Friends at the Pond - January 2012

I made this cute little pond cake for my nephew, Gavin, for his 1st birthday. 

For this cake my mom baked and iced the actual cake for me, and I made all the fondant toppers to place on top the cake.  [Thanks, mom!  :)]

I originally saw a cake similar to the one I made in an email that my mom forwarded to me with some boxes made out of chocolate and lots of different cakes.  My sister also received the email and asked if I could make something similar to one of the cakes in it for Gavin's birthday.  Below is a picture of the cake in the email that was the inspiration for the cake I made.

This pond cake above was made by Michelle Wibowo of Michelle's Cakes.

When I was writing this post I searched for the original  image online and found that the baker of the 'inspiration cake' is Michelle Wibowo of Michelle's Cakes (the email didn't have sources listed).

Below are some more pictures of the pond cake I made.

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. :)]

(I created my animated name at this site.)

Night Fury!!! - April 2011

I made this cake of Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon for my son, Caleb's, 9th birthday.

The board that the cake is on is 20"x30", so that gives you and idea of the size of this cake.

 

The head and body of Toothless were made using a cake baked in a Wilton football pan.  The legs and tail were made using foil wrapped around plastic wrap (just to fill it out some and not use so much foil).  I'm sure that a medium like rice krispy treats or modeling chocolate would work as well instead of the foil.  Before covering everything with fondant, I carved the football cake to get his basic head and body shape and used fondant to make some of the contouring of his head, attached the legs and tail to the cake, and put a layer of chocolate buttercream icing over everything.

 

 

When I rolled out the large piece of fondant to cover Toothless I used a plastic mold that looked kind of like dragon scales to imprint onto the fondant.  I used it on the wings as well.  You could see it well on some parts of the cake and not on others.  I'm still learning how to do this technique well with keeping the fondant soft and not letting the pattern disappear when you are smoothing it on the cake, but I was glad it could be seen somewhat.  :)

 

 

The wings were one piece of fondant that I rolled out, cut, and let dry as much as possible.  It rested on the clouds, but it ended up needing to be reinforced a bit more which I did using wooden skewers secured with fondant to the underside of the wings in a few places.  It did crack just a bit up on the body because I didn’t think about the curve of the body it would want to follow, but the crack was pretty small and once I sprayed everything black you couldn’t tell so much.  If you didn't want to mess with using fondant for the wings though you could use cardboard covered with fondant (or whatever you feel would work well for making wings).  :)

 

 

 

All the details (claws, spines, bumps, etc.) were made with fondant.  I used water to attach the different pieces onto the body, head, etc.

 

For most of my cakes I color my fondant first.  For this cake, though, since it was going to be a lot of fondant and colored black on top of that, I decided to try the Wilton color spray.  It’s an aerosol can and they come in lots of different colors.  So, I used white fondant for everything and then when I had it all assembled and had all the details done (except the eyes and the tail rudder piece) I sprayed it with the food coloring spray.  I think I used about 3 cans to cover it all and get it as dark as it was.  I would’ve used my airbrush, but I didn’t have it up and running yet.  After it was sprayed I attached the eyes which were made from green fondant and the details painted on with black food coloring, and the tail rudder which was made from white fondant painted with red food coloring and white fondant skull and crossbones attached.

 

 

I wanted him elevated off the board so for the white clouds I baked cakes in ½ a Wilton ball pan.  I piped white buttercream icing on the cakes using a large round tip to kind of look like puffy little clouds.

 

 

There was a lot of looking at different pictures of Toothless (and watching parts of the movie) to try and get things right.  :)  Caleb was thrilled with the result, and it was a big hit at his party!  :)

Click here to see a slideshow of the progression of making this cake.

(I created my animated name at this site.)

Jungle Animal 1st Birthday Cake - February 2011

I made this jungle animal themed cake for a little girl named Keila's 1st birthday.   The funny thing is that this cake was for a family my mom went to church with whose baby shower cake I helped my mom out with a little over a year before (see the post Humpty Dumpty Sat on a Cake).  So, it was cool to now be making her 1st birthday cake.

I also made the little smash cake below for the birthday girl to enjoy!

(This cake was made very much like the jungle animal cake in the post It's a Jungle Out There... Well at Least on This Cake.)

More pictures and 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. :)]

(I created my animated name at this site.)

Lizard & Cupcake - April 2010

I made this 3D lizard cake with a little fly friend for my son, Caleb's, 8th birthday.  He was having a lizard themed birthday party.  :)

More pictures and 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. :) ]

Animated name created at this site.

Lizard Cupcakes - April 2010

I made these lizard cupcakes for my son, Caleb, to celebrate his birthday with his 2nd grade class at school.

First I baked, cooled, and iced the cupcakes.  I used buttercream icing that I tinted green to pipe the outline of the lizard on and then fill it in.  I used red buttercream icing to pipe on the tongues, and I used some white icing to make the white part of the eyes.  I used dark purple nonpareils (little ball sprinkles) to make the pupil of the eyes.

Caleb liked these little lizard cupcakes and so did his class!

 

 

 

 

  

 


Created animated name at this site.

A Turtle Treat for a Terrific Teacher - October 2008

I made this turtle cake for Caleb's 1st grade teacher.  A few weeks after school started Caleb came home and told me that his teacher had been in a bad car accident when someone ran a red light and hit her.  She had a broken back among other injuries.  After almost a month she came to school to see her class and talk to them about some things since she'd be coming back soon.  She showed them the brace, called a turtle shell, that she had to wear around her torso to let her back heal.  (She also had a little stuffed animal turtle named Shelley to keep in class, and each child got to take it home for a weekend.)

I decided I'd make a welcome back/get well soon cake to give her on her first day back, and I thought it would be cute to make it in the shape of a little turtle.

I used one half of a ball pan to bake this cake in.  I trimmed a little off the cake on the side where the head was going to be.  This would make a little flat spot so I could make it look like the hole where the turtle's head would come out.  I crumb coated the cake, let it set, and iced it with green buttercream.

Since I knew the head was going to be pretty big I used foil to make the bulk of it.  After I got the shape that I wanted with the foil I covered it with green fondant.  I used the excess fondant to continue from the head and make the neck.  I set that aside to let it dry a bit.

I iced the flat spot where the head would be with dark green buttercream.  I used the same dark green to pipe the details onto the shell.  For the design on the top and the lines on the belly I used a round tip, and for the wide edge along the bottom of the shell I used a wide flat ribbon tip.

I attached the turtle head to the cake with a couple of toothpicks.  It was pretty top heavy and wanted to pull away, so I propped it up with a box of toothpicks for the time being.  I cut the signs from rolled out fondant, attached them to some cut bamboo skewers, painted the words on with blue food coloring, and set them aside to dry.  I cut the eyes for the turtle out of fondant and painted on the black pupils, nostrils, and mouth with food coloring.  I made the feet and tail out of fondant and slid them in place under the cake.  Then I put the signs in the foot and tail to make it look like the turtle was holding them.

The head still didn't want to stay right when I tried to take away the box, but I certainly couldn't give her the cake with a box of toothpicks on it.  :)  So I decided to make an apple out of fondant and put that in place of the toothpick box to prop up the head.  :)  It ended up being a good thing that the head was not cooperating because I really liked the way the apple looked as part of the cake.  I thought the color contrasted nicely with all the green.  Plus, you know, an apple for the teacher.  :)

Caleb's teacher was very excited about the cake!  I thought it turned out really cute, and we were happy to do something special for her and very happy that she liked it so much.  :)

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