That Cute Little Pink Mouse

She's one of my favorite Disney characters!

It was so much fun adding the cute eyelet lace at the base of this cake. I was trying to mimic the look of a little girls skirt with frilly lace trim peaking out from underneath. Lace and bows... could a cake get any more girly???

And the Answer is.....

On my last post I asked you to look at the picture and try to guess what I was making. Well, I'm sad to say that no one got it right... in fact no one even commented or dared to guess!!! I can't say that I blame you for not trying, they really were weird looking things! LOL

Ok, you've waited long enough. Here's the answer.... BUZZARDS!!!!!! :D

I had a total blast doing this cake! My client asked for an "Over the Hill" birthday cake, but gave me the freedom to decorate it anyway I wanted. Preferring to make something besides the usual "Grim Reaper/grave yard" or the "Road of Life" cake, I decided to go out on a limb. (Hahaha... get it? Buzzards.... tree... limb! Hahaha) So this is what I came up with:

As I put this cake together, I caught myself giggling out loud several times. When I saw the buzzard on top of the cake with his head hanging down right above the "You Old Buzzard" sign... it just make me chuckle! I laughed so much that my daughter thought I was loosing it! They loved the cake and I found that helping someone celebrate their 40th birthday was a real hoot!!!

Get it? Hoot... bird... buzzard? Ok... I'm done. ;)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Lace Inspired...

The instructions for this cake were:

1. A "lacy" looking cake... but not the heavy antique style of lace you get from a mold. 
2. An elegant look... white lace with an ivory or pink background. 
3. This is for a birthday so make sure it doesn't look like a wedding cake.

I wanted to come up with something a little different then the usual type of lace cakes you often see. So I looked around to get some ideas and ran across this web site:  http://www.lavender-cakes.co.uk/
On the home page is a cake that's covered with lots of little cutouts. I really liked this technique and thought it gave the cake a pretty lacy look. So I used it as inspiration for the my birthday cake.

I decided that pink fondant would be a better background for showing off the cutouts. I also thought pink would have less of a wedding cake feel. Needing to keep the look a little less formal, I couldn't decide between using a simple flower or a large bow. Flowers are a little more elegant to me, so I went with a "fantasy" flower. It's made from gumpaste and lightly dusted with pink and green powder.

 I won't lie... cutting out all those little fondant pieces was very time consuming, but I'm sooooo happy with the end result! Such a pretty birthday cake!

The Pre- Post- Birthday Cake

This was a quick birthday cake for my 17 year old son. When he was little his favorite flavor of ice cream was Neapolitan. So I thought I'd make him a Neapolitan cake instead.

As you can tell... I can't cut a straight piece of cake to save my life!  LOL

I called it his pre- birthday cake because I was going out of town so we ate his cake a day early. I also called it a post- birthday cake because it's not the real cake he wanted me to decorate! He has a very creative imagination when it comes to things like this. For his official birthday cake he asked for.... are you ready!



A marlin and a narwhal dueling each other as they jump out of the water. A huge octopus... tentacles and all... holding a puffer fish, a crab, and a nudibranch. Oh, and don't let me forget about the occasional sea turtle swimming by!!! Whew! It makes me tired just thinking about it!

I've been out of town most of this month, so I told him I wouldn't be able to make his "real cake" until later. He said, "That's fine, I don't care if I have to wait until September. This is going to be the coolest birthday cake ever!"

The things a mom will do for her child..... ;)

 Stay tuned!

Spring has Sprung!

Yeah! It's finally warmed up outside... for now anyway. They say if you don't like the weather in Utah, just wait a few minutes and it will change! Yup, today it's 75 degrees and tomorrow's forecast is.... 39 degrees with snow!   :(

I recently made a daisy cake that reminded me just how much I love the warmth of spring!

I wish I could take credit for this beautiful design, but I found this cake online. I wasn't, however, able to find the name of the person who originally made it. I wish I could give them credit!

Their cake was just a little different. Instead of yellow, it was decorated using a coral color.

I didn't have the exact same cutters they used, so I changed the flowers a little. I also slightly altered their placement on the cake.

Wrapping a 1" grosgrain ribbon around the base of each tier, helped to solidify and frame the design a bit more.

I also changed the monogram in the circle to the letter "B".

The only direction I was given was that this young lady loved daisies and the color yellow. So when I saw this cake design, I knew it would fit her perfectly.

This was a rich chocolate fudge cake. I torted and filled it with peanut butter Swiss meringue buttercream. Then I chopped up mini Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and added them to the filling.

Yummy! Really, it tasted amazing... just ask my hips!!!

Mr. Peacock!

Last Tuesday, my son came to me and asked if I'd make a birthday cake for his friend. He said she'd never had a homemade cake, only a cake bought from the store. I didn't have much going on that week and no cakes were on the schedule... so I said yes. Then he began telling me he needed it by Friday... and that she really likes peacocks. Oh yeah... and that he'd like it to be a checkerboard cake!

Ummmm... I began to sweat just a little. (Bless his heart, I'm sure he didn't realize how much work this cake was going to be.) I'd never made a peacock cake before, but I thought it would be a fun cake to decorate. Plus I could put on my blog. Ohhhhhhh, the things I'll do for my my son and my followers! ;)

If you've ever decorated a fancy cake, you know it can take quite a while to do. It's usually not a project you can finish in a day or two or even three. I began thinking about ALL those peacock feathers... the head & body of the bird... trying to make the fondant look like feathers... mixing those amazing peacock colors... then there's designing the rest of the cake! Well, I knew I was going to be very busy for the next few days!

My terrific son helped out by baking the cake for me. It was a strawberry and vanilla checkerboard cake. He did a great job and the cake turned out perfect.

In the end, I only had one really late night and finished Mr. Peacock in plenty of time. My son's friend loved the cake! Her family even invited all the neighbors over to take a look. She said the cake was too pretty, and that she didn't want to cut into it. They did finally eat it after a couple of days.

Later she gave me a cute hand written card. In the card she thanked me and said it was "honestly" the best birthday present she'd ever received!
(That warmed my heart.)

Bird Cage Cake

Sometimes people ask me where I get ideas for my cakes. My honest answer is... everywhere. I can get inspiration from fabric, paper, drawings, jewelry, pictures, clothing, colors, different techniques, home decorating, crafts, and even the hardware store! The possibilities are endless!!!

This bird cage cake has always been one of my favorites. It was soooo much fun to decorate! I made it for my daughter's 18th birthday. When I asked her what she wanted, she told me she wanted a cake with bird cages as the theme.

Hmmmmm, there are a lot of cakes with birds on them, but bird cages??? I wasn't quite sure what to do, so I went to Google... of course. I typed in "bird cage drawings" and clicked on Google images. Then I began searching. Wham! There it was... right away I found my inspiration! These drawings jumped out at me because #1. they're adorably cute and  #2. I knew she'd love the color combination. (Her bedroom has the same colors.) I usually have to change things quite a bit to meet my needs, but these colors were already perfect... I love it when things are simplified for me!

Here are the drawings I found on Google images.

I love the way this cake combined different techniques... quilling, applique, and harlequin decorating. It was the first time I'd attempted quilling. (The flat ribbons of fondant that are looped and curled.) My quilling was very simple, but there are some gorgeous cakes out there with very intricate quilling patterns. So maybe in the future I'll attempt a more difficult design.

Next time you're fresh out of ideas for cakes... "Google it". You might just like what you find!!!

Look What I Found!!!

Guess what? I was going through some old pictures and look what I found....

Yeah I know, don't laugh too hard! I made this cake 28 years ago. That was long before I ever had any intention of being a cake decorator!

My husband's birthday falls on the 4th, we were married on the 5th, and my birthday is on the 6th of the same month. So the year we got married, I came up with this idea... I'd bake him a birthday cake and decorate it to look like a wedding cake! That's why there's a corny bride & groom on top, and that's why it says "Got'cha!!!" on the front. Ohhh... the joys of young love!!!

There is absolutely no support system in this cake! It's a miracle it didn't collapsed or crumble into a million pieces. I remember my mom only had two 8" round cake pans, so I improvised and decided to use different sized mixing bowls to bake the cakes in. Are you impressed yet??? Then to top it all off... we took the cake into the back yard, set it in the grass (bugs and all), then took this wonderful picture!

Hahaha, what great memories! I hope you've had fun taking this trip down memory lane with me. I think my cake decorating skills have improved a little since then. But regardless of how it looks, I can honestly say... there was never a cake made with more love!

Ladybug Ladybug... Fly Away Home!

I promised pictures of my finished bug cake. So here you go...

BUGS!!!

These creepy crawly little critters turned out so cute, that I just had to share. Stay tuned... pictures of the finished cake will be coming soon.

Pictures

A few cakes I've made:

This is a German chocolate cake with coconut pecan filling.  It's covered in white chocolate fondant, the grass is buttercream and each character is made from gum paste.

Chocolate cake with coconut macaroon filling. This was made for a very talented marimba player.

The beanstalk is made of Rice Krispies treats covered with fondant.

(Sorry, the lighting was bad for taking pictures.) Marble cake with chocolate and white truffle filling. This cake was huge! Each layer was 7" tall covered with sparkling sugar. The ribbon was 4" wide and I ended up making over 90 roses.