June 21, 2009

Clowns and Cakes and Bears... Oh My!

So here we are, Sunday. And I have yet had a chance to practice my rose making. I have however, made a clown, three mini bear cakes, a mini Father's Day cake and a small batch of icing.
Guess my priorities are a bit skewed! (Hey, I have plenty of time for practice!)

In any case, I decided to try my hand at the scary clown so you can see what I mean. So here is Chuckles:

See?? He is scary, isn't he? Wouldn't you have nightmares if this thing was on your cake?
Ok, maybe not. I thought Chuckles turned out pretty cute in the end. He was made with plain white icing, and the colors came from striping the bag with a bit of food coloring. So when it piped out, the color ran onto the icing. Considering where some of the red ended up, I think I would pick a better color; is looks like Chuckles was shot in the chest and bled down his leg...

While I was out shopping on Friday, I went to a local craft store to see if they had anything "cute" for me to add to my cake decorating essentials. While it wasn't an essential, it certainly was cute! I found this cute 3d mini bear pan. I thought this would be so cute for my daughter's First Birthday next month! She could eat the whole bear by herself if she wanted to!
So I picked up the pan and decided since this weekend was Father's Day, I could make a bear cake to try it out and see what I thought. Of course I picked the busiest weekend we had to try and fit in some cake making..
We got home Saturday night and put our daughter to bed.. then I proceeded to make some bears. Needless to say a batch of cake batter yields about 4 cups, whereas my little bear friend only takes 1 cup.
So for about 2 hours, I made three bears, and a mini cake. I had to make a bear, let it cool, wash the pans, regrease and fill and bake again. My poor husband got stuck eating the leftover cake that flowed over the pans. I think by the end he probably ate about a cup worth of cooked cake.
Anyways, I was quite happy how the bears turned out. They looked so cute just standing there cooling. It was almost a shame I had to cover it in icing.
So this afternoon we get home from running around, with barely enough time for me to make a batch of icing and figure out how to ice the bear.

This is the Bear on the pan box. This is how my bear "should" look like:

And this is what my bear looked like:

My husband calls it the Scary Bear. I thought he wasn't bad looking for a first attempt. He does look like he is high on crack though! I found out that having a buttercream icing, with pure butter in it, may taste better than shortening, but a butter icing will melt in the piping bag from the heat in your hand. Needless to say the back of my bear was a little left to be desired.

Oh well... He tasted good at least!

While it was tedious work, I did get to practice my star making, so I think I might become a pro at that after all is said and done!
I still have two bears on ice. I think I will make those up this week for a get together I am hosting. We'll see what they might become!

Because of time constraints on Saturday night, I didn't want to stay up for another 30 minute session to make a 4th bear, so I threw my mini cake pans in with the last bear and made a small cake. Since my Dad was coming over for dinner for Father's Day, I made this cake for him. It was nothing special, but it did help me practice the shell border. I didn't have enough time to do much with this one.


So I promise, I will practice my Rose making before my last class. I don't forsee any reason why I need to make another cake between now and Wednesday..

Oh, wait a minute...
I haven't actally made my cake yet FOR Wednesday!!
Oops! Better get on that!!



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