New Theme

What do you think? I've got a new template and am still tweaking.

What do you/don't you like?

EDIT: At work, I can't see the cute bird that says "Sweet Blog" and the cupcake over above my picture. At home I can. Can you all see it?

I've been playing with it for over an hour and now it's time for bed.

Holy Cake News, Batman!

I am SO excited.

Cake Wrecks will be IN TOWN in September for a book signing! First stop!

HECK YEA, I'm going!! Also, I will be bringing a cupcake "wreckplica" for the contest. And if she needs a cake, I'll make one too.

Wh00t!

Oh So Pitiful

This post will probably not make any sense to most you. This is an "inside joke" for members of the "Pity Party." Enjoy and PLEASE comment.

All pictures can be clicked to be made bigger.


See this above? These are the leftovers from several cakes I made to create this FUN Minnie Cake a couple of days ago. We're not chocolate cake fans, so it's just been sitting there for two days. I'd been staring at it, wondering why I thought the shape was so familiar.

Then tonight, it hit me.

Please note, this was made in HALF AN HOUR using leftover stuff I had lying about. It is NOT my best work. It's quite pitiful, but party members will still get a kick out of her.




Icing the blob.



Covering the blob with sticky fondant (hot kitchen = sticky fondant).




What? Huh? WHO can this be??



TA-DA! I am not sure if an official name has been selected, but here she is. My half-hour Pitiful attempt for your enjoyment!

Minnie Mouse Cake

Yea, another cake. My friend Karen from Miami was going to be up here for her birthday at Disney (you get in free on your birthday) and I asked if we could get together. She said sure...if I made her a cake. Ok, I'm kidding. She asked if I could, and I said yes. When I asked what she would like, she said she did not know. Something Disney? "Surprise me," she said.




Sunday night, I made the gum paste mouse heads, ears and bows.


Tuesday night after work, I baked the chocolate cakes.



This is her idea of "cleaning the bowl."




Also on Tuesday evening, I cut out fondant dots and made a fondant bow which I stuffed with tissue to keep the "open" shape, and put them on sponges to dry overnight.

Wednesday evening, time to decorate. The cakes were torted (cut in half horizontally), filled with chocolate icing, put back together, covered in chocolate icing and then covered in colored fondant, as seen above.

Here's where I talk about how I like to practice. Those who read my blog know, I am all about the practice. But I did not have time to do a practice run. Here are the things I learned that I would do differently, if I make the cake again:

Don't make the cut-out bows before-hand. They are too hard and getting the HEAVY bows to stick was hard; I used toothpicks and broke 2. Next time, I will either attach the bows while they are still soft to the Minnie heads, or make the bows out of icing.

Measure the big Minnie ears as compared to the bow. The bow is the right size for the cake, according to my sis V, but the ears are lost behind it. (she got a picture message sent to her on her phone).

Here is the final product. Notice I put the birthday girl's initials on the cake. That's where the two broken-bowed Minnie heads would have gone, but I really like the initials there.

I love how this turned out!

Baby Shower Cake for Kim and Adam

Having the practice cake under my belt (or apron, as it were), I started working on the two-tiered shower cake for Kim (ThreeHearts on AQ) and Adam. The design is from a cake decorator, Louise, on Cake Central. Thursday evening the cakes were made, cooled and wrapped in cling wrap to retain their moisture. I also made the chocolate fudge icing & refrigerated it for the next day's assembly process.


Here I am Friday evening around 6 p.m. coloring the homemade fondant a light green.


The larger of the two cakes got torted, and I spread a layer of chocolate fudge icing in the middle and placed the top back on. I did the same thing for the smaller cake.



Jake kept me company and amused me with random YouTube videos on his lap top.




Here's the smaller cake, covered in the MMF.

Isabel helps roll out the gum paste. We needed to make the flower that the baby was to sit on.

Here are the covered cakes, plus a huge piece of fondant for the baby to sit on, her flower and some leaves. The baby was made out of gum paste the previous weekend when my sister was here. She helped with all the little insects, which was such a time saver. As it was, she and I spent 3 hours working on all the gum paste decor, and I had spent 5 hours baking cakes the night before.

Isabel and I cut out more flowers; I did not have enough. She and I did purple, yellow, blue and orange.

The last thing to do was make the icing for the "grass." Basically, the "grass" was there to cover the bottom edges of the two cakes.



Remember me smiling above? Yea, this is me around 10 p.m., hour 4. My feet were KILLING me.

Here is the final product.

Here is Kim, cutting into the cake.

Here is the AFTER photo. LOL. It was very good.

Kim & I at her baby shower.

Baby Shower Practice Cake

After making the MMF, I decided to practice making a cake for a friend of mine (Kim - ThreeHearts on AQ) who was having a baby shower in 2 weeks. I have a thing. I make practice runs because I am always worried if I don't, I'm going to get something wrong. I like the practice, but what, I thought, am I going to do with this practice cake?




The same week I was planning on making the cake, I met with fellow letterboxers drgdlg (Darren and Desi) and their daughter Raileigh, who were down in Florida for a vacation. We met at a state park and had a fun breakfast and attempted to box. Knowing they were leaving on the 10th, I asked them what they were going to do for Raileigh's 10-month celebration cake (they make her cakes or cupcakes to celebrate every month of her first year. So cute!) which was the 11th. When Desi said she wasn't really sure yet, I offered to make them a cake and meet them on the road back to Georgia for the hand-off. This way, I get the practice, they don't have to worry about coming home exhausted and having to make a cake.









This below is the MMF I made a couple of days earlier.


















And here is the final one-layer version of the cake I was going to make Kim. Kim's was set for two layers. It is not my original design, just something I found on a Google Image search.



Practice is good because comments I received were 1) Jacob saying the baby's eyes wigged him out and 2) my sister V saying the hands and legs wigged her out. LOL Practice makes perfect.


I met Desi and Darren at a McDonald's at an exit near our home off I-4, where we made the quick hand-off of Raileigh's 10-month birthday cake.






UPDATE: CLICK HERE to see Desi's post about the cake, with pictures.

MMF

No, I am not being crude and calling you an MMF.



MMF = Marshmallow Fondant. Not sure what the extra M is there for. My sister-in-law suggested that it was because MF just sounds wrong. :)


MMF is a home-made fondant using, you guessed it, marshmallow and powdered sugar with a teensy bit of water). On the recommendation of a couple of friends, I decided to try it. I searched the web and found this recipe for MMF. I was skeptical but thought, what the heck. The marshmallows and powdered sugar were inexpensive, especially when compared to the fondant I normally buy. I DO NOT use Wilton fondant. It is disgusting. I use Satin Ice.




I was a little worried at the onset. It was sticky and I thought the powdered sugar would never blend with the marshmallow.

Jacob helps me, by adding water as I felt it was necessary.



After about 10 minutes, I got fondant! The right texture and a great taste! I was beyond excited. Now I could make fondant as needed and spend less doing it.

It was time to try it on a cake. I tinted it green, rolled it out and covered my cake.

Fantastic! I will post more on the cakes I have made recently soon. They are a surprise, so I can't post until the end of today, July 18. :)

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Practice, Practice, Practice.

Cake classes have been fun BUT the instructor does not have us bring a cake to class each week, or ever. We're supposed to practice at home. I've been practicing making roses and writing letters, etc. but have yet to make an entire cake and ice it.



Soooo, I decided to try, and BOY do I need practice how to ice a cake to look smooth. I think this is why people are moving towards fondant. This is HARD!








I love that I learned to make a dam to stop the filling from oozing out the sides and ruining the icing. I'm putting a Hunt's pudding cup as filling. This is practice and I wasn't going to kill myself making chocolate filling. This is another nifty trick my instructor taught us.

Then, came the icing. I'm pretty sure it was not thin enough. I ended up picking up crumbs - a no-no. Then I plopped the small cake on top of the top one, and did not get it centered. Oh well.

The icing's supposed to look like this: (NOT MINE - some random picture from a Photobucket search for "Wilson cake." Just look at the icing. I was not about to make all those flowers and leaves, etc.)






but ended up with this.




I gave up and doodled a heart on it. I don't think the icing was thin enough. I will say that this cake was the best-tasting cake ever! Almond butter cake with (fake)butter cream icing. The top layer had vanilla pudding in between while the bottom one had chocolate pudding. The almond flavor was divine!



I think I am going to go to Wal-Mart and buy pre-made cake loaves, like little mini banana bread-style cakes, and them practice icing on those, rather than make cakes over and over. Once I get the icing done, then I will bake a cake.