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!

Pig Cake

THIS is why I love to do cakes for friends who are really past the "getting to know you" stage. They are so 100% comfortable that they will ask for just about anything that pops into their heads..........like my kids.

A friend bid at a school silent auction for a cake that I put in the hat for sale. When she called she had been thinking about what she wanted. It went something like, "I would like to get a cake that has a pig on it in a farm scene." My response was, "Okay no problem" and then she added, "But the pig HAS TO HAVE RED LIPSTICK on."............my response was "What shade?" - because I totally admire anyone who wants more then Happy Birthday written really pretty.

I could include pictures of this cake from different angles.........but let's be honest - this cake is all about the pig (although I really love the sheep).

The cake was a half and half - Chocolate and Yellow. Vanilla Buttercream Icing. And lots of fun and giggles for ladies who work together and often say, "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." to each other.

Phineas

Okay here is another cake I have been sitting on for awhile. I posted the finished cake on my facebook blog link, but never did get it up here. This cake was fun. Michelle - the person who asked me to do it - found the base idea of the cake in a seach, but she wanted it tweaked a bit to include 2 themes - Phineas & Ferb at the beach & Dr. Doofensmirtz and Perry on another layer. But most of all we both wanted to see the "Logo" for the show on the cake........so I started by staring at it and thinking "how will I ever copy that to look authentic". After I did that for a few minutes I made fondant and began the process.

Being kinda caught up in what I was doing I forgot to take pictures (sound familiar). Honestly though my camera has more sugar on it then the cereal my kids are eating these days - so it might be better that I don't take pics during the process - for the life of my camera!

To create the logo I used an Egg Shaped cookie cutter and a tiny Oval shaped cookie cutter. Then matched the fondant up. I also printed the logo out 2 times. One was for referencing as I put things together and the other was to size that I wanted to make the logo for tracing the words Phineas & Ferb.
So basically - I cut 2 layers of the background orange. I placed the sucker pop sticks that I use for Cake Pops in the center of the 2 layers and adhered them to one another with Caro syrup. Then I placed the yellow layer and the small red dot in the middle on top and let it sit for a bit. (I am only NOW noticing that I forgot to pipe "and" in the red dot).

While that was drying a bit I rolled some gumpaste out really thin and let it set up (dry) a bit. This doesn't take long - maybe 5 or 10 minutes. Long enough to read a short book to a 5 year old who will hardly make it to the end of the book. Then I began cutting the letters out. Layed them over the top of the fondant and cut them out with a very sharp knife - or exacto knife. Once these were done I layed those on top of the logo to complete it. Phineas's hair didn't want to stay up and since it sits on the edge I decided that while it was drying for the next few days it would have a support - so I tucked some papertowel underneath it.

Then a few days later I began to assemble the cake. The top layer was Phineas and Ferb at the beach surfing. This is very close to a copy of the original cake Michelle brought to me.

The bottom layer though is different. In the version she and I decided I would create we did a lab for Dr. D and Agent Perry to be in. I asked my 9 year old what things a kid would expect to see in Dr. D's lab..........he said he had no clue. What??? He watched Phineas and Ferb for 2 hour stretches - kids. In fact he informed me that he really wasn't that "into" P&F anymore. Which I guess meant he was sleep watching all those episodes the day before. Kids.

Michelle and I agreed there would need to be a computer screen that said the birthday boys name.........

After that I figured there would need to be a Ray Gun and a few computers. It was fun looking at images of Dr. D's lab and then trying to bring them onto the cake with fondant.

One image I saw over and over was the lab - or some kind of a dome shape that looked like maybe it was a view from outside the lab? I wasn't sure, but I thought it looked fun to copy so I did. Later Ben came in when the cake was done and looked at it. His eyes lit up and he said it was totally cool. He walked around the cake and pointed out various things I had put in the lab and named them off - so I did copy the lab in a way that kids would recognize things - yea!!

And since this cake - Ben has found a renewed love for Phineas and Ferb. He has been watching it a lot lately. Sweet because I kinda like the catchy songs they sing.

This cake was chocolate on the bottom with a Oreo cookie buttercream center - and white on the top with a vanilla buttercream. All topped with a vanilla fondant. Yum!

Batman........Make Your Own Template

There are SO MANY totally cool tools out there to use on the market in order to make MILLIONS of neat designs on cakes!! Believe me.........I search them for fun in my spare time and think.........wow that would be cool to have. Save it to Favorites on my computer (which drives Dave mad because I have a never ending list if you click "favorites" on my page on the computer - but I can find everything in a heartbeat so it works for me).

A few months ago I bought a Cricut for fondant. Also very cool. Used it 1x. Probably I will use it again - eventually - hopefully! because the dang thing was $100 (I used Christmas money that I had sitting around for those of you who know I am too cheap to splurge on things - and a 50% off sale - bonus right?). So anyway - the box ......... and tons of blogs ......... said that I could use it to make every design possible - which may be true - however, you have to buy a million cartridges to do this - which my friend, Julie, apparently has - but who preplans this stuff? Oh yeah, me. I do preplan, but I don't gather all the materials needed in time all the time.

Plus - honestly - making my own template free of charge is often Quicker - Easier - and more Accurate as to what I am looking to make. CASE IN POINT - This Batman Cake -

All I wanted to do was a simple Batman Logo. So like any techie I searched it. Then I copied the picture and pasted it into a Publisher document. Easy enough right?
Then I baked a cake (okay you caught me - the cake was baked already - and cooled - and iced - and I had already placed a beautiful topper of fondant over it). Ready to be CREATED into something...........

I printed my Batman Logo out. If I were doing buttercream then I would have kept the logo close to the cake as I freehand drew it onto the cake in buttercream icing. Hard to do, but doable.

However, for this cake I was going the mildly easier route and using fondant. So I used this template in STEPS.

Step 1 - cut the template out around the larger black oval - toss white paper into recycling and then place on black fondant and cut around the oval.

Step 2 - remove the same template off the fondant and then cut the template around the yellow oval - toss black trim paper into recycling and then place on yellow fondant and cut around the oval.

Step 3 - remove the same template (are you getting the hang of this?) off the fondant and then cut the bat template out of - toss the yellow trim paper into recycling and then place on black fondant and cut around the bat.

Step 4 - Assemble all those pieces on top of one another in the center of the top of the cake.

Voila!! Easy - AND - Free.

Then I added the birthday message and did something cute, easy & similar to the sides of the cake..........

I rolled more black fondant out and cut it into different shapes - squares, rectangles, points, and placed them along the sides to look a bit like a city landscape. Used some yellow royal icing (dries faster then buttercream) and dotted the city to look as those it were "awake" with lights.

Tah Dah!! See...............the tools you use decorating a cake do not have to include $100 (with Christmas money and a 50% off sale) cutting devices. It can just be your IMAGINATION and INGENUITY and you are golden........

This cake was Chocolate Chocolate Chip with Vanilla Buttercream and Vanilla Fondant - plus a little Royal Icing for deco. Well received and big applause from the friends who ate it!

Is it Legal for Thomas to have Beer?

This was a cake I did quite some time ago. I posted it to Facebook, but never on the blog here. Thought I would upload these pictures for anyone who might wander in here and look for a train cake.

Now - this is really cool looking........this is Pre- TheMat (Ihaven't posted about TheMat yet have I?), but my fondant overlay isn't terrible.

My friend asked for Thomas drinking a Beer. Thomas was her son's favorite character when he was a little kiddo. And of course the big milestone for turning 21 is to have a legal drink. I wasn't quite sure how I could make Thomas look like he was drinking a beer since he doesn't have arms. While my imagination is GREAT - my sculpting skills are still developing. So it seemed to make sense to have Thomas carrying a beer.

Also - I googled Thomas Train Cakes and found a lot of clever ideas - the best (in my opinion) I included. What a clever way to show a tunnel.......boulders....tree's......add a few birds for color.

Since the focal point was going to be on the Thomas image and the Beer - the side images were just Icing On The Cake so to speak - and Pun TOTALLY intended.

It was a lot of fun to make. The most fun piece to create was the beer.

This cake was White Cake with Vanilla Buttercream and Vanilla Fondant. No Magic Dust - because 21 years ago there was no Lady and no Magic Dust. A bit of Trivia for you - this cake was Old School Thomas.

Garry & Patrick........

Whoops - I thought these went out months ago!! These were the cutest ever cupcakes (in my opinion). The day that I did these I had 2 extra children......and they did so so so so so well with The Line that it made things easier for me to get them done.

What is The Line? Haven't I talked about that before? Oh. Well The Line is very well known in my house. Generally The Line was invented to help children from getting into trouble. Although if you asked the children they might say that The Line was invented to keep them away from the fun.

See early on - when making cakes wasn't happening as often - the kids had kinda free reign in the kitchen. I mean anything I was baking was for my family. So I wasn't really worried about germs. Well...........I was worried about germs if the bakery good was going out of the house or being used for a party. But in the first few years of living here in Central Illinois we weren't having many parties - so baking was mostly for us. If the kids stuck a finger in the batter I wasn't too worried. I mean batter fingers and licking spatulas is the best part of baking for a kid anyway right? Who wants to take that away?

Then when I began to make cakes for others as favors the kids still had the same mindset of where the comfort zone was for touching things. In my mind the understanding was pretty clear cut - If The Cake Is For Someone Else...........WE DON'T TOUCH. They didn't seem to get that. In fact I remember one day where I had just mixed a batter.......Ben came in and literally STUCK his face into the bowl and sniffed in REALLY REALLY DEEP and complimented me by saying, "That smells great". All I could think was GROSS!! Dave was there with us and explained to Ben how gross that was and how he just spread germs all over the batter. Ben pointed out how he didn't touch the batter or sneeze on it (yes, this has happened in the past). So we explained how little things can still drop from a persons closely placed face in bowl. Ben apologized and left. I turned around and Kid You Not! Dave has his face in the bowl breathing in really deeply and says, "That does smell great."

Seriously? Batter thrown out. The Line invented. In our kitchen we have an island. Our kitchen is kind of an L shape. The island starts at the long stretch of the L. Inside the L there is the island (duh), sink, fridge (not the British rock band) and stove - and all cabinets. When I am baking or decorating a cake The Line goes up. This means basically that they can enter the kitchen and exit the kitchen onto the porch.......but they can not walk through the portion of the kitchen that has anything useful or interesting to them. Which can be hard.

At first.........during The Line training.......I would have to repeat "There is a line here" and physically swoop my arm from the wall - across the floor and end of the island - to the wall. Over and over we did this. About 5 cakes in the kids began to come into the kitchen and would see ingredients on the island and ask, "Is The Line up?" Thus The Line became its own "thing"

When I was making these fun cupcakes the Grey boys were here. These weren't the first kiddo's to visit when I was baking.......but they were the best at responding to The Line. Good job Pennie! When Andersen told the oldest Grey that there was A Line.....he looked for it - pretended to see it - push against it - made fun of it - but he NEVER crossed it! And that is all that counted........because honestly and invisible line is kinda funny - necessary - but funny.

Patrick was my favorite cupcake of them all. At first - when I cut his body out with a star - all it looked like was A STAR. Then as I added more items and moved his arms and legs about he began to really look like Patrick!

With The Line up - the kids paying due respect of The Line and Dave bringing home lunch - these were pretty quick to be made!

The cupcakes were Chocolate Chocolate chip and White cake - all with a Vanilla Buttercream icing and Vanilla Fondant.

It's Almost Easter.....

It's almost Easter and no matter what your beliefs are it seems that Bunnies & Eggs are always part of the day. You are bound to see them.

Each month the church we attend serves a meal at Jesus House Coffee Shop. Jesus House is a Missionary church run by the two Christians who lead the services and organize the coffee shop. A place where people gather to have a church service, some to be inside, others to have a meal - or all three. This month my friend Pennie and I thought it would be nice to make some treat bags for the kids who come in for the service and meal.

While Pennie bought ALL THE CANDY TARGET HAD......I made these cookies. Then we bagged 'em and donated them for the meal.

These were Shortbread cookies with Vanilla Royal Icing. Yummy.

Happy Easter!!

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!

Who Lives In A Pineapple?

So I think this is a cake that went up on the Facebook Ipsy a few weeks ago. I am not a hundred percent sure, but I am fairly certain of my memory skills at the moment without looking. Years and Years ago I did a Sponge Bob for my precious Ben. And although isn't cool to call a boy of age 9 precious......he is still precious. The one I did for Ben was all buttercream though. If I were not on vacation I could find that picture and then upload it for comparison, but since it was about the 4th cake I ever did I can honestly say - this one is much cleaner - but it is always fun to look back and see where you come from. This one was really fun and since fondant RARELY makes me cry these days - notice please that I said "rarely"......because we are not out of the experience woods of tears due to fondant quite yet. Granted it is more "cursing" then "crying" ...... or I will do this thing where I call out to see who is on the first floor with me - because from the angle I do fondant I can't see who is in the dining room, living room or the entry where Dawson likes to play because the floor is nice and slippery - anyway - I will call out and see who is there - then banish them. Yes I did say BANISH. If they initially resist my banishing due to watching television I will more forcefully banish them - still no cursing - and if I still hear the TV going I will do a little Motherly Threatening and ensure them that the banishing is completely for their own safety. Then after they are all gone - if I should accidentally (because I only curse for accidents and to make my friend giggle) - no one that shouldn't gets an earful. Dave knows to stay away because some how ALL fondant problems are his fault - we have been married for almost 15 years - he is a smart man.

Anyway - enough about the past and banishing. Spongebob was fun! I covered him in buttercream and then topped him with fondant. I am learning that any big "extra" pieces - like the arms or legs on Spongie here - should be done a few days before - helps them set up and move around to be placed easier. However, I wasn't sure that I should be able to make them correctly sized to scale if I made them ahead of time. So I waited.

For the most part this was not a problem. And while you can't see it - the only difficulty not making the extra pieces ahead of time caused were having the legs attach at the body. The pants wanted to let go of the legs and droop a bit.

Outside of that small problem the only time consuming part was making the different colors and creating the pieces. Which really wasn't a problem at all. Just a time clock thing.

One thing I did find interesting was that when the kids saw the end product they said "Why are there green dots on him?".......so I explained the indention thing and that in many pictures from the cartoon I googled about him they were a green shade and not just a deeper shade of yellow. So they did their own google - and yes they did come up with a few pics that show it a more gold or golden tan - and they made a strong point of making sure I could have gone the gold colro route.........but most of the pics had green spores - so they did concede a bit. That was a fun lesson for them about how you can look at something all the time and may not really see everything it. I could go into in deeper detail about this lesson with them - but since they were just coming to this realization and I was the only thing they were focusing on the conversation really went into how they never noticed these different not so flattering things about me..........but at least they were learning right?

This cake was Chocolate Chocolate Chip. Vanilla Buttercream icing and a Vanilla Fondant. Although I am always surprised how many people think a yellow or brown fondant must be lemon or chocolate.......funny how our brains work right?

Now go look at something for a few minutes and write down all the things you noticed and see if you got them all right.

Oh The Places You'll Go!

So this one was kinda fun. My friend, Mary Jo, had no idea what she wanted to do for a friend who just graduated college. That said she kinda just said, "Make it chocolate" and let me go from there. Wanting to try painting a bit more on the fondant I mentioned that when I graduated from college I received the same book from 3 people and Dave did too. Sounded great to her and a cake idea was born (yes, I am sure if we google it someone else has done it too - but I didn't google it so it is completely my idea!).

First I started with the things that made me the most nervous..........the wording and the character at the top of the cover. You know what book this is now right?? Oh The Place You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss.........who has a birthday coming up ya know!

After I painted the whole thing out it didn't look like it popped. I knew what was missing - the black detail outlining on the book. Dave said I didn't need to do it. I knew if I even tested one spot with a black outline I would have to do the whole thing. So instead I sat and looked at it for a minute - then I got out the black. It did not take nearly as long as I thought - and it really did seem to make a difference.

Then I looked at how bland the sides were and thought I should paint some CHEERS to the Graduate.........only Yea You! is all I could come up with...........what else???

Well DUH!! - Quote the book!! So I dug one of my books out and began quoting!

I really love this book............and yes, we have gifted it to others and they are Off and Away

I hear the Graduate loved it! They were away on a Girls Weekend , but Mary Jo texted me to tell me it was a HIT!!

This cake was Chocolate with a Vanilla Buttercream icing and a Vanilla Fondant on the outside. All design is hand painted with icing tints.