Pokemon Cake

The Pokemon craze has died down, so I was really intrigued when I got a call about doing a Pokemon birthday cake.
The design of the cake is pretty simple, and most of the effort was put into making the figurines. Pikachu, Chimchar, and Chicorita are all made of rice krispie treats covered in modeling chocolate, while Jigglypuff, Piplup, and the purple plant pokemon (not sure on its name!) were made of fondant. It's been a while since I've had the chance to sculpt little figures so I really enjoyed making these. I also learned that a great way to glue pieces of the figures together is to use melted chocolate. The white chocolate was also used for details in the eyes...finding lots of uses for that stuff!

Cat in the Hat Cake

This design is from one of my favorite cake shops, City Cakes. Ever since I saw the cake I had wanted to try it myself, so I took the chance when I had some extra time on my hands.
I rarely like to copy cakes, but I thought this one would be fun. Unfortunately the cake didn't turn out quite as I had hoped and I definitely didn't enjoy making the cake that much since I couldn't feel much of "me" in it.
At least I was able to see how my vanilla cake recipe works as a marble cake...very tasty!

"Tangled" Tower Cake

The Tangled tower birthday cake is my tallest cake yet, and provided me with more than a little bit of stress. The column was the cake part, and was nine layers of 6" red velvet cakes. I had never stacked so many small cakes on top of each other so I really didn't know how it would work. Just to experiment after baking, I decided to stack all nine cakes just to see how unstable they were. Well...they would not stand, forget about placing the house on top. With the deadline approaching, I was pretty nervous. I thought I must be insane because the client wasn't expecting a cake quite this elaborate, but I thought this was a great idea. I figured if I really had to, I would bake some new 8" cakes and replace some of the 6" layers with them, but obviously the effect I was looking for would have been totally lost.
Fortunately, after leveling, icing, covering in fondant, and doweling, the cake was pretty sturdy! Once I had that all set I was able to relax a little and enjoy the decorating.
Everything on the cake is edible minus the figures, as they were requested by the client. It took over 2.5 boxes of rice krispies and 25 cups of mini marshmallows. Kinda crazy, but so much more fun to make the entire thing edible.
The thing I love most about this cake is the color from edible food paints and dusts. It just goes to show how essential it is to be well stocked in a variety of colors, because you never know what might come in handy. With my budget I can't afford to have all the colors I want on hand, but I think it's time to expand my collection!

Red Guitar Cake

Well, technically it is a bass, but most people searching for a cake like this will probably type in 'guitar'.
The body of the guitar is a single layer of red velvet cake covered in a thin coat of cream cheese frosting. It was pretty simple in terms of sculpting cake and I'm happy with the final shape.
The neck, on the other hand, required a bit more thought. I did some research on other guitar cakes and there were a few methods that were common among other cake makers. A lot of people made the neck out of cake, and some people were pretty successful in creating an optical illusion to make it appear that the neck was thin and not a big chunk of cake, but I decided to use another popular technique which involved covering a piece of foam core in fondant. Considering it made it to the event in one piece, I'd consider it a success! Oh and I used spaghetti painted with edible silver paint for the strings, held in place with melted white chocolate.

And three cheers for my "new" SAAB 95 wagon, the perfect vehicle for cake deliveries! This board couldn't even get out my front door without being tilted, so I decided to be extra cautious and take it through the window. When you don't have any help transporting, it can require you to get a little creative!