Under the Sea Adventure....

A friend's daughter is in love with Ariel right now so of course she was the theme of this year's birthday party.  For this cake I returned to the use of a candy mold as the centerpiece.  I purchased an Ariel cake pan from a craft store and began building the mold.

For her hair I purchased red candy melts and I bought white candy melts again and added the dye to get the other colors.  The finished product can be found above.

I wanted to place Ariel under water so I needed to make some fishes.  After mixing up some gum paste I cut some fishes out using a cookie cutter.

I painted the fishes with a brush with some dye colors I thinned out with vanilla extract.  I then dyed the rest of the gum paste green and cut out some thick inch strips to create sea weed.

Above you will find the finished cake.  For the sand I crushed up to graham crackers.  The bubbles were created by cutting circles out of gum paste and gluing them onto candy sticks using melted white chocolate.  When it came to the party Iris, the birthday girl would not allow anyone to eat the fishes, her name, and ofcourse Ariel and to this day all of the items remain in the freezer untouched. :)

Say Cchheessseee!!!

So a really good friend of mine is a great photographer so for her birthday I wanted to suprise her with you guessed it a camera cake.  I knew she had a Nikon so my first step with to study the features of the camera.  After a quick trip to Best Buy I came home prepared to get started.  I bake a standard sheet cake and shaped the camera from that.

Once I was satisfied with the proportions I iced the white cake with buttercream.  After the icing was applied, I colored some marshmellow foundant black and covered the cake with it.

Now with the cake covered it was time to add the details.  When it came to choosing what to add, I wanted to focus on the parts of the camera that made it a Nikon.  So I added buttons here and there, some gray foundant for the screen, a little red, and a strap.  Below you can find a picture of the finished product.

I think it goes without saying that my friend Crisite loved her cake and I enjoyed giving it to her. :)



Elmo Cake

So my coworker's son is in love with Elmo so of course for his second birthday she asked me to make him an Elmo cake.

My niece had an Elmo cake once so I knew there was a cake pan out there somewhere.  So I searched the web for a little inspiration and found that you could make a candy mold using the cake pan.  With that in mind I began to design the cake.

When it comes to candy molds I had never made one to this scale.  I had made smaller candy molds in the past for lollipops and such but this one was going to be a little more difficult.  Since Elmo's face isn't all one color you have to freeze the mold in several stages, piece by piece.  Before I began the mold though I bought red chocolate melts which you can find at any craft store and I also bought white chocolate melts.  Also I bought candy dyes to color the white chocolate black for Elmo's eyes and orange for his nose.

Making a candy mold is very time consuming but if you do it just right they usually make a great centerpiece to any cake. 

One piece of advice though when you're making candy molds after you place the chocolate into the mold make sure to tap the pan to release any air bubbles that might be in the mixture.

As you can see I'm a little too much fun with his face but notice just how big this mold is.

For the front of cake I made sort of a Sesame Street sign with her son's name.

Here is the end product.  I molded to hands out of red fondant to make it seem as if Elmo was jumping out of the cake.  Also you can't see the back of the cake but I just added shapes and numbers in primary colors.  The birthday and his family loved the cake and needless to say I have already been asked to make his next birthday cake. :)

Movie Lovers Cake

So this year my roommate's birthday happened to fall on the night of the Oscars.  One thing about him that you must know is that he absolutely loves watching movies.  With that being said of course I had to make him a movie themed cake.  The only thing he requested from me was that the cake be marble. 

The cake was to be covered with white fondant.  Surrounding the base of the cake were hand rolled marbles.

Next, I colored some fondant red.  My hopes were to create a red carpet of sorts on top of the cake.

Once the cake was topped and trimmed with red I turned my attention to the objects that were to be placed on top. 

One of the problems I run into when it comes to placing objects on top is how to support the weight of the objects.  With this cake that object was the movie theatre screen.  It turned out to be heavier than I thought.  At times like this I find myself turning to popsicle sticks and praying that it works out.  In the end, this was the final product.

I think it's safe to say that Alan loved the cake.  Happy Birthday A.C....the BEST roommie ever! :)

Last minute request....

On my way home from work my friend called me and asked if I could make him a cake for his birthday.   There was one problem though.  He wanted the cake early Sunday.  That being the case, I needed to work fast.  Especially since I planned on going out of town Saturday.  So, I got right to work that night.  My friend loves cars so we decided on a Ferrari logo cake.  I baked him a two layer strawberry cake using my 12 inch rounds.

For my strawberry cakes I use a white cake mix with fresh strawberry pieces, strawberry gelatin, flour, and sugar.   While the cake was baking I worked on the Ferrari logo. 

I colored some gum paste black for the shield.  For all the pieces I used fondant.  The horse I drew onto the shield with edible black marker.   The cake was to be covered with red fondant.

Once the cake was covered I dusted the top part of the cake with edible yellow pearl dust.  I then decided to add a yellow ribbon border to the bottom of the cake.

In the end, everything worked out and my friend was very satisfied with the final product. :)

My first zebra print cake....

So a co-worker of mine asked me to make this cake for her daughter's 11th birthday.  I was super excited yet nervous because it was in fact going to be my first zebra print cake.  Thankfully though my co-workers daughter printed out some pics of several she liked and I choose her most favorite cake as the one to conquer.  With every cake I bake the first thing I must do is of course make the fondant.  Which, as I've stated before is a very messy task, at least for me it is.  I make a marshmellow fondant which is just basically just a bag of melted marshmellows, a little water, and a lot of confectious sugar.

The cake was a simple white one with buttercream icing.  For the bottom tier I used an 8 inch round and for the top tier I used 6 inch rounds.  After baking the bottom tier I covered it with white fondant.  I then colored some fondant black for the zebra print.  I originally bought a zebra stencil hoping I could just outline the print but that ended up not working out because my tools were too big to fit inside the stencil.  In the end, I ended up free handing the print and it turned out better than I thought it would.

I decided to cover the base with black fondant and placed the bottom tier on top of it.  I planned on covering the circumference of the base with some zebra print ribbon I had found.

After completing the bottom tier, I turned my attention to the bow.  Now I had attempted making a bow before on a couple of cakes but this bow was going to be different.  The bow was to be sort of a neon green color.  I used only gum paste from the bow since it dries faster.  To make the bow I cut four strips of gum paste in the shape of a rectangle.  The dimensions of the strips were 2 1/2 inches by 6 inches.  I used to of the strips to make the loops.  To hold their shape, I rolled some napkins in the shape of a tube and placed them inside the loops.

To make the "legs" of the bow, I took the remaining to strips and cut triangles out of the bottoms and placed strips inside of a plastic bag to prevent them from drying out.

After I finished the bow, I turned my attention to the top tier which I covered in hot pink fondant and decorated it with black dots.

The last thing I had to worry about was the "B" that was to be place on a rhombus shaped shield.  I decided to free hand the "B" in white fondant as opposed to using my letter molds.  In the end, this had to be one of my favorite cakes to make.

Just got home from H-E-B (I love that store!). Anywho, hopefully grabbed everything I needed to begin making the cake tomorrow after work. On the agenda to do tomorrow is making the fondant (which is always so messy), the bow, and baking the cake. Let's hope it all goes smoothly. :)

This is a test...this is only a test...this blog "To Sift or Not to Sift..." is conducting a test of the blog texting system. This is only a test. :)

The cakes so far....

This was my first attempt at a fondant cake.  My friend is a huge of the Boston Celtics.  So to mark his birthday I made this jersey cake.  I took a strawberry sheet cake and carved it in the shape of a jersey.  I actually cut the numbers, letters, and clover with a standard kitchen knife. LOL. Just like a pro. ;)

My best friends birthday cake.  This one was all strawberry.  I enjoyed the different shades of green and purple.

This Dora inspired cake was for a 3 year old birthday party.  Having to work with so many colors was somewhat difficult.  Especially since I color the fondant by hand which means...yes...my hands are usually dyed several colors when everything is said and done.  If I remember correctly the top cake was white and the bottom cake chocolate.

My little sister's 21st birthday cake.  Also my first attempt at making a red velvet cake from scratch.  I had no idea you needed so much red dye for it.  Lesson learned.  Also my first attempt at making a bow.  An absolute failure if I must say so myself.

Cake I made for a Halloween party obviously.  I LOVED the way the purple came out.  This one was quite fun to make.  It have everything from ghosts to pumpkins to tombstones.

The Thanksgiving cake.  This cake was my first attempt at making a pumkin spice cake.  It turned out to be very delicious.  The dark brown is actually melted chocolate.  This was my first attempt at doing something really 3D.  Definite lessons learned here.

The Chirstmas cake.  One of my favorites thus far.  This was also my first attempt with icing borders.  The bow still didn't turn out quite the way I wanted it.  Still having difficulty with bows and having them stand upright.  Oh well.

My niece's 1st birthday cake.  Wasn't sure about the finished product but everyone thought it was yummy. :)