Portal 2 Cake

My son turned 18 in December.  Ugh.  I am old.

Anyway, we decided that for his birthday party, we would make him a Portal 2 Cake.  It's a really great video game that I cannot wrap my head around.  When the family plays it together, I just watch as they shoot portals, gels., etc. to jump from place to place.  It's really intricate and well-done.

The main character in single-player is Chell. I decided to make Chell the main part of the cake.

Those boots were a pain.

Then it was time to make fondant, bake cakes and put it all together.

In the rush of the holidays and work, etc. etc.  I had exactly one night after work to make the fillings, icing, stack the cake, dirty ice it and put the fondant over it.  Needless to say, I ran out of time.  My icing did not have time to crust, I did not have time to put an extra layer of icing or even attempt a second fondant layer, and as usual, I got lumpy-looking fondant because the icing below was not totally set.

The cake is not a lie!

Christmas Cookies

It's that time again!  Time for cookies.

I was in Panama last week for work and before I left, I decided to make some cookies for co-workers there.  They were surprised and loved them.  I had one co-worker's spouse try to figure out how she could get 100 cookies made and shipped to her by 12/29!  LOL Too expensive, freight-wise.  Another co-worker's friend thought they were professionally made and was asked where she got them so she could buy some too.  :)

Thanksgiving/Fall Cake

We had a house-full of people come over.  In all, we had 12 adults (counting my 17-yr. old), 4 kids and 2 babies.  We had a lot of prepping and cleaning to do, and I really thought I would not decorate a cake this time, but when I was icing my carrot cake, I decided to quickly decorate with the extra cream cheese icing I had.  I found a design on Cake Central that was pretty simple.

PS.  Never let your carrot-cake addicted sisters near a carrot cake.

I'm Here! With Coin Cookies

If I told you all the things I've been up to, you would not believe me. Suffice it to say, from end of July to September, I was on 16 different airplanes, the computer died, we had all 3 of our cars break down or give us problems in the same week and had other various things occur.

The cake-making has been waylaid.  Big time.

My son has been rehearsing for his school's production of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" for several weeks.  Last week, Wednesday through Friday, were the performance evenings.  Jacob played Hamlet.  If you don't know about the play, Google or Wiki it.  I, for one, love it, but I'm a literature freak and love Shakespeare, so I get "R&G are Dead."

I wanted to make something special for all the kids involved in the play, whether it be on or off stage.  I decided to make cookies.  In the play, they play with coins a lot.  So, I made them one large coin cookie on a stick, and two smaller cookies depicting the Comedy and Tragedy masks.

Then last week happened and I ran out of time.  I was decorating until midnight and 1 a.m. on two nights, and got off early on Friday so I could put the cookies all together for them.  The mask cookies looked like a 5th grader made them; they were horrible.  I was pretty proud of my coin cookies though.

Yummy Carrot Cake

Hi all,

We have been traveling and now our computer is dead!  Bummer!!

Using a borrowed laptop, I want to quickly show you the carrot cake I made to take down to my sister's house in July, to meet my new niece Ava.

I wasn't going to do anything special, until my son saw the basket weave instruction sheet from back when I took classes and he mentioned how he did not understand it.  I took the cake and started a row, just to show him, and then just kept going.  It looks really bad, and the side hit the side of the box on the drive down, but let me tell you, I make a MEAN carrot cake.  My husband overheard someone say, when I was not around, "This is the best carrot cake I've ever had.  Wow. Better than TooJay's!"

It says "Somebunny loves Ava"

We love you Ava!  I can't WAIT to make your first birthday cake!!

Harry Potter Cupcakes

I've been wanting to make something Harry Potter style with my cakes, I just did not know what I wanted to do.  I had extra fondant but not enough to do an entire sculpted cake and I didn't really want to make more fondant (i.e. lazy).  What to do, what to do.

I went on Cake Central and found these ADORABLE Harry Potter cupcakes made by CC Member Rcajd.  These are totally his/her creations I copied.

My nieces and nephew are visiting with their parents here at our home for several days.  The girls, with my daughter, helped make these fun cupcakes.

They're all gone, by the way.  Except Hermione.  Not sure why they haven't eaten that one yet.  :)

Super-Dads

I hope all you Super dads had a great Father's Day. 

We had a great one!

Chic Baby Shower

Time for the baby shower cake!  Remember I made little baby molds, then the buttercream transfer girl, then the gumpaste girl?  That was all in preparation for my sister Vicky's baby shower cake.  

Almond butter cakes atop carrot cakes.

Cream cheese icing over the carrot cake, decorated with chocolate MMF.

Fondant-covered almond butter cakes on top.

I made different colored stripes with MMF.  I practiced these cute little rosettes too.

The final product, including some of the cupcakes I made.

50th Birthday Cake

My son's aunt (his dad's sister; my ex-sister-in-law.  I hate calling her an "ex" because my ex's family is wonderful. I love them and they love us right back) turned 50 this week.  Unbeknowst to her, her father (Jake's grandpa) was planning a surprise 50th birthday party.  He and my two other ex-s-i-l's called me 3 weeks ago and asked if I would make the cake.  Of course!

I Googled pictures and found a cute design by the famous Pink Cake Box bakery that I decided to copy.  

Three weeks early, I worked in the gum paste items that needed to dry and harden ahead of time. 

(My sister & son both asked "Why does it say 'So?'" LOL)

The Friday before the party, I took a vacation day and got to work.  I had baked the cakes Wednesday and Thursday nights.  Now it was time to put everything together.

I rolled over 100 fondant balls.

The top cake above, was a carrot cake covered
 in homemade marshmallow fondant.

The bottom cake was almond butter cake with buttercream, and fondant accents.  What you see above are spaghetti sticks propping up the bow while it dried on to the ribbon on the cake.  I pulled the spaghetti sticks out at the party.

I really liked how the topper came out.

 Then, the problems.

I did not dowel the bottom cake enough.  Carrot cake is definitely a denser cake than the butter cake.  I only put about 5 dowels in the bottom cake, and more towards the center, not nearer to the edges.  As time went on, we got droopage.

I was so bummed, but what could I do now?  Nothing.  Just learn for next time.  The bottom should have been the carrot cake, or I should have used more dowels.

You can see the drooping already.

The party was great.  The birthday gal was totally surprised, and everyone raved about the cake, droop and all.

The Aftermath!

Gumpaste Cut-Out; The Baby Shower Cake

After I made the frozen butter cream transfer of my sister's invitation, she and I talked about it.  In order for that exact-sized design to fit on the top of a cake, the cake would have to be baked in a 10" pan.  Since that would be the top level, and she wants a two-tier cake, the bottom tier would have to be 12".  We both agreed that would be too much cake for the small party.  I could try to make the woman smaller, but it was a lot of work and I had another idea; make the girl out of gumpaste. She would be 2D, not 3D.

I copied the invitation on to wax paper to use as my template.

Working with the X-Acto knife.  It was like putting a puzzle together.

Ta da!  

The only things missing are one earring (it fell off and I need to reattach it) and the gold chain of her purse, which will be done at a later date, closer to the shower, in yellow royal icing.

I will someone stand her up on the cake.  I am thinking of attaching a skewer to the back of her with gumpaste so it can dry securely, then I can insert the skewer into the cake. 

The party is April 30, so I will post the completed pictures right after the party weekend.
  

Little Big Planet Cake

For my daughter's 7th birthday, I created a Little Big Planet cake, per her request.  The pieces were made way in advance.  The actual cake was made in a mad rush!  I did not count on there being a banquet for my son's Academic Team on the same night as I was to decorate the cake.

Below are some of the items I created based off the game and the Strategy guides we own.

One of my favorites with regard to how it came out.

I also created a Sack Boy.  I love how he turned out.

I baked a round Wilton Ball Pan chocolate cake and covered it in fondant.

I then added some random green "land mass" shapes, added all the little round discs I created and added the little Sack Boy to the top.

Cute!

Next, I iced two each 10" almond butter cakes.  This was where the rush came in.  It was 10 p.m. and I was still making butter cream. That plus my icing skills stinking and you have a not-so-much smooth finish.

I piped a shell border, added some lettering and decorated some cupcakes (I had extra batter) and voila!