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. :)