Abby Cadabby 1st Birthday Cake

It was only a matter of time before I was asked to do a three tiered cake. My first attempt was for a babies first birthday.
If you're not familiar with Abby Cadabby, she is a Sesame Street character. Who knew?! Guess there is a new generation of Sesame Street fans out there.
The tiers were strawberry cake with vanilla buttercream, vanilla cake with cookies n cream buttercream, and chocolate cake with mocha buttercream. Have to say with all this mixing I was extremely relieved that my first ever stand mixer arrived in the mail last week (a 5.5 Q Cuisinart...a late grad gift from my parents!). It probably saved me at least an hour or two of work.

The plan was to initially use a plastic topper for Abby, but after completing the cake I had a few hours left the night before so I decided to try it out of gumpaste and modeling chocolate. It's not my best sculpture but it was really just getting some more practice in and giving the parents another option.
Once I began stacking the cake I realized that it was getting pretty heavy. I kept on wondering if the cake would survive the transport, and had continual visions of hitting a frost heave, looking back and seeing my cake collapsed. Fortunately it made it to it's final destination in one piece and I was able to breath a sigh of relief.

Teal/Green 50th Birthday Cake

This weekend my mom turned the big five-oh, so there were no excuses for no cake.
When deciding on the design of the cake, I wanted to do something that represented the essence of my mom. Anyone that knows her will tell you she is fun, bright, kinda funky, and a little bit...loud. Hahaha.
I knew she had some great tops that really suite her personality, so I decided to design the cake after one of them. The bottom layer of the cake was her favorite: carrot cake with walnuts and raisins, topped with a cream cheese frosting.

I thought it would be fun to see the cake with the top against the background, and it does make for a pretty cool photo!

This cake was pretty time consuming, and I did wonder a few times if I was crazy for picking such a complex design, but my mom totally deserved it.
She's really not your average 50 year old. This past summer I was selling some stuff around the house. One item was our old foosball table. A couple of athletic looking guys in their late 20s came to pick it up. One asked, "hm, should we move the car closer so we don't have to carry it so far?" (it was about 20 feet away from the table). I said "oh, it should be no problem, my mom and I carried it down the steps this morning" (and that WAS a challenge!). I think the guy was kinda embarrassed after that.
Not only am I impressed with my mom's physical strength, I really love her positive spirit. I am extremely fortunate to have had her influence in my life, and I owe her so much more than a deliciously intricate cake...but it's a start.
Happy Birthday Mom!!! :)

Logo Cakes

This week my cakes had a bit of a theme: company logos! Some were definitely a bit more challenging than others.
First up was made for a Maine company titled Mountain. The M logo was pretty simple, and there's no way I could have done it without my airbrush. Unfortunately my airbrush was giving me some issues so I decided to take it apart to clean it...well those things have a ton of intricate parts and I spent way too much time trying to reassemble.
The AT&T logo was also pretty basic, but I spent a bunch of time trying to make it 3D out of rice krispie treats and modeling chocolate. Making a sphere is difficult enough, but the AT&T lines are not so simple and trying to replicate them presented me with quite a challenge. I tried my best but time was running out so I went with the 2D version.

This week my mom was meeting a few friends from our days in Taiwan. She wanted me to make a cake but didn't really know what, so thought why not do a cake in the shape of Taiwan with the logos of the companies that were responsible for them all being there.
When she saw the cake she said "it looks like a fish!", but I said it is what Taiwan looks like. Not the most creative cake and didn't really learn much but I did what I was asked!