Littlest Pet Shop

I LOVED this cake!! A Girl Scout friend asked me to make this. Her daughter - who is a year older then my own - still loves Littlest Pet Shop - so she asked me if I could make her a cake with the horse on it. Fun!! And she didn't want any fondant. Easy!!

The result was of course this........I did add a few fondant flowers that I had from a previous cake to accent the sugary cuteness that is Littlest Pet Shop. Otherwise.......this is all Butta'cream baby!!

The real fun was delivering the cake to Kathy at the GS office. As I walked in with her cake her daughter (who is homeschooled) and hubby were standing there at her desk (Kathy works in the main entrance area of the office). Kathy about JUMPED OUT OF HER SKIN when she saw me. She was checking another customer out - but No One would have been the wiser to me with a cake box if she hadn't started hyperventilating and looking at me in a way that looked like she was trying very hard not to look at me. It was worth making the cake honestly. I simply walked in - asked if another friend was there and then walked into the back area and popped the cake into an office for her to collect later. It was a total hoot!!

Drumming Up New Ideas......

This was a fun cake that I did for a neighbors son as he graduated from High School.

This is all buttercream - no fondant. While fondant might have made it easier to create the details - I kinda enjoyed that I wasn't rolling and cutting.......especially rolling fondant for such a BIG cake! This was 3 layers of 12" cake!!

The drum sticks ARE made from fondant though.

In the end I think that it all turned out really really nice! Many folks thought the drum sticks were real.......yea!!

Farmer Cake - I am becoming Queen of the Tractors

Oh My Gosh - totally forgot about this cake!! It was so easy and cute to do. Well not totally easy, these tractors are a bit of a challenge, but since I am becoming a Tractor Queen I am not so daunted by them when asked anymore.

This cake was for a Dad/GrandDad of one of my friends. Her mom phoned and asked if I could make a model of a CASE tractor that her dad used to plow the fields with when they were all farming. So we looked up antique tractors and the ladies gave me an idea of what they remember their Dad/GrandDad having and I went from there. Everything was done in gumpaste.

The tractor looked kinda lonely just sitting on a green cake - so I put a few rows of veggies growing and some ears of corn and tomatoes sitting around. It turned out really nice I thought. The ladies seemed excited about it too when I dropped it off.

This cake was Red Velvet with a Vanilla buttercream icing. Very fun to make!

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!

Sponge Bob Revisited

Remember the tractor cake? If so then you probably remember the picture you see here. Tractor wheels was the point to this picture.........but at the end of the tractor wheels there was left over RKT (rice krispy treats). My kids eat a lot of sweet treats if I leave them laying about. To try to keep that from happening I toss a lot of the scrap stuff into the trash. But I will be honest - that is SOOOOO hard to do sometimes because we are always taught not to be wasteful. On this particular day I also had a Sponge Bob cake to do - so I decided to use some of the extra RKT to fashion the arms and legs. Let them dry for a day with the tractor wheels and voila.....

This is technically my 3rd Sponge Bob cake. The very first was years and years ago for my almost 10 years old sons 3rd birthday. This cake is the 2nd Sponge Bob made with a fondant cover. I am just about ready to do Sponge Bob without looking at a picture anymore. ;o)

Still - no matter how many times you do the same thing - there is always something new and different you can bring into the mix. For this cake it was obviously the arms and legs made from RKT. I heard that the Birthday Boy LOVED the cake. We are on swim team with them and he came up to me the other day (this is months after the birthday) and said, "I am planning my birthday cake". Always fun to hear!!

This cake was Chocolate (if I am remembering right - geez o I should not wait so long to post things!) - Vanilla Buttercream icing and a Vanilla Fondant. Most of all it was loved and enjoyed!

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.

Family Fun Cakes

I want to start this post by saying.............Sometimes I worry that I am passing my need to make sure that I have done things 100% perfect onto my kids - well maybe not the boys - but Andersen. Okay in some cases the boys too.....but with Andersen lately it is mostly her.

Here is a perfect example. We were having two of our grands over for a celebration of Andersen - she was being baptized at our church. However, it was also the Grands birthdays........so we thought it would be fun to celebrate them with a few cute cakes. I asked the kids "what" said Grandpa O to them and they said - Diet Coke!! I swear to goodness that I did NOT plant this idea in their heads, but I have been wanting to try to make a soda can. So we went with their idea and I carved the cake to look like a soda can - fondant over the top - and a tab to open it up........Tah Dah.....

I got it right? The only thing left to do was paint the fondant.........Now I wasn't sure how to make the fondant silver - and foolishly I hadn't searched it on any cake blogs - and even more foolishly I asked Dave's advise (who has totally said he is NOT the person who knows about cakes) and he said go with White Fondant and then paint it.............

Well just in case anyone follows this blog for TIPS - here is a TIP - make your fondant a light Grey if you are trying to create a silver color - THEN paint over it with some Silver luster dust or tint to make it look shiny silver. We made do though and in the end it was still doable. You learn by doing right? So totally cool right? Andersen painted this!!! Personally I think this is AWESOME!! Andersen however kept complaining that it didn't look great. That the word was crooked - that the swoop was wrong - that the circle around the register mark wasn't round - so many little things that were cool in my eyes. And I realized ....... I think I do that when I am creating a cake too.

I wish she could have seen it in the rest of our eyes - because what we saw was a giant edible Coke can done fabulously.......especially for an 11 year old!! Besides - the slightly wonky looking silver part of the cake was all my fault anyway for listening to Dave - who gave the wrong adivse so really it was his fault.........(this is how I divert responsibility in my head).

This cake was Lemon cake with Vanilla buttercream icing and a Vanilla fondant - total Yumminess - tastes like a lemon bar with icing..........yummo!!

More Girl Scouts!

Here is a Girl Scout Bridging cake that was used for MY Girl Scout troop this year. I love LOVE love my Girl Scouts. When Andersen joined GS's in 3rd grade I went to the registration meeting with her. My goal was NOT to sign up as the leader. I had heard ahead of time that there already was a leader so I figured I was good and there wasn't any big need to scan the room ahead of time and figure out what things were big enough to hide under if they asked for volunteers. We all know I have a Volunteer problem.......although we were just moved into a new town and no one knew us and before leaving I had promised myself that I would enter a 12 Step Volunteer Program.

There we are filling out paperwork - almost to the end of the meeting and the GS Council coordinator says, "Well the troop leader that has this group has decided she only wants to lead 4th & 5th grade. So in order for this troop to happen we will need parents to lead this group". Immediately I started an inner mantra of "I WILL NOT VOLUNTEER. I WILL NOT VOLUNTEER. I WILL NOT VOLUNTEER." And it worked - some other woman said she would lead it.........only.......I had been listening to that woman through the meeting and knew she was NOT a parent I would want leading my daughter anywhere. She was pretty much Miss Inappropriate Universe winner for the area. I won't even waste time writing out some of the things she talked about - just know they were no empowering to little girls in anyway. Then the GS Council person said "Great"........then I raised my hand and said I would "co" to keep things empowered for young girls. Fortunately the leader was not only not appropriate - she also wasn't committed or reliable. By the time the meeting ended she had quit as leader (no I didn't do anything) - but that also meant that I was the leader. I did have a "co" though - she was coming from the older girls troop with her 3rd grader. I figured "how hard can GS's be?"

Little did I know that my "co" leader would become a great friend and I would end up leading a 3 level Girl Scout troop and coordinating our school and becoming friends with many of the parents in the troop - taking girls on trips out of town - camping - scraping outdoor potties and then painting them - selling 1,000's of boxes of cookies with my daughter - watching her earn awards - becoming close with the woman in the Council office - taking on being the Service Project coordinator for the entire council area - and really really loving it!!!

This year was our 3rd Bridging Ceremony. The first year we had 3rd grade and the other troop which covered 4th & 5th. Maybe we had 50/60 people attending. It was modest, but it was fun.

The next year we added the 1st grade Daisies troop. We bumped the number up a bit and also added in the girls entertaining the group with songs and doing the Flag Ceremony.

This year our Bridging Ceremony spanned all grade - K Daisies, 1st Grd Daisies, 2nd Grd Brownies, 3rd Grd Brownies, 4th Grd Jr., 5th Grd Jr. & 6th Grd. Cadettes. It was awesome!! We had the room filled and we actually ran out of cake!! I love that my daughter is part of a community of girls that work hard for the community and accept one another for who they are - goof balls to the end really!! I also love that I can walk through the halls at school and say, "There goes one of my GS's" and on occassion have them call my name and run up and hug me.........Girl Scouts are awesome!!

This cake was half Chocolate and half White - Vanilla Buttercream icing with all deco's in Vanilla Buttercream. Fun to make - Fun to serve!

Girl Scout Bridging Time........

Seems like lately I have been getting the option of making cakes with buttercream again. Nice and fun and honestly ....... a bit less stressful. Although both mediums are a hoot.

This cake had an added element of fun. My friend, Julie, asked me to do the cake - but then she added in that she also wanted to watch me do the cake.........which I will be honest about made me a bit nervous to have someone intentionally watching me do a cake. My kids - yes. My mom - yes. My mother-in-law - yes. Hubby - yes. Anyway - the point is that no one has ever really stood and watched. But it was someone who wouldn't make fun of me and someone to talk to that wasn't 11 and under - so bonus right?

Julie came over and the cake decorating began. She was such a cool cheerleader to have!! And then even better..........she wanted to try it out. So this went from my doing a cake for her and her watching to HER doing the cake too!! She helped with most of the center art. I started it and she said I was making it look so easy (which it is) that she wanted to try - so she did. And she seemed tickled that it really was easy. See if you can draw.......then you can draw with any medium - icing is just another type of pencil and cake is just another type of canvas.

In fact - Julie also did all the names of her Girl Scout troop. And then the next week she made a cake for a little girl who is very special to her (and I was jealous because I love the spunky little Bailey and had secretly hoped to make a cake for her) - but Julie's cake was dead on fabulous Rapunzel!!

So maybe some day Julie and I can start a business?

This cake was half Chocolate and half White. Vanilla buttercream for the icing AND for the decorations! Great job Miss Julie!!

A Cake for Catherine

If you have followed this blog since I decided to switch from hand crafted cards and move into posting my cake hobby.......then you know that my friend Catherine has had a lot to do with my getting over being nervous about doing cakes for friends and friends of friends. See to date EVERY cake that I have on this blog is made for either a family member, friend or someone in a committee I volunteer in (which broadens the scope of possibilty for knowing people by a trillion!) I know directly ........ or ........ a friend of a friend or family member. Someone recently said, "There is no way you know that many people." to which I responded in my childrens fashion, "Way."

So Catherine has helped me get over my fear of cake making failure and just embrace the fun that is creating. Catherine and her family (and other friends close by) often are also the guinea pigs that taste the flavor combo's I put together. One of the cupcakes became Catherine's always hoping I have extra for favorite - white cake - chocolate ganache filling - peanut butter buttercream icing. So for her birthday she asked for 2 dozen. I asked if she was taking them to work to share. She said "no", but that she thought asking for only 1 dozen was not enough to make it worth my making. I suggested we grow the cupcake up and turn it into a cake - she giggle with glee. And so it was.

Only she didn't give me deco instructions and I knew she did not want her cake covered in fondant. So I looked at the cake and decided to go another route. Just swirlies. But as I made the swirlies Andersen came by and started turning the swirlies into "objects" like you would a passing cloud. Which gave me the idea to incorporate a few things that are nearest and dearest to Catherine's heart - her family.

See the C and the T? Catherine + Tim =

See the N? Nicholas.

See the M? Muriel.

All the things that Catherine loves most about her life.........course there are parents and sisters and neices and nephews and all those grands and such - but I didn't have their initials........although that is a cute idea for a future cake.

Happy Birthday Miss Catherine!!

This cake was as mentioned - White cake - Chocolate Ganache filling - Peanut Butter icing. Yummy!

Rapunzel & Architecture

It is the sweetest thing ever (pun intended on the use of sweet because....well this is about cakes) - Dave watches Alton Brown videos about cake stuff. I am not sure if he is doing this because I out loud say, "Why does that happen?" when some cake related thing occurs ........ or if it is because I try to explain something about a cake related thing and Dave doesn't get what I am saying and wants to hear an experts take........or if it is because really he has always like Alton Brown - which I shouldn't overlook - he has watched Alton on Food Network for years - but now he is looking up cake stuff and watching on the computer so I am totally taking it to be a sweet support to my cake dealings.

How is this related to the mess of stacked cake above? Well he was watching an Alton Brown episode about whipping eggs or something and there was a question/answer thing happening and he made the statement that many cake designers have an architecture background. Usually I can zone out what Dave is watching........because unlike the kids when they watch videos (like Annoying Orange) on the computer.....I don't make him put on earphones. This statement by Mr. Brown caught my attention - because in High School I studied drafting and architecture.......and then in my first year in college I continued my studies. Many of you know that following that first year I switched schools and eventually attended many colleges before earning my bachelors and masters in social work and counseling related fields - not architecture. Still.......I do have an architecture/design background of sorts. So this statement was kinda cool.

See Mr. Jackson........apparently I am using my years of architecture after all - just in cake building. Kudos to you for making me so good at it all.

Now the first picture is of a budding tower. And I didn't just stack those cakes up and hope for the best. That would have been ridiculously not smart.

This is the beginning of the roof top of the tower. The original cake I found on line had a roof just like this. But this looked pretty.........well..........boring and like a hat that I made in kindergarten with construction paper.
In fact if you turn it upside down you will see that it basically is the hat I made in Kindergarten. I took a piece of poster board - created a cone - lined that with plastic wrap so the fondant didn't adhere to the cone - then I put a base on the cone so that the weight of the fondant didn't pop it (I'm a mother - I worry about everything).

Then to make the cone head roof look a little nicer I put shingles on. This is my first shingle making and while I did really well, they are by far not at all uniform........of course if I think about it do you think the elves who were making the shingles in the forest for the magical tower that Rapunzel would live in made them all uniform? No probably not. Besides they were using wood - which is probably way easier then fondant. Elves have such an easy life. All they mostly make are cookies and shingles.

Now .......this is really the only architecturally structural picture I took. I knew that if I left the stacked cakes without a base support I would be crying the next day. So I put 3 very long dowel rods into the cake. Unfortunately one of the dowel rods went in at a slight angle. Personally I began freaking out as soon as I realized that to take it out and replace it might mean to cause holes that would cause cracks.

My husbands advice was that I was worrying about nothing that needed to be worried about. It would all be fine. Move forward and let it go.

My focus was to drive him berserk. "Can you come here and look at this?"......"What do you think does it look like it shifted?"......"Do you think it will hold?"......."How about now has it shifted now?"......each question came with his having to bend over and peer at the cake (or pretend to in order to appease me) as I turned the cake swirling around thing (you store may call it something else if you go to purchase one of these).

Once it seemed Dave had enough of this I left him alone.........for a bit at least.......and moved onto the next thing.

The landscape. I iced the landscape to include a river. Can you see the river?

As I was putting the landscape to the side to dry before putting fondant on it my 5 year old came in and said, "Maudy that is way too bumpy to be smooth." I said, "It is going to be a valley with a river in it. Can you see the river?"........he looked at me like I had lost my mind. Nodded his head and smiled at me like he was afraid to tell me he didn't think it did. And walked away.

I can see the river........can you see the river?

Then I iced the outside of the tower. A nice gray mortar kind of a color. And Dave and I did another round of "Can you come here and look at this?"......"What do you think does it look like it shifted?"......"Do you think it will hold?"......."How about now has it shifted now?"......

Then I began placing the rocks on the tower. Added a few windows that Rapunzel would have swung open if she were planning to throw her locks out to Finn to climb.......and did another round of Does this look leany to you Dave? Dave was getting quite tired of this game, but he was playing it really well by continuously stating, "No it is going to be fine." "It looks great.".......but he didn't want to play anymore and left - then luckily my friend, Sheri, showed up to drop her son off for a sleepover. Unfortunately for me though.....when I asked her "Does this look leany to you?" she said, "Yes."

So I spent the rest of my night LOOKING at the tower.....over and over and over and over. I was so paranoid about the cake leaning into breakage that the side I thought was leaning I put a towel under the cake swirling thing to make sure it started leaning straight - because things can lean back to straight right? In my head at least........hey no one ever said I was a GREAT Architecture student (but I was - right Mr. Jackson?).

While waiting for my tower to fall over I went back to the valley. Put a nice layer of fondant over the top......pretty right? Then started to fill in the river........My five year old started to see it.

Add in a few boulders around the river - some grass - a few pine trees........a lizard - rather I believe he is a chameleon.
Then a few flowers scattered all about............. After that I called it a night. Tried not to think about the tower that I had propped to lean straight in the china hutch and played with the kids.

The next day we took the entire collection of cake pieces - and two cookies - to the party.

These are views of the car ride to the Birthday Girls house. I thought that the view from this angle was kinda cool. What I did was place the tower on the cake and then pushed the remaining portion of the dowel rods into the base cake. There was also a cake board at the bottom of the tower that had hole punches matching the top of the tower - so there was a foundation at the top and bottom that kept the dowel rods from shifting much.

Although in my head the whole thing was about to fall at any moment. Poor Dave driving the van........

Once we got to the party I put the roof on the tower - placed the figures they had given me to use on the cake........and all was right with the world.

The cookies were Shortbread........I was trying to think of a way to get the Birthday Girls name and message onto the cake and also incorporate the crown that Finn had stolen and was a pivotal point for the characters. Plus everyone loves a cookie right?

So in the end Dave was right (please don't tell him I typed that). The tower was fine. I worried for nothing. But hey, I'm a mother - I worry.

This cake was Chocolate with Vanilla Buttercream and White with Vanilla Buttercream.......Vanilla Fondant and Shortbread cookies with Royal Icing. The pictures of the final cake could have been better, but honestly - I was so crazy nervous putting it together I am just happy I remembered to TAKE a picture!

Pine Wood Derby Cake

Time slips away so dang quickly!! This cake was from February when our Boy Scout Troop had their Pinewood.......or was it January? Dang I think it was actually January. Huh! I was sorting through the "draft" blogs I have hidden away behind this wall of posts and found that I have stashed quite a few cake blogs to sit and wait. While I did post this one on Facebook, I didn't really detail the process of it. And honey, this one really made me frustrated for a few minutes. This cake is made up of 4 1/2 sheet cakes. The base is the length of 1 and a half cakes - then the remaining cakes are stacked up. I let them sit for awhile and then I trimmed them into a slope. This is the closest semblance to a Pinewood track I was willing to try. I mean the tracks themselves are individual strips of pine (surprised it was pine?) and to replicate it exactly would have taken pvc pipes, maybe a little welding and certainly more cake. Dave might have gotten excited ........... but he was last minute finishing cars.........and then friends showed up to have him help them............so I was able to use him as an excuse in my head - I mean without welding......right? Really I don't think we have welding tools, but Dave sure has collected his share, the neighbors share and the population of a small countries share of wood working tools (and he wants more) - so I KNOW he could build a base for a Pinewood cake. Maybe next year? So how this cake was built.....kinda got distracted. Here is a tip - don't use as much powder as I had been at this point in fondant work. See on the previous pic and this one how much white on the blue you see? That is either powdered sugar or cornstarch. BOTH are recommended in many cake sites to be used as you roll your fondant out to be placed on a cake. True it is helpful. However, I think the pics of cake people that I was reading were not really using it right - and the more I learn the more I find that using a lot of powder on your fondant can cause your fondant to dry out (my problem), be cracky (or elephant skin as some refer to it) and various other problems. There are products on the market that can help you roll your fondant out - like TheMat or the Wilton Roll & Cut Mat (I now have both and use them for different things) - which will eliminate your need for the powder - keep your fondant from being dried as you use it - and honestly make it a GREAT deal easier to lay on your cake. Was I using those products here? NO. Was there cursing? YES. Were children banned from the kitchen. YES. Did the visiting pinewood derby car fixing kids understand the ban? NO. Did I get cranky? YES. Did it all work out in the end? YES. One thing that I will NEVER have in my kitchen is the space to roll out a GIANT piece of fondant. Well I guess Never Say Never.........so what I mean is One thing that I do NOT have CURRENTLY in my kitchen is the space to roll out a GIANT piece of fondant. So I cut and paste - which is totally acceptable. I just need to learn to paste better........and I am. I am also learning to hide my pasting spots. One of my favorite things to make on this cake - the checker board bottom. Not sure why, but that was fun. Kinda like a puzzle. Maybe I liked it because it followed the portion of the cake that involved cursing..........and it was easy........so it made me feel better about myself. Then after the checker board I placed lane dividers and painted the track to look as close as possible to pine. Eh........but your brain knows what you are supposed to be seeing and it helps my final goal. Please thank all your brains for tricking you that way for me. Note to self - paint lanes FIRST - then lay checker board........for obvious reasons. Finally the FUN part came. The CARS!! These I made early in the week so that they would dry. It surprised me that they were still a little playdohy (my word - don't look it up). They were dry enough that it did not effect anything though. Placing dowel rods in their base (or I think they were toothpicks since the cars were small - on in the front and one in the back) I popped the cars on. Being careful not to make anyone win - see I made the cars in shades of the different levels of Boy Scouts.........excpet the Green should be more of a Teal color. Tiger Cub - Gold...........Wolf - Red..........Bear - Teal..........Webelo - Blue Did you know that? Learn something new everyday right? The cars were fun to make and pretty simple. It is like going back to school and working with clay.......or even further back and working with playdoh that you can eat. Only it really is PURE sugar and like eating cotton candy - so I pass. Here is another tip I am learning though. Fondant is fun to work with, but with figures like this Gum Paste is a little better. GP will dry faster - not while you are working it, but once you set it to dry before using........much better. Plus GP is a little less finicky and a bit more forgiving - AND cheaper to make. If anyone wants my recipes for either let me know and I will post them. I am told that the fondant is yummy as I flavor mine with both Vanilla & Butter flavorings to try to come close to a buttercream icing flavor. I use the word "close"........ Since we had no real clue as to how many folks would show up.......I threw in some cupcakes. 150 were gauged for the event - the cake was enough for 150 easy, but just to be safe - and since there was extra batter - why not right? Made a few "wheels" to deco these with the extra black fondant I had from another cake I was doing. My friends, Scott & Sheri, who were overseeing the event was thinking Dinner First.........then we will Serve Cake. The folks attending were thinking "Grab a cupcake before they are gone" and did just that. Which frustrated my friend, but secretly made me smile. Before all the cupcakes were gone though - my good friend, Julie, who has her own photography studio......shameless plus.........Capturing Sweet Memories.......she is WONDERFUL!!, took a few photos of the whole dealio. She takes such nice pictures!

When we were carrying the cake in the board bent a little - There is another tip......use heavy duty boards if you have a ton of cake weight! - and the fondant cracked a bit. Julie used her photo magic to fix the cake!!

This cake was Chocolate Chocolate Chip cake, Banana cake and White cake. Vanilla Buttercream and Vanilla Fondant. This ENTIRE cake was totally gone by the end of the night!!