Frozen Figures

My niece was having a 4th Frozen birthday bash.  They live several hours away, and I wasn't in the mood to drive a cake that far, so I asked my sister to please buy a plain blue sheet cake, and I would take care of decorating it.

I started in late May, just to give myself some time, as the party was mid-July.

Anna and Olaf heads

Anna & Olaf completed in June.

Elsa's Body.

Olaf!  Her head!  Let It Go! Let It Go!

The Final gum paste figures.

At the fabulous Frozen Birthday Bash.

Attack on Titan Cake

Our daughter's been really interested in a Japanese Anime show called Attack on Titan.  It's kind of creepy, actually.  Huge monsters, Titans, attack the world and people live in walled-in cities, so the Titans don't get it.  It's creepy, but I've watched all of them with her too.

She wanted an Attack on Titan cake with the main 3 characters (she actually wanted 5, I talked her down to 3.)

These guys.

But in Chibi form.

1. Chibi (ちび or チビ ^?) is a Japanese slang word meaning "short person" or "small child". The word has gained currency among fans of manga and anime. Its meaning is of someone or some animal that is small.

The design she wanted was very simple, thank goodness, so I got to work making the characters.

Mikasa

The flowers are for *another* cake.

OH NO! The Titans got them!

Sweet 16 Cake

I was asked to do a cake in November for January.  Sure, I said,  Give me the details.

Due to family sickness, travel, etc. on their part, the party date was changed like 4 times (January, February, March, back to February), the color scheme changed twice, the party theme changed at least 3 times.  In the end, I was just not happy.  The cake came out awesome, but it took me 19 hours to make.  I work full time and it took me 19 hours of time that I could have been with my own family (One Saturday, David took Isabel out flying and they were gone a total of 6 hours while I sat at home.)  They were given a DEEP DISCOUNT because they're fellow church goers.  This cake, due to the number of servings, would have cost them about $250-$320 dollars.  I won't tell you what I charged them. It's my own fault.  In trying to be nice, I made myself unhappy.

I've resolved to only make cakes for my immediate family; sisters, nieces/nephews, my kids, etc.  That's it.  Unless someone wants to pay $250-$300, I am done undervaluing myself and making myself miserable.

On with the cake!

 Two 6 x 3 inch cakes and two 8 x 3 inch cakes; 64 servings.   The average for fondant cakes is around $4-$5 a slice.  $256 - $320.

Her 16 favorite things, all around the cake.  I didn't take a picture of the back, but you can see above all the things I made for it.

Hulk Smash

This post should really be titled "Kaaren Smash."

I had one day to make a cake. Well. two days but I work one day, so like a day and a few hours of the next evening.  I was asked to make a Hulk cake for a 4 year old's party, in 2 days time. It seemed easy enough and I really liked the lady asking me for it for her grandson, so I decided to do it all in one shot. Mistake.

The cakes, which I thought were cool enough, were NOT, in fact, cool enough and melted the MMF I had made.  I was COMPLETELY upset and embarrassed.   I could not make more MMF or bake more cakes. I was out of time. I came *this* close to calling my friend and telling her she needed to go to a grocery store and get one.

I put the cake in the fridge to cool down and worked on it the next day, patching it (literally, patching it with extra pieces of leftover fondant) and trying to get it presentable.

I texted my friend and told her it was horrible.  She texted back that she loved it.  I sighed.  She can't see how bad it really is.

She came the next day and picked it up. She told me how great it was.

Then, nothing.  For two days, nothing.   I was in a panic. They hated it.  It tasted horrible.  They're too embarrassed to say anything.

Almost at the end of day two, she calls me for a couple of reasons; one being a church thing and the second being:

(paraphrased)

"Oh my gosh, Kaaren. They loved the cake.  Everyone loved the cake.  My mom said it was the best cake she's ever tasted.  It was such a hit!  All the boys loved it and the birthday boy could not stop staring."

I had patched up the cake in this picture below, but had not yet made the border around the top of the pants, nor had I made the number 4 or the mini-Lego Hulk out of fondant. I just forgot to take a final picture.

My friend is a photographer, so I am hoping she will send or post pictures of the cake at the party soon.

Dora & Diego

My sister-in-law contacted me last week.  "We're coming down Easter weekend. Can we get together for K's birthday?"  Of course!  "Where can I order a Dora cake?" she asks.

Uh.  Me.  Hello?  :)

"I'll do Dora and...the monkey. What's his name again?"  I ask.  "Boots."

Then I get another text: "She'd like to know if you can add Diego, too."  Of course I can.

I spent the next few nights not only prepping this cake, but getting the Good Friday cake ready.

Dora's cousin Diego and his Rescue Pack, which was attached to his back later.

Dora (feet not attached yet.)

Boots

My sister-in-law, her husband (my hubby's brother) and their two daughters were down Thursday & Friday at a hotel in Orlando and then drove up Saturday (K's actual birthday) to spend the night at our place and celebrate.  When they arrived, I was STILL putting the cake together.  I had their two young daughters help cut out and arrange the flowers on the cake for me.  They were shy at first, but then really opened up to me and loved helping out.

Happy 4th Birthday to our Adorable Niece K!!

Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice...

Our Gal's 10th Birthday Cake.  
Design by Debbie Brown.

Lego Super Heroes

My husband and kids are fans of the Lego Super Hero games on the PS3; both Marvel & DC.  I decided for my husband's Christmas Day birthday, I would make him a Lego cake.

We were going to be out of the state, at my in-laws for Christmas, so I made some Lego guys beforehand, and was going to  make the cake there.

The cake, on the other hand, was too moist, I forgot my cutters and had to do it free-hand.  It was a hot mess.

Of course, every loved it, but they had to; they're family.  

Happy Birthday to my Christmas-Baby Hubby

Paintball Cake

As a favor to a fellow church-goer who saw my "Milk Gone Bad" cake, I made a cake for her son's birthday.  He's turning 16 and is  going on a paintball birthday bash.  I sent her a few ideas from Cake Central and she chose this one done by several bakers on that site.

Not too hard too do, just a lot of prep work and time.  Three 8" chocolate cakes (homemade, not boxed mix) with chocolate butter cream frosting (homemade), covered in (homemade) chocolate marshmallow fondant.  The accents were colored gumpaste carved from a stencil I drew onto cardboard.  I also got a new toy; a Wilton Circle Cutter, which helped with the target on top.

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Cake

Happy 9th Birthday to my Angel-Muffinlumps.

Gumpaste Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie

Monkey Cake

The final Monkey Cake for a friend's 19th birthday.  Practice cake can be seen here.

Monkeying Around

Happy 2013!

The holidays were low-key, baking wise. I did make cookies for co-workers and teachers, and I can't find a single picture. Nothing too exciting.

My son's friend Lauren has been asking me to make her a cake for 2 years now for her birthday.  Every time in February, we have had something come up where I cannot make it for her.  This year, I committed to making her 19th birthday cake for her February birthday.

She loves monkeys so she & I searched for images and she chose this one from the now-closed Cake Girls in Chicago (fire in 2010 destroyed their storefront. They now just sell supplies on the web.)

Another baker on Flickr, Sweet Xpressions Cakes, made this cake with a few tweaks.

Shiny!  That's usually done with steam on fondant.

I decided to have a trial run because  I always do trial runs!  I don't want to start on a cake that I have never attempted before.

For the trial, I use box cakes (which I do not like at all for making the final cakes.  Too moist, not nearly as tasty as my homemade cakes either) just to save time and money.  I made homemade marshmallow fondant (mmf) too.

I decided to make rice krispie treats (rkt) for the monkeys' heads too, and see if I preferred that over solid fondant/gumpaste heads.

Notes I made:  The rkt is lumpy obviously.  I would need to put two coats of thick  mmf over them to cover the lumps or coat them thickly in royal icing before putting the mmf over it.  I only put one layer with no icing this time, so they looked lumpy.

I might just make them out of fondant or gumpaste after all.

Also obvious, box cake is way too moist, so I was not about to carve the top of the crate flat, but I knew this going in.  So ignore the rounded tops and sides.  Also box cake won't hold the weight of the monkey heads, so there was drooping.  That won't happen in the real trial.

I was mostly trying to see if I could make the monkey heads look good and how I would work the wood grain.

Considering the materials for this cake cost me a whopping $9 to make, I'm happy with what I made. I know what to do and what not to do, and when I make the real cake, those corners should be nice and sharp and the top nice and flat.

I sent pictures to Lauren on her cell as I was making it.  She was very excited to see the progress.

Messy, I know.  

Purple Flowers Anniversary Cake

I mentioned earlier that I was working on a cake for a 90th birthday party that ended up getting cancelled due to unforeseen medical issues and car issues on our end.  The cakes remained in the freezer, the 400+ flowers in the pantry.  Since this weekend was our 10 year wedding anniversary, I made my own anniversary cake instead.  :)

Happy 10th Anniversary David

Happy First Birthday Ava!

My niece turned 1 last week and I was asked to make the birthday cake.  (I had already made the baby shower cake when Ava was still "baking.")

The theme for her party?  Pink and black baby skulls.  (click the pics to make them bigger if you'd like.)

The top is a bandana with hearts.  It's an Oreo cookie cake.

The middle is an almond butter cake with buttercream, covered in fondant.

The bottom is a carrot cake in pink cream cheese frosting.  I stink at frosting cakes with icing.

The skull decorations on the cakes were hand cut out of gumpaste, all hand-decorated and all edible.

The only non-edible item was the pink glitter ribbon around the zebra tier.  That was me, being super-tired after an 8-hour work day, and 3 hours of decorating that same night,  saying "I give! No More! What do I have to put around this cake!?"

Ava's Smash Cake

Happy First Cutie Patootie!

Tangled/Rapunzel Cake

For our gal's party, she chose "Tangled" as her theme.  For those of you without kids, this would be Disney's version of the Rapunzel story.  It was also the theme to the 5k run I did at Epcot.  But I digress.

We found several great cakes on-line and Isabel chose her favorite one from one we liked off of a baker in the UK's Flickr pictures.

We started preparing for the cake a few weeks back, making gumpaste flowers and cupcake toppers.

Finally, it was time to get going.

Baby Rapunzel oversees the operation.

Gahh!

Bringing on the smolder

Our gal creates Pascal's tail

Cupcakes

Her hair's not really complete here.  I was afraid to transport her like this, so the bottom part of her hair is not attached to the part by her knees.   When we got to the party location, I had more gumpaste and my clay extruder, so I could add more and bring the hair together.  

The party was lots of fun!