Owl Baby Shower Cake

I made this cake over 4 days for our pastor and his wife, who are almost ready to welcome their second child, Isabela Grace, into their lives.  Combined total of 12 hours, tons of eggs, sugar, flour, marshmallows, and love later, I presented the cake as my gift to them at the shower.

Baby Shower Cookies

These were made for a baby shower at our church.  

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.

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.
  

Frozen Butter Cream Transfer: The baby shower invitation

I am making my sister's baby shower cake.  She showed me the invitation and I decided to try a frozen butter cream transfer (FBCT)  just to see if I could.  I have only tried it the one time, and it was a goopy mess.  I was much more successful this time.

This is the invitation I am copying.

If you want the image to be exact, you actually need to create a mirror image (kind of like I do when I am carving a stamp.)  If there are words, you definitely need to do a mirror image.  As there were no words, I decided to just leave it as-is.  The cake image will have the girl on the other side.

Take some wax paper, outline it in black or brown.  I chose brown because eventually, the cake this will go in will have chocolate frosting, and the brown will blend right in.  

After the outline, you have to do some logistical icing.  Things in the foreground (the lips, the sunglasses, the spots on the purse, the buckles on the shoes) have to be done first.  I was very unorganized and kept getting up to get more and more piping bags. 

Eventually, you'll have something that looks like this: 

Yes, it's ugly.  Notice you can't see her eyes, the spots on the purse, etc.  That's because what you are looking at above is what will go on the cake.  This is what will be stuck to the cake itself.  

What you don't see until I pick up the wax paper is this:

This is what will show once you freeze it, place it on the cake and peel the wax off.   It would look better if I have covered the whole thing is chocolate frosting, to match the cake.  The frosting would have "squished" or settled everything nicely, and it would match the cake it is going on.

You get the idea, yes?

I'm going to make the crib with the flowers too and just hand-pipe the mobile.  On the crib I will hand-pipe the cake's message.

I bet Buddy doesn't have to clean his *own* mess.

Oh Baby, Take 2

Take 2 was a little better.  Love this mold!

Oh Baby, Take 1

One of my younger sisters is pregnant.  It is a thing of wonder.  Pigs are flying, hell's looking for ear muffs.

I purchased an awesome baby mold  from Global Sugar Art.  I want to make my sister something special.  Don't worry.  She doesn't read any of my blogs.  Loser.

The Mold and Baby Take 1

You take gum paste, color it whatever skin tone you'd like, and place it in the mold.  Put it in the freezer for about 30 minutes, take it out and peel it out of the mold.

I had to let it "sweat" for a couple of hours.  Condensation makes it tacky to the touch. Unfortunately, I realized too late that I did not have the correct color petal/luster dust.  Grrr.  I decided to try thinned down gel colors.  Bad idea.  It made the gum paste tacky and looked bad.

The colors leaked and then I grabbed the wrong brush and brushed brown down her face.  DOH!  I gave the baby a rose for her hair, a ruffle diaper cover and made her some roller skates (this sister is on a roller derby team).

Well, this is why I practice!

On to take # 2!

Baby Shower Cookies

Prepare for cuteness! There were made by my sister Brenda (she did all the faces) and I for our sister Lissette's baby shower this past weekend.







Sweeeet!

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.

Baby Shower Cake - Pea Pod

I was searching Google Images for Baby Shower cakes ideas. I found some cute Flikr pictures from Simply-Sweets.com for a Pea Pod Baby cake, so I decided to give it a go.

I made the pea pod out of gum paste a few days early, so it could harden.




Isabel helped me cut out baby-themed shaped from the same gum paste. These would be used on cupcakes I decided to make to complement the cake.


Aaaaak! An Arm!!

Immediately after taking this picture...I touched his eye and made a mess of it. Argh!

Last night I made the cake and the cupcakes. I wanted them to be completely cooled before I started to decorate them.

Yum!! Homemade chocolate icing (semi-sweet chocolate squares, butter, confectioners sugar, milk and vanilla extract).

I dumped the a.c. in my house so the kitchen would be cool. I did not want to have the fondant be sticky and gross, like the last cake attempt I made. :(

Speedy!

Isabel helps me smooth the fondant over the cake.

I placed the "pea in the pod" on the cake, along with the leaves and vine.

Here are the cupcakes (no big deal) and the cake. The baby shower is tomorrow. It is for a co-worker of David's. The shower is a surprise. She does not know of it, nor does she know I am making the cake and cupcakes as a gift to her. Due to a conflict with a class I am taking (more on that later), I will be late to the party. David and Isabel will be taking these items to the party and I will meet them there about 45 minutes late.