Sink Your Teeth Into a Good Book... Literally! - May 2009

I made this stack of books cake for my daughter, Cara's, 4th grade Language Arts teacher for Teacher Appreciation Week.

More details to come... :)

[Right now I'm just trying to get everything on the blog, then I'll go back and fill in details; you can read a little longer explanation here if you want. BUT if you have any questions in the meantime, in general or about this cake, please feel free to email me by clicking on the 'Contact Me' tab at the top of the page and using the email address found there, and I will try to get back with you as soon as possible. Or you can always ask questions or leave a comment about this cake by clicking the comments link at the end of this post. :) ]

A Spot of Tea and a Cup of Joe - June 2008

This is the tea mug cake and the coffee mug cake that I made for Cara's 3rd grade teachers at the end of the year.  (In third grade they had a homeroom teacher who taught the class certain subjects, but then the class would switch and go to another teacher's classroom who would teach them the other subjects.)  Earlier in the year we asked them to tell us some things about themselves.  Her homeroom teacher said that one of her favorite things was tea so I made the tea mug cake for her, and every student who had Cara's 'switch teacher' knew that she LOVES coffee so I made the coffee mug cake for her.

These are the pictures of the tea mug.

These are the pictures of the coffee mug.

To make these cakes I cut large circles out of the middle of the cakes that I baked and stacked them to make the height of the mugs that I wanted.  (I should have doweled the cakes to keep the layers secured together better, but at the time I didn't.)  After the cakes were stacked I crumb coated the mugs and let them set.

Then I did my top coat of icing, but for some reason it didn't coat well and ended up being very bumpy looking.  It was like the icing went on so thin that you could see all the bumps of the cake underneath and you could see shadow like spots where the darkness of the chocolate cake was coming through more.  It did not look very nice, definitely not like the look of a ceramic mug [you know, unless someone molded the mug in the dark... sitting in the back of a truck... while traveling on a bumpy road :) ].  So, I decided to get more buttercream icing and go over it with another top coat.  Still not exactly like I wanted, but it was miles better than what I had before, and it looked pretty nice.  I piped a thick line on the top of the lip of the mug and blended it into the icing on the sides.  This would give me a well to pour the 'tea/coffee' into.

I mixed a little bit of vanilla and chocolate icing together to get the light brown color that would be the tea.  For the coffee I just used plain chocolate icing.  I heated both up in the microwave for a bit to make the icing a thinner consistency so I could just pour the buttercream onto the top of the mug and get a smooth finish.

The handle and the apple I made out of fondant.  Then I piped the words onto the mugs.  On one side I wrote "We love" and then put the teacher's name.  On the other side I wrote "A+ Teacher", and in between those on the opposite side of the handle I drew a picture of an apple.

The teachers really liked their cakes!  :)

An Apple for the Teacher - May 2007

This is an apple cake I made for Cara's 2nd grade teacher's birthday.  I made apple cupcakes for her (and the students :) ) as well.

Everything on this cake is edible.  I baked the cake using a ball pan.  After it cooled I stacked the halves with buttercream in between and carved the cake a little on the bottom half and where the stem would be to make it a bit more apple shaped.  Then I crumb coated the cake and let it set for a little while.  After the crumb coating was set I iced it with red tinted buttercream icing.  I made the stem, leaf, worm, and books all out of fondant.  I used food coloring to paint on the details for the worm and books.

I wasn't sure if she was going to serve the cake at school or take it home, so I made the little apple cupcakes so the class could have a taste and celebrate with her.  The little ones were baked in a mini muffin tin; then I made the bigger apple cupcake for the teacher baked in the bottom of a glass measuring cup.  After they cooled I just piped the tops with buttercream to make them look like the tops of apples.

My sister, Casandra, had told me about a cake contest that Woman's Day magazine was having, and so I entered some of the cakes that I had made, including this one.  They had about 600 entries and none of mine won, but this apple cake was included in a slideshow on the Woman's Day website along with about 67 other cakes that they said were some of their favorites.  So, I thought that was pretty cool.  :)

-----------------------------------------------------------

Parties I've linked this post to: