Thursday, October 30, 2008

Spongebob Cake

I....am stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.


A friend could not find a Spongebob cake for a birthday party this weekend. The boy having the party has had Spongebob as the theme for 3 years, so they've already seen them all. Talk about loyalty!


Stupid me says "Yea, I can make you one." Why am I stupid? She lives in Boston. How the heck am I going to get a cake to Boston?!?!? Then I panicked. Can I even make a Spongebob cake?!?!? Holy Moly, what have I done?!


I skipped my workout tonight, bad me, and I went to work on a practise cake.


Isabel...was beyond thrilled. She kept saying "You're a good baker" and "Where's your baker hat?" So cute.




Isabel holds a picture of what I'm going to make.








Mommy's little helper



Cake with icing, and yellow fondant.






I SEEEEE YOUUUU!

(At one point, I gave him a moustache, and evil eyebrows. It was fun.)



See, I'm really making it.



Squeeeee!!




This last picture was taken with my camera phone and sent to a bazillion people.....who I realized were probably ASLEEP! SORRY ALL!!


OK, so HOW DO I GET THIS TO BOSTON?! LOLOL.


Pony Stable Cake

This one was made on Mother's Day weekend (May 2008), with my mom. It came out pretty bad, in my opinion. I used a box cake, which don't like doing because they are too moist and the fondant tends to cave the cake in.



Isabel had been bugging me to make it for a while.





Mom's making the flowers.



The sponge is holding the pony heads in place until they dry.



Another pony head.


A very happy Isabel!

I never did get a final picture without the sponge holding up the horses' heads while they dried, but here they are.


Friday, October 24, 2008

Wizard Cake

I took a hiatus from baking "fancy" cakes until April of 2008, when I made my Wizard Cake.

Rather than re-post, please click here to go to my other blog, where I posted informaton about him.


Mower Cake

This cake was a very quick box cake I made in August of 2007 with store-bought icing that I colored green. It was a "Thank you" to our neighbors who continually loaned us their lawn mower while Sears had our lawn mower. (Actually, they lost it for two weeks. They had no idea where it was. It got lost between where we dropped it off and the repair center, VERY frustrating.) Anyway, the neighbors kept loaning it to us, so to thank them I made this.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Snow White Cake

Next up, we have a Snow White cake, made in August of 2007.



















The "Adult" Cake






Also known to my friends as "The Booby Cake," made in honor of my nephew's 21st birthday last year.

It's pretty much self-explanatory, n'est pas?
Click pictures to make them clearer. This blog layout is a little fuzzy. I may have to change it.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Grandfather Tree Cake

June 17 & 18, 2007

Next up, a Grandfather tree Cake. On Friday night, very late, I baked the cake, let is cool and stored it overnight.

On Saturday, I made some butter cream out of butter, tons of confectioners sugar, a tablespoon of milk and a teaspoon of vanilla. VERY hard to blend and one of my least favorite things to make.

Friday night's cake was cut into four (un)even pieces. Then David trimmed the crust off all the pieces and trimmed the top where the cake had risen.


The 4 cake pieces were piled on top of each other with butter cream (THAT was a pain. The butter cream kept tearing the cake) and the corners were trimmed off to make it more "tubular." The corners that were cut were attached to the base of the cake to make the tree trunk roots.



Next, we took a pound and a half of fondant, cut it in half and each of use kneaded it with brown food coloring. We looked like taffy-pullers. It took a while to get it just the right shade of brown. The fondant was then rolled flat and wrapped around our tubular cake and the excess cut off. We used our fingers to shape the fondant around the "roots and crevices" of the cake. Am I not sexy in my glasses, crazy hair and "cleaning day outfit?" It's what I wear when I clean with bleach & stuff so I don't ruin other clothes. I had cleaned and mopped three bathrooms. Relax! I wore gloves and washed my hands after, too. David took a knife and cut the lines and grooves in our tree.




Next up. I added the face using left-over brown fondant. He looked creepy. :( I tried making him a little nicer.


From Kaaren's Kakes


We colored some modeling paste black and attached them to the base of the tree to make the tree's "hidey-holes." We added black to the inside of the mouth as well. I also added two large branches, some extra roots and vines, and some "steps" for the little critters to get into their hidey-hole homes.

(David's out mowing the lawn at this point). I colored some modeling paint yellow-green and made three apples. These were attached to the two new branches. I colored some modeling paste darker green and cut out the leaves for the apples and stuck them on.




David missed the fun part. Not. I had to color fondant green and spread it around the tree for grass. Then I had to take a star tip and poke each and every inch of that green fondant to make it look like grass. It was long, tedious work.

I made sticks out of the left-over brown fondant for the birds nest on top. I arranged them in a nest shape. David's still outside mowing and I kept forgetting to take pictures. I made two little blue birds, as well as two white & blue marbled eggs and placed them inside the nest.



The Hedgehog family was a pita & they came out yucky, but oh well. There they are. They look mad. :)




Sunday Morning, Isabel and I head down for breakfast, leaving daddy alone to sleep in (one of his Father's Day presents, I suppose). :) He loves his sleep. The squirrel was next. I sat him on the large left branch & had a heck of a time keeping the tail up. I ended up using a piece of spaghetti to pin it to the tree.





The bees! Argh! This was so hard. They are so tiny. I got aggravated doing this. That & Isabel wanted to help but the pieces are so small, she kept squishing the heads. I had to make four! Ugh!





I made Mister Mole popping out of his hidey-hole. Next came the mouse peeping out of the trees mouth. He came out cute too. The bunnies were next.

Then came the dusting. Brown dust on the hedgehogs, the tree, roots and the bird's nest. Black dust around the mole's head. Green petal dust on the leaves, the grass and red dust on the apples. I added eyes to the bees and the bunnies.

Here is the finished product. You can click on all these pictures on this post to make them bigger.





Me & My creation. Again, I *wish* these were my actual inventions. Alas, I am not that talented. These are all from the VERY talended Debbie Brown's book, "Enchanted Cakes for Children".

Pixie Teapot House Cake (First Cake)

Back in June of 2007, after buying a cake decorating book and all the supplies I needed, I decided to take the plunge and make my first decorated cake. Why? Just because I wanted to see if I could!


The above pictures are a bit late in the game. Sorry all. I forgot to take pictures of the beginning. It was boring anyway. I baked a cake in a rounded glass pan. The cake was made from scratch. Tons of confectioners sugar and butter. YUM

I rolled premade fondant and covered the entire cake with it, trimming the excess. Using the extra fondant, I shaped the handle and the spout of the half-buried teapot.
Next I used modeling paste (fondant with a gum additive), that I colored with food coloring to look tan, to make a curtain, and I used black food coloring to make the darkness of the inside of the house.
David stippled the "floor" of the forest with some brown food coloring while I rolled out some grey-colored modeling paste to form the stones for the front of the house.


Over on the handle of the teapot, I made sticks our of modeling paste I colored brown, while David made the wood shed cover with white modeling paste. The mushrooms were constructed next, using more modeling paste that I colored red & yellow.


Next up is the father pixie. He's over by the wood shed, collecting some firewood. He does not have his hair or eyes yet. Fast forward to later on in the evening, when Isabel went to bed. I made the rest of the pixies. The one on the bottom left is the replacement one for the pixie I tested last week. She has daisies that David made all around her. The one peeking out from behind the curtain was quite a challenge. They all don't have their hair yet. I hand-painted the blue flower decoration on the teapot, too.




I added the orange hair, (pixie dad got a beard), added some ivy running up the side of the teapot, and dusted the forest floor with a little green fairy dust. I added patches to the curtain and the wood shed roof. Finally, the pixies got their wings.


TA-DA!!!
It is by no means professional grade, but I am VERY proud of my first attempt!

New Blog!

Welcome to Kaaren's Kakes!

Since AOL decided to no longer host free web pages to its customers (boooo!) I decided to move some of my pages, as best I can, to this blog.

Hope you like them!


Kaaren