Ruby

This cake means more to me than just another cake to make. This one is special in that I made it for my parents 40th Wedding Anniversary. I made the three tiers only one layer of carrot cake each to keep the size down, and then covered them all with sugar paste, and added the scroll design. The final touch is 40 red ruby-like jewels placed atop the cakes.
Mom and Dad got married on Dec 31st, 1969. What an inspiration. There were no official plans to celebrate the milestone so I decided that I would make it a celebration. Since the date is so close to Christmas, and my brother and I and our extended families were all going to be home for Christmas, I planned a little surprise for while we were all there. The cake was the hard one to hide. I needed a safe place to put it, preferably chilled. Good thing it was cold over the holiday, because I stored it in a box outside in my parents camper. Then I invited a few of my parents close friends over to their house for drinks and cake and didn't tell mom and dad until about 5 minutes before people were to arrive. Needless to say, there were a few tears on my mom's part as well as mine, and both mom and dad were quite pleased with the little impromptu party held in their honor.
Congratulations Mom and Dad! You have been an example to me and also to everyone else who knows you.

Hula Girl

Hula Girl
Originally uploaded by sarahenrycakes

This cake was for a 50th birthday celebration that had a Hawaiian theme. They sent me an example of the plates they were using.

I had run out of fondant, and had been meaning to try out a new kind (at least new to me) from a store that I rarely go to because it's really out of the way. So I sent my husband to get it. Thankfully the ladies in the store knew what they were doing and pointed him in the right direction. This cake is covered using sugar paste. It is so much more enjoyable than store bought fondant. People will actually eat this stuff, and I think it totally smells like cotton candy. But since this was my first attempt with it I did have my own issues, like not rolling it thin enough in the center and the edges were too thin and almost didn't make it to cover the whole thing. But all in all, it was a good learning experience for me and I've since used it again and with much less trouble.

Peter Rabbit

Peter Rabbit
Originally uploaded by sarahenrycakes

Sometimes working with icing can be like painting a picture.
You get to blend colors and play with different textures to get the effect you are looking for. While I was working on this Peter Rabbit cake, I did feel like a painter.

My neighbor was throwing a surprise baby shower for his wife and the theme was to go along with the Beatrix Potter books and their characters. He brought me a few examples of pictures of the characters. What's funny though is that he really didn't want me to use any of the pictures. They seemed somehow, scary. So I did some online digging and came up with a nice example of Peter to use.

Fondant Birthday balloons

Fondant Birthday balloons
Originally uploaded by sarahenrycakes

Have we seen this one before? Yes we have. Although, this one has a fondant finish rather than icing. I made one large cake, then cut it to shape, iced the separate balloons then put on the fondant, before placing them back together in there finished form. When I originally made this cake years ago for my niece, I really never thought about it being a good one for twins, but I guess I need to have twins (never going to happen, lol) to think outside the box like that.

Baby shower

Baby shower
Originally uploaded by sarahenrycakes

I thought that this cake was so very baby appropriate. I have done a different version of this, only without the baby accessories. The quilting design is done with my handy cutter/embosser tool, and the butterflies are made and held in position with Royal icing. A little tip: before writing a long word like congratulations: practice, practice practice.

Cornelli everywhere

October and November were busy months for me. I quite often get cake orders that are repeats of previous cakes. That is not a bad thing. I do like to create something new and spectacular, but when I have lots on the go, it can be a relief to know that I've done it before and I know exactly what process I need to take.
I found I love the look of Cornelli lace on a cake. Well I'm not the only one. Here are two of my cakes done at the end of October and beginning of November that are quite similar.
The first is a red and white version of the first cornelli lace one I did in the beginning of September.

The next one was an order for a combination party. It was a 25th Anniversary party along with a 50th birthday party. The daughter ordering the cake liked the lace cakes and wanted to use the same idea for both of the celebrations. I wanted the cakes to both have their individual party theme visible and so using silver icing was the obvious choice for the anniversary. I'll tell you, there is a lot of the edible silver dust in my buttercream icing. Even when I was piping the lace on the cake I still thought it didn't look like enough. It still looked grey to me, but the photos, I think, show otherwise.
The gift tags make it obvious as to what the cakes are celebrating. Click on the picture to enlarge it and see the writing.

Millennium Falcon

Millenium Falcon
Originally uploaded by sarahenrycakes

Oh dear. I guess I should say Happy New Year to everyone out there.
I haven't been a very good blogger for the last while.

This cake was actually made in October for a little boy who is a Star Wars fan. When his mom asked if I could make a Millennium Falcon cake I was at a loss. I had to look up a lot of pictures to figure out how to make it. In the end she found a couple of pictures of other people's cakes done the same way and I used the cake examples along with the photos from the movie to get this one to a point where I was happy with it. It's cool what you can accomplish with cake and icing. This ones completely fondant free.