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This is a cake I did for my Father's 70th birthday. He had sextuple bypass surgery a few months ago, so I decided to make him this cake of a heart with bypasses on it. The cake was a store bought gluten free cake mix (my Mom is gluten intollerant) altered with the directions for the "Sturdy" cake I found on here. It's covered with fondant and the aorta and other arteries and veins are also fondant. The bypasses are made from pull and peel Twizzler licorice. I've included a photo of the cake WITHOUT the bypasses as well. My Dad has never had a cake like this before, and he was just beaming when he first saw it. In fact, I can't remember the last time he had a REAL birthday cake. BTW, my Dad is doing just GREAT!
This is for my daughter's 13th birthday. She liked the topsy turvy idea, so I decided to go for it. I followed the directions found here on CC and even used the "Sturdy" cake recipe from here as well. While the cake turned out pretty good AS SOON AS IT WAS DONE, it didn't hold up for very long. Because I had heard you don't want to refrigerate fondant because of sweating concerns, I didn't put the finished cake in the fridge. A couple hours after i had finished assembling and decorating it, I noticed the bottom tier was starting to sag in the front. No biggie! We took the cake to the party the next day without any problems. I removed the top two tiers before we cut it. They both held up just fine. THEN came the drive home with the top two tiers. Half way home, the second tier just completely fell apart, leaving the top tier intact. (That middle tier is somewhere on the side of I-15) The top tier held up just fine and was tasty. I'm not sure as to why the cake didn't work out for me. Maybe it was the fact that I used some cherry pie filling as part of the filling between the cakes, making the cake somewhat damp/soggy. Maybe it was the CC frosting I used to fill and cover it with. Either way, I'm not going to attempt that kind of cake again. Too many reasons to name. However, I will say that I did have a good time figuring out how to create this cake. Now that I know what it's like, I can draw upon my experience with it as I make other cakes. Now for the design explanation: My daughter loves the piano, zebra stripes, hidden Mickeys, polka-dots, and the colors blue and green. The finished cake ALMOST matched the drawings I'd done. The letters were done with small cookie cutters. I incorporated two hidden Mickeys in the design, one on the top tier, and one on the bottom. I also like how the piano keys blend into the zebra stripes. That was fun. BTW, I used Satin Ice for the fondant. It dried out too fast and was difficult to work with. I need to add some glycerin or gum paste to it for it to work better next time. TFL!!
This is my first attempt at making cuppies with fondant decor. They are chocolate with mint BC. I used a washed pen top to cut out the coins. I was REALLY itching to make SOMETHING, and since St. Patrick's Day is coming up, I thought that was as good an excuse as any. In doing these cuppies with fondant, I learned a few things NOT to do, and I still have a few skills I need to work on. They didn't turn out as good as I wanted, but my kids sure like them, and that's all that matters. :D
Killer Chocolate cake, filled with BC, covered with dark chocolate ganache, and topped with fresh berries. Sides are dark chocolate shards with a polka-dot design transfer.
Killer Chocolate cake filled with BC and covered with dark chocolate ganache (Callebaut Chocolate is the BEST!). The center chocolate piece is a roll of shaved chocolate. The sides are covered with hazelnut joconde baked on a chocolate transfer sheet.
This is a cheesecake covered with white chocolate ganache. The sides are covered with a hazelnut joconde that was baked on a chocolate transfer sheet.
This was the first cake I EVER made using rolled fondant. It is a white cake filled with alternating rings of CC frosting and pie cherries (strained from the gooey filling). The flowers are made of marzipan, which I colored. (The flowers were a first as well!) It was for a culinary competition back when I was in culinary school in 2002. The story goes like this: I worked in a 5 star hotel at the time, and worked in the pastry kitchen under a FANTASTIC, classically-trained pastry chef. I had been toying with the idea of entering the culinary salon (competition) but had not made the decision yet. One day at work, while I was in the next room scooping ice cream for a function, my chef was assembling a wedding cake. From a distance, I watched intently as he rolled out the fondant and draped it on the cake and smoothed it out. I thought, "I can do that." I promptly made up my mind to enter the competition, and procurred some fondant and marzipan from my culinary professor. I went home and stayed up ALL NIGHT creating this cake and two other plated desserts. I was so tired that morning, I almost fell asleep at the wheel driving to the competition with my wife. At the competition, there were other cakes, but nothing looked anything like mine. The competition included two culinary schools. I'm proud to say that the cake you see above helped me win a GOLD MEDAL! Winning a gold for something I'd NEVER done before was HUGE!! Incidentally, the next year, I did a tiered fondant cake with a fondant bow on top which garnered me a BRONZE medal. Both awards were very gratifying and strengthened my confidence in the pastry arts.
Dark chocolate cake, filled with CC frosting and fresh raspberries. Covered with white and colored chocolate ganache. Sides are white chocolate shavings. The banner is rolled fondant with real dark chocolate lettering, and the whole thing is topped off with fresh raspberries. This was for my Grandmother's birthday. She loved it!
Chocolate cake filled, frosted, and decorated with CC frosting. Sides are covered with grated dark chocolate. My daughter LOVES the Jonas Brothers, so I did my best to recreate their logo for her birthday! She loved it so much, she sent a photo of it to the Jonas Brothers! :) Sadly....she never heard back! *sigh*
Confetti swirl cake filled, frosted, and decorated with CC frosting. The letters are cake as well. This was made for my son who had just learned how to read! Just a side note...I learned how to make 3D cakes from my mother, who taught me to freeze the filled cake and then carve it using an electric carving knife. I have found that method doesn't work as well when doing more detailed designs. Knowing what I know now, I use the electric carving knife only half of the time, and I DO NOT freeze my cakes anymore. Mostly because it takes too much time....and I just don't have the freezer space. :)
White (or yellow...can't remember) cake filled, frosted, and decorated with CC frosting. Size 7 because she was turning 7 years old!
Made this cake with an old dome mold of my mother's. It came with the doll torso as well. Filled and frosted with CC frosting. I used two colors in the piping bag to get the dual-color ribbons, etc.
One of my early cakes. Alternating colors of green and blue cake, filled and frosted with CC frosting. The popcorn is CC frosting as well, with toffee pieces as the corn kernels. It was for my son's 7th birthday (obviously) and there are seven kernels that have fallen out of the tub. Funny thing about this cake is that it started out with a dome of popcorn, but I put so much CC frosting on there that it kinda sunk and leveled off. LOL :)
Chocolate cake filled and frosted with CC frosting.
My son LOVES dogs, so I made this sitting dog from chocolate cake, frosted and filled with CC frosting. The funny thing is that when I went to bed that night, the dog was sitting up, but when we woke up in the morning, it must have gotten tired because it was laying down. The only thing I had to fix was some cracks by the hind legs. Both poses worked! LOL!
Simple 13x9 cake frosted and filled with CC frosting.
Dark chocolate cake covered with dark chocolate ganache w/ white chocolate ganache stripes. Chocolate shavings around sides with rolled fondant banner. Fresh raspberries on top and in filling! Wish I had a better picture!
This is a simple white cake with CC frosting for my son, nephew, and niece. It was their first birthday, and their birthdays are all within 3 months of each other, so we had a combined party for them. Since the other two kids had their own separate cakes on their actual birthdays, I integrated a special smash cake for my son into the design. Yes, it says MAD for a reason....Mary, Alex, and Daniel. :)
This is a cake I made for my son's elementary school PTA auction. The "cake" part is actually a large rice krispie treat. It ended up selling at the silent auction for $35! But the joy on the winning kid's faces was priceless! Everything is covered in rolled fondant. The teeth/mouth are rolled fondant as well. The book cover is made of foam-core board and is frosted on the underside with a think layer of royal icing while the top is covered in rolled fondant. The really long teeth are hiding the wood skewers that hold the "mouth" open. The glasses are made from tuile cookie painted black. The wand is also fondant. Oh, and the Wonka bar is just a Hershey bar with a Wonka label I printed off the Internet. To those who have seen this already, I've just updated the photos with better quality ones.
One 13x9 chocolate cake cut in half, stacked and frosted with cream cheese frosting. The stamp is hand-painted rolled fontant. All address info on the cake is fun birthday related info relative to the person for whom the cake was for! The address is NOT a real address. I actually had to block out the return address in the photo as it WAS the actual address! LOL!
Two 13x9 cakes stacked and carved, then covered with white rolled fondant. Lettering is colored cream cheese frosting. This was for a 10 year-old's birthday, and a roll of quarters (which he likes to be paid his allowance in) is $10, so it fit his personality well.
Two 13x9 white cakes stacked, carved, and covered with white rolled fondant. All designs are hand painted with gel colors and liquor. The chips are tuile cookies! As a side note, on all my cakes, I try to cleverly incorporate some sort of personal details of the person for whom the cake is for, other than their name. It may be incorporating the person's age into the design, or how many days it's been since they were born. On this cake, the weight of the bag is the boy's actual weight, and the flavor is "3 Year-old flavor" instead of "Regular Flavor". The ACTUAL Ruffles bag had some "0 grams Trans Fat" info on the front, but I changed that to "0 grams, Baby Fat"!
Chocolate cake frosted with chocolate cream cheese frosting and covered with "dirt" made of Oreo cookie crumbs, sanding sugar, chopped pecans, green licorice, and chocolate licorice.
White sponge frosted with cream cheese frosting. This is the ONLY Lego that is OK for a child to put in their mouth!
This was for my daughter and mother-in-law for their birthday. The time on the clock is the date of their birthday! The iPod is foam covered with rolled fondant, and the stereo dock is cake covered with rolled fontant. I didn't have any black fondant, so I spent about an hour hand painting it black with food coloring in liquor! Uhg!!!
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