Marvel Comics Birthday Cake

This cake is another example of how important it is to invest in sweet decorating tools. First off the airbrush, something I've been using for over a year now. It allowed me to cover both tiers in white fondant, saving either time (kneading color into it SUX) or money (you can't get that deep red unless it's store bought). It allowed me to give the blue a little bit of texture for the sky, the only downside is that color flies everywhere!
My newest tool is my printer that produces edible images. I wasn't 100% sure how these guys would turn out but they crisp and vibrant. I cut the images out of the paper and attached them to gum paste with some piping gel. Then I glued candy sticks to them with some melted chocolate. Easy enough to use but you definitely have to handle those images before they dry out and become prone to damage.
Characters such as these would easily take 2-3 hours at least to sculpt out of edible materials. Sure it would be fun, but that equates to 10-15 hours on JUST figures, forget about the baking, icing, carving, and all the other decorating details that take hours. Obviously it is not really feasible or cost effective, so the edible printer is a great alternative and I am very happy for the purchase. So many ideas on how to use it next!

Peacock Themed Birthday Cake

Time for my mom's birthday cake! She's the lucky one in the family who always happens to be around me for her special day, and that means she get a special cake every year.
This year I decided to go with a peacock theme because we live on peacock hill rd, we used to have pet peacocks in Thailand, and whenever we were in a zoo my mom was guaranteed to imitate the peacock mating calls. Plus it would make for a beautifully colorful cake.
Normally I'm all for keeping the cake as edible as possible, but after my initial design I decided I wanted to include a real peacock feather in the cake (well real silk...real bird would be icky). I actually was not able to find a single peacock feather for sale, just some type of floral arrangement that had a couple feathers in it. I decided to buy it and cut off the feather I needed.
As the cake was being made, I wondered how it would look if I just stuck the whole arrangement in the top. I tried it and it actually looked pretty nice, but a little too big for this cake. I decided to cut off the feathers and place them in different locations...worked out perfectly!

My mom's 49th birthday cake was my third real decorated cake. Not exactly something to rave about...but it's awesome looking back to see the progress I made between '09-'10, and then '10-'11. I know I've come a long ways and I have no plans to remain stagnant. I can't wait to see the types of cakes I'll be creating three, five or even ten years down the line.

LEGO Soldier Cake

I've made a few vertically daring cakes in the past year, but when I heard about a standing LEGO character I was definitely worried. All of my tall cakes have been pretty equal in terms of width and depth, but the LEGO man is much wider than he is deep. I really wasn't sure if this was something I would be able to pull off.
To increase the cakes survival during delivery, I decided to make the cake deeper than I would if I were to make it to scale. Generally I like to keep the cakes as close to scale as possible, but I feel if I did on this one it would have resulted in a unstable cake. I don't think the increased depth distracts from the look of the cake.
I also kept the head removable so it could be transported in a box separately. Arms were maded of rice cereal treats with fondant and gumpaste accents. Have to say these type of cakes sure do stress me out, but it's pretty cool to pull it off, and no collapsed cake so far! *fingers crossed*

Circles and Swirls Cake

I took some time off from making cakes because I needed to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Being young and single I feel like the options are somewhat endless...I just have to figure out what's most important to me and still makes sense.
After spending about a year experimenting with cake techniques in Cake Lab, I wondered if maybe it would be better for me to travel elsewhere and learn from a more experienced decorator. Kill two birds with one stone! Warmer weather and less stress from doing your own thing...but after giving it some more thought, I realized I love making cakes. I love making MY cakes. While I'm sure it would be nice to have a helpful hand guiding me once in a while, I have kinda gotten use to taking responsibility for all the successes and flaws. It's also been reassuring to receive lots of positive feedback after the cake has been delivered and consumed, and I even ran into two customers in the past couple weeks who told me how much they loved the cakes I made for them and told me when their next cake will be needed. Definitely a good sign. I felt like I kinda had to continue doing my own thing, but with a new look. I decided on Cake Haven, but may actually still end up using Cake Lab (more on that later).


I had lots of freedom with the design of this cake. The only specifications were two tier format with colors like green, pink, and red. These colors reminded me of a cake I had recently seen in a book that was topsy turvy with lots of flowers. Then I remembered a circle and swirl design on a pack of Orbit gum I really liked...the ideas kinda just kept flowing around in there. Even once I started I wasn't really sure what it was going to look like (like most of my cakes!), but those are the most fun to make and the client was very pleased.

Luau Mini Cake & Cupcakes

So, I'm kinda terrible at keeping up with my blog. This cake was made over five weeks ago!
The cake/cupcake presentation was for a joint 40th birthday celebration, and was exactly what I needed to get myself out of my creative slump.
I love just about everything on this cake. It's relatively simple but so pretty to look at. The fish, shells, colors and surfboards...love how they all go together. Oh and how can I forget the buttercream waves that adorned the risers. This little project proved to myself that unless I'm making an object out of cake, I really need to let the design come from my head otherwise it just doesn't work as well.

Cookie Monster Cake

Cookie Monster was one of my first fun cakes in a while. I wanted to do something cute, fairly impressive, and not too stressful, so he seemed like the perfect choice. Cookie Monster was made out of chocolate cake and covered in blue buttercream with fondant accents. Real chocolate chip cookies were use for the cake, which I enjoyed because I'm not really such a cake person anyway.
I tried a new cookie dough filling for the inside since it seemed a little unique and appropriate for the cake. I gotta admit, it was delicious!

Blue Waves Wedding Cake

This is only my second wedding cake, and a little more traditional than my first (although far from lace and flowers!). I did not come up with the design, it was based off something I had seen online, and I think that was my biggest mistake in this challenge.
The original cake was beautiful. I loved looking at it. My version is nice enough, but clearly it was not executed as smoothly. I do believe that with more time and practice I would be able to make this cake the way I really want to, as even the version I produced this time around couldn't have been made by myself a year ago.
In the end I think this cake ended up being "perfectly nice", but definitely nothing special. I think that even if I was able to make an exact replica...would I really be pleased? I felt no connection to this cake in the end. Creating the design is probably one of my favorite aspects of cake decorating, but it is also quite time consuming. I think I took the lazy man's way out this time. MY cake should have been topsy turvy, and used those waves as inspiration for my design.

The timing of this cake was quite interesting. Just as I'm deciding if I should continue my bushiness or if I should move to a city and work for someone else...
Will I be satisfied producing a cake designed by someone else? I guess it is a job, and it would be a pretty nice job as far as jobs go. Then again, maybe I would someday be in a position to make calls on the design of the cake. Ahhhh decisions, decisions!

ARAI "Warfare" Dirtbike Helmet

When I first saw the design for this cake I was pretty intimidated for some obvious reasons. I had no idea if I could do it, but all I knew was that it looked really cool. I decided to accept the challenge and test out my painting skills.
I was actually really pleased with the way the tribal design turned out, which was the result of about 7 hours of painting with small brushes and toothpicks. Although I really wish I only had to do the one side...I planned on doing the left side first and having it be the "practice" side, but the left side ended up looking nicer, probably because I was feeling fresher, so it ended up being the presentation side.
While I'm fairly happy with the end result, there is definitely something wrong that keeps this from being a great cake. I think the shape is kinda off (and not just the lumpiness on the top...). I didn't expect this to be a difficult shape to carve, but when I was working with just a 2D image I wasn't really sure how the shape was supposed to be. Kinda heartbreaking...next time I'll need to buy and return a real helmet so I'll have something to compare to.

Beach Themed Birthday Cake

A couple of months ago I ran a cake raffle and donated all the proceeds to the Make-a-Wish foundation. The winner decided they wanted a beach themed cake for their birthday, and decided to share it with a friend who whose birthday is on the same day.
I poured melted white chocolate into silicone molds and then airbrushed them to simulate the real things. Umbrella and chair were sculpted out of gumpaste. A little difficult to assemble the chair but fortunately I had enough time to let it dry. The sand was crushed up gram crackers mixed with a few types of sugar.
Starting to become more of a fan of royal icing. I used it for the rope on the fence and it was actually much easier to use than I expected. Definitely something I will be using more of in the future.

Pool Table Cake

Another 3D object cake...my favorite. This pool table cake was made of strawberry cake with a cream cheese filling.
This is a cake I had known about for a while but I wasn't sure how I was going to execute it. I think I thought it would be so simple that I wouldn't have to worry about it, so when it came time to get started I realized I had a few things to figure out. I used a layer of rice cereal treats for the border of the table so that I wouldn't have to waste any cake and it would also give me sharper corners.
Thick wooden dowels were used for the legs, which I covered in tubing from some gift wrap to give them some bulk, which were then wrapped in black fondant so they matched the rest of the cake. As with most 3D cakes, there were a few more details I would have loved to have added but there just isn't always the time. Not perfect but cool cake nonetheless.