Louis' Birthday

Fun times over the labor day weekend.  My mother baked the cake ("funfetti," as requested by the birthday boy), I decorated it.  I manufactured a fair amount of fondant, then set to work making sushi "cakes" with a wad of fondant hand-shaped into an oversized rice cake.  I rolled the cakes in chopped up marshmallows (to simulate the rice), then topped them with colored bits of fondant made to simulate salmon, tuna, egg, and fish eggs.  The seaweed wraps were of fondant as well.  I set actual chopsticks on the cake and added a little plastic cup with chocolate syrup to simulate soy sauce.  And yes, the wasabi and pickled ginger were made of fondant as well.  Louis was pleased.  That's what I always aim for.

Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake

At the state library, we are experiencing lots of bittersweet endings and new beginnings.  Recent layoffs have separated a lot of old friends.  Still, we find things to celebrate.  And one of the nicest pieces of news is that our colleague is having a baby.  I made this cake in honor of her new beginning and in honor of all she means to us.  Since this is their first child, it seems the librarians felt that a book theme was most appropriate (she received lots of books).  The Very Hungry Caterpillar holds a special place in many of our hearts and what could be more sweet and comforting at this time than a cake that emulates the beautiful artwork of Eric Carle?

To get the painterly collage look, I rolled out homemade marshmallow fondant, treated it like a canvas and loaded up my paintbrush with a rainbow of Wilton gel colors, thinned slightly with vanilla vodka.  The green canvas was huge and featured a gradient of green, blue-green, and yellow-green.  I then cut out strips and arranged them on my caterpillar.  The body of the caterpillar is made of lemon pound cake which I'd baked in a bundt pan.  I cut the ring of cake into segments and rearranged them to get this shape.  The segments were glued together and smoothed out with a generous amount of American butter cream frosting.  Since Carle uses collage in his work, so did I.  I think it did emulate the effect fairly well.  I did the same for all the little treats that the caterpillar snacked on through the week.

 

The cupcakes were a lemon yellow cake, frosted in the same butter cream and topped with the little fondant treats.  The little holes were created by pushing the end of a drinking straw through each shape.  I hand sculpted little feet out of brown-tinted fondant.

My former colleagues were surprised to learn that this was a homemade cake, so I suppose it speaks well of the job I did.  One gal brought her little boy and he was absolutely fascinated with the cake and the little cupcakes.  I was particularly pleased by his sense of wonder.  I think that is always what I hope for when I create a cake.  It's really the best feeling ever.

Monkey Cake

Monkey cake was a 1st birthday cake for a cute little baby girl.  I worked on it all day Saturday and delivered it this morning to her family.  Hope they enjoyed it!

The design was based on an image I found of Hello Kitty dressed up in a monkey costume.  I just left out the whiskers and the bow.  It kind of looks like a monkey, right?  A really cute anime monkey?

It was a two-layer fudge marble cake with a butter cream coating and outer coating of chocolate fondant.  The belly face, hands, and feet were vanilla marshmallow fondant.  The pink ears were strawberry fondant.

I ended up giving Monkey a teeny chocolate belly button, which is unfortunately not pictured here.  I think the belly button made the cake over-the-top cute.

Happy Birthday, little cutie!

What does a superhero do on vacation?

Maybe they would be hanging at the beach?  Lounging in the sun?  Trading stories about world calamity and comparing notes on their respective arch villains?  Do you need sunscreen when wearing one of those super-suits?  Questions one can only ponder when executing the latest in a series of superhero cake dioramas as ordered by a clever little stepson like Bryce.  The kid has very specific ideas about his birthday cake and I'm only too happy to oblige.

This dude is, according to Bryce, "Invisible Man."  He's lounging on a marshmallow fondant beach towel and wearing a flotation gummy ring.  I imagine he does not need any sunscreen.

I think it particularly ironic that The Flash is the only guy laying down in this scene.  He's clearly in need of some serious r&r.

Superman looks really mad about something.  Maybe Captain Yellow Tights splashed him.  You can tell Batman just really wants him to chill.

Notice there are no ladies.  I warned Bryce about this.  He wouldn't let me put Hawkgirl or Supergirl on, so now he has a beach scene that calls his superheroes appreciation of women into question.  He seemed completely unconcerned when I pointed this out and downright jubilant when I relented on the issue of female attendance.  Go figure.

This cake is two 9x13 sheetcake layers, deconstructed to form a rectangular pool off to one side.  (I actually used a ruler to get the proportions right.)  I lined the pool with white marshmallow fondant and then covered the rest of the cake with a huge sheet of fondant.  I used a combination of chocolate liqueur, powdered sugar, yellow food coloring, and water to make a "watercolor" paint which I painted over the whole sheet.  I sprinkled granulated sugar over the still wet paint for a sand effect.  The pool is filled with blueberry jello and the beach ball is actually a gumball that Michael and Louis got from a gumball machine.  The cake is one layer of chocolate and one layer of vanilla.  It was delish.  When the cake is all about appearance and fun, I always use a mix.  Duncan Hines is the best.  And yes, I did wash the action figures thoroughly before applying to the cake!

All in all, Mr. Bryce seemed happy with the results and I had a fun time making it. (Right after my nervous breakdown when both cakes fell apart upon being removed from the pans.)

Hunny

I was asked to do another baby shower cake for someone at work.  Well, the first time, I volunteered.  This time was a paid gig.  Below are the results of my labor.

The hunny pot is basically a four layer cake with chocolate on the bottom and vanilla on top.  Everything is coated in a butter cream frosting which I flavored with vanilla and butterscotch schnapps.  The hunny pot itself has the additional layer of brown marshmallow fondant, flavored with cocoa powder (reminds me of a hot chocolate!).  The bees are also marshmallow fondant and the simulated honey is a caramel sauce which I bulked up with frosting and colored with yellow food coloring.

Seems like the folks liked the cakes.  I'm glad, too, because I stressed over them for days.

Pooh Cake

My first baby shower cake.

I based it on this map of the Hundred Acre Wood as illustrated by E.H. Shepard.

As I was plotting how to do this, I faced a number of problems. One, I had to use fondant. There was no other way to really execute the map. I knew I could water down the food coloring and get a good approximation of "paint" but it simply wouldn't have worked on regular old butter cream. I had to use fondant. I hate fondant. I've worked with the store bought stuff before and it tastes about as good as modeling clay. I needed something that behaved like modeling clay and could create a smooth canvas for my painting, but I didn't want to sacrifice flavor.

So, I'd been reading of this marshmallow fondant on various blogs and it sounded like a good deal--and pretty simple. Here's a link to the recipe on Cake Journal. One tip: when you're ready to roll it out, sprinkle sifted powdered sugar on your counter. That seemed to be the only way to get it off the board in one piece.

The other problem was paint. I was very concerned that it would bleed. I'd read somewhere that adding grain alcohol to food coloring would prevent that since it would evaporate quickly, just leaving behind the color. I didn't have any grain alcohol, so I used strawberry vodka, which seemed appropriate.

Once the cake was frosted, I draped the rolled out fondant onto it, trimmed, tucked, and set to work painting. I treated it like watercolor painting--blocking out white space for later painting and then applied some color washes in spots that I would later define with more layers of color or outline in black as in the Shepard illustration.

It was another one of those all-night-ers and the big bummer was that I had to be at the hospital early the next morning for pre-op testing (did I mention this dang gall bladder is coming out on Tuesday next? Yay!!) Alas, a gal has to have a nice cake at her baby shower. And I was determined that it should be so for my work colleague.

Ultimately, we had a very nice shower for her. Lovely flowers in vases, doilies, delicious snacks, loads of presents, and yes, the cake wasn't half-bad either.