Brett's Lego Star Wars Cake

My good friend Jen's son Brett turns 8 this year... I can't believe he is 8 already!! Lego blocks were chocolate cake with chocolate Swiss meringue filling and draped in marshmallow fondant.  Lego bricks were MMF and gumpaste.  He had a special request to include some real toys, which are lined up at the base.  R2-D2 and Chewbacca were sculpted with gumpaste.  

I found an awesome Star Wars font for free online. I printed out his name on heavy stock paper and cut it out, put the stencil on a thin layer of rolled out gumpaste and cut the letters out with an Exacto knife. 

I built the lego ship from thin blocks of gumpaste.  The lego "dots" were cut using a piping tip and pasted on with a dab of royal icing.  I propped it up with a chunk of marshmallow fondant as a base and "glued" it on with royal icing.  

Happy birthday, Brett! 

Brooklyn's Princess Castle cake

Brooklyn's 1st birthday cake was a castle fit for a little princess! The square bottom tier and top round was white almond sour cream cake, with a layer of pink Swiss meringue buttercream inside. Pink marshmallow fondant draped the tiers. The towers were made by wrapping gumpaste around cardboard tubes, which dried nice and stiff for stability. Turrets were inverted ice cream cones also wrapped in gumpaste. Marshmallow and gumpaste details.

The castle door was made of marshmallow fondant, with a gumpaste border and edible pearl door doorknobs.  Royal icing held everything in place quite nicely.

Here's a side view. I am still a little amazed that I managed to get all of the towers staggered in the same way I had pictured in my head before beginning the cake.  I think I got lucky!  Special thanks to Brooklyn's mom Leslie for an opportunity to make this castle cake. 

Happy Birthday, Brooklyn!

Matt & AJ's Wedding Cake

Three tiers of chocolate fudge cake with chocolate Swiss meringue filling.   Frosted and piped with buttercream.  Fresh stargazer lilies and satin ribbon decor. Chocolate fudge cupcakes topped with Swiss meringue buttercream and edible pearls.

 I had stargazer lilies in my wedding bouquet - I forgot how they pretty they are.  The whole cake was designed around the awesome pinks that just pour out of those lilies.

The tiny dot piping (#1 tip! So small!) was pretty easy; start with the top row, and eyeball about 1-1/2 inch spacing apart. Then pipe the bottom and middle rows, both lined up with the top row, then pipe the second and fourth rows where the gaps are.   Not terrifying at all.  OK, maybe a little bit.

 Congratulations Matt & AJ!!

Erica's Baby Shower

It's a girl for Erica! For her baby shower, we had a two tiers of white almond sour cream cake draped with pale pink marshmallow fondant and filled with pink Swiss meringue buttercream as well as strawberry and vanilla cupcakes to boot.  Harper Quinn is due to arrive in December.

Fresh mini carnations topped the cake, surrounding the gumpaste name badge. I also used sugar gems on this cake for the first time.  They were placed at the intersections of the white diamond shapes on the bottom tier.  They looked exactly like real diamonds and were a delicate touch. This was also the the first time I got to play with my new fondant extruder to make the stripes and thin ropes - love it. My new favorite toy.

Strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese buttercream frosting.  Marshmallow fondant flowers.

 

 

White cupcakes with pink Swiss meringue buttercream frosting.  White chocolate topper embossed with an "H" for Harper. 

Congratulations Erica!!

Leta's Monster Cake (and spooky Monster cupcake friends)

My niece Leta turns 4 this year! Her party had a "monster" theme - perfect for a birthday near Halloween. The orange cake monster is 2 tiers of white almond sour cream cake, with orange Swiss meringue buttercream filling.  White base is the same.

This pink guy has a mini-cupcake inverted on top of the regular-sized cupcake base to make him taller.  Piped with buttercream. Eyes are Dum-Dum suckers with Gummi-rings around them. 

This one is Karl's favorite - he says it looks similar to a monster from The Simpson's so it's automatically his totes fave. Buttercream frosting, black jimmie sprinkles and marshmallow fondant arms (pretzels are helping them protrude from the cake).

Lil' orange guy is frosted with Swiss meringue buttercream.  Blue buttercream horns and marshmallow fondant hands.

MONSTER CAKE TIME!!  Happy birthday, Leta!!!

Lincoln's Mickey Mouse cake

This  cake was made for a close friend's nephew, Lincoln, who was celebrating his 2nd birthday in August.  The cake was chocolate with chocolate Swiss meringue filling covered with marshmallow fondant.  All details made with MMF, with the exception of the stars, Mickey ears, Pluto and Mickey figures which were sculpted gum paste.  Some minor last-minute surgery was performed on Pluto as his tongue and right arm broke off at assembly...but a little sugar water got him back in business.

Devin's Fishing cake

For my nephew Devin's 12th birthday, he wanted an outdoors-themed cake.  He requested a campsite with a  tent, campfire and fishing scene.  Karl's idea was to make a giant fish which really turned out to be the centerpiece of the cake.  The cake itself was white, covered with marshmallow fondant. MMF was also used to make the rocks and cover the rice krispie treat sculpted fish.  Gumpaste trees, dock, tent, fire, cattails and of course the 'fishing Dev' figure.

Bill's Moustache Cake

A sweet 'stache cake was in order for my father-in-law's birthday in August.  I also made a few moustache pops to accompany the cake, which made for a fun family photo.  This was an itty-bitty cake (only about 8 inches tall).  The cake was chocolate, with chocolate swiss meringue frosting a with buttercream piping. Topper moustache was made of milk chocolate.

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.

Deann and Nick's Wedding Reception

The bride's colors were black, white, purple & lime green.  The reception was at the new Mahaffie visitor's center on KC Road & Ridgeview - an fantastic place for an event like this; really modern and roomy.   We've driven by it a million times but this was the first time I'd been inside.

The Bride & Groom's cake was a 2-tiered layered vanilla cake (7" bottom, 5" top) filled with Swiss Meringue buttercream, draped in marshmallow fondant. Fresh spider mums on top and satin ribbon/bows. Piped Swiss Meringue pearl detail.

My friend and co-worker Denise's daughter was married in Vegas a few months ago, but had their reception here over the weekend.  This was my first wedding so I was excited but also a little nervous, hoping I could get it all done in time.  With the help of my mom and Karl I delivered 200 cupcakes and a small topper cake and I think the bride really liked how everything turned out. There were 100 vanilla/chocolate mixed cupcakes topped with Swiss Meringue buttercream and the other 100 were topped with disks of marshmallow fondant with crusting buttercream detail.  50 of those had small MMF daisies in the bride's colors.  The cupcake wrappers were fun - for half of them I cut the tops off of some paper doilies from a party store, and made a sleeve to drop the cupcake in (those are on the cupcake tree) and for the rest I wrapped and tied a small ribbon and bow around them.  KG was awesome to built the cupcake tree from cake drums and dummy cakes.