From others come great ideas

This past weekend my grandmother watched my kids while I went to my final cake class and she showed me a super cool new treat I could make, hamburger cookies. Well I immediately said “that could be a Krabby Pattie, I have to make a SpongeBob cake now”

Guess who has a birthday coming up, THE HUBS, guess who is getting a SpongeBob cake! He hates SpongeBob but that’s Ok, he likes to oblige me :o) He said as long as it is chocolate cake inside he doesn’t care what the outside looks like.

I decided that the design of the cake would be the ocean with the small island, SpongeBob, Patrick and the palm trees.

I purchased the SpongeBob toys rather then making them. I did watch some you tube videos on how to make them but making figures scare me. I tried it once and came out horrible, I will stick to animals for now :o) I did however see them make striped towels and that’s where I got the idea to make the towels that went with them from fondant.

The Palm Trees……Oh boy! No I know full well that for any that has to ‘suspend’ or hold a rigid shape you need to mix/make it with gum paste. I tried to just make them with fondant…..FAIL! I couldn’t get them to hold together let alone attach to the ‘trunk’ (pretzel). In theory they were a super cute project if I had done it the way I know it should have been done.

I personally don’t think that gum paste tastes all that good and that’s why I try to avoid using it. For some reason I have this hang up that all things need to be edible on a cake and while gum paste is (it’s VERY hard depending on the ratio to fondant) to me it tastes like dish soap.

Here's the cake.....

Practice makes perfect....

I love playing in the kitchen, as we have determined, more so then that I want my client to get a product that makes them go 'WOW'. For the Eagle cake I decided that I wanted the feathers to be '3D' so I will be using fondant and lilly petal cutters and flower veiners to make them. You can't really see the detail in the picture so I will need to find a way to accentuate that but here's my first feather.

For the Minnie party we had been going back and forth about a cupcake topper and this is a prototype I came up with.

The last set of pictures is just a party of the party, cakepops! I love things on a stick....I truly do! All edible, it's chocolate and fondant!

Today was a fantastic day!

Accomplished

Today I completed the last class of course 4 of Wilton Method decorating classes and their Tall Cakes classes. I felt that take the classes and having some formal training would help me along the way. I have learned quite a bit along the way and added to my network, I met 2 phenomenal talent ladies along the way.

Here's to continued learning!

I love giving back

So I have taken all the Wilton Cake courses. These last 2 were fondant flower classes so I was eager to test out my new skills. I won't just bake and keep it around the house because, well I will eat it, and no good will come from that!

My neighbors daughter is walking to fight cancer and they are having a benefit dinner to raise money for her. We all know what that means, RAFFLES! What better then to get my name and product on a raffle table. This is what I came up with. I can't wait to hear how they went over. I hope they were a hit and made people want to buy extra tickets :o)

Hmmm....Well, that was simpler then I thought...

Like most of the posts you've read around this time frame this concept was a first for me!

I was asked to do something Toy story, in googling to get ideas I found examples of Andy's bed. I HAVE TO MAKE THAT CAKE. I bought a small buzz and woody to 'decorate' the room with, but the bed was all edible. 

For this project I got to trim a cake down to a shape that I want. I have to make and dry the head board and foot board in less time then you would normally use so they were a little thinner then I would have liked to see them. I also wrapped 'cakepop' in fondant to form a pillow and draped/ shaped fondant to make the sheet and blanket. 

To compliment the cake, little green men cupcakes. 

A wild one!

So this week brought in a new client and 2 SUPER fun cakes!!!!

After bringing in my Hello Kiitty cake a co-worker contacted me about doing her sons party in May. She also mentioned that the next day was one of her other sons birthdays but that was short notice. Being that I love CAKING and had the night free I said I wasn't closed to the idea of making a cake with less then a 24hr turn around depending on what we were talking about.....We decided on a simple Spiderman cake. I bought a hexagon pan to make his web and a Spiderman action figure to decorate the cake. This was the end result....

Then we started talking about his party that coming weekend. It was a quiet week for me after the craziness that was Easter so I was up for the challenge of a bigger themed cake in 2 days time. She threw out there that her son LOVES Toy Story. Perfect I have never done anything with that theme so the sky is the limit!!!!! I decided Andy's bed would be FUN (and it was). I used a square pan and trimmed it down to make a rectangle. I used a mix of fondant and gum paste to make the headboard and footboard. The cake was crumb coated with buttercream and covered with marshmallow fondant. I also made the pillows out of fondant. The figurines were purchased at a local toy store. Draping and shaping the blanket was fun. I had never worked with fondant in that capacity before. It took a couple tried to get it right, so i guess it's true practice makes perfect! The top sheet is just an accent, it's just a small piece tucked under the top of the blanket. Little green men cupcakes to round out the cake table and it's picture perfect!!!

Well, Hello Kitty!

The beautiful flower cake that I made for a clients daughter spurred another idea. She asked if I can do a Hello Kitty. This character I knew was popular, she’s all over the stores but never thought about making her for a cake.

I don’t generally like to bake ‘just because’; I hate wasting food and certainly don’t need an extra cake hanging around. My waist line can do without it. The idea of making Kitty’s bow though did intrigue me. I had never made a bow before.

So I make the bow, let it dry. As I am looking at this bow daily I think “something is missing”. Then a light turns on “I know what it is. That bow is missing Hello Kitty”. Ugh, knew this would happen. I am now making a Hello Kitty cake.

Kitty’s face is oval so I decide to use a 9x13 pan and trim it down. Well that works out perfectly. The ‘excess’ makes PERFECT ears. I use buttercream to attach the ears and crumb coat the cake. I make sure the cake and ears are level and now she is ready for fondant. I have some left from a weekend project and we are in business.

Roll, roll, roll, trim, trim, trim, flip over the roller and on to the cake…….CRAP! It’s too small! UGH! Now what little fondant I have left is covered in buttercream and crumbs and the cake is unevenly frosted!!! Well now I am aggravated so I am done for tonight.

Ok, covering Kitty take 2 – new batch of marshmallow fondant made. A more then generous piece of fondant rolled out and ready to be placed. Deep breath and GO. BAM, it works this time. Some gentle folding, tucking, smoothing and I have a Kitty :o)

Since I don’t want this hanging out in my house so I am not tempted to eat it, I decide Kitty would be best suited with the person who suggested it.

Bye bye Kitty!

Easter Weekend

Super Mario Cake

I was asked by a client to make a Super Mario Bros cake for his sons Birthday. (Disclaimer: I am so out of touch that I didn’t know he’s come ‘back in’, my poor kids). I started thinking about all the things I remember about Mario from when I played.

I think of the little flowers, the coins, mushrooms, bricks/bricks with question marks and of course those green tubes! Oh boy I can have fun with this!!! Also, I Google the theme to see what others have done.

I decided to make a 3d cake. My first and boy and I excited! I want to make the green tubes to sit a top the cake, using cake pop insides and fondant (I think). I am also going to attempt to make a Mario out of fondant. I have done animals but never people. (Mario counts as a person, right?)

Marshmallow Fondant

Ok so like many I would misspell marshmallow, I too thought it was marshmellow. In searching for a recipe it made me curious about the difference between marshmallow and marshmellow. It's nothing more then a common spelling error. Now that we have cleared that up, a fun fact...They got their name because they were originally made from a plant called Mallow that grew primarily in marshes. Interesting!

Now that your dying need to know about the spelling and origin or marshmallows has been taken care of let's get to the fondant.

In December when I looked for a recipe I just typed 'fondant recipe' into my browser and picked through the ones that came up for something that had good reviews and ratings that also looked like something I could easily make. The end result was a product that I could work with that tasted decent. I was 'Ok' with decent because in my search I found that most people had the same opinion of the taste as I did.  I didn't need to search for another recipe as I had found the acceptable standard.

Recently I have been networking with other 'from home bakers' talking recipes and techniques. I found out about this little gem known as marshmallow fondant. To google I go to find a recipe, again I look for high rating and good reviews. Much to my surprise it also looks SUPER easy (minus the 'sticky').

I melt my marshmallow, coat my mixer in baking spray and off I go. It didn't take long and it wasn't too messy. The end result is a AWESOME tasting product and it feels even easier to work with. I will be testing that theory the end of this week.

Stay tunes more to come!!