Elmo 1st Birthday Cake

Another 1st Birthday cake! And my first time doing a boy's 1st.
The design for the cake is based off a photo I found on Flickr. There are a lot of elements on the cake and it's all the details that make the cake so cool. It was nice to have another cake to base the details off of, just because I didn't have a ton of time available and it can take a while to figure out what looks best.
This was my first time covering a cake board in fondant and I really like the way it looked. The plus to using fondant on the base is that gumpaste letters can be applied with a dab of water, compared to gluing them on with melted white chocolate. But it also means extra care is required to keep the base looking clean. Kind of a pain...

Elmo was made with rice cereal treats and covered in red buttercream with fondant accents. Fortunately a fairly easy character to recreate, especially since there were so many other details. Overall it was a pretty fun cake to make and I look forward to finding out what my next 1st birthday cake will be!

Pink Ladybug 1st Birthday Cake

This pink ladybug cake was ordered from a woman in Georgia who wasn't able to attend her grand daughter's first birthday celebration. She wanted to contribute to the party so decided to order a ladybug cake from me.
Overall a pretty simple vanilla cake, although still learned a couple things on this one too! I tried baking the ladybug portion of the cake in a bowl so I wouldn't have to carve and waste too much cake. It took a little while to bake, but it worked pretty well!
The mini bugs were made with a newly purchased mold. Even though they are simple enough to make by scratch, it was nice to just stick a piece of gumpaste in the mold and pop out a bug. Definitely a time saver, and the mold also has some cavities for butterflies, bees, and dragonflies, which will surely come in handy in the future.

Leaf green buttercream was used for the grass and the head was made with rice cereal treats.
The client was extremely appreciative of the cake and it was great to be able to help out.

Funky Topsy Turvy Wedding Cake

Not sure if I can really classify this as a wedding cake, but it was for a wedding so I guess it meets the criteria!
When I was first contacted about this cake I was told they wanted a purple and green topsy turvy cake with large "obnoxious" flowers. The party was only for 20-25 guests, so we just did a mini 4" tier for the top. One of the coolest things about the wedding was the fact that none of the guests knew they were going to be attending a wedding. Sounds like a fun couple, and they wanted a cake to show off their individuality.
The most challenging part of the cake was definitely the flowers. Once I figured out how to make the lilies, things went pretty smoothly. I originally planned on having three flowers, but after too many mishaps I ended up just using two, which i think ended up looking pretty cool anyway.

This was my second topsy turvy cake, and it's a little bit embarrassing to look back at my first attempt I made just over a year ago. At least it's nice to be able to see how far I've come in a year. Carving is so much easier now, my fondant job is smoother, and my airbrush opens up all sorts of possibilities. I totally forgot that I had used dowels but no cake board last time! Don't know how I expected them to support anything lol.
Anyway I totally love this cake and these are the types of tiered cakes I want to be known for.