Chessboard & Pieces Cake

I don't even know where to begin with this cake...
One week later and it's still haunting me! I usually have a couple mood swings while working on a cake, but that's just part of the process. This cake literally almost brought me to tears multiple times (but for the record, no actual tears were shed).
The cake started off smoothly enough. Covering the chessboard was simple enough, but I first came across some trouble with the small chess pieces. I thought it would be a great idea to make them out of chocolate versus gumpaste because it's so much tastier. But that meant there was the extra step of melting the chocolate, pouring it in the molds, placing in the freezer and removing. Sometimes there were air pockets in them so I discarded them. The black chocolate presented another problem. You can't actually but black colored chocolate, so I bought dark chocolate and thought I could easily enough turn it black by adding black gel color to the melted chocolate. Not so fast. That stuff turned into a sticky gunk. I then tried dusting the brown pieces black and airbrushing them, but neither of those methods were effective. Then I learned that you could add a little bit of vegetable oil to the melted chocolate to help keep it a soft mixture and that worked pretty well, but still...more time lost and another couple steps.
After successfully making all the chocolate halves, each half needed to be warmed so the pieces could be molded together and the seam could be erased. Basically just took way more time then I needed.
The night before the cake was due I stopped working at midnight. Unfortunately the thought of chess pieces couldn't leave my mind so after an hour or so of tossing and turning I decided to go back to work till 4 am. This may not seem like a big deal to most, but I never stayed up so late for an exam during my 5 years in college. I was clearly stressed.
Once I got to the big pieces, things were going pretty well and I was feeling pretty confident. As I was covering the black piece, I noticed the white fondant on the other piece was beginning to sag. My heart just sank. The finish was so smooth earlier, and now it just looked like crap. I wanted to redo it but not enough time.
I had a whole scene planned out, with cool a cool 2D gumpaste knight and bishop and a medium sized rook made out of rice cereal treats that would all be scattered around the board to make it look complete. But the only accent I finished was the knight, and without the other pieces it didn't look like it belonged, so I decided to leave it behind as the client was only expecting the chessboard and pieces anyway. The last couple hours I was just a wreck. I realized there was no way I was going to be able to complete all the accents I thought were so cool and I was barely going to finish making the big pieces look acceptable. Even writing this now is making me feel depressed all over again!
Right now I'm working on three cakes for the week. I feel like I have to work extra hard to prove to myself that I can make really cool cakes that I can say I'm proud of. But no matter how great those cakes turn out, it still won't make up for my failure. However, what's done is done and there is nothing I can change, so I just have to move forward with these next cakes and learn from this experience.
Grr...this "fun" job is stressful.

Buffy TVS Slayer's Scythe Cake

It was my birthday earlier this week which meant I had the chance to make a really cool cake for myself. Normally I enjoy working on just about every cake I make, but it's extra fun when I get to make something based on one of my own interests.
This Slayer's Scythe cake was the perfect selection, as it allowed me to make a big sculpted cake (my favorite type), without needing a ton of cake. I decided to make the handle out of brownies since it was so thin, and I like brownies more than cake anyway!
It was fun making the cake section by section. I tried to give the wrap a leather look by rolling it over plastic wrap. It did give me the exact texture I was looking for, but I had time making it as noticeable as I wanted. And gotta love my new extruder for the rope, such a useful tool and I've used it on just about every cake since I bought it!

The only challenge I had with the cake was figuring out how to get the blade silver and red while using the same piece of fondant. I decided to roll white fondant over the cake and then covered the part I wanted silver in blue masking tape. I then airbrushed the cake red, removed the tape, and dusted it with silver petal dust. Not as difficult as I thought!

Oh and I had to have a little bit of fun in photoshop with this cake :)
Have some really cool cakes coming up in June and this was the perfect way to start the month!

Hebron Academy Graduation Cake

Hebron Academy's middle school graduation was held yesterday evening and I was asked to make a cake for the celebration. It also happened to be the 20th anniversary of the middle school, so they wanted that incorporated into the cake.
Now that it's summertime I have to get used to working in the heat and humidity. Even though I decorated the cake in an AC environment, I had more issues with sagging and cracking fondant than I ever have before. The sagging on the side really annoyed me before I left for delivery, but during transport it became even worse! I guess that even just walking through 80+ degree weather for a minute caused the buttercream to melt and shift. I will definitely have to do some research on how to avoid these issues on the next cake.
Overall I really like the look of this cake. Classic like Hebron, but not too formal by being topsy turvy. Definitely a nice addition to the portfolio, and kinda cool because I graduated from the middle school exactly 10 years ago. Crazy!!

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.

Scooby Doo Cake

*Sigh*
It is a huge relief to know that this cake made it safely to its destination without self destructing. Not only was this my most challenging cake to date, but the timing wasn't the best as I had a busy work week and my car was giving me troubles and had to be serviced.
Scooby was for a 6 year old boy's birthday, and when his mother first contacted me to do his cake, we were thinking of doing a Scooby Doo themed tiered birthday cake. After she checked out some of my previous 3D cakes, she decided to do a 3D Scooby, and I thank her for taking the risk! Although now that I think about it, it was my idea to do Scooby in a sitting position...I'm not really sure why I decided to up the difficulty factor on myself!
The entire process was just completely nerve wracking. Even as the cake started to take form, I knew I couldn't relax until the cake was placed on the party table. Every time I left the cake, I expected to walk in on a pile of crumbs. I even contemplated baking some extra cakes so I could whip up a tiered cake last minute if I really had to. Every baker seems to have one horrible caketastrophe, and I almost expected this to be mine. Fortunately, not the case!

This Scooby cake is made of twelve 6" round vanilla rainbow cakes - you can see some progress photos posted on Facebook.
Covering Scooby in fondant was no easy task. The piece had to be so big, and covering such a tall cake meant there was a lot of excess that needed to be cut off. I was able to make the front look great, but after contouring the fondant to his limbs, the back was already staring to get really dry. Definitely need more than two hands to get a job like that done in the future.
The feature I had the most difficult time with was the teeth. I must have tried at least 10 versions, in various positions, shapes, and sizes. It was really difficult trying to convert the 2D image into a 3D cake...I just didn't know what to do with those pearly whites! In the end, I spent so much effort trying to get the teeth right, that I didn't even think to try no teeth at all. I guess that's what happens when you spend too much time on a project.

Even with the teeth, Scooby is one of my favorite cakes and I can't wait to make another 3D creation.

Pink/Green 50th Birthday Cake

Last week's cake presented me with a bit of a challenge - a cake for a 50th birthday with nothing really specific except the colors pink, green, and the letter 'J'. Since the majority of my cakes are for children, it wasn't so easy coming up with the design.
I started off the bottom tier with stripes and dots, something that looks good on every cake. But after finishing it, I realized it looked too juvenile, especially with the colors. When I got to work on the top tier, I wondered if my Cricut Cake machine could come in handy. I haven't had a ton of experience working with it, and while it can produce some nice decorations, it's still a lot of work. Not to mention I had only ever cut out gumpaste with the machine, which would quickly dry out after continued uses. This time I found some tips online for cutting with fondant, and the one I found to be most useful is to freeze the fondant after it has been rolled out and pressed into the mat. It worked out better than I expected, and I then wanted the bottom tier to tie into the top. Unfortunately it's hard to remove decorations once they are added without damaging the cake, so I could only switch it up so much.
In the end I would say it wasn't my most cohesive design, but I still think it is pretty nice cake.

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!