Opening up another session of the FNCC! Everyone is welcome to share their week, share photos of their work, ask for help or help someone out if you can! Hope to see some fun cakes tonight!

 

Cat

Hi Everyone!

 

I'm on location for our daughter's 30th birthday party tomorrow. It was my only cake this week and the first fondant order I have had since I broke my hand in October. Here is the only photo I have so far..the actual party is tomorrow night so I'll take photos of the full set up before posting them here:

 

 

Hard to see here but there are little red jewels between the hearts. The apple is a fake one, as is the tulip, but the rest is all fondant.

 

Hope everyone had a great week!

 

Cat

Originally, I had two cakes for this weekend, today and Sunday.

 

I kept procrastinating on the Sunday one because the one for today - which I can't post right now because I have to get them on my computer and I am too tired to do that - had so many details that it took up most of my spare time this week.

 

I get a text today asking if I got a lot of work done on the Sunday cake.  All I did was have it baked.

 

Poor birthday girl is sick and they are canceling the party. 

 

I felt relieved that I would be able to spend time with my kiddos instead of with a cake! 

 

I was able to sell the cake (simple buttercream) to my old neighbor, so it wasn't a total loss...or sitting in my kitchen all weekend mocking.  Forcing me to eat it.

BeesKnees, sounds like you needed the break! Hopefully by now you are sound asleep and recuperating from your weekend. Sickness is going around. Allergies have struck our house. The nasal drip makes us cough and, unfortunately for me, it often settles into bronchitis. I'm fighting that off right now sitting on my daughters couch hoping I'll be much better in the morning. I'm just thankful that I didn't feel this way at all yesterday when I was making her cake! Hope you find yourself much rested in the morning!

 

Cat

AYayyy FNC! I tried to remember pictures..but I have one to share of some toppers I did for a sergeant in the air force [IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3190240/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

Here's my entry. It's lemon drizzle sponge with lemon buttercream. It took 20 hours!

 

I learnt loads, used a flower nail in my cake tin for the first time and discovered that adding glycerine to shop-bought fondant makes it sooo much easier to work with. 

 

I managed to smooth my bc quite well, but it seemed to go soft when I tried to smooth the fondant. Really need to practise that.

 

 

ACat, I love your twilight cake! And I'm glad I'm not the only 30something that likes twilight.... In my defence it was total escapism rathern than the literary prowess of the author.. Ehem!

Anyway... This kept me up til 2.30am: [IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3190256/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

I got really annoyed with this one, major fail on my part. The design part is fine, but it's just not as neat as I'd like.

Please can I ask the following? Do you crumb coat and then transfer to fondant covered board before final buttercream coat and then fondant? Or fondant it first then transfer? I'm having issues not denting the cake and messing it up during transfer. How can u do this cleanly?

The major fail was that I had put the smaller tier on my turntable, but because it slides around all over the place I put a tiny bit of blu-tack under the board to keep it steady. I forgot to take said blue tack off before I stacked it. Duh! I remembered a second after I had settled it on. So I took it off, took the blu-tack off and put it back. Of course by that point it had damaged both tiers. So annoyed with myself!! Live and learn!

A

Awesome laptop! What did you make the screen out of and how did you get it to stand up?

AThanks. It's foamcore. The back is covered in fondant and there's a fondant border around the screen picture. I stuck skewers in it to attach it to the cake, but its not very stable and needed to be supported. There's a big box of weetabix hiding behind the screen in that picture and we put it against a wall at the party. I think it really needed to be anchored to the cake board.

Louglou, I love your laptop cake. Not sure I would have even attempted it and you not only attempted it but did a really great job at it!

 

Ana, First of all I cover the board the day before so it has time to really get hard. That way when I transfer the cake from my turntable I don't dent it. I always cover my cakes and decorate them completely except for bottom trim before moving them to the board or setting them on top of a tier. To help the process you could do the bottom tier first and then let it set up while you decorate the top tier. That way the fondant is a bit more resistant to denting. But your cake is just lovely! I'm sure you can see all of the imperfections but it photographed beautifully!

 

Thanks about Tory's cake...she and her friends are very much into Twilight so she wanted to do an elegant version of the theme for her party. I'll take more tonight after set up so you can see the full effect!

 

Cat

A[IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3190505/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

This weeks cake

AThey are called clickstix.

My cakes from this weekend:

 

Wow!  Those are some beautiful cakes from everyone who posted.  Great job everyone.  Sweetshop, I really like that cross cake.  Turned out beautiful.

Ana...here is the table. I'm going to put up a full party blog later this week when I'm feeling better. It turned out to be just a truly lovely event!

 

Gorge!!

Long time no post!  I've been rather ill all winter long, but I'm back with a vengeance!  3 fancy cakes made entirely in one week is my new record...I even made them start to finish in one week, I NEVER do that, and always make toppers at least a couple weeks prior.

Free hand painted the black parts of the topper, 1st gumpaste roses, still don't have the right tools for those...and the side is tire imprint but not crazy about how it turned out.

 

I very, very quickly made this cake in a day...and poor George didn't have a chance to firm up before he got his head.  Free hand painted the sides very late at night!   I managed to do all four panels too!  They all turned out really well.

 

 

 

 

And lastly my son's 10th birthday cake with hand made figures that are ridiculously small the largest is about the length of a key...I also pumped this entire cake out in a very crazy 3 days.   I had no idea what I was doing adding the road to the cake or covering it with fondant which worked fairly well except my turn table is broken so I ended up adding 100 fingerprints to the very edge of the board :(  I'm still so so so exhausted from the past week.

manicgeisha....i LOVE the george panels...fabulous!

 

all else is great, too, but that is fantastic!

@manicgeisha Wow I obsolutely love the first cake!

ALOVE LOVE LOVE the first cake!

Thank you!  A lot of people love that one, and I wasn't sure about it when my friend kept adding in details.  Personally I like simple designs, and of course it was by FAR the easiest cake out of the three to make.
 

I almost wanted to keep the George panels but made sure to slice myself a piece of space George!

 

and I spent hours making each one of those tiny Mario guys, and my youngest unceremoniously ate Baby Princess Peach...she actually likes gumpaste- weird kid!   Probably my favourite cake but only because its 100% original :D   

AI would love to know what brand of icing color do everyone use to achieve the dark rich colors?! I used to use Wilton but now I'm using Americolor. Are there any others I can use to get the deep colors I'm seeking? Thanks

Amazing!! All the cakes are very beautiful.

I love all the sweet cakes.

Great job.