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.)

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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