are made out of fondant (their pupils are done with food coloring).  I put them on metal wire and put the wires into the cake so it would look like the stars were in the air above the hill.  The little cake, candle, and plate are made out of fondant.  The purple decorations on the cake and the flame of the candle are piped on with buttercream icing.  Dora is made from fondant.  (I was going to make Boots, but I ran out of time.)  Her pupils, nose, and mouth are painting on with food coloring.  She saw the cake at the top of the hill and is just about to climb up and celebrate.  :)  'Where are we going... to the cake; where are we going... to the cake...' (That's for all you Dora fans, or parents of Dora fans.  :) ) 

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How 'Bout Them Cowboys! - October 2007

I made this Dallas Cowboys football helmet cake for Ronnie's birthday.  He is a long time fan of the Cowboys.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the star cake I made a round cake and cut it into the shape of a star.  Then I iced it with buttercream and piped the blue lines on it.  The helmet is made from a ball cake.  I carved away some of the bottom front of the ball and added some cake to the top and the front to make it more like the shape of a helmet.  I also scooped out a circle on each side where the ear holes would be.  I put the helmet on a cake board and placed it on the star cake (I put dowels in the star cake under the helmet to help keep it from sinking into the star).

The football helmet cake is iced in buttercream along with the stars, stripes, ear holes, and jaw pads.  The chinstraps, face mask, Cowboys nameplate on the back, and the Riddell nameplate on the front (along with it's straps and screws) are all made out of fondant.  I wish I would've double checked the stars and the Cowboys nameplate to make sure they were even and centered, but oh well, know for next time.  :)  The words are all painted on with food coloring.

Ronnie really liked the cake!  Go Cowboys!  :)

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Triple Word Score for 'CAKE' - August 2007

I made this Scrabble board cake for my mom's birthday.  I had a different idea in mind, but then I saw a Scrabble cake on Ace of Cakes, and I thought that would be perfect for my mom because she loves Scrabble (and other word games). So, I decided to put my other idea on hold because I had to make a Scrabble board for her.  :)  I had to sneak a look at her Scrabble game when I was at her house to see which edition she had and how it looked and everything. :)

I made the cake in a 15x15 square pan.  I tinted some vanilla buttercream icing maroon and iced the sides of the cake.  I rolled out a large piece of fondant to cover the top (with some help from Ronnie at the end :) ) and cut it to a square the size of the top of the cake.  I placed the fondant on the cake, smoothed it out, and cut the corners to match the rounded shape of the cake.

I figured out the dimensions for the board grid.  I wanted the size of everything to be the same as the actual game, and if it wasn't I wanted it to be as close as possible.  :)  I used an L-square ruler and a knife to lightly mark off the grid on the fondant.  I tinted fondant to make the appropriate colors for the bonus squares on the board and cut those out of the fondant; then I placed the bonus squares in their appropriate places on the grid.  Next, I took white buttercream icing and piped the lines of the grid.

I used fondant to make the white Scrabble title going down the side of the board and painted the letters and numbers on with black food coloring.  I also used black food coloring to paint 'Scrabble' (and the 4 dots) on the board around the grid.  The score sheet, pencil, letter tiles, and letter racks are all made with fondant and the details are painted on with black food coloring where necessary.  On the letter racks I placed the letters tiles to spell out 'WE LOVE' 'YOU LOTS'.  When we play Scrabble (or other games where we keep score on a score sheet) whoever wins gets a star in their column.  So, since it was my mom's birthday, she got the star (besides the fact that she usually wins Scrabble anyway :) ).

I made the same number of letter tiles that a regular Scrabble game has, so we could actually play a game of Scrabble with the cake.  So, my mom, two sisters, and I played a few rounds of Scrabble on the cake :) (see pictures below).  We put it on my cake turntable so the cake could turn just like my Mom's Scrabble board turns.  :)  It was fun.  My mom and Valerie tied.  :)  (I was going to make a little pouch out of fondant to put with the cake for the letters to go in, but I ran out of time. :) )



This is what our board looked like after a few rounds.  :)



Below are some pictures of the Scrabble cake next to my mom's Scrabble board.  :)

Building Your Birthday Cake - July 2007

This is a cake I made for my dad's birthday.  He is very good at building things, so I thought I'd make him building his cake.  :)

No, he didn't really do it.  :)  He wanted to, but we still wanted to eat the cake.  :)

:)  Hey, when you're made out of sugar you've got to keep in shape!  :)

I actually got the inspiration for my dad's cake from a cake I saw on the Charm City Cakes website earlier in the year (2007).  It was LEGO chefs constructing a wedding cake, so cute!  [For those who don't know, Charm City Cakes is Duff Goldman's (Ace of Cakes) bakery.]  Below are a couple photos of their cake.  (Thank you Charm City Cakes, specifically Mary Alice, for the pictures!  :) )

(Charm City Cakes's LEGO Construction Wedding Cake)

It was such a cute cake and such a neat idea, but it didn't really fit for anyone in my family at the time.  Then I started thinking of my dad building things, and I realized that I could modify it to fit for him... So, I did.  :)

I made the cake and iced it with chocolate buttercream.  Everything else on the cake is made from fondant.  I rolled out some brown fondant for the top of the cake.  Then I got some foam letter stamps that I had and imprinted the 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY' letters into the fondant while it was still soft.  I put it on the cake and trimmed it where necessary.  (This is the first time I used fondant for anything other than decorations, so it's not perfect, but I'm learning :) .)  For the 'wooden' planks around the sides of the cake I rolled out some brown fondant and cut it in strips the height and width I needed.  The four remaining planks would have completed the outside of the cake, but I left them off to make it look like he was still in the process of constructing it.  I rolled and cut the yellow fondant and put it on part of the top and side of the cake to look like he was painting it.  I thinned a little brown food coloring to paint the wood grain lines on the brown fondant.  Then I took a toothpick and broke off the pointed end.  I dipped it in some black food coloring and dotted the 'nails' onto the planks on the side of the cake.

All the tools I shaped out of fondant.  I wish I would have had more time to do the saw, nail gun, tape measure, and router (yeah, I know it kind of looks like a sander, but it was supposed to be a router that he had used to cut out the letters).  Those tools mentioned were kind of thrown together quickly, so they don't look as good as they could have, but I was running out of time and I at least wanted them on there, so there you go.  :)  To make the sawdust I took some scraps of the brown fondant that I had leftover and chopped them into little pieces, then I just sprinkled them around the sawhorses.

My dad is made out of fondant... not my actual dad (although he is sweet :) )... just the one on the cake.  :)  I put him in one of his favorite kinds of shirts (if you look in the picture of him 'cutting' the cake you'll see that he was wearing one with navy blue sleeves the day of his party - funny), and I even gave his mini version the appropriate tattoos.  :)

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