Toopy and Binoo

Toopy and Binoo
Originally uploaded by sarahenrycakes

Wow, it's already a busy August. My fridge is so full of cake, waiting to be assembled.
But still, I have to let you know about this cake that was finished at the end of July. Toopy and Binoo was done on a 13 x 18 inch cake. It seems to be a popular size the past few cakes (more pictures to come). The kids have their birthdays close together, so they shared the party, which as a mother I completely understand, but as kid I think I would be ticked that I had to share my day with my brother or sister.
Their mom was a great sport about the Treehouse cartoon that they love. She seems to know more than any sane adult should know about all the episodes of the show. Her email contact with me cracked me up. I guess that having kids definitely helps to keep your sense of humor intact. I should know that already.

Another "Cars" cake

My oldest son turned 5 this month. Last year, his most favorite character was Lightning McQueen from the movie "Cars". This year, for some reason he really likes the bad guy in the movie, Chick Hicks. It may also have something to do with the fact that the car is green, and that's his favorite color (most days).
I decided that I would try to use a scene from the movie to create the cake this year, with some edits and simplification of course. My handy husband made me a stage out of wood, and I covered it with fondant and added icing decorations. Next came the car. We didn't need a lot of cake because we were having a small party, so I only made the front half of the car. I was pleased with the end result and my son was pretty excited.
His party this year was at Chuck E. Cheese's and we had a lot of fun. I couldn't believe how many kids were there for birthday parties. I think that there were at least 5 parties at a time, and as soon as we cleared out, they were setting up for another round of parties. That's a lot of kids and a lot of cake.

Buzz Lightyear

Buzz Lightyear
Originally uploaded by sarahenrycakes

First off, I have to say that the internet is the best place to find inspiration for cake designs. It makes it so easy to find what the client is requesting.
This time around, the birthday boy wanted to have a Buzz Lightyear cake. The mom asked if it could be in the signature "hero" pose. I figured it had to be out there somewhere. Granted, I did think that the hero pose was might have been with him pointing off into space when he exclaims"To infinity and beyond!" but there are no photos that I could find like that. This is the picture that depicts Buzz's signature stance.
Secondly, I really am glad that I took the Wilton Cake Decorating courses. Right away in course one you are taught the best way to "copy" a picture onto a cake. Without that method, I am not sure if I could have drawn this picture as well as it turned out. Those of you who have taken the course know this valuable secret, and those of you who don't, call me and I can make the cake you are looking for. ;)

Thomas the Tank Engine

Thomas the Tank Engine
Originally uploaded by sarahenrycakes

I have some of my ads posted in my neighborhood, and I on those ads is a picture of my original Thomas cake. I got a request for it, but unfortunately that cake is one of the more expensive ones and it also is quite a large cake meant for feeding about 25-30 people. So the mom and I came up with a less costly and smaller version of that cake.
I used a 9 x 13 inch pan and trimmed off portions to make the shape of a front view of Thomas. The black and grey icing were iced smooth while the red and blue was done with stars to fill the whole thing in, including the sides.
I heard later from the mom that the birthday girl loved the cake.

Minnie Mouse

There are a lot of kids out there. Is that just stating the obvious? I seem to be getting a lot of kid birthday cake orders lately. March is a busy birthday month I guess. So that says something for June as well now doesn't it? OK, sorry, that's not really cake talk.

I am getting good at these character cakes. It used to be that I would go out and look to buy a cake pan that was the shape of the character request, but thanks to the internet, any picture can be made into a cake. This time around, I used the same image that would have come with a Minnie Mouse cake pan and drew it on a flat cake, therefore saving the cost of purchasing the $10 to $20 cake pan that might only get used once.

Uniqua

Busy, busy, busy. I really need to stop procrastinating. Since I have no choice but to make the cakes on time, I really should write up the posts that go along with them in decent time too.

My last two cakes were both Backyardigan cakes. Last Saturday.
I had originally gotten orders from two different moms who liked my Pablo cake, and wanted the same thing for their one year old's birthday parties. I was surprised at the coincidence.
One of the children was a girl and one a boy, so I asked the mom of the girl if she'd like to have one of the "girl" characters from the show rather than Pablo, a "boy" character. I am glad that I did ask her because I was very happy at the turn out of Uniqua. That was definitely a girly cake.

I have more characters to come. The next post will be Minnie Mouse, once she is done. Let's see if I can do the post in a decent amount of time.

Madagascar's Gloria

I've seen the 1st Madagascar movie and liked it, but I haven't seen the second one yet. Maybe one day I will rent it for the kids; OK, for me too.
My neighbor's oldest daughter was having a birthday party and she chose to have a "Gloria" birthday cake.

This week I had two cakes to make for the same day, both for pick up in the same hour, so I was a busy girl last night. I'll post the second cake next.

Backyardigans

I have 2 boys at home, one who loves to watch cartoons, especially the Treehouse channel. I really try hard not to pay too much attention to the actual shows there. I feel like watching makes me regress, like I am losing brain cells.

But once I was asked to make a "Pablo" cake, any time my son was watching his shows I was waiting and actually hoping that I could see the Backyardigans show. The things they come up with are creative, and nothing I would ever think of. It encourages kids to dream up things and use their imaginations.

I really think that the writers of these shows must spend their days with children waiting for them to act out their imaginations so they can use it in their shows. I really wish I knew why it is that as we grow older we have less and less imagination. Kids think of the strangest things to say and do, and my kids are continuously surprising me. Almost makes me wish I could go back and be that carefree again....

Anyhow, back to real life. Here's Pablo:

My Cookie Monster turns 1!!

Well, I wouldn't be a very good mom if I made all the cool cakes for other kids, so I had to go all out for my son's first birthday. We came up with the Cookie Monster idea a while ago, but I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to go about making the cake. It seemed like a big endeavor to make anything more than a flat cake with a picture of the furry blue dude on it. But after a little searching was done to see how others have done Cookie Monster cakes, I changed my mind. If it had already been done by someone else, there was no reason why I couldn't do it also.
I have to admit though, I was a little nervous about it.

Lately I have been doing a little experimenting with cake flavors and needed to find a good lemon cake recipe. So my attempts at lemon cake did not go to waste. I made the base layer with one recipe, and the body was made with another recipe done in 2 more layers. And then, the head. I was a little worried about adding more layers of cake, as I didn't want his head to fall off in the middle of the party. I decided to take cue from a TV cake show and make his head out of rice krispie treat. It worked like a charm. Once his head was added to the top and the whole thing was iced with blue fur, adding arms seemed a cinch compared to everything else. Finish off with some chocolate chip cookies for effect and the end result was quite obviously the lovable Sesame Street character Cookie Monster.

I guess my only problem now is trying to figure out how to continue to top myself when my other son has his next birthday.

Winter Wonderland

We woke up this morning to find that it was snowing once again. Normally this would be no big deal for us on a lazy Sunday morning. But today was not a day to be lazy. We had plans to deliver a cake today, and ironically enough the cake had a snowflake theme to it. So off we went with the shoveling and then driving ice skate style to take the cake to the little one year old awaiting her party.


Earlier in the month I made a cake for a Thomas the Tank Engine party for another one year old. It's a really good thing that I have my two boys in the house so that I can use their toys as reference for the theme cakes. Sometimes using a picture as a guide is just not as good as having all 3 dimensions to view on a toy.

November's not over yet

I have never had a month that has been this busy with cakes until now. I love it! I do hope that I will continue to get more orders to keep every month hopping.
I started this month with the birthday of a sweet lady who turned 80. This is a woman who knows what she wants. She knew that her friends had plans to have a cake for a get together that they were having, but she let them know that she knew of a girl (me) who made cakes. Somehow the plans got changed and she ordered her own 80th birthday cake.


Little did she know though, her daughter had already planned to have me make a cake for different, family party that was being thrown in her honor, so I had two completely different cakes planned for the same birthday girl. She's probably had enough cake for this month.




Next on my list of cakes to do was Tinkerbell. She has got to be my favorite character cake so far. Just adorable.
I met a talented photographer who's daughter was turning five and she wanted to have a special cake made for her. We decided that we would exchange talents. I sent her a bunch of my photos of my cakes and she put together some advertisements for me while I was in charge of making the cake for her. I think that our trade went over very well.


That is only half of November for me. 3 down, 3 more to go. And on top of all that, I have a vacation to go on as well. Hopefully I will have time to post the next three cakes before the month is gone.