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.

My Little Pony Cake

Sofia's big 4 cake was a pony themed cake, because we rented a pony for her party (and some small farm animals for petting). So as I thought about what to do for her cake, I knew she wanted bright colors etc., so I went with a My Little Pony cake. I thought about making the ponies out of fondant or gum paste, but there they were available for purchase for a small price, to save me hours of molding....sold!

So as part of the birthday fun, we decorated cupcakes, so I felt I could get away with a relatively small cake. This one was a double 10" cake. Covered in fondant with fondant flower and heart cut outs. A gum paste rainbow and butter cream clouds. Also the pony behind sat on a 3D sun (difficult to tell from these pictures) The birthday girl was very happy with her confectionary model, so mommy was too. I was going for more of a color theme, than "my little pony" so I found these adorable cupcake plates and scooped up a few for fun! Hope you enjoy!

Amazing Video

Okay, I just had to post the link up for this amazing video of a 3D Labradoodle cake being made in 4 minutes! Of course it is edited and in FastFWD essentially, but nonetheless, wow! This lady is amazing! I wish I could whip cakes up so easily! She also used a few different techniques I hadn't seen before, and the face is not edible, but I'm not a purist when it comes to that!
http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-make-sculpted-dog-cake-189521/