Wild Kratts

After my last cake, I took a much needed "break" from baking.  I love it, don't get me wrong, but my life got a little crazy.  My baby girl is becoming more and more active.  I had to strategically bake while she was napping and/or stay up all night while everyone else in my house slept.  I always get my best work done in the peace and quiet.  Also, we run a real estate investment business on the side, so that keeps me busy as well.  

Anyway, my next cake was for my son's 7th birthday.  He loves the PBS show "Wild Kratts"and wanted a themed party to go along with the show.  I had to get creative on this one.  So I went with Animal print tiers and a "creature power disc" as a topper.    I think it turned out pretty well.  

Zebra layer:  MMF

Leopard print:  hand-painted

Happy Birthday Marines

Full sheet with 8 inch round on top made for cake cutting at the squadron birthday party.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Here are some cupcakes I made for a cake walk at the school fundraiser.

Hairy scary monsters

 Ghoulish Ghosts

 Pretty Pumpkins

Happy Birthday Lil Pumpkin

What a fun cake this was!  I had the opportunity do make this lil angel's 2nd birthday cake.  Her mom sent me this invitation and you'll see the cake to follow:

 The cake was vanilla with buttercream frosting and fondant accents.  The pumpkin topper is rice crispie treats covered in MMF.

Change of Command

These giant cakes are high in demand lately.  This full sheet was for HT-18's change of command ceremony.  

(The thing I hate about the giant cakes: it's hard to center the writing)

I saved myself several hours on this cake and went with an edible image for the logo instead of royal icing like last time)

Gender Reveal Baby Shower

This was a baby shower/gender reveal cake done in the nursery colors: khaki and gray.  The cake was italian creme with swiss buttercream frosting and marshmallow fondant accents.

Military Retirement

I had the privilege of making our neighbor's retirement cake.  John is retiring in January after almost 26 years of service.  (He just had his ceremony a little early.)  The cake is buttercream with a royal icing logo.  

Pirates and Princesses

We have a party place here in our town called Fefe and Frogs.  They do themed parties mostly for little girls, but if you want a few of your little boy friends to come, you get to have a "Pirates and Princesses" party.  So that's what I did for Madelyn. This cake is covered in buttercream with marshmallow fondant accents.  The crown topper is made of royal icing.  

 treasure map

 "X" marks the spot

Warrior Salad

Ok, so this is NOT a cake or anything sweet for that matter (unless you count the "craisins").  But it is delicious and I felt like sharing.
Drew and I are on a health kick right now.  We're eating right and *gasp* exercising!  So I bought some quinoa, which I love, but was looking for a way to jazz it up.  I found it in Daphne Oz's "warrior salad."  You can find the recipe HERE.

Go Spartans!

I airbrushed this 1/2 sheet cake for my nephew.  He plays football (obviously) and was very excited to be able to "eat" his own face!

Here's the birthday boy with his cake.

Princess Palooza!

I made a princess cake for a little sweetie.  Her favorites are: Sophia, Cinderella, Aurora, and Ariel (in that order), so those are the princesses that made it on the cake.  The cake is covered in buttercream and the princesses are made of royal icing.  

 Here's a close up of the princesses.  I'm no artist by any means and drawing especially has never been my strong suit.  Some of these gals turned out better than others.  Being made of royal icing, they are VERY fragile.  I broke Ariel in 2 places, but luckily I was able to "glue" her back together with more royal icing.

 Aurora probably turned out the best.

 Cinderella, however did not have the same fate.  She is my absolute favorite princess so I was a little disappointed when she ended up looking a little distorted.  Other than her crazy eyes, she looks great. 

It was a fun cake to make and I hope Princess Anna had a great birthday!

A Mermaid Under The Sea!

What fun today's cake was!  From time to time I donate gift certificates to our consignment sale and MOMs group.  A friend of mine won the gift certificate and she used it for a mermaid/under the sea cake for her daughter's 2nd birthday.  Here's the result:  

seahorse and clownfish on one side

 friendly purple octopus on the other!

fondant mermaid cake topper

I've been wanting to try fondant cake toppers for a while, but I was WAY intimidated.  Leave it to me to take on something not so simple for my first go.  (Yep, this was my FIRST FONDANT FIGURE EVER!)  Though she's pretty rough around the edges and it took me 3 tries to get her face molded I think it turned out quite well!  *I used My Cupcake Addiction's tutorial for help.*  Here's how the process went:

First, I put a lollipop stick in some gumpaste and let it dry.  Then I made the tail and attached it to the stick.

 Next, I shaped the torso.

 Then after 3 tries and lots of drying I attached her head.

 Then came arms.

 Then shells and hair.

 Finally, I painted her face and attached a few more pieces of hair.

She was a labor of love and like I said, she's not perfect, but I'm proud of how she turned out.  A few things I learned: 

* My fondant was just a touch to thin.  How do I know this?  Because her torso started sagging causing her to look like an old wrinkled lady.  At one point I had to remove her hair and let her dry out some more.

* I need some GOOD detail brushes.  When it came time to add the details to the face, I realized my food grade brushes were all too wide.  The detail you see on her face was done completely with TOOTHPICKS!  That's why her mouth isn't as pretty as I had hoped.  

Since my fondant was a little soft, I actually used a little added support when I put her on the cake.  I stuck her down on the skewer that goes through the whole cake.  Hey, I didn't say it was pretty...but she was up there!

And the most important thing I learned?  I CAN DO FONDANT FIGURES!!!

Oh Cupcake!

During my somewhat unintentional summertime baking hiatus, I still had LOTS of cupcake orders.  I didn't always take pictures. (OH, the shame!)  But you get the idea.  Recently, orders have started picking up.  I guess it's back to school and back to baking!  Last week, I had 3 cupcake orders back to back.  Wed. Thurs. and Friday!

Almond Joy Cupcakes

My mouth is watering just looking at this picture!

 Princess birthday cupcakes for school.

The client (and my friend) is also a photographer.  Her pictures look way better than mine! (Wonder if I could hire her to be my full time cake photog?)

 Musical cupcakes for our choir director's birthday

 "Burnin' Loves" for a squadron function

 Tie-Dye cupcakes (airbrushed) for the Radical Retro Ride children's choir kickoff.

 Some of them even had tie-dyed cake, but that was taking too long!

So, yes, the oven is still on in my kitchen.  It smells of buttercream daily and after every order I stick to the floor!  My wonder mop has been busy!

Cupcake Cake

I made a cupcake pull-apart cake for my daughter's baptism.  This was actually the first time I had made a cupcake cake.  It was pretty easy, but I did have a little trouble around some of the edges.  My buttercream was "almost" too thin and "almost" slid off the edge.  Luckily we ate it before it could fall!

Great Season Rams!

I was asked to do the end of the year cake for my son's Tee-ball team.  They had a great season!  We only lost one game and came in first in our division.  Way to go Rams!

Camo Birthday

I had the opportunity to make a camo cake for our neighbor Logan.  (Last year, he had a pirate cake.)

It's a white cake with all buttercream icing.  His mom provided the figurines.  

Tip if you ever want to make a buttercream camo cake:  Use the same size tips for all the different colors.  It'll be much more even!

Party Favor Cookies

I made these sugar cookies for a birthday boy turning 3 and having a train themed party.  His Mom is the owner of A Party Studio.  Check out her Etsy Shop for all of her awesome party printables. You can also find her on facebook.   I took her design for this party and printed out edible images so the cookies would match perfectly.  

This is what they looked like when they left my house. 

 And this is how they went home to the party guests. 

 Aren't they adorable?  If you need any custom party printables, check out A Party Studio!  She does amazing work.

Sock Monkey Birthday

I had the privilege of making this adorable sock monkey cake for a special little boy on his first birthday.  I made this cake for his big sister a few months back, so I'm glad I could make his cake too!  

The top tier is a gluten free chocolate cake and the bottom is my regular chocolate cake.  For the longest, I couldn't decide exactly what to do with the top tier.  I thought about the monkey face on the side of the cake, carving the whole tier into a monkey head, or even making a 3d sock monkey to serve as a topper.  But this is what I came up with.  

 I was very happy with how the argyle pattern turned out!

 A little secret: I almost messed up my monkey when I had to skewer the cake.  I managed to salvage it. Whew!