HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!

I love how my super-adorable Jack-O-Lantern cake turned out! BOO!!!!

The layers... chocolate cake, buttercream icing.

Stacking it up...I totally cheated and didn't insert a cardboard half-way down the cake. I'm sure they will be able to figure out how to not cut an 8-inch-high slice of cake. LOL

Anatomy of a Jack-O-Lantern:

The son wanted spiders, so I tucked some in at the last minute....

Have a safe and happy Halloween!!!!!

'66 MUSTANG

My favorite car ever. Can I make one out of sugar? Oh boy....
The trick with sculpting out of fondant is there is no trick - it's just heavy and starts to crack if you handle it too much. So you have to work fast. This car didn't have to be huge, because this is only a 6-inch cake, but I think it turned out adorable!

The front end...

The rear -- I have always loved those Mustang lights. :-)

This is a Happy Birthday to a Grandpa cake: chocolate cake, chocolate icing and marshmallow fondant covering and decorations.

CHARCEY'S WEDDING CAKE

The bride wanted simple, elegant, white, and roses.

Chocolate cake (lovely to eat, but very hard to deal with in stacked cakes... I will have to re-think this in the future and/or discover new chocolate cake recipes to try), buttercream frosting, marshmallow fondant and marshmallow roses.

Also, I noticed from this angle the flowers look a bit wonky, but their placement makes sense in person, I swear. :-)

EMILY ROSE'S ROSE CAKE

Emily's adoption day (#6!!) was August 10, and she wanted a heart-shaped, cherry cake with roses. And she got it...

This is me learning a new, larger rose method, which I totally LOVE. No cookie cutters, just forming the fondant as I go. Awesome. And the roses can be as big as you want. SWEET!
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The pinks are NOT showing up well in this photo... and I can't figure out why. They did look closer in color than this in real life! I swear!!!
But how cool are these giant roses? So cool...

Our sweet baby...

S'MORES = SUMMER and KUNG FU DIEGO

Oh my goodness.... the one thing that truly screams, "IT'S SUMMER!!!" are big, giant s'mores!!! So what else could you want for your birthday but a Giant S'Mores Cake if you are my husband who was born on August 3 and just happens to LOVE s'mores???
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Ready?
Here I am shaping the marshmallow... never did this before.... slapped some icing on it and didn't really let it sit like I would have for a client, but it worked out just fine!

See? The kids screamed when I got it put together. They wanted to have some that minute, but they were heading for bed. Boo!

The two graham cracker layers and the chocolate layer are all chocolate cake. The graham cracker layers have light brown buttercream and real crushed graham crackers on them, while the chocolate bar layer has chocolate icing covered with a layer of melted chocolate chips. The marshmallow layer is yellow cake with white buttercream, covered in what else -- marshmallow fondant. :-)

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KUNG FU DIEGO

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Now here is a July cake for a littel buddy who was turning 7! He loves Diego, and this was James's first birthday in America (he just came home from China in January!) and so I did a Kung Fu Diego!!

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But buttercream drives me cuckoo -- it always seems to be wanting to melt on me, and looks so shiny in photos. I need to work with it more, obviously!

BUZZ LIGHTYEAR

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!!!!!!!!!
Buzz is the MAN!!!!
14" double-layer chocolate fudge cake with buttercream icing under bright blue marshmallow fondant. Buzz is 100% marshmallow fondant, too!

He cracks me up with his right leg looking longer than his left. It wasn't that much longer, I swear! haha
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BUILDING BUZZ:
It was at this point I realized how easily I could be making a Star Wars cake.

Building Buzz's head:

On the cake:

No! That's NOT a toy laying on the cake!! haha

GRANDMA'S CAKE

This is how this cake looked before I left the house:

This is how the poor thing looked fifteen minutes later after I drove it to the venue, ten minutes from my house:

At the party with the giant "85" for 85 wonderful years for Aiti (Grandma):

I was so disappointed that the icing had slid. This has NEVER happened to me before and it literally took me about five days to get over this. But lessons learned -- I will from now on NEVER icing a cake the day of an event, and I will encourage everyone to go with FONDANT! I really hate buttercream right now -- makes me want to CRY!!!!!!!!

RUSSELL GRADUATION CAKE

First Raven got married (in January... I did their cake!), and now she has graduated from college... right alongside her older brother Max!

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This cake was up to me -- I knew I did NOT want to do a traditional graduation cake. No mortar boards, no diplomas, no cheesy writing. I wanted elegance and something very Russell-like. I was first inspired by the rich colors of their home... browns, jewel tones, golds and caramels, and texture. I tried chocolate marshmallow fondant for this cake, and I really liked not only the taste (***YUM!!!***), but the cocoa powder gave an almost antique-looking finish to the chocolate fondant, which I loved and will use again!

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The braid and the sea star shapes are a nod to Seaside, Oregon, where the Russell family is from... a loose nautical theme for being so incredibly close to the ocean. The drapery (marshmallow fondant) was a nod to the graduation robes, and at the party I found out Raven's honors ropes she wore were red and green. *I rule!*

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I posted two photos with different lighting, because this cake was extremely hard to get good photos of! Enjoy.

HELLO KITTY BIRTHDAY GIRL!!

Here is the birthday girl with her Hello Kitty cake!! Happy 7th, Emily Rose!!!


And then here is the proof I have the coolest in-laws in the world....
MY BIRTHDAY/MOM'S DAY/JUST BECAUSE PRESENT:

***********AGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!***********

YESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! What an awesome present!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't wait to use it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My hands will never get blisters again from mixing icing!!!

He is beautiful.

I have named him Graham.

He is my mighty Grahaminator.

HELLO KITTY and CHOCOCAT!!

Emily Rose is turning 7 -- May 2 is the day (it's just after midnight as I type this, so it's her birthday officially!!).... she wanted "a rainbow cake with Hello Kitty and Chococat holding hands, and flowers."

And so here we go... the icing is ready:



I made pink magic wands out of fondant for the girls. We'll add ribbon to the sticks. Flowers and everything are made from fondant.

A army of flowers:

The cake before:

WOO!!! Sky and grass!!

Adding the rainbow:

Adding the best friends:

A close-up of the kitties:

A side view... really digging the colors here!!

*hello!*

I can't wait for her to see the cake in the morning!!!!

JACK IN THE GARDEN

I made this for a little girl named Beth who turned 2 today... Enjoy!
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Here is Jack, the tuxedo kitty Beth loves to chase though the house. He is made entirely of fondant, with a toothpick to help hold his head steady. LOL
His eyes are yellow fondant, but then I painted on his cat's eyes. *meow*


Roses for the garden -- the dark ones are actually a lavender color, but I am having issues with my camera and the color lavender right now.

Here is Beth...not quite done yet. Still needs a sleeve, arms, a head, feet...

Inside the cake...Hershey's chocolate cake with pink frosting.

Fondant frilly leaves waiting to go on the cake:

When my son saw these this morning he said, "Mom! Did you buy these?" Nope -- all made from fondant except their little antenna.

Getting ready to install the garden... call the landscaping crew!

I added some grass around the base of the fence:

A top view:

All done!!

More views:

Some things to do differently next time: the characters were SUPER HEAVY and so next time I would use fondant-covered cardboard to create a platform for them. I would also put the roses and leaves on at the same time. And for the next fun garden cake, I will make bees and stick them up on the end of skewers so they are flying through the air! buzzzzzzzzzz

This entire cake was made using marshmallow fondant... SO GOOD! I figured out the secret --add shortening and you retain that elasticity the Wilton fondant has, but at a fraction of the price. So: 16 oz. mini marshmallows, 2 pounds of powdered sugar, three tablespoons of water, 1 tablespoon of clear vanilla, and half a cup of Crisco -- melt everything (except the powdered sugar) in the microwave for about 2 minutes, then stir in the powdered sugar. I am doing it by hand and still getting it done. Oh, and coat everything in Crisco before you start -- the mixing bowl, the stirring spoon, the table... haha

So for 3 pounds of marshmallow fondant, you spend less than $4 and time vs. $20 for 5 pounds of Wilton fondant that half of the people surveyed don't like the taste of. Hmmm......

Another month and I'm ordering my Kitchen Aid mixer!! My hands are killing me!! haha