Buzz Lightyear Cake

The idea behind this cake is the most adorable thing to me. If you checked out my previous post, you have seen the marshmallow cupcakes I made for a little girls birthday, but there is more to that story! That little girl was born on her grandfathers birthday and every year they joke about who gets to pick their birthday cake for the year.Since her poppop usually gives in and lets her have the cake he joked this year about wanting a Buzz Lightyear cake. When my coworker asked me to make the cucpakes she also asked me to make a Buzz Lightyear cake for her daughter to give to her poppop. I was really excited to do this for her because it was so cute.

I made the cake out of a vanilla mix with tropical juice. I topped the cake with colored homemade buttercream. I made the wings for Buzz out of fondant pieces and placed it in the middle of the cake. I cut up marshmallows and placed them around the cake to look like fluffy clouds. I wrote "To Infinity And Beyond, Happy Birthday Poppop!" It turns out that her grandfather was so happy about the cake and loved it. Let me know what you think :)

Marshmallow Cupcakes

One of my coworkers asked me to make some cupcakes for her daughters birthday. This fun party was going to be a sleepover and they needed really cool cupcakes for it. I thought it would be nice to make cupcakes for each of the girls and top them off with icing and colorful flowers made of marshmallows.

I made the cupcakes with vanilla cake and orange juice. After they baked and cooled I topped them off with a lot of homemade buttercream. Next I cut up large and small marshmallows before dipping the sticky part in colored sprinkles. I placed all of the large marshmallows first. Next I used a little more icing to build up the middle before adding the small cut up marshmallows.

In the end these cupcakes turned out to be very cute. I think they were perfect for a young girls sleep over birthday party. :) Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Valentine's Day Cake 2013

There is a little wishful thinking in the title of this post because I am hoping that in the future I will be able to make more Valentine's Day cakes in the future :) I was very lucky to receive an e-mail from my dads cousin asking me to make a heart shaped Valentine's Day cake for his wife. He is such a romantic and wanted to have something special for his wife of many years. I had a lot to live up to since last year he had a singing quartet come to her work and serenade her. This was going to have to be one delicious cake! He asked for a few things; a dozen roses on the cake, white icing, and it to have one simple and beautiful statement on it (you will be able to see that in the pictures to follow). I melted a little bit with the requests he make because I could see how loving this couple was by reading the e-mails. We made our arrangements and I got to work!

I started out by making the cake in a heart shaped pan. I made a vanilla cake with some cranberry/grape juice. After the cake cooled I covered it in homemade buttercream (my specialty if you have not noticed from all of my other posts). While icing the cake I used a new technique I had heard of many times before to make the cakes smooth but I had not tried before. By making the spatula super hot and icing it I can make the icing crazy smooth! It was so much fun. I plan on working with my icing in that way more often. I definitely need to practice more to perfect it as well.

For the next half an hour I was able to make roses out of fondant. I found an incredible video online showing me how to make fondant roses very simply and beautifully. This was my first time making flowers out of fondant so I was pretty excited to try it. By placing small balls of fondant between two layers of wax paper (or parchment paper-which I may use next time) I was able to press out the fondant around the edges to make petals. Afterwards all I had to do was wrap each one around the other. I made one dozen roses of different sizes, all in red of course. I next made a few green leaves by forming little balls of fondant and then making them into a triangle shape. I used a toothpick to make the veins on the leaves. Finally I put everything together! By placing all of the roses at the top corner I was able to make room to write the special message at the bottom. I attached all of the leaves and made some vines as well. I thought it would be nice to write the message in green to match the leaves and vines. He wanted me to write something important to his wife, that he made up, "Once again I give you my heart." After the delivery I received another e-mail from him letting me know that his wife loved the cake and ate a few pieces. I felt so honored to be a part of their special day. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Sonic the Hedgehog Cake

When I found out Nephew C was having a birthday party at a bowling alley, I assured my sister that I could do a bowling themed cake for him. After she asked him about it, she let me know that he thought a bowling cake would be awesome...if it was Sonic the Hedgehog bowling. I could do that right? Sure...why not...I will try I suppose. I let her know that she should be prepared to get a new Sonic figurine out of it if I had any trouble. She also reminded me that it needed to be a peanut free cake.

I started with a basic vanilla cake, but since I could not get a definite answer of what was in the oil I was using I chose to use some greek yogurt-lemon flavor, and orange juice in the cake to make sure it was all peanut free. I separated half of the cake mix and dyed it blue so that I could make the cake blue and white zebra striped on the inside. While the cake was baking I grabbed some icing and really whipped it up with a little bit of orange juice and heavy cream as well.

The next hour and a half I spent attempting to make a Sonic. The fiancee had a great idea about making Sonic in ball form, which sonic actually does, and have that hit the pins. This was pretty genius and I hadn't thought of it. Since I was having difficulty doing what I originally wanted to with this idea, I found a new picture of Sonic to go off of and formed it pretty quickly. I let the Sonic hang out in the fridge over night. The next morning I iced the cake and cut a bowling lane out of fondant. After putting the lane on the cake, I lined it with black fondant and started making some bowling pins. It turns out that it is pretty difficult to make 10 pins the same shape and size, but I did my very best! I put them in the fridge while I made the arrows and dots on the bowling lane to make it look more realistic. Next I put two toothpicks in Sonic to put him in the cake. When I took the pins out of the fridge I put a toothpick in each and placed them on the cake. Lastly I wrote "Happy Birthday Caleb" and "Strike!" on his cake.

When I dropped the cake off Nephew C "loved the cake so much" that he would not put it down. He kept trying to walk around with it and open the container. I was very happy that he liked it, and I was told that it was so delicious his little brother almost ate the whole thing.

Let me know what you think :)