Graduation Gal w/Cap

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!

Practice that Buttercream

I took cake classes in order to actually work with buttercream. Everyone now wants to to fondant, but I wanted to get the buttercream technique down. Unfortunately, the class was not what I had hoped. For Course # 1, the teacher didn't have us bring practice cakes in at all until the last of 4 classes. Other people I know who took the course had to bring a cake each week. Ours did not. He said it was a waste of our time. I disagree. He also was very clique-y with some women he knew who were taking the class, and I was disappointed with Course 1. THEN he says Wilton was changing their classes and there would be no Course 2. We skipped to course 3. So still no buttercream work. I almost want to take the classes again (he's moved on and is not teaching anymore.)

I have a hate/hate relationship with buttercream. I scour the Internet, I read, watch YouTube videos, change up my buttercream recipes over and over, and I still can't make a nice, smooth cake (which is probably why I have yet to attempt a wedding cake. if I can't make it perfectly smooth, what's the point?)

I purchased some $2 angel food loaves from Walmart to practice on. The first time, I tried making the buttercream as smooth as possible. You can blow up the pictures to see. I can't get the edges right and it's frustrating.





I decided to practice roses while I was at it, but my buttercream was to soft and the petals kept rippling.

Tonight I took the second Walmart angel food cake out of the freezer to try a different buttercream recipe I found on-line.

After smoothing it as best I could, I hand-piped Jessie from Toy Story on it. I am proud of my Jessie, just cause I drew it by hand. :)

The icing is still not smooth. I don't know if I should KEEP piling more on, or what. I am so over buttercream.

Someone help!

This was the end product. The wording was not anything I would do for anyone else, I was messing around, filling space on the cake. Isabel ADORED it.

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.

Ponyo Cake

If you haven't heard of Hayao Miyazaki, get on board with us. We're discovering him and Studio Ghibli too.


The movies he's done for Studio Ghibli include:


Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Castle in the Sky
My Neighbor Totoro (seen it)
Kiki's Delivery Service (seen it)
Porco Rosso
Princess Mononoke (seen it)
Spirited Away (seen it, own it)
Howl's Moving Castle
Ponyo (on the Cliff by the Sea) (seen it, own it)


I can't embed the English-dubbed "Ponyo" trailer; Disney owns the rights to the English-version, but here it is so you can see it on their site: Ponyo Trailer.


Such a cute film. HAM!! (we yell that a lot. If you've seen the movie, you know why.)


We wanted to make a Miyazaki-themed cake. We started with "Our Neighbor Totoro," but after thinking it over, and buying "Ponyo," we changed our mind. Here is the picture we based the cake off of.







I baked two 6x3 cakes and stacked them. I carved them down a bit to try to get a tapered pail look. I made homemade fondant and colored it green. I iced the cakes and covered them with the green fondant.


Side bar: I am not happy with the MMF recently. I have a love/hate relationship with it. For some cakes it is great; mainly flat ones. But when covering a shaped cake, it is just too thin and looks bumpy. I don't know if it is Florida Humidity doing the deed, but I am not happy with it.


The rim that would hold the water ended up being Rice Krispee Treats, molded into a rim and covered in green fondant.


While all that was going on, my big sis Brenda colored and shaped the gumpaste Ponyo.


I created blue Jell-O, boom, bam,


Ponyo Cake.

We can't stand the cuteness!!

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!

Moose in Boxers, a Pain in the Butt and a Prince Fan

Where, oh where, did we ever come up with these ideas? *grin*

I was making cookies for an out-of-state co-worker who kept asking (over and over) when he was getting cookies. He's a avid hunter, and I had Moose cutters. Not that moose are hunted, are they?? I wanted to use my moose cutter, ok?

My sister and I worked on the cookies. She made three ginormous ones, so the batch you see is rather small.

This is for the hunter co-worker.

I was making the moose cookies, and I remembered a "special" moose, who has a thing for boxers, so I decided to add some boxers to this batch. My co-worker will have no idea why the moose are wearing boxers, but it makes me grin.

While I was making the above cookies, my sister decided to make some cookies herself.

My sister is staying with us to help in my son's recuperation from surgery. She made this LARGE cookie. It is about 6-7 inches long. The lips are another cookie placed on top of the butt. My son thought it was funny.

She also decorated a cookie for Isabel and another one for David and me.

She is also a huge Prince fan. Huge. She hand-crafted the dough for the Prince symbol cookie and used my ginormous bear cutter for the bear one. These cookies are 6-8 inches long.