Penguin and Groundhog Wedding

I was lucky to be able to make a cake for and attend a beautiful wedding for my friends.  She loves Penguins and he loves Groundhogs.  

The colors for the wedding were Red, Navy Blue and white.

The beautiful bride and groom settled on a lemon cake with raspberry preserves and a lemon curd, I covered the tiers in Swiss merengue butercream and fondant.  

I made two cute cake toppers for their two tiered cake.  A penguin, and a groundhog.  Made out of fondant.

The cupcakes also lemon cake, with lemon curd and raspberry preserves.  All 130 cupcakes had a Swiss Merangue  buttercream.

To display the cupcakes and cake.  I made a cupcake stand and cupcake wrappers.

This was the mock up of the cupcake stand and cake stand. The cupcake wrappers were also a mock up.  I did not like the solid red and white so I redid them, in the navy blue and red and white.  With the punch out detail.  I made all 130 wrappers as I could not find a wrapper that I liked for this wedding pre-made.  I am pretty happy with the way they came out.

Here is a picture of the cupcake wrapper manufacturing.  =)

I had a blast at the wedding, it was beautiful, and full of surprises.  I hope the best for my happily married friends.  I am putting the rest of the photos in a slide show.  But here is a picture of my beautiful children first at the wedding.  =)

Here are the other photos:

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Cake pops with the kids

Been away for a while.  We had really sick kids for a while, and after that  vacation, in between all of that life was going crazy.  However, I have a post today.

To practice for a class coming up.  I had the kids make cake pops with me.  =)

Also a product review in this post to boot!

The product is the Nordic Ware Cake Pop pan.  For my class I will be showing how to do the classic cake pops rolled by hand as well as baking them in a cake pop pan.

 this image from Nordic Ware

So I have never had a problem with the Nordic Ware line of products.  (note: I have not gotten paid or compensated for my review. ) The line is wonderful, and this particular product has a non stick coating on the pan which helps.  However, you will still have to spray it down and sprinkle with flour, just to be safe.  It is made of aluminum and coated to create ease of use.  It was very easy.  I made one pan of pops and made the rest of the cake the traditional cake pop way.

I immediately liked the cake pops that came out of this pan as it has no icing in it, so it was less sweet, a huge plus if you don’t like super sweet items.  You will have to remove excess cake around the edges.  You will want to use a spoon and pour some cake batter into the bottom pan.  Mound up the batter a small amount to ensure that it will fill the pan.  A small amount of the cake will squish to the side, when you put the lock into place, so you will need to clean off the sides.

Bake at 350 for about 23-25 minutes or till a toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes then remove them completely.

Then melt the chocolate and decorate as normal.

For both balls I made a butter cake.  For the hand rolled ones I made them with a cream cheese frosting.

Enough with the talking though, here are the pictures.  My kids were every so happy to help me with the cake pops, as well as daddy.  They both ate 3 hand rolled balls before they ever dipped them =)

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Harry Potter, Gryffindor cake

My friend’s son had a major milestone birthday.  Her little boy was/turned 5 years old.  Yay!!!

He loves Harry Potter, specifically House Gryffindor.  My little ones and I were lucky to have lunch with him and his mamma.  Over lunch we discussed  what he likes, and what he wanted  for his birthday cake.

His request was Gryffindor, marble cake, and he wanted a strawberry cream filling.  So I ran with that.  =)

Anyhow, enough with the talking, here are the pictures.

 

This is the Gryffindor shield with rampant lion that I found on the interwebs.  I decided to use this one, cause it was pretty and I thought a nice shield and would translate nicely in Icing.

This is the first Rampant Lion I have ever drawn/Iced on a cake. =)  As heraldic animals go the lion is pretty nice.

She mentioned that I did not need to do anything to elaborate, however, I get excited and sometimes carried away.

I also made some fondant items.  A speedy nimbus like broom, a wand and a scarf.

I was informed that the cake was a hit, and the little man for whom it was made was excited.  =)  That right there is why I do this, I love to make people happy.  The shield was done in buttercream, the other decorations are all fondant.

 

(Tips: If you are going to try to drawn on a cake.  Look at the design or image in layers.  When I went to make it, I started with the background shield, then the decorations on the shield, then the lion and the Gryffindor ribbon, then the Word, and Details on the lion. )

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Strawberry and chocolate cake

About a week ago it was my husbands birthday.

He loves and always asks only for white cake, strawberries, and whipped cream.  This is a wonderful winning combination, however being who I am I would love to make him something more complicated.  I know he likes that and I should just make it the way he wants… however, this year I changed it up a bit.

I made it with chocolate cake, strawberries, whipped cream, and put chocolate cigarets on the outside.  The kids asked if the could decorate the cake with sprinkles for daddy, so of course I said yes.

Birthday Daddy and kids.

Note: the concentrated piles of sprinkles are my daughters contribution.  My son spread the sprinkles more generously. =)

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A squirrel of a cake

This client wanted a squirrel and acorns on the cake for her sons’s second birthday.  She was smiling ear to ear saying he just loves them and gets so excited when he see’s them.  She was affectionately called the squirrel lady after this.  =)

My first attempt looked like a fox and I was just not happy with it, so I redid it.  I did not take a picture of the fox.

She loved it, I told her I hope Nate has a fantastic birthday.

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Dora the Explorer Birthday Cake/ Thank You

I had an order where a customer wanted me to draw Dora The Explorer on the cake. She brought in her thank you card, and asked me to copy the card onto the cake. 

Here is the Dora Thank you card. (One of my biggest worries is not making the cake look as good as the client wants it.  When it is a well known character it is even harder sometimes one mistake and it can look like a pile.)

My coworkers said ok no problem, Tanya can do it. =)

The background is airbrushed, all decorations are made out of butter cream.

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The funny thing is I made this one, and the next day I had another lady come up to me asking for a Dora cake, she did not want the one that was a bakery craft design, with the toy.  She wanted something “better” so some one says oh she did one yesterday, and we bring it out for her to see, as the first client will be in soon to pick it up.  She lit up and said yes that is what I want, I even have the same invitations/plates.  The second Dora cake will make its way on here soon.

Personally I think Dora came out a looking a little weird, however, the client really liked it.

Baptism Daisy Cake

This client came in wanting a three tiered offset, rectangular cake.  She wanted Daisy’s with lavender, light pink, and light yellow centers.  She requested a pink ribbon, and a pink cross on the cake.

Flowers and ribbon fondant.  The cakes were iced in white butter cream.  The 1/4 sheet cake was white, the 1/8th sheet cake was chocolate, and the 1/16th sheet cake was white cake.  

Sorry the pictures came out white washed.  Use my phone at work to take the pictures. 

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Zebra on Orange

This is a cake a client came in asking for a realistic zebra on a bright orange background.

I am always a little worried when they want a realistic animal on a cake and they want me to draw it.  Working with icing is a hard medium to do that with, also I am not the best at making a realistic looking animal in any medium. Its good to know your limitations.  You can always learn more, and eventually do better, but it is good to know your limitations to keep yourself out of trouble.

The trouble with this cake is, I did not take the order, and people at my work think I can draw anything.  *grins* I take it as a compliment but it is far from the case.

Well enough babbling.  This little girl loves bright orange and zebra print, and apparently she watches Animal Planet.  So that was the colors and theme of her party.  

They asked for White and Black borders. 

Jungle Cake 1st Birthday

I often have customers come in wanting me to recreate the exact picture they have on a napkin or on an invitation.  This day this lady wanted me to copy what was on her babies first birthday napkin so that the cake matched the decorations.

Here is the napkin.

Here is the background I airbrushed onto the cake.  All background decorations were hand airbrushed by me.

Here is completed cake, all foreground decorations are drawn in vanilla buttercream icing, and colored to try to capture the colors in the napkin.

This client also wanted a smash cake to go with it.  Here is the accompanying cake.

I took the pictures without the writing on the cake.   The specific directions asked for some of the characters on the cake.  I put in as many as I felt would make the cake look good… I left out the snake.  I find it funny when I come into work and find a cake like this for me.  They (the person taking the order) assumes I can do the decorations.    It is a challenge but a fun challenge.  =)

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A Turtle-tastic Baby shower

A close friend of mine is going to bring a beautiful bouncing baby boy into this world.  I had the honor of making her baby shower cake.

I think turtles are cute, and boys and turtles seem to go together. 

I chose blue, white, and green as the colors.  This is a two tiered cake.  Bottom tier is chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling and swiss meringue butter cream.  Top tier is a vanilla butter cake with swiss meringue butter cream filling and icing.  I then covered it with fondant and the fondant decorations.  The turtle is hand modeled out of fondant as well.  We can’t wait till he is born.  =)

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