Minion Cake!!

This is one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE cakes to have done. Not because it was hard and I felt like I accomplished anything, but more because I love love love Minions!! I love that they have goofey names like "Dave" and "Steve" and yet look so not like those names. Plus I like the movie they come from a ton too.

This cake is really a copy of something I found on line though. I can't take original creativity for myself. My friend, Bryan, asked kinda short distance from the date of need (which many of my friends do) and so I didn't want to waste much time trying to think of anything. I cheated and CASE'd this.

It was for his oldest, Lucy. Their family comes up with some of the funnest things to make. I am never disappointed by their ideas.

My own kiddo's said the hair sticking out of the top of the Minion's head was their favorite part. Mine too kinda - well I liked doing the over-all's and the one eye too - and the cake in front - okay I just really had a fun time making the whole dang thing.

Inside the Minion is Red Velvet Cake and non-dairy Cream Cheese Icing. I mean - Tofu Cream Cheese Icing really. What you are scrumpling up your eyes right now? Well don't!! It was delish - HONESTLY!! I even took a spoonful to my husband and our neighbor while they were working on our schools trivia questions - both had made a face when I told them what I was making. They both looked concerned as they began to eat the icing........then raised their eyebrows and admitted that it was really good! See the youngest in their family has a dairy allergy so Lucy was making sure that her little sis could eat the cake. Sweet right? Plus - Tofu Cream Cheese Icing barely tastes any different at all!!

Take Me Out To a Baseball Cake

This was a fun cake to make..............a few months ago. OHMYGOSH I have become so awful about posting cakes that my friend, Catherine, has chided me about keeping them updated.

Ah well - what can I say? I am a busy person with too many kids and an inability to say "No" to things. Eventually I will get cakes posted...........and honestly........I cheat on the blog with my Facebook blog page. It is kinda easy to post stuff up on that and I get a little lazy about doing it here too.

Regardless - this was a fun cake to make for my friend Angies son........

A Wedding!!!

A Wedding! A Wedding! A Wedding! Yes, I finally was asked to do a wedding ............. I have been waiting uh....well like my whole life (as my kids would say - that always cracks me up that they are 5, 9 & 12 and will say "my whole life".........sigh - if they only knew).

Anyway - I have a wonderful neighbor who lives down the main road from me that has started a business as a wedding creator extroadinaire. She really knows her stuff and can make events fun - and or elegant. Simple Elegance is the name of her business. A few months back she asked me if I would be interested in doing wedding cakes for her wedding if the couple chose me. While I tried to remain calm about the whole thing I think it came out in my eyes that I was boggled with excitement!!

and then as we talked about the wedding cake they wanted they started with saying that they really wanted SHEET CAKES!! Many Many of them!!! Pink.......

Purple........

Green...........and there was a Blue one too. Ack!! That was too easy.......4 Sheet Cakes!! Granted they were each in a different flavor.....but still - TOO EASY!! So I asked if they didn't also want at least a small stacked cake with some flourish - and YEA they did!!

A nice simple white cake with some fondant Gerber Daisies because that was what the Bride and her attendants would be carrying.

It was so much fun to create the flowers for the cake - and even more fun to deliver it....

Although - at the time of the wedding there was a monsoon happening. Poor Wedding - it rained and rained and rained and rained. I sat in my van for a few moments waiting for the rain to let us so that the cake didn't get too wet - but it never did let us. I am pretty certain that after I finished setting up it started raining even harder!

There was so much moisture in the air that I noticed my cake started to wilt a little. Heheehee.

50th Anniversary Pontoon Cake

Yes - this was made forever ago. I really had not paid much attention to how many cakes I let "float" by without posting. Then I was sorting and organizing them (because they are beginning to fill up our computer) and I am finding that there are a TON of cute cakes I never shared!@!

This one was for a neighbor. Her parents were celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary and she wanted to tell a fun story about them. They live in Florida a good part of the year and go out on their Pontoon boat a lot.

On one particular outing they ran over a crocodile. Well I am not sure you "run" over in a boat - do you? Or since it isn't a car to you "boat" over? You don't "car" into things - the boat is "running" as it has a motor so I guess it is still "run" over. Geez. Who knows. Now do you see why I sometimes do not get things on this blog - because my mind zig zags around and then I find myself doing something totally different.

Needless to say - Marci asked for a Pontoon boat, with her parents inside, running into a crocodile. I add a dock and some yellow rope to fill the cake space up a bit. She said the whole thing was a total hoot and everyone is still talking about it (see if you wait months and months to post something you can then add in things like "folks are still talking about it at family gatherings").

2 Brides and a Cake

This was a VERY FUN cake to make!! Interestingly the week that this cake was requested by my friend I had been gearing up to create a Bride & Groom in fondant, but I was being a bit lazy about it because I figured it would be difficult and I had enough kinda big tasks sitting in front of me at the time anyway. So I was doing what many folks do best.........Avoiding!

I searched 2 Brides on a cake and 2 Fondant Brides, etc.......and I found nothing on the internet that matched. So while I am SURE there are wedding toppers of same sex unions - I couldn't find any made in fondant. That led me to just start creating it myself. I thought leaning in toward one another and holding hands would be a nice touch - and making them sit would make my first attempt easier then trying to make them stand.

However, once I began to put the brides together (which I did several days before I made the cake).......I realized that it wasn't nearly as hard as I was thinking. I wish I had taken pics of the pieces going together, but as I said it was a busy week. So "End Results" were all that were photographed.

The cake itself was totally simple - traditional wedding cake - White Cake - White Buttercream icing.......easey peasey.

The dresses were surprisingly simple. Fondant draping with a synching at the waist. Then I added some seed beads and little pearls and a tiny bit of icing work. I was a bit afraid to make it more then simple for fear of overdoing it. First time out I think not too frilly.

My understanding through my friend who suprised the Brides with the cake was that the cake was a True Hit of the dinner. And that was the goal.......to make something totally Fun and Cool that was the Icing of the Day.....pun intended. Plus - now if someone searches 2 Brides on a cake or 2 Fondant Brides - they might find something to look at!

It's a Pirate's Life For Me

So this cake was FOREVER ago.......as are almost all the cakes I do when finally posted. The summer was really crazy this year. Not so much more then any other, but this summer was the last "free" summer my baby had and I think I was a mixture of "we have to make it fun" and "what the snufflupagus am I going to do with my life once they are all in school?"

Since I was thinking about myself and trying to entertain the troops - I just let this blog slide on by. Now here I am - almost 8 weeks into school - finally getting out of my pity party funk and trying to do a little catch up.

Like a Pirate ship - Let's set sail.......

Come on now - you HAD to expect something dorky like that - it is ME here!!

This cake was for my good friends son, Kai. He was all piratey about things this year. I did a little search on line and found that there are TONS of pirate cakes and variations of pirates themselves. Kai was pretty open ended so we did a nice cake that he could use for a party at his house with his parents and adult friends..........then his mom complimented the cake with cupcakes that looked like pirates for his actual birthday party.

The cake is all done in buttercream for the outside planking. I just iced it and then took a straight edge and traced in the lines to represent wood planks.

All of the "extra" pieces are done in fondant - though when I did this a second time I did the extras in gumpaste so that they would dry faster.

And while these are NOT edible - I was kinda tickled by my creativeness and my execution on these sails. Totally cute right? I used some stamping paper (because it is thicker) and then some wood skewers for Kabobs. I inked the skewers a brown to match the ship - then inked the edges of the paper to give the sails a more fabric look and fraying weathered texture. So cute!

The water is a mixture. I rolled out blue fondant, but then piped on blue buttercream in a swirl type fashion to make it look like the ship were hitting breakers in the waves.

This cake was all Chocolate Chocolate Chip with a Vanilla buttercream that was tinted brown (so it is not chocolate icing). The fondant was all Vanilla flavored.

It turned out so cute that when I showed a pic to a mom on our summer swim team she asked me to do one for her pirate. I will post that soon just for comparison sake!

Bachelorette Cake

This was a fun cake. A friend of mine - and my FAVORITE Girl Scout at the main office - asked me if I would do a "fun" cake for her friends bachelorette party. We joked around about the different theme's they might have.........I sent her some pictures of things that they could do I found on line.......she didn't even trust me enough to look at them without sending a note back that said something along the lines of "are these appropriate enough to look at here at work?"

They were. Mostly. There weren't any totally rude body part type cakes like I did happen to find. I mean let's be honest - who wants to eat a cut into body part? Ewww.

So what we decided was that "yes" I would get to do a fun cake for her party - but she would consider what she might want it to look like. And she did..........she did another search and came up wit this design. Very cute - Very fun. Time consuming to make all the little detail pieces, but easy enough to actually do (does that make sense?).

In fact, the more challenging part was that the Bride To Be was asked what flavor she would like the cake. I believe that Amanda sent her my blog - which lists flavors I have tackled on the side - and the answer that returned was ...........White with White Chocolate Chip cake (okay done that) and a White Chocolate icing.......ahhhhhhh.......my response was, "Ah does that exist?"

Of course it exists - but I have never done it. What we are finding is that EVERY flavor in the world has already been done. The challenge is generally NOT creating a new flavor, but more tweaking the flavor to be what you and those you are serving it to will enjoy. So after a quick search I found several several several recipes for White Chocolate Icing. Certainly not hard - it only included 1 double boiler adventure.........but also not as easy as a Vanilla Buttercream. Totally yummy though. I have already found 2 more cakes that it matches up nicely with.

So once finished this is what the cake looked like - and my understanding was the party group really enjoyed the flavor of the whole thing. It was the hit of the party (so Amanda said) - although cakes are fun, what I find is if you think something like the above cake up - most likely YOU are the hit of the party because you have spunk and a creative and fun energy about ya.

As you know - this cake was a White Chocolate Chip cake with a White Chocolate Icing. Vanilla fondant was used for the cake and Gumpaste was used for the Personal Items.

Jenna Rose & Rose's roses

Here is a little secret.............I have never taken a decorators class. Here is another secret.............no matter how hard I try I have never been able to figure out icing roses. Oh I try and try and try. I watch the YouTube video's people post to teach them.......check out books at the library.....buy the right tips.....make the right icing.....make the OTHER right icing.....but I can't make an icing rose to save my life. So I have been experimenting with fondant and gumpaste. This is as far as I have gotten.

While the roses are pretty cute - I think that the stems look a little like Asparagus. So maybe I need to shift my focus from worrying about how well I can do roses and take a class on making stems not look like Asparagus?

This cake was asked for by a friend who works at Western Ave. - a local community center that works to keep kids and families connected with the things they need to be successful. She wanted to bring a nice cake for a hard working volunteer. I had the honor of meeting Rose later on a delivery there and she is a VERY sweet woman. Now I suppose I should look into decorator classes.........or at least trying the more difficult roses I have seen in videos??

This cake was half Chocolate and half White with a Chocolate Buttercream icing. Vanilla fondant was used for the flowers (like you didn't already know that).

A Sweet Cake for my Mom

This is a fun cake that I did for my Mom. She was coming to visit and she was the first baker I ever fell in love and awe with...........but she lives 2.5 hours away..........so I never get to bake for her or have her taste test anything that I make. Anything I am goofing off with and trying to get feedback on I take to friends who love dessert and are honest (or at least I think they are honest) about what might make something better or if I got it right the first time. My mom lives too far away for that. And she lives a little too far away for celebrations like Mother's Day or Birthdays. Sometimes we get to see her on those days, but not always. This year was a "not always" year since she went out of town for Mother's Day and the kids were in a production here in town on her birthday in December. I owed her a cake.

Now I mentioned in another post that growing up when we had cake it was primarily White Cake with White Icing. This is my mom's ALL TIME FAVORITE cake. When we have a celebration that is centered around her we KNOW that it needs to be White Cake with White Icing. Hands down done deal - or you have messed up. But I really want to share my other flavors with her so I took a risk and decided to mess with her White Cake standard............I added some Cinnamom. Because I know she loves Cinnamon (probably where I got the Cinnamon belongs in everything - but not my husbands meat rubs - gene).

So this cake is a Cinnamon Cake with a White Icing (Vanilla Buttercream). I made the cake - Iced it white - and then looked at it.

I wanted to turn it into something pretty. At the same time my mom does not love fondant. Even though I have been told my scratch fondant is yummy - fondant is not White Icing. Yeah, icing is under the fondant, but it changes the texture if not the whole flavor. So fondant as a cover to create something that is "my mom" was out. Then I thought about flowers. Second to her basket and quilting (they are interchangeable hobbies) is her ability to grow things. Veggie gardens and flowers are a call to fame for her in my eyes.

Delicate looking daisies it was. As I was getting the fondant ready for the daisies I thought about color. White - Yellow - yeah those are perfect............but a Raspberry/Plum is "Her" color. I can remember as a kid she always had a shirt in that color. Mom said it was "Her" color. Then when I was a teenager she bought me one of my all time favorite turtle neck sweaters. It was a Raspberry/Plum color. I am fairly certain I wore that sweater in the winter months for about 10 years. As the weave began to stretch a bit and make the sweater longer the style of leggings came in and it changed from a sweater with jeans kinda top to a sweater with black leggings kinda outfit for the clubs. Mom had one to match - only she never came clubbing with us. And yes, I was the dork girl at the club with a turtle neck on..........I rolled with the idea of leaving a bit of mystery to what was under my clothing.......hoping to instill that dress code in my kids (especially my daughter).

So the flower color was born. It was the perfect combination to be a perfect cake for My Mom (in my eyes). Simple - Elegant - Beautiful. Just like My Mom.

When my mom came I envisioned us waiting for the kids to come home from school - sitting and celebrating her and then having a piece of cake. Only none of us was really hungry because - well we just weren't. However, the bigger problem was that Mom didn't want to cut it. She said it was too pretty. So we boxed it up and sent it home with her - with a promise from her that she would tell me what she thought of the flavor. Because for me part of the point of it all was to share a bit of what I am doing with her. The next day I called to see how it was. She said she still couldn't cut it because it was so pretty. She was going to lunch with girlfriends and was baking .............cookies............for the gathering and thought she might take the cake with her to share. The day after that gathering she called and said the cake was a hit. Everyone loved it and she didn't have any leftovers. And that she loved the flavor - plus she was approached by friends to have me make cakes for them...........until they realized I lived 2.5 hours away.

This cake was ........Cinnamon with a Vanilla Buttercream icing and Vanilla Fondant.

Princess Castle Cake

Here is a cutie and a Quickie. I really wish that I took more time to take pictures of things as I put them together. Because the one thing that I am really giggly happy about this cake is the edging on each tier. Kinda like a railing to keep the princesses from falling over the edge........

Yet at the same time totally similar to a Crown.........yet completely edible. The person who asked me to do this cake sent a picture - and I was doing a sort of a copy job of that cake. As I looked closer at the cake I realized that the railing and the windows were plastic add ons. Disappointing, yet at the same time understandable - but copyable too. So I tried. I am pretty sure I got it. There was also a purple crown at the top (that I forgot to take an aerial pic of!) and a flag that went into the center and had the Birthday Girls name on it. Those things were given to the family to put on right before the party......so no pics for me, but safer for Michelle so she didn't have a crying princess.

Speaking of Princess - Michelle had a totally clever idea! In the original cake all the windows held princesses. Michelle sent a note saying, "What if we add my Princess into one of the windows?"..........Totally Clever!!! and.........Why Didn't I Think of That!!?? See her in the window above the door?? So cute!

I love it when the people asking me to do a cake have specific and clever ideas of things. Makes it more fun!

this cake was Chocolate in one tier and White in another tier. Vanilla Buttercream icing (we were trying not to cover the cake in fondant) and then Gumpaste for the railing crowns and Vanilla Fondant for the other additions.

Taking a Tractor to a Wedding

Okay I should have posted this AGES ago!! That comment was primarily for my friend, Pennie. She was talking to another friend the other day saying how my website is updated so often and then I pointed out how almost all my posts start with - "I made this cake MONTHS ago".......because really I have a million no posted cakes. Okay not a million (don't have that many friends - close though)........but I have been super busy this spring working in the various committee's I am on and doing things for the kids now that they are home.


But......this cake was SO MUCH FUN to make!! It stretched some of my thinking a bit - kinda like the Rapunzel cake did. The whole "how do I get that to stay put" and "what shape would I need to cut this into to reflect what it is supposed to be" thing was a bit exciting and terrifying all at the same time. Primarily because - while this person heard of me through another person I know from our elementary school - I didn't really know this person - and more scary - this was for her wedding as a SURPRISE gift to her Brand Spanking New Hubby!! Technically I know she was under way way way way way more pressure for perfection then I was........but somehow I was able to create enough pressure for myself that I could live enough stress to exhaust myself for a day too.


More so then the stress though - This Was So Much Fun To Make!!


What is it? Oh......well the title kinda gives it away, but the two shapes above are the start of a Kubato tractor. You don't see it? Oh.........well the big hunk of cake is the base and the little hunk of cake is the cab on top. You still don't see it? Oh.......well let's keep going then.


Here are the dowel rods that I cut down BY MYSELF with the high tech tools my hubby keeps in the garage that I have not ever touched due to wanting to keep my fingers. However, Dave wasn't home so I had to risk my fingers to get this done.


These keep the cake in place so that they don't slide around a bunch.

Okay NOW do you see the tractor? NO? Well the dowel rods are in place. The short ones went into the Base of the cake and then the 2 longer ones went through the cab piece & base piece. Now (hopefully) this won't slide. And I promised myself I would NOT obsess over this and NOT invite my friend Sheri over to confirm that it wasn't sliding because she totally tells the truth too much. Here is a twist. Rice Krispy Treats!! Yea something new to try. See I may never have lived on a farm OR be a farmer (which makes sense since I have never lived on a farm - although maybe you can BE a farmer without LIVING on the farm.....but that would seem difficult) - however, I do know that tractors have GIANT wheels - especially in the rear of the vehicle. I was not at first certain how I would make such big wheels and then I flashed to every cake show I had ever seen and realized - they generally use Rice Krispy Treats.

So I searched something similar to "using Rice Krispy Treats in cake decorating" and found nothing really. This shock shock shocked me. I kept finding references to this RKT stuff and how great it was for molding shapes and when set it was lightweight and didn't hang on the cake much. So I did a search for RKT finally - hoping that the cake stores near me sold it so I could mold the tires - without some direction I was worried about using Rice Krispy Treats - I mean this was a gift to a brand new husband AT the wedding reception - no way did I want to mess this up!!

As I watched a video of a caker (my word - caker - definition: person who makes cakes for fun and decorates them and is so dedicated to the fun they do something weird like a blog of informative videos or start a business) using RKT to see if I wanted to find some for the tractor. Now - since you all are not blinded by the fear of goofing up the tractor cake I am sure you have already figured out what RKT is - yes, Rice Krispy Treats. As I watched the beginning of the video I couldn't help but laugh at me. Geez O.

Then I went and mixed some RKT up.

Here is the beginning of a tire. I have to say - molding stuff with RKT was quite fun. And in the end I had enough left over from the tires to do the arms and legs of a Sponge Bob cake too!

The big square thing is the roof for the cab of the tractor. You will never see that in another picture. It wouldn't set enough to not be at least a smidge floppy on the edges - and since I have never seen a tractor with a rounded roof I figured I needed to let it go.

Back to the tractor. Stacked - Dowel roded - and not Iced. Kinda looks like a shoe right?

Still kinda looks like a shoe. Insert the beginning of Cake Worry here. See there is a point with every cake that I look at it and say ............"ugh what am I doing?"......well almost every cake. Some really are just fine through the whole process - some cause me to freak through all of it - and some just get a moment of doubt.

So then I began putting on the "touches". The dark trim at the bottom is to give the cake the illusion of standing off the ground and having a hollow area where the wheel would be. I considered making a cake stand that would elevate the cake, but I didn't want to lose the servings.......and since Dave was busy wasn't sure how I would craft it and have it be sturdy.

The green around the edge of the board is - well grass. It will look more normal in the next shot.

Aerial.....cool right? Can you picture me on a giant crane looking down taking the photo? Yeah, I know - just a step stool.

See now the grass is filled in a bit more - there is ground up Vanilla Wafers and Graham crackers for "dirt" and I made a few fondant hearts & wedding rings for the scoop. The K&J are initials of the bride & groom. I tried to write them in a font Kubato uses on their tractors.

The scoop. The scoop was a bit easier to make then I would have imagined. Honestly most of this was easier to make then I imagined - I mean certainly not easy, but I envisioned fearful moments with tears and

The tires........cool right? Once the RKT was set and dried enough that it didn't more around I covered it in black fondant. The cut strips to place on the edge to look like treads. After that was set I added the rims......the orange part is a rim right? I need to brush on up car lingo - tractor lingo - vehicle lingo. I thought they turned out really cute. And the fact that you can just bite into them is fun too!

Final picture! When I went to deliver it to the banquet center they had almost everything set and ready to go. The Bride looked like I would have imagined - scanning the room - excited - more focused then I remember myself being. However, I had Dawson with me. Couldn't find a play date for him and not a single person in the family was home. Ironically the cake was at the golf house banquet center here in our neighborhood - so it was not far away at all - but you can't leave a 5 year old at home alone even for 15 minutes.........too many possible adventures they could get into that might end poorly. So he came on delivery - and flopped all over the floor doing Super Hero Ninja type moves. I tried to be In & Out of there fast enough that nothing would be damaged. Given our stealth delivery - I am pretty sure that the Bride loved the cake - and the Grooms Mom..........so Success.

I know I loved the cake - because I can now say that I built a 3D Tractor out of Cake!!

This cake was one of my personal favorites - Pumpkin Cake with a Cinnamon Buttercream icing and Vanilla Fondant. Yummm!!!