Pink and Blue Poodle Cake

So it's Sofia's birthday party time again and she was set on having a poodle cake even though I told her I had already done one for her 1st birthday....well, she was adamant especially since she has a real poodle dog. The twist, she wanted pink and blue, so once again I had to fabricate some of her decorations etc. The idea was a "three" tiered cake being achieved by placing a cake pedestal on top of another with cupcakes on the bottom tier. Then an 8" and a 6" cake cake on top. A cute, albeit pudgy poodle on top with a swirly S in fondant.

We found lots of blue and pink things to coordinate and some poppy red to make it all stand out. 

I also made the little pink S (which I'm planning on hanging in her room) along with the banner.

The happy birthday girl and mommy!

Boeing 747 Cake

So my dad wanted a Boeing 747 cake for his big 60th birthday....why? Well he's always liked to travel and secretly aspired to be a pilot, so I guess that's why. Well I don't get to pick what I make usually so I began...

It started off as a vanilla and chocolate cake, because well who doesn't love the two anyhow? Then they got iced over and a few pieces of fondant to complete the body mold. The wings were made of gumpaste and hardened overnight...then my wonderful husband decided to put them on wax paper for transport....so they began to regain moisture and sag again!

 Oy ve!

Here's me trying to fix it in my parent's kitchen....and it made it just long enough for some pictures and singing birthday songs and blowing out candles...Happy Birthday Papi!

Go Dog Go! Cake

This was Ethan's cake from last year, when he was turning 2. Go Dog Go! by P. D. Eastman was his fav fav book for a long time, then he kind of wasn't as impressed with it when September came around, but he got one anyway! He still recognized it and though it was pretty cool!

I tried to re-create the doggie from the cover and boy is it ever hard to do 3D stuff with sugar! The car and the dog on top were made of rice krispy treats, iced then covered in fondant. I feel like I was still using MMW fondant at this time. The cake was a 2 layer, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting. 

The birthday boy....he was so cute at 2!

Ninjaga Cake

I was asked by a friend to make a Legos Ninjaga cake for her little brother's birthday party. I really liked the inspiration she provided me with so I got ready to make the cake for them. The inspiration photo was a drawing of three little lego ninjas on this rising earth terrain covered in tree roots and breaking ground battling a skull looking creature. So I decided to recreate part of the picture. The cake was a very tall two layer yellow vanilla cake with a dreamy chocolate buttercream recipe that is my new favorite. I sculpted the little ninjas from fondant and gumpaste mixture and hand painted their faces and dragon motifs. The cake looks fairly simple when it was all said and done, but each little guy took forever to make! I think I need to work a little further on my sculpting skills with fondant, it seems the smaller they are, the harder is is....and also the larger they are, the more apt they are to fall apart!

Easter "Gingerbread House"

I just wanted to post up a quick picture of the gingerbread Easter train my kids put together with their grandmother. I forgot to take a picture BEFORE they ate part of it, but anyway, it was still cute!

Tiffany's Box Cake

I just wanted to throw in a few more pictures of the Tiffany's cake I did for my sister in law's birthday. It was night time so I had a hard time getting the pictures to come out, but here they are. Chocolate cake (best recipe yet) and chocolate frosting with coffee flavor, covered in Satin Ice Fondant w/ gumpaste accessories.

Sans birthday tag, avec birthday tag...;)

Catfish Cake

This cake was a special one for my oldest recipient, Justin's grandfather's 80th birthday. The man was and is an avid trotline fisherman and has caught many a catfish in his lifetime (not to mention squirrel camp and other hunting stories). So when the time came to decide on what cake to make for Papaw, it was naturally going to be a catfish. That being said, there are different types of catfish and the ones in the Red River, are a particular shade, my husband told me, so I had to receive some schooling. 

The Red River catfish is kind of yellow brown with highlights, bit mouth, etc. So I began with about  5 cakes, half chocolate, half vanilla, iced with chocolate frosting and buttercream. Hand carved the form, then covered in fondant. The fun part was the air brush painting, though setting up the booth and clean up are my least favorite! (We use a food color based 'paint' of course, and you can see my cute little compressor in the background.) The fish is in the details of course, fins, whiskers, all that jazz. 

The really cool part is that my mother in law found a picture of Papaw with a really nice catch and the fish in the photo looked exactly like my cake (look on the wall)! Mission accomplished. All his friends and family really enjoyed the cake, both visually and textually, and I was a happy to make it an extra special day for an extra special grandpa.

Christmas Decor

I realize this blog is about cakes, but it is my blog after all and I wanted a place where I could easily find my Christmas decor from the year before...so here are some non-cake related pictures. I LOVE LOVE decorating for Christmas and didn't get to do much this year since we were out of town for two weekends at the end of November and beginning of December. In fact, when we went to get our tree, most of the trees were gone from the traditional home improvement stores. Luckily we found a nice one at a Garden Center nearby. Traditionally I've gone with a white, red, green theme, but this year it was a new house, new game. Since my walls are painted a blue-sage, I decided to try to incorporate some blue into the decor. It worked out okay, but I really liked the pale blue ornaments, and I really only found dark blue by the time I was able to shop....oh well, there is always next year!
Tree collection

  reindeer  Lucky Irish elf ClausThe christmas tree...

More pictures...

 Mantel....I kind of miss not having a traditional mantel to put things on...down on bottom there is more width of course..

 Below the projector...

Why do I always have a hard time aligning pictures?!?!

Tiffany's Box Cake

I just wanted to add a quick post of a cake I did recently for my sister in-law's special birthday (number will not be revealed on this post!). She requested a cake shaped like the Tiffany's jewelry box, which I think all girls fantasize about at some point or another. Plus that blue-green is to die for. Anyhoo, after a little mixing of colors I got it just right (which is pretty cool since we bought her a necklace from Tiffany's and had the box to prove it - right of cake). Also her parents bought her one of the new Tiffany's purses (thus the huge Tiffany's box in the background). The cake was my "perfect chocolate cake" recipe with an improvised chocolate-coffee frosting. Fondant on top with gumpaste  bow covered in luster dust. All in all I think the cake and the presents were a hit.