Thomas & Friends Train Cake

It was so fun to make this train cake for my friend Dawn, who's littlest turned three last week.  Dawn told me he had been asking for a train cake LONG before his Birthday came along, so we wanted to come up with something special!  We found this fun style browsing train cakes online.  Dawn brought some little toy trains for me to use, and I was able to pipe a tunnel and tracks to match the size of the toys. 

I really enjoyed making this cake, and it was quite a bit more difficult to assemble and frost than I thought it would be. 

I used a bag of chocolate rock candy for the bottom border, tunnel and small accents. This cake is 9" in diameter. It has a single layer on the bottom, then the top layer was cut in half and stacked on top of each other. Because of the weight of the top two tiers, I recommend inserting dowels in the base to support the weight. If you will be transporting this cake, it would be wise to also do a single dowel through all three layers to keep it a little more stable.

Combed Chocolate Buttercream Birthday Cake

I had to make a fabulous cake for a fabulous girl. 

My dear friend Janice celebrated her 30th this weekend.  I must give her props for her great attitude about turning thirty-maybe it's because she has been so busy, and life has been pretty sweet lately- but this girl was not sweating thirty AT ALL. 

Janice had really enjoyed the chocolate icing that I used for my daughters birthday cake.  I wanted the cake to look grown-up because it would be served in a nice restaurant (you know, no wait staff singing happy birthday).  I wanted it to look delicious.  I wanted it to have a little somethun'.....that I couldn't quite put my finger on.....

So I kept it simple and delicious, with a batch of dark chocolate buttercream whipped extra to keep it a little lighter than the original.  I iced the cake smooth all over and combed the edges.  Then I was ready to write my message on the top:  "30 & Fabulous"....except I couldn't decide what color to make the writing.  Darker brown?  Black?  White?  Then it came to me:  gold. Shimmering gold. That was definitely the somethun' I was looking for.  I cut the message out of white fondant and painted the gold shimmer onto each piece.  I had 1" cutters for the letters, but had to create my own freehand design for the "30 &"

Since I was so excited about this cake and the busy day surrounding it's presentation, I completely forgot to take a decent picture of it.  Seriously.  All I have are some mobile phone snapshots taken that night at dinner. 

 Happy Birthday Janice, and thanks for a GREAT day and being such a great friend!

Violet Petal Ombre Birthday Cake

 

My friend Jen asked me to make a cake for a birthday party to celebrate both her and her husband's 40th Birthdays.  After deciding what size she needed, she also told me that I could come up with the design myself!  I have been admiring ombre cakes for quite some time and was excited to give it my first shot.  I loved the petal style but was a little put-off by how much WORK it seemed like....and I'm all about keeping my decorating fun and enjoyable....not tedious.  So I made up my own way of doing it that didn't involve a thousand offset spatula swipes, and mixing a bunch of tiny bowls of tinted frosting.

I started with a double batch of vanilla buttercream.  I did a light crumb coat and iced the top of the cake smooth with white icing, and then reserved a small amount for later. 

thin crumb coat

Start with a big bowl of the lightest color you will use for your cake design.

My first row of petals would be the lightest violet possible. So, add a small amount of color to your big bowl of icing:

 Before working on the cake, I practiced my petals on a practice board.  Using a 12 tip, I made a large dimensional dot at a 90 degree angle, and then pressed down into it and swiped the frosting into a tail:

The great thing about practice boards is that you can pick the practice frosting up with your spatula and put it right back into the bag.  No waste!

I made my first row of petals with the light violet icing.

 

 Then, I squeezed the icing that was still left in the piping back back into the bowl.   

 You can now add a little more violet color to make your icing a shade darker for your next row.  And just keep repeating those steps over and over.  No wasted icing, no spatula swipes and cleaning.
When all the rows on the sides were finished, I used the reserved white icing to pipe matching petals along the top to make a matching border.

 



 

Jen is a photographer, so  I was hoping she would appreciate the ombre effect on a cake.  I loved making this cake and will definitely try it again with new colors.

 

Happy Birthday Matt & Jen!

Mermaid Birthday Cake

I have to admit, this one may be my new favorite.

My Bonus Niece, Aurora, had her 10th Birthday party today.  I made her a mermaid cake to fit her pool party theme.  I had NO idea how cute and extra adorable this cake would turn out...

 

After icing the cake, I combed the edges with a wave to give the ocean vibe.  I went ahead and did the borders first off, too--big swirly waves.  

 

 

 Later, I added the little ocean life. like plants, starfish and coral.  I have to give credit to this beautiful cake I found when searching for inspiration...I loved the sea life idea and had to try it.  I also got the idea to do her hair with the grass tip, perfect!

 

 

 

For the mermaid's fin, I used dimensional dots that I just smeared upwards and layered on top of each other.... perfect scales!  I will have to remember this for fish, too!

 

 

Happy Birthday Aurora!

My First Wedding Cake

My sister-in-law Hollie has thanked me multiple times for making her a wedding cake.  She said it was exactly what she wanted and tasted great.  I feel like I should be the one thanking her....for taking a chance with a new baker for something this important! 

Her theme was butterflies, and the colors were purple and silver.  After perusing the internet for many pretty cakes, and testing out some styles and colors on other projects (My Wilton Course 1 cake was a wedding cake experiment we decided on together!), she found a pretty & simple cake design.  The inspiration came from Pink Cake Box blog.  There is a 3-tier wedding cake that is decorated with butterflies and orchids, just as she wished to decorate hers. 

Hollie's Wedding Cake:



3-tier wedding cake with butterflies and orchids.

So here it is!  It was such an experience from start to finish.  I will never forget the nerve-racking car ride from home to the reception hall....watching the top tier wiggle from the rearview mirror.  And then, carefully and s-l-o-w-l-y carrying it across the street in my arms.   But the cake survived and stayed in tact.  I will be sure to transport a cake this big dissambled next time (if there ever is)   and devoting the extra time on-site to finishing the tiers. 

Logistics:
The flowers are real, wrapped with floral tape and inserted into protective plastic sleeves so that the stems don't come into contact with the cake.  
The ribbon wrapped around each base is held in place with piping gel, which worked fantastic.  It held very firmly, was easy to remove, and best of all, didn't bleed through the ribbon.  It really helped maintain that clean look we were going for!  I recommend testing your ribbon with the piping gel before applying it.  I used  synthetic/plastic-y feeling fabric ribbon.  I think if I had used a more expensive satin, the gel or even butter oils from the icing may have bled through it.  Before serving, I just peeled off the ribbon and started cutting!

The Layers:
Base:  12" 3-layer white cake
Middle:  9"  3-layer chocolate cake
Top:  6:  3-layer spice cake
I'm pretty sure this cake weighed around 50 pounds!