Saturday, August 13, 2011

Ellyn and Darragh's Diego party

Darragh's mini-cake
Ellyn's mini-cake
It was a Diego party for family friends Ellyn & Dave's two kids' birthdays!  We went with a mini-cake for each of them, which turned out to be a great way for each of them to have their own special cake for the party.  Each mini-cake was about 12 inches tall - perfect size for the little ones.  I used all organic ingredients for the cakes by request, all the way down to organic vanilla extract and cupcake wrappers.  Only gumpaste and dipping chocolate for the cake pops (below) were not.  Cakes were 2-layer vanilla stacks, torted with a light buttercream and fresh organic strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries.  YUM.  Gumpaste and marshmallow fondant draping and details.  I did not make the Diego candles - but they were too cute to resist.
Back of Darragh's cake


Gumpaste elephant detail
Back of Ellyn's cake

Gumpaste alligator detail

CAKEPOPS!!!


Diego character cupcakes (Boots the monkey dropped by too)
Happy birthday Ellyn & Darragh!!! :) :)

Sophia's Beach Party cake




Summer beach party time for my niece Sophia's 4th birthday.  This one was SO fun, and I think Soph loved it.  The main cake was 3 layers of white cake torted with Swiss meringue buttercream.  Beach ball was also white cake wrapped in marshmallow fondant. Gumpaste seashells and life preservers, Marshmallow fondant waves and bubbles. Brown sugar for beach sand worked out better than I expected. Bonus: I found a new use for my leaf cutter - FISH!  


Strawberry cupcakes with brown sugar sand and tiny gumpaste beach balls.  See artsy-fartsy pictures below to see the ball making process:



Phil's Totally 80's cake


For my brother-in-law's 40th birthday bash, I made this 2-tiered vanilla cake with Swiss Meringue buttercream filling in between the layers.  I had wanted to add a few sweet little cassette tapes that I'd made but looked pretty sad and didn't make the cut.  Rubik's Cube is a rice krispie treat square; marshmallow fondant draped the layers and also made some nice little PacMan additions and zebra stripes.  Gumpaste letters and cube squares. A fun way to celebrate 40 years of Phil.