HOLY CHOCOLATE CAKE, BATMAN!!

Brady, the Birthday Boy turning 6 on Christmas Eve, wanted a Batman cake!

* * * BOOM! POW! BAM! * * *

A ROYAL (BLUE) WEDDING and a BAKUGAN CAKE!

Gorgeous little cake for a wonderful couple who got married here in Astoria on the 13th:

The bottom tier is fudge chocolate with Kahlua creme mousse filling, and the top tier is a poppyseed cake with strawberry filling.
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And this weekend was Nathan's birthday, and my son is big into Bakugan.... so what else could I make but a giant Bakugan ball cake?
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Working on the dome:

I filled in the spaces between the levels with excess pieces from trimming the top:

When I finished this part, I couldn't believe how much it looked like a giant truffle! And there's the inspirational tiny Bakugan ball below... I don't really know what the point of them is, but Nathan likes them, so it's all good. :-)

I had *planned* on making a blue ball...but I was out of blue gel coloring. Unreal. So I went with red. I had to add so much red, the marshmallow fondant started crumbling on me. Nothing I did brought it back...frustrating! So I took the rest of my already-prepared fondant and tried yellow. Didn't have to use hardly any color, but same results -- totally dry and crumbling apart in my hands!! This had never happened before... so I thought, "Oh, I'll just make a new batch and go with that." Except ---- I was nearly out of powdered sugar. And it was 11 o'clock at night the night before the party. Eeeeegads.....

I needed eight cups of powdered sugar, so I measured. I had four. So I went for it... made half a batch of yellow, and rolled it out and slapped it on the cake. But even going as quickly as I was, it still began drying and crumbling. It didn't make any sense AT ALL. I have used marshmallow fondant a million times before without these results! What was going on???

That's when I finally sat down to upload the cake photos to Facebook and realized how chilly it was. I checked the thermometer and discovered it was only 64 degrees in the house!!! OMG!!!

Holy frozen fondant, Batman!!!!

But I got it... it's a Bouncing Baby Bakugan cake!!!

Peace and Cake,

Cynthia

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!!!!