Frog Cake

My first attempt at a fondant animal.  I think it turned out pretty well!

This was carrot cake with cream cheese icing.

Missionary Cake

For a guy in the ward leaving on a mission.  Simple, but cute!

Lego Cake

This one is a mixed bag.  I loved how the Lego man turned out but was disappointed with the Legos.
I have great ideas on how to do this better next time!

Spongebob

Not my favorite cartoon, but I think the cake turned out well.  This is mostly buttercream with a few fondant accents.

Tinkerbell Cake

I made this for a friend's little girl.  It was so fun to get to do a girly cake!

The topper is a candle and the flower petals, ribbon & nameplate are fondant.  The rest is buttercream.

Baby Shower Cake

For my awesome friend Marley. Lemon cake with raspberry filling.

I designed it to match the invitation, which had cute baby animals and pink checkers. Considering I decorated the entire thing in just a few hours (I was in Philadelphia the entire day before--with Marley!) I think it turned out really well.

Chocolate Fondant Wedding Cake

This was for my sister's wedding. I loved getting to try this--it was such a unique design. It's chocolate fondant, and the tree is actually cut out of the fondant instead of just piped on. There were some complications (especially since I was making this very, very, quickly and at someone else's house) but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

The layers were yummy--raspberry filling, raspberry cheesecake filling, and strawberry filling. Too bad we didn't actually get to eat any of it due to a miscommunication which meant there were no forks at the reception... Kenna and Brian had LOTS of leftovers!

Don't look too closely at the picture above--it was nasty weather that day and the cake got a sprinkle of rain. I guess it gave it an outdoorsy look...

Pearl Wedding Cake

I made this for Jon's brother's wedding. Claudia's colors were pink and violet, and her only request was for pearls. This was my first time making fondant roses. They were really, really time consuming, but they looked so much nicer than the icing roses!
I also learned that wedding cakes aren't usually 6 inch, 8 inch, 10 inch layers. It's usually more like, 6 inch, 9 inch, 12 inch. I realized this when I had to shove the roses onto these tiny ledges...

Wondering why these pictures are so much better than usual? It's because I had the amazing Krystal take them! She's fantastic (and has great prices) if you're looking for a photographer.I loved having the chance to do another wedding cake. Definitely makes me feel more confident about doing it again at some point...

Vader Lightsaber Cake

This was so much fun--I've been dying to make a Star Wars cake (yes, I'm a nerd)! This is a 9x13 cake cut into thirds.

After getting a good look at all the terrible, terrible lightsaber cakes out there (with a few fantastic exceptions), I did some serious proportion studies on lightsaber pictures. (In case you care, the handle is approximately 1/4 of the entire length. Not half. And lightsabers aren't triangles, either).

I definitely did some close studies of Vader's lightsaber for this one. That's right, this kid wanted a Sith lightsaber cake. Awesome. So, given that I had to slightly condense the size (real lightsabers are longer than 36 inches), I present Vader's lightsaber in cake form:

(No, I didn't make the little guys. They're toys)

Sorry for all the pictures. It's really hard to get a good shot of a 40 inch cake...

Crooked Cake: Success!

I did it! Finally, success after two failures. I was right--my problem last time was the fondant.

This was for my friend Dawn's birthday. Orange is her favorite color.

Crooked cakes are a lot of work--freezing, cutting, stacking, designing...but they look so cool when they're done.

Crayon Cake

This ended up being a bit of work, but I am super happy with how it turned out. One of my favorites. Personally, I think it's way cuter than anything else I saw out there. I'm especially glad the 'paper' turned out so cute--I had never seen anything like it, but I wanted to give it a try. Sometimes my experiments don't turn out so well... Oh, and that crayon in the middle of the top is actually purple. In case you're wondering why I made two blue crayons. Goofy lighting.


Here's how I put it together (in case I ever have to do this again):

• freeze a 9x13 cake until it's hard
• slap it on a piece of cardboard
• carve the shape (I cut off the top layer of crayons to make it easier to fondant the bottom layer. Next time I'll probably do all the crayons individually--it was actually easier that way).
• cut cardboard to match the shape of the cake

• Ice cake, cover the 'box' with fondant
  

• cover the crayons in fondant, stick them on the cake
• add decorations
• paint crayons and 'paper' with gel food coloring mixed with lemon extract.
  
• use buttercream to 'write' on the 'paper'.
• Ta-da!

Spa Cake

This one was interesting: most of the spa cakes out there look like decapitated heads. Seriously--Google it. Not my style. So I had to come up with my own design. Unfortunately I had to get a hand in there somewhere--the girls were doing facials and manicures, so she wanted some painted fingernails in there. I did my best, but the hand is not my favorite part.

If I were to do this cake again:

• Different color scheme (not my choice in this case).
• No hand, if I can help it.
• No decorations on the sides. That was over the top.
  

Mario Cake

Considering the last Mario incarnation I'm familiar with is the N64 version (Mario Kart!) I had to do some studying up on Wii Mario Galaxy before I made this cake. I still don't know too much, but I know what Lumas are and what colors the Mario logo uses.



I'm pretty dang proud of that Mario.

If I were to do this cake again, I would make Mario bigger. I was worried he wouldn't fit. Oh, and definitely don't use oil to keep the fondant from sticking. Cause it stuck anyway and I had to do some damage control. Powdered sugar from now on!

Draped Wedding Cake

My first wedding cake and my first attempts at draping and royal icing (the roses). Generally I'm happy with how it turned out.


My favorite parts are the pearl border and the smaller swags. My least favorite things are how the roses are whiter than the fondant and how the swag sort of sagged. Next time I'll make it tighter. But considering the cake was pro bono, I didn't feel too bad.

Crooked Cake: FAIL

This was terrible. My first two layer cake, my first time with fondant, and my first crooked cake all in one attempt. And it did not go well.


In retrospect, my problem was the fondant. It was way, way, way too heavy and thick. Having never used fondant before, I had no idea anything was wrong. But that is the reason the cake is so droopy looking--the fondant was pulling the cake down.

To be fair, the decorations and the candles are pretty sweet. I tried really hard to make up for the lumpy shape.

My second attempt (unfortunately using the same fondant, so I had the same problems):


I'm making my third attempt soon--hopefully I'll have some success this time!