Backyard Picnic

This cake I made for my Grandma.  Our family used to gather in her backyard and have a traditional BBQ, with hamburgers, hot dogs, rootbeer, and of course watermelon.  My Grandma loves these gatherings, and so for her 85th Birthday I was asked to re-create a backyard picnic.  I made the layout of the cake exactly how my grandma's backyard is.   

Of course you need an uncle at the BBQ's.  

I made a garden right where Grandma's garden is.  

A few people chilling on a blanket...

...more people were chatting at a table, eating by some trees, etc.  

I added balloons and a mini cake to the scene to make it feel like us fondant figures, were celebrating Grandma's Birthday.  Of  course the swing set is not edible, it was made out of wood to look like or original set, that is still there to this day, I think the swing set is 50 years old.  

Here is my grandma, the lady of honor, wearing a Y sweatshirt, 

for her favorite college team BYU.  She went to school there and worked there several years herself, and was married to a professor there as well, so she has a lot of pride for the school.  

Grandpa, who passed away a few years ago is sitting on the willow stump, wearing his blue coveralls.  

 The food was fun to make. 

Little ketchup, mustard bottles, plates, a bowl of chips, a bag of chips, 

watermelon, hamburgers, hot dogs, etc. 

This cake took so much time.  I  forgot to keep count but I am sure it was close to 16 hours.  I am so glad she liked it, and so glad I am on to the next cake. 

Box of 'Arnie' Donuts

My son is in love with donuts.  He received a book about Arnie, a small donut who isn't really excited about getting eaten.  It is his favorite, so for his birthday I thought I would make him a cake that looks like a box of donut characters.  

The book is like a comic book in that the donuts say silly things in bubble thoughts so I added one on the box that said "Happy Birthday"

Here is a front view.  The top is fondant/gumpaste, on top of a cardboard box.  I added little support dowels on each side, to support the top.  It was really heavy, I'm not sure how to make it lighter.  

 I made his name so that the letters look like donuts.  

Food with eyes, are so much fun to make.   

Pink Minnie Mouse

Happy Birthday to Coco!

This cake was for my niece, who loves Minnie Mouse and pink. Her mom wanted the cake to look like a Minnie Mouse dress, with ears on top.  Simple enough, here you go!

The Minnie Mouse hat was styrofoam covered fondant. 

 The bow of course had to be poke a dot, and large!

The dress had a white ruffle on the bottom 10" layer. The skirt of the dress formed to lay out like any cute girls dress would be.  It was a fun cake to make!  

Swimmer Cake

I made this cake for our neighbor who was turning 16.  She has been our family babysitter for three years and has helped me out so much!  I wanted to give her a fun cake for her sweet 16th birthday.  She is a great swimmer, so I knew I wanted to make it a swimming cake.  She loves light blue and lime green, no sparkles or pink please!  Here is the cake I gave her.  

People love to see themselves in an edible form, so I made a figure in the swimming pool.  The figurine and accessories are all made from fondant.  

The Birthday Banner is the only thing not edible.

  I printed the letters on scrapbook paper, then cut them out and sewed them together to make the banner.  

I used the towel to tie in the two colors together.  On the duffel bag I wrote her name, as well as on the cake.  Having a unique name, I know how fun it is to actually see your name, spelled correctly, on something.  Never in all my traveling as a child did I see a mug in the gift shop with "Genevre", although it didn't stop me from checking every time "just in case."   When I make a cake for someone with a unique name, I make sure their name is on the cake!  

Now I know...

This is my six year old Logan's birthday cake.  He wanted a Ninjago cake!  

I wanted to make legos stacked on each other with the four main Ninjagos around the cake. Each Ninjago had "their" weapon the they use.  Each Ninjago was made of gumpaste mixed with fondant.  I was happy how my "Lego green" board turned out.  I covered a thin wood board with fondant and made little lego nubs  out of fondant as well.  

The details to each Ninja were painted on with food coloring and a tiny paintbrush.  

  I wanted to achieve crisp "Lego" like edges, so I opted to give modeling chocolate a try.  It hardens unlike fondant, so if you get crisp edges they shouldn't soften like fondant can. I know I hated using modeling chocolate for figures, but I thought I would try it as a covering on this cake. 

And now I know that is is NOT good to cover a cake with the chocolate.  It was so annoying to work with, it just wasn't doing what I wanted it to do.  The modeling chocolate was cut into side and top pieces that were measured to cover each cake block correctly.  But behold...cracking!   

The modeling chocolate was very brittle and began flaking off at edges as well.  Luckily I have a great son who could not have cared less.   Inside the cake (forgot to take a picture, I was too excited to chop up the cake and be done with it) was bubblegum flavored cake.  I used a basic white cake recipe, and added a drum of Loranne Oil, bubblegum flavoring.  This gave the cake a "hint" of bubblegum flavoring, the real flavoring was in the frosting.  I used Duncan Hines new "Flavor packets".  I made my own frosting and added one packet to 6 cups of frosting..plenty of flavoring!  It tasted just like pink bubblegum!  Those of us tasters were saying how our mouths wanted to keep chewing the cake, as if it was gum.  It was pretty fun for a kid cake.  So now I know, that I hate modeling chocolate  yes hate.  I don't like it at all and have sworn it off.  Fondant the only one for me!

On the Beach with my horse

I have a niece how loves horses, she has been riding since she was four, and her horse is her best friend.  Her birthday came up and she asked to have a cake with her horse on it, but she also wanted to have a beach cake, since she also loves the beach.  

Knowing this girl had a sense of humor, 

I came up with this literal image of her and her horse hanging out on the beach .  

The beach tier of the cake is styrofoam, the bottom ocean is two layers of 8" cake. 

 Emmalee loves to bogey board at the beach, 

and on the yellow one is where I added the year, 2013 

This was my first time doing the ruffled fondant edge. It didn't take as long as I thought, and was pretty easy to do, although it did use a lot of fondant.   

I added edible sand as a border and on top of the beach tier as well, I was so happy to achieve a realistic "sand" look.  

 

This is her horse, chilling at the beach, eating some chips.  

She is content next to him with a book.  I made the beach chairs out of gumpaste and let them harden several days before I made the figures.  

Chillin' with friends

Happy Birthday Emmalee!

Army Cake

This cake is for an eight year old boy who loves the army, camouflage and guns.  

I thought I would go away from the usual 8" round cake and make the cake the shape of an army helmet.  

I also made a  Colt 1911A1, which is a standard army handgun. 

Thank you google images for info on that one.   

Dog tags were a fun way to tie in the birthday boy's name.  

I also wanted to tie in his age.  I really like putting either the year or the age on every cake, so in 15 years they can tell from the photos which year they had received the cake.  

On the side of the helmet I added some bullets tucked into the helmet belt.  You can't make an army cake for a boy without bullets, and of course a grenade.  All the elements of this cake were made out of fondant.  

Happy Birthday!!