Let Them Eat Cake!

Cake decorating is a hobby of mine.  I’m not very good at it, and often times the pictures turn out better than the actual cake does.  But I thought it would be fun, and maybe helpful to someone out there.  I know how much I appreciate (and swipe) cake ideas, so it seems only fair for me to add my photos to the mix.

First up is a cake I made for Cam’s 4th birthday.  It was my first attempt with fondant, and my first attempt at ‘novelty’ cakes.  The Shuttle is a 9 x 13 sheet cake that I cut in half and shaped with a knife.  The wings are pure fondant.  The planets are cake and buttercream frosting.  I used the Wilton’s Ball Cake Pan. The Saturn ring is actually a cardboard cake plate between the two ball layers.

Up next is Jessica’s ‘Sweet 16′ topsy turvy cake.  This cake, while delicious, ended up being an utter disaster.  Part of the problem was that I didn’t fully understand the topsy turvy concept, part of the problem was that I had to rush through the work because I started late, and part of the problem was that the cake started to collapse during delivery (I was racing to get to the birthday place and took a few turns a little too fast).  The cake was yummy though…one layer was orange cake, one layer was lemon cake, and one layer was coconut cake.  It tasted like Trix cereal.  LOL

Next up is Ty’s ‘Toy Story’ cake.  I actually ‘borrowed’ the look (from a much better cake decorator) that I found online.   I melted chocolate chips and piped them onto wax paper in long rows.  As the chocolate started to solidify, I took a fork and scraped them up to give them a ‘wood’ look.  I covered all of the layers in buttercream and fondant.  You can’t really tell in the picture, but the top layer has a silver glitter sheen on it.  The toys were from the Disney Store.

Here is the R2D2 cake I made for Camden.  The body is cake, the legs are rice krispy treats covered in fondant.

Up next is Jessica’s 17th birthday cake.  Jess loves The Jonas Brothers and all of the cakes I looked at had Jonas Brothers edible images on them (which I think is tacky).  So I really had to figure out a way to make a cake that would incorporate the Jonas Brothers without being pre-teen-ish.  As luck would have it, I found a Jonas Brothers guitar pick in the clearance bin at a local Michaels.  And the guitar cake idea was born.  So while at Michaels, I picked up the Wilton guitar cake pan too.

I went with molded chocolate instead of fondant, and I have to say that it was really tough getting the white chocolate hot pink.  But after many attempts, I finally got the color I was after.

The next two food items aren’t cakes, but I thought they might provide inspiration for someone.

This is a picture of an Easter Bunny cheese roll.  My boys’ preschool wouldn’t allow sugar or white flour as snacks.  So I had to be really clever with coming up with something “healthy” that the children would eat.  So I made a regular cheese roll, and shaped it into the shape of a rabbit.  Then I covered the cheese roll in bacon bits.  The nose is made out of cream cheese, and the eyes are olives.  The grass is tinted coconut, and I bought colored eggs and baby carrots from the grocery store to give it some color.   The kids LOVED it!

Finally, what would Christmas be without the olive penguins?  Here is one of our versions:

Do you have any creations you would like to share?  Leave me a link in the comments!  I’m always on the lookout for new ideas.

Cam has a birthday next month…I’ve already decided what the cake will be…I only hope it turns out as cute in real life as it is in my head.