Elmo is such a popular character with kids, I am really surprised that it took until now to have a request for one. The usual Elmo cake is done as only his head, which I guess if you think about it, to a 2 year old that may be a little scary. Anyhow, the mom asked that the cake have his whole body so that her little one would really recognize him. Regardless of how he's made, he's still the cutest Sesame Street character.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Sports Fan
Catching up with some cakes that I haven't posted about yet, this one goes back to February. It's another new one for me. I used the frozen buttercream transfer method to put all the pieces on the cake individually. I figured they would look so much better that way than doing it with all the stars. I'd have prickly looking sports balls.
The lady who ordered the cake picked it out from the site of a bakeshop here in Calgary that does fantastic work. The picture she choose from is here.
The lady who ordered the cake picked it out from the site of a bakeshop here in Calgary that does fantastic work. The picture she choose from is here.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Exciting Month
Well, another month has passed me by so quickly. A couple of great things have happened in my life this month.
One good thing is that I finally handed in my notice to leave my full time job last week. Mind you it is notice of my due date, which is coming up on me faster than I had expected. My family and I will be expecting a little girl to arrive in June and when I handed in the formal letter of notice to maternity leave to my boss, it felt like a weight being lifted. Everyone at work already knew about my pending arrival, but this just gave me an actual date to announce.
The other great thing this month was the entry into a cake competition. Last year I attended the L'Arche Calgary Cake Walk to view the cakes. This year I received an invitation to enter the competition. I was allowed to have a partner in the project, and there was only 4 weeks left to prepare, so a friend who is just as into cake as I am joined me in the adventure. And it was quite a challenging adventure for the both of us. Four weeks was just not enough for us when I work full time and tend to my family and she is a full time mother of three with a busy schedule.
The theme for this years Cake Walk was "Celebrating Unity" and there were several entries that really hit the mark demonstrating their interpretation of unity. Some we couldn't really see it. We were entered into the Novice category and I was very glad for that. Some of the entries in the Professional category were phenomenal. If you click on the link you can view the winners and all of the other photos of the great entries.
We did go through several options in the planning stage and even on the day of the set up we went from plan A to plan C or D in the span of an hour.
This is our final cake.
It really was a great learning experience, and if I chose to enter again I would make sure that I had much more time to prepare and really put forth my best work. I am so glad that I got the chance to experience this and equally happy that I had help from a friend who I got a chance to get to know much better.
One good thing is that I finally handed in my notice to leave my full time job last week. Mind you it is notice of my due date, which is coming up on me faster than I had expected. My family and I will be expecting a little girl to arrive in June and when I handed in the formal letter of notice to maternity leave to my boss, it felt like a weight being lifted. Everyone at work already knew about my pending arrival, but this just gave me an actual date to announce.
The other great thing this month was the entry into a cake competition. Last year I attended the L'Arche Calgary Cake Walk to view the cakes. This year I received an invitation to enter the competition. I was allowed to have a partner in the project, and there was only 4 weeks left to prepare, so a friend who is just as into cake as I am joined me in the adventure. And it was quite a challenging adventure for the both of us. Four weeks was just not enough for us when I work full time and tend to my family and she is a full time mother of three with a busy schedule.
The theme for this years Cake Walk was "Celebrating Unity" and there were several entries that really hit the mark demonstrating their interpretation of unity. Some we couldn't really see it. We were entered into the Novice category and I was very glad for that. Some of the entries in the Professional category were phenomenal. If you click on the link you can view the winners and all of the other photos of the great entries.
We did go through several options in the planning stage and even on the day of the set up we went from plan A to plan C or D in the span of an hour.
This is our final cake.
It really was a great learning experience, and if I chose to enter again I would make sure that I had much more time to prepare and really put forth my best work. I am so glad that I got the chance to experience this and equally happy that I had help from a friend who I got a chance to get to know much better.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Orchid Baby Shower
A friend of mine had a beautiful baby girl back in December and I offered to throw her the baby shower at the end of January. It gave me another reason to make a cake and experiment. She said it didn't matter what the cake looked like. But I knew that her favorite flowers are orchids and so I set out to learn them.
I had a very small instruction sheet that came with the cutters which had tiny black and white pictures, and so I headed to youtube to see if there was any good videos to help me. There is not much of an orchid video selection that I found. If you know of a good one please post it for me in the comments.
All in all, I was alright with how they turned out even if it did take me 2 hours to make two orchids and three calla lilies. Regardless of how I felt about it, my friend and all her guests loved the cake and thought it was beautiful, so that's what counts.
I had a very small instruction sheet that came with the cutters which had tiny black and white pictures, and so I headed to youtube to see if there was any good videos to help me. There is not much of an orchid video selection that I found. If you know of a good one please post it for me in the comments.
All in all, I was alright with how they turned out even if it did take me 2 hours to make two orchids and three calla lilies. Regardless of how I felt about it, my friend and all her guests loved the cake and thought it was beautiful, so that's what counts.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Jesse
This is Jesse from Toy Story 2. I must admit that I am not the greatest at drawing faces even if they are just from a cartoon character. Jesse came out alright, so maybe I am getting the hang of it.
Character cakes are my most asked for cake, so I do get lots of practice with them, but there have been some interesting requests so far this year. I promise that I will be posting them soon in the blog. Keep checking back. I am very excited about the new ones coming up.
Character cakes are my most asked for cake, so I do get lots of practice with them, but there have been some interesting requests so far this year. I promise that I will be posting them soon in the blog. Keep checking back. I am very excited about the new ones coming up.
Monday, January 18, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Hula Girl
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Peter Rabbit
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Fondant Birthday balloons
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
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.
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