Cake...again

This isn't the best shot...but these are the cakes I did for Thora's first birthday party. Lots of fun to make...and a great birthday party!!


Here is a photo of the larger cake...the one I have of the smaller one for Thora isn't formatting right...I like doing cakes like this...they are usually pretty simple and fun! I really do like the formed pans too...for the detail.

Yummy fun!
: )

Cakes!!

Upon my return from SoCal I had a couple of cakes to do. The first was a birthday cake for the daughter of a friend of mine. She wanted Spongebob Squarepants. I did the Wilton Spongebob formed pan. It was lots of fun...and for the first time when I was done I thought it didn't look half bad! What do you think? I really like doing the forms over the freestyle ones on the cakes.

The second cake was for an office birthday party. I had a special request for Goofy. I found a coloring page online and did the transfer method...and a little freehand to get him looking right!

This one was fun to do as well...as I am making more cakes the basic skills are becoming tons easier and look a lot better too! I just added some goofy swirls on the top...you can't see the bottom border in this shot--but I had so much fun with it--big white stars with smaller green ones alternating around it with blue and pink dots in between! 

I'm kind of tired of cake...the eating part...but everyone else still seems to enjoy it! I'm considering trying some different fillings--which will require me to get some torting skills...I guess I'll need to learn eventually!!  

Does anyone out there have some fun cake ideas--something to shake it up a bit?

Rose Spray Cake for Caleb :)

I finished my Wilton I class on Monday night. The final cake was a rose spray. I used leftover sea colored frosting from the Scary Spongebob cake for the base color and added golden yellow roses with leaf green vines and leaves and a floppy burgundy bow. It was a lot of fun...I think I did at least twenty roses before I felt OK about them. I'm still having issues with the "class frosting". Thankfully in Wilton II I'll primarily be using Royal Icing--something I've not done before.

WOW...as I'm typing this it seems my neighbor feels the need to share his rock oldies with me. Joy.


The best part about doing my final cake was knowing in the end it would be Caleb's birthday cake at CG on Tuesday! Caleb is a great guy, married to my good friend Tavia. I hope he enjoyed his floral celebration!

Here is a photo of Caleb--Happy Birthday!!

:sigh:

Things have just seemed a little chaotic this week~I'm unsure exactly why, but so it has been. I'm quite happy tomorrow is Friday and I'll have a few days to order things around the house and hopefully feel more settled.

I have some cool photos from the things that are growing as summer approaches...though our weather this week has felt more like Halloween-time than nearly summer-time. I don't mind...I love the rain!

I'll get to posting! : )

Class Cake #3: Scary Clowns!!

This week was week three of my Wilton One class. I remade all of my practice frosting using the modified directions I was given. I also did this with the decorator frosting to be used on the cake. After last week's sliding kitty fiasco, I left the cake frosting (the pink) the way I would typically make buttercream.

As I began doing my practise flowers, I realised I was in big trouble. My 'medium' icing was rapidly beginning to ooze in a very oozy fashion. The flowers turned out fine, even though they were uber soft. This is why we call it practise, right?

Next it was onto the 'firm' icing. Once again soft and oozy. I was disheartened. My instructor kindly said that I should stick to the original as much as possible to achieve the three necessary consistencies for proper cake decorating rather than using the modified instructions given. This, I will do. Sadly, it means reworking the practice icing again--what a waste.

Sadly, as I was creating my clowns for the top of my cake...they just shrank. :( I had hoped to make one guy with his legs hanging over the edge. No joy. The guy with the red collar started out almost lying down--the frosting was too soft! Thankfully with a refrigerator and a wee bit of help, I was able to set him upright. Thankfully the frosting consistency didn't effect the flavor at all-the cake was pretty yummy!

I did have a chance to practice making the famous Wilton Rose with my soft icing. Not too bad for a first go! Oddly enough...the icing is actually white, it just looks yellow in the photo.

That leads to my next cake comment: taking photos of cakes is just hard. The frosting colors are rarely true and the angles are always funny to try to have a sense of the cake in the photo.

I'm learning. I definitely haven't figured it all out, but I'm trying.

Next week: last week of the first class.
Good times! Yummy cake!!
: )

Gravy...nectar of the gods :)

What is better than a Sunday pot roast??? Leftover Sunday pot roast on Monday...with lots of extra gravy!

Yesterday was pretty kitchen heavy. I made A LOT of buttercream frosting. Some for class, some for my class cake and some for the cake I finished yesterday. I also cooked up a totally yummy pot roast--with all the goodies: potatoes, onion, carrots and LOTS of gravy!!!

After supper I started on the cake I was making for a friend of mine. Just a small cake with a transfer design. Me, in all my wondrous forethought made a two layer, nine inch round cake. I reduced the transfer and went to it. Only as I was marking my transfer did I realise: "this is a really small area with a lot of details"!

Rather than the tried and true star fill in...I ended up piping in the colors and smoothing them one by one. In the end, I had a rather frightening Spongebob staring back at me.

If I'd had my way I would have dumped the thing and gone again with a nice ten inch square and the full sized Spongebob. Too bad my friend needed the cake today ;) In the end my friend liked the cake. Funny how other folks don't notice all the HUGE mistakes, don't you think??

I will say it is definitely NOT one of my better cakes. Lesson learned.

Now, I know there's some bread...where's the rest of that gravy???

Cakes & Comments!

I was scheduled to have a cake decorating class on Monday night. The shop where we meet was closed for memorial day, however. I had made this cake--with the green frosting on it prepped for class. I decided rather than freezing the cake to try out another transfer and take it to community group. It was a white cake from scratch--it turned out pretty yummy. I had thinned the frosting as instructed and it was WAY too soft--live and learn ;)

As I was checking my google stats a couple of days ago I noticed that there have been a lot of visitors from all over the world! Please leave comments...I like the thoughts of others and I'd love to know from where everyone is checking things out!

Hope all is well in your corner of the world!!!
: )

It's a Mickey cake!

I have been making cakes this year to celebrate the birthdays in our office. This cake is for Stacy--even though her birthday was last month :) It was a bit harder than I expected and I made the frosting a wee bit thin...but I think it still looks like Mickey. I'll try to take a better photo tomorrow at the office. The lighting in here at night isn't the best.

I made a cake last week at the Wilton I class I'm in. I took it to the office as well. Ron has been a great help with coupons from the Sunday paper so that I can afford the class--tons of 'hidden costs'. The "Thanks" is to him!

Here's a shot of that cake. It had a pudding filling! Yummers!!