Home is Where the TARDIS (cake)

I attempted to make a TARDIS cake.  Go on, Google.  I'll wait.

We LOVE Dr. Who and I thought "I can make that!"  Sometimes, you just have to tell your brain to shut it.

This cake was more "Dr. WHAT?"  than Dr. Who.  :D

It's coming out of a time vortex, hence the wibbly wobbly.  THAT'S MY STORY AND I'M STICKING TO IT!

Oh, at first the "vortex" that the TARDIS is coming through was just yellow and red.  My son looked at it and said "What is that, a hot dog vortex?"  It indeed did look like ketchup & mustard, so I added more colors.

Gumpaste Graduation Gal

My ex-sister-in-law Denise invited us (my husband David, too) to her daughter Rachel's graduation dinner party. Rachel is Jacob's first cousin on his dad's side; Denise is my ex-husband's sister. My ex-in-laws are all really terrific. I said yes, and after I hung up, I sent Denise a text message: "Want me to make the cake," to which she replied "YES!!!!"

I have the cake idea in mind (Thanks to Cakecentral.com, of course) and I started to make the gumpaste accents early so they would harden in time. One of the things that will be on the cake is a mini-Rachel in her cap and gown.

I started with the torso. I made the blouse and added some decoration to them collar.



Next up, I made the legs. She'll be kneeling.



Her school colors are purple and gold, and her cap and gown will be purple.





Time for the face. Hi Rachel!

Notice the hands holding the diploma.

"Rachel" was left to dry a couple of days, and then I got.....dum dum dum, a clay extruder! You can find them at Michael's or buy them on-line at Amazon.

So, why'd I get one?



TA DA!!! HAIR! I LOVE IT!!!

Next up will be placing her cap on her head, and then on to making and decorating the cakes. The party's not for over a week & 2 days, and I am so excited!

Pottery Party Cake

A friend was throwing a surprise birthday party for his wife at a pottery painting place, and he asked if I would make the cake. I decided on a cake about pottery painting. :)

This is a carrot cake with chocolate cream cheese icing. All the items on here are edible. I made the cup, the cat, the tile and the plate. My sister Brenda made the paint brushes and the paint pallet. As added cuteness, I drew the family on the tile and Brenda engraved their 4 kids' names on 4 of the paint brushes.

I'm not too concerned with the icing; it's supposed to look like a table. It could have been smoother but I was frosting this at 10 p.m. on Friday after work and I was pooped.

The birthday momma was surprised! and everyone enjoyed the cake.

Companion Cube Cake

This was made in like 3 hours, using horrible boxed cake. Horrible because boxed cakes are way too soft/moist to hold up to sculpting, etc.

My son was turning 16. We took him to a fun dinner and he had a large birthday cupcake there, but when I asked him if he wanted a cake the next evening, he said yes. Thinking about it for a bit, I settled on a companion cube from the video game "Portal."

Again, BOXED cake and 3 hours. I wasn't putting forth a huge effort, as you can tell by its asymmetrical corners, etc.

And yet, he loved it. :)

Into the Oven

No, I don't mean the website I shop at (which is a great place to shop for cake supplies). I mean, a turkey into the oven.

I wanted to practice some cakes for Thanksgiving. I want to make one for that day, so I decided to try one out. Over at Cake Central, do a search for "oven" and you'll see all the ones I based this cake on.



On the first night, I worked on the small items that I wanted inside the oven. I created a turkey, a roasting pan, potatoes, carrots and a sack of potatoes out of gum paste and left them out overnight to harden.






Cute!!!






The next night, I baked four 8x8 square cakes. Two chocolate and two almond butter. I also made cream cheese icing. I stored them overnight, so they would be completely cool before I carved and iced them.






I carved out a space for the interior of the oven. Difficult and messy.






I iced each later with the cream cheese icing, and re-stacked them. I then covered them with white fondant and began the hard task of getting the opening to look like an oven opening. It was a pain and I'm not 100% satisfied with what I did. (I know. When am I ever?)






My burners are wonky. :) But I do like my towel and oven mitt.










Here is the cake. The back board is just that; cardboard. Others who made this cake used Rice Krispee (sp?) Treats (also known as RKT in cake-people jargon) molded to look like the backdrop and covered with fondant. RKT is light and pliable enough to make many things, but not having puffed rice, or wanting to go to the store, I settled for cardboard. :)


I love my turkey though, and Isabel insisted on the bunny slippers. A couple of pictures on Cake Central included cook books on the oven and bunny slippers on the side. She saw them and was adamant I make them, so there they be. :)

Stroller Cake Mess

It must be in the water. I personally know four pregnant women right now. One of them, David's co-worker is having a shower, so I tentatively said I'd like to make the cake. She doesn't know it, so if I don't, none the wiser.


As you know by now, I am all about the testing (Wall-E takes 1 & 2, the Chick cake fail). I want to see if I can do it before I get the final products (Final Wall-E, Final Chick Cake).


I am also all about wanting new cake recipes, because although the recommended Madeira recipe for making shaped cakes is solid enough for carving, it tastes like a brick.



I tried a new recipe from the 500 Cakes book. I can't even remember which one. Why can't I remember? Let me show you.



The fondant is colored (she's having a boy).





The cake's in the oven.







I have a cappuccino while I wait. (bonus points if you can tell me about my mug).




The cake comes out of the oven, it cools, I cut it in half, place a raspberry jam/whipped cream mixture (homemade) in the middle. I cover it in homemade butter cream icing and get to work.




Now, the instructions are all wonky. Place it on its bottom, put a ring around it, flip it over & cover it in fondant, flip it back and tuck the fondant over the ring. There was a lot of flipping back and forth going on. The last flip, caused this:






I wasn't even upset really. It was a new cake recipe, so I knew it might fail. The cake was delicious, just not strong enough to hold up to the weight of the fondant and all that flipping. I left the cake on the counter, in a cake carrier, and we picked at it for a couple of days.



TAKE 2


THIS time, I am back to the Madeira recipe I hate. I figure I'll make a great tasting rectangular cake, frost and decorate it, and then put the Madeira stroller cake on top. People can eat the good cake while admiring the Madeira stroller cake.




Immediately I realized it was too hot in the kitchen The same fondant as before was mushing, sticking, it was bad. I was disgusted and to the point of tears. I texted David to say that i was *not* making the baby shower cake.







Fairy Isabel (who last week realized that Isabel rhymes with Tinkerbell) liked it. But she's 5. ;)




I tried to smooth the fondant around the stroller, but every indentation of my fingers remained. I used my cake smoother and it tore the fondant. I wanted to chuck the thing in the garbage.



Call me obsessive, but this is NOT something I want to have at a baby shower.

Wall-E, the Final Cut

Here he is folks. Wall-E for Isabel's birthday party.






Wall-E, sans hands.





Side view, with one hand holding flowers.














Lighting the cake. It was a fun birthday party for our girl.

Wall-E Cake, takes 1 & 2

A few weeks back, we rented Disney's "Wall-E." Isabel was in love. We had the movie 3 days or so, and she must have watched in 4-5 times.

I decided to have a Wall-E themed party for Isabel's 5th birthday. Five! Aack! I digress.

I wanted to try my hand at a Wall-E cake and scoured the net for ideas.

Take 1

I went the fondant route the first time. That was A LOT of work. Click on the above picture. You can see my attempt at covering the "wheels" with fondant. Having to color fondant a velveeta cheese yellow, and black and grey was time consuming. I got frustrated.

Then, Florida had a cold snap. YES we did. It was 27 degrees one day. So, the heat in the house is on...and Wall-E became mush. Melted fondant mush. I was pretty much over it and Wall-E take 1 went into the garbagio.

Take 2

I found this Wall-E cake on the net. Isn't it fun? They used off-the-shelf cake mixes and icings. They did a great job, so I throught I'd try it this way instead. No fondant. Just icing and lots of it.

Icing the cakes was NOT fun. Box cakes are just too moist. They crumble. It was a mess. The grey strip was icing on their cake. There was no WAY I was going to apply gray icing over yellow icing. I decided to use a strip of gray fondant. THIS strip above was too thick and its weight slowly dragged it down the side. I took it off and made a new, thinner one.

Check out the mess above.

Yea. Not pretty. TEST RUN!

Then there was the "how do I make the arms, eyes, and neck" thing. I spent some time using cereal boxes to make the shapes, then I colored them with grey paint.

Below is sort-of the finished product. Sort-of because I did not paint the head/eye area grey yet, nor did I cover the neck with icing to hide the tube there. I didn't want to waste my time.

I need to make his eyes smaller, and they were a PAIN to make. (Aweee, droopy Valentine roses). And I think I'm going to cover the next cake in yellow fondant, but not the wheels. I like the wheels as is. I need to find black piping icing in a teeeeeny tube to make the words. These words here were made with little bits of black fondant and I don't like them. I'm also not going to use box cakes. I'll make a home made cake.

Oh, and I'll be ordering a back-up cake from Publix. :)

Update: Want to see the Final Take? Click here to see the Wall-E cake for the party.

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.