Click, Click... Say Cheese!!!

My girlfriend asked me to make a cake for her Camera Club Christmas Potluck. She requested a Camera Shaped Cake and hoped I could deliver. Since these were all Camera people, it had to look pretty realistic. I did a search online for some ideas for a camera cake, since I knew my skills were not good enough for a really elaborate camera. It required a little bit of carving, which I seem to be getting a lot of practice in lately! I decided to make the camera look more like a "Point and Shoot" camera so it was a bit easier to do, rather than a very fancy SLR type one, which I'll be honest, I do not have the skills for.
I thought this cake would be a bit harder than it was, so I was a bit surprised when I finished it and it did not take me near the time I thought it would. My girlfriend said it was a big hit at the potluck, and no one wanted to carve into it since it "looked like a masterpiece". I was pretty thrilled to hear some of the comments about it afterwards. Those are the things that make me love what I do:)

Side View of the cake. You can see the height on the lens itself.

Other side view showing the handle. It doesnt seem to show well in the pictures, but the handle is carved slightly.

And with that, I think this is my last cake of the year. I wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! Hope to have tons more to share in the new year!!

Touchdown!! A football birthday for a special little guy

Recently, I had posted a picture of my girlfriends birthday cake on an online forum I am a part of. I wanted to share my work since I was thrilled with how cute it turned out. From that, I got a message from a local girl, who wanted me to make her son's birthday cake and cupcakes. I was pretty excited to give this one a try since it would require a bit of carving on my part to make. The mother wanted a Football shaped cake, and some football themed cupcakes to go with it. Now, Wilton actually sells a football shaped pan, and I almost rented it to give it a try, but I figured this was pretty simple to carve, so I should use it as practice and do it myself.

First I had to get the football themed cupcake toppers done, since they needed some time to dry. I decided to make little footballs for half of the cupcakes and goalposts for the others. The footballs were pretty cute! The goalposts could have been a little bit better, but I did them freehand and the gumpaste was pretty thin.

Close up of the footballs..

Next I had to create the cupcakes. These were pretty easy to do, and with my trust grass tip, I was able to make a pretty realistic looking mini football field:)

And finally the cake itself. It came out pretty cute if I do say so myself. Not bad for a quick carving job. I could have made it a little bit wider, but the biggest thing was it looked like the ball..

I certainly hope little Levi had a great birthday!!

A special Super Birthday!

My daughter's little "boyfriend" is turning 3 on the 6th, and his birthday party was this weekend. I made his birthday cake for his first birthday, so it was nice to make his third one as well. (Unable to attend his second one)
The birthday boy was a bit obsessed with a PBS show called "SuperWhy." For those of you who don't have kids of preschool age, this is a relatively decent show about "Superheros" who solve problems by reading stories. Its actually one of my daughters' favorite show as well. Anyways, my friend wanted a SuperWhy themed cake and cupcakes for the party. It was a nice cake to work on, not only because I knew the birthday boy, but I get to see his reaction when he sees the cake. Always a nice thing to see:)

I decided to make a book out of cake. This was my first "real" attempt at carving (unless you count my pretty dismal beer bottle attempt a few months back) Overall I was happy with how the carving came out. It wasn't perfect, but I did at least like the cake mixture I used in order to get a sturdier cake to carve. (Plus freezing helps!)
Next was covering the cake in buttercream..

While that was crusting over, I wanted to get started on my frozen buttercream transfer. I have done a few of these before, and I enjoy the technique. On each one, I am still learning how to perfect it. This one actually took me two attempts because the first one did not come out very cleanly at all.

Halfway through!

The transfer needs to hang out in the freezer for a little while, so it was time to finish icing the cake and preparing it for the transfer..

And the final result..

Close up of the transfer

And of course, what little boy wouldn't love blue and green cupcakes to go with his cake:)

Happy Birthday Lucas!

Its a Minnie-rific Birthday!

I was asked to create a birthday cake for a little girl's second birthday. She wanted a Minnie Mouse Cake, complete with Minnie ears and bow on the top.

I must say, I was really excited about creating this cake. The fondant decorations on this one started about 5 days before the cake was due. They needed time to dry, and make sure they would work well enough to be adhered to the cake. First thing to do was create the Minnie Ears and the Minnie Silhouettes going on the bottom tier.

I wanted to make sure we had a few different sizes of ears to play with, and of course I made doubles of everything:)
Next was making the bow which goes on top of the cake, which I forgot to take a picture of.. but it was spectacular:) (And I made a second one as well:))

Minnie of course needed her pink bows in her hair. (Minnie is either in pink or red, depending on what you like. This birthday girl was all about pink!)

And then the white polka dots all needed to be cut out and ready to go. Finally everything got to sit and dry for a few days..

Finally I got to create the cake and start piecing it all together. :)
I was told the family loved the cake and could not wait to show the birthday girl her cake. I was pretty pleased with it all myself.

Close up of Minnie...

Happy Birthday Alexis!