Opening up another session of the FNCC! Everyone is welcome to share their weeks, photos of their work, ask for help or provide help if possible! ALL levels of cakers are welcome! We love to see ALL cakes!

Cat

Hi everyone!

Last week was great! I went whale watching with my younger daughter and spent 3 wonderful, if exhausting, hours out on the Monterey Bay. We saw about 2 dozen whales, I got some great shots (you can find me on Instagram under the name shutterbugtraveler) and it was simply gorgeous out there. Then we came back for a family dinner and then out to see My Fair Lady on the big screen. It was a simply wonderful day but we were exhausted by the end of the day and feeling it in our bodies for the next two days after! LOL! Totally worth it! Attached is a photo of my birthday cake (I didn't make it). Hope everyone had a wonderful week too!

Oh, pretty cake and it wounds like a wonderful day!

I bet that was amazing to see sounds like you had a wonderful birthday!! 

We've been busy this week mostly taking orders yay!! I did some Halloween cupcakes yesterday and some crayon cookies today. We're working on a cake now for tomorrow. Something wasn't right with our butter (they changed something in it apparently) anyway our icing just looked like crud so we started over. Fingers crossed we got it lined out. 

@catharper, on the water is my absolute favorite place to be.  So glad to hear you had a wonderful birthday!  It is truly a treat when we don't have to bake on our special day .  This year, my husband baked and decorated my birthday cake and I have to say that I was beyond impressed.  I gave him instructions, and he was a true perfectionist.  He got the frosting so smooth on the first try that I was jealous remembering the countless years of research that I endured to get my cakes the same.  Apparently his first time was a charm .  On another note, I find out Monday if my right hand/wrist is broken, so I may have to hire my hubby for help.  I did manage to finish my cake for tomorrow, but it was a struggle because I was in such great pain. 

@webake2gether, Love your cupcakes and cookies!

Here is what I managed to accomplish with an injured wrist . . .

@catharper, on the water is my absolute favorite place to be.  So glad to hear you had a wonderful birthday!  It is truly a treat when we don't have to bake on our special day .  This year, my husband baked and decorated my birthday cake and I have to say that I was beyond impressed.  I gave him instructions, and he was a true perfectionist.  He got the frosting so smooth on the first try that I was jealous remembering the countless years of research that I endured to get my cakes the same.  Apparently his first time was a charm .  On another note, I find out Monday if my right hand/wrist is broken, so I may have to hire my hubby for help.  I did manage to finish my cake for tomorrow, but it was a struggle because I was in such great pain. 

@webake2gether, Love your cupcakes and cookies!

Here is what I managed to accomplish with an injured wrist . . . http://cdn.cakecentral.com/gallery/2015/10/XYNDraVUsw-halloween-2nd-birthday_900.jpg

@catlharper Isn't it amazing to watch these gentle giants? I live close to the ocean had we have humpback whales and whale sharks (up to 15 long sharks, but absolutely harmless) here.  When I was working as a scuba diving instructor, we used to take our clients out on special trips to watch and swim with them. Never got tired of it!

I made my bff's son's birthday cake this week and didn't realise what I got myself into until I spend half the night cutting those endless number of fondant tiles for his minecraft cake, lol! It was a 7" vanilla cake filled with Oreo swiss meringue buttercream.  Doing my math I figured it needs close to 500 of those small fondant squares :/

@catlharper what a wonderful way t spend your birthday.

@Webake2gether  I love the crayon cookies.

@julia1812 what an amazing cake. I can only imagine cutting out all those little tiles and getting it to look so perfect.

@oftheeicing  Hope your hand heals fast. Your cake is adorable. I just love Frankenstein's expression. 

My niece sent me three pictures of the cakes she wanted and so I picked the easy of the three. 

I cheated the pumpkin is a styrofoam ball covered in fondant.

Cute Halloween cakes!! @julia1812  I don't think I have the patience for a cake like that lol. Good job!! 

Oh and it wasn't the butter I have no clue what's going with our icing but it's only 8:30 am and I'm already about to cry  this cake didn't turn out at all like I had hoped :( it goes out for delivery today and I'm not ok with it. My husband was but I'm not. I knew from the moment he took the order I wasn't going to like this cake and all I had to do was make the cakes. I need to just suck it up and move on lol.

As I sat here typing out my woe is me comment I figured out what I didn't like about the cake it was unfinished looking to me so I grabbed my husband the edible glitter and sprinkles and we finished it off. The customer wanted pink and purple and we couldn't figure out how to incorporate the pink  well we got it in there with the sprinkles. The cadeceus is made out of fondant the rest is all buttercream. Still not 100% but I'll survive lol  not my favorite cake by a long shot :(

@Webake2gether  we all have those cakes. It is a simple cake, but it is nicely done and the sprinkles were a good idea.

Hi everyone! Slow week for me since I was very busy with school but I am in love with my only cake this week. I absolutely love incorporating lights in a cake whenever I can and this week I was able to with this taxi themed birthday cake! 

On a side note: Has Cake Central been EXTREMELY slow for anyone else this week? It takes several minutes for any page to load. Most of the time it doesn't even load. Kind of annoying.. Took me over 3 tries to be able to post this..

@catlharper   So glad you had a great time celebrating your birthday! Your pictures on Instagram are absolutely STUNNING!

@webake2gether Love the cupcakes and cookies. Your cake turned out nice! 

@julia1812 Love the Minecraft cake! So sharp and clean.

@marian64 That Halloween cake is so cute! 

@Sweetshop5 Yes...same problem here. Thought it's my Internet being slow. Love those lights in your cake! How on earth did you do that?

@julia1812 Ahh, so its not just me. Good to know. It's starting to get really frustrating.. And thank you! It's actually quite simple for the lights, I bought these little LED lights at Party City and you just twist them to turn them on. I wrapped them in saran wrap and inserted them into the cake. They're fantastic! 

Found a picture online, this is exactly what they look like:

You can also wrap them in fondant like I did for my birthday cake:

@SweetShop5 love the taxi and I am so getting me some lights. Clueless on what cake I can use them on. 

@Marian64  Thank you!! I bought them last year for my birthday cake and only managed to use them for this taxi cake so far.. You can find them at party supply stores, they come in packs of 12 I believe. You can use them on a Frozen cake (which I completely didn't think of when I had orders), batman cake, cinema cake.. I'm sure there's more but that's what I can think of for now. 

@SweetShop5 I think I may need try on the Paris themed one I am doing for my niece's birthday next month. Thanks for the ideas. By the way your birthday cake is amazing.

Oh my gosh everyone! You guys constantly Wow me with your creations! 

@Webake2gether  LOVE the cookies! How much fun are those?! And the cake is lovely. Great job on the decoration on top and yes, the glitter was perfect for it!

@oftheeicing   I do so hope it's not broken! I broke two of my fingers on my right hand a couple of years ago (had a cake order that week and, like you, suffered greatly through the pain to get the work done) and it didn't heal up well. I'd damaged tendons and such so it only came back about 70%. It's why I'm not doing cake professionally anymore. So I hope they find it's just a bad sprain! I totally adore your cake! I'm a sucker for Halloween! LOL!

@julia1812   Everyone I know who had done a Minecraft cake has regretted it. I did one for my son's birthday several years ago and it was awful. I mean, everyone loved the cake but I hated the experience. All those little tiles! But your cake looks amazing! Totally love the pick axe! And, yes, the site has been slow for me this week too...glad I wasn't the only one!

Marian64 Love your Halloween cake! My favorite is the Mummy tier! Totally makes me laugh!

SweetShop5 Thank you very much. Photography is my passion, cakes were just another way to get the art out. I love your cake but the whole light thing (and I have some) has inspired me to make a Cinema cake for my younger daughters birthday next Feb! (it may take me that long to find out what I did with the lights! LOL!) I love the spotlight idea! That's just too cool!

We will decorate for Halloween today but I have brownies on the brain so I'm thinking those will be made tonight too when I get home from work! LOL! Have a great weekend!

Cat

@catlharper  Whale watching sounds like a wonderful way to spend a day :)  I personally was scrubbing my shower tile, so your day sounded much better than mine!  Your daughter's cake is lovely, you taught her well.

@Webake2gether so happy for your success.  Yeah sometimes there are those cakes... we make them the way they are requested and we wish there was something more, but if the client is happy that is what you get paid for.  It looks really nice and good job integrating the pink.

@oftheicing you do better work with one hand tied behind your back than most with two hands and an assistant!  Love your cake!

@sweetShop5 you two are amazing and taking it to the next level!  That car cake is very cool and inventive.  I know I'll see you on TV one day.

@Julia1812 Aack, the squares, the math!  So many squares... good work persevering through all that, but I bet your friend and the birthday boy were thrilled!

I still want to perfect my macaronage so I tried a different recipe.  This is a riff on rice krispie treats.  There are actually rice krispies ground up with the sugar and almonds as well as mixed in with the fluff filling.  Everyone who tried it liked it.  This was my most successful batch so far!

This cake is for a wonderful woman with a sad story: married later in life but her husband got cancer and died within a few years.  She celebrates his birthday every year with a cake symbolizing something he liked.  Last year was a hotdog, but this year her mother in law was going to spend the weekend with her so we thought something prettier was in order.  They used to love to bike in the wine country and end a with a picnic.  Here is my tribute.

I actually did a cake this week as well, for a friends daughters birthday.

Mixed results. The figures weren't as good quality as I thought they would be and I can't decided if the effect at the back works. Hopefully someone who is a fan of the film will be able to tell me what they think? :)

Thanks for the tip and link @SweetShop5

So many great cakes here this week! Got a first glimpse earlier and waiting for some more pictures to load just now since my Internet is still slow and all I see are jpeg names :/

Thanks for the tip and link @SweetShop5

So many great cakes here this week! Got a first glimpse earlier and waiting for some more pictures to load just now since my Internet is still slow and all I see are jpeg names :/

The last wedding cake of the year for me. It was in a beautiful English 18th century Manor House x

@cara1982  Gorgeous, just gorgeous clean work!  It's interesting to have the beautifully pristine white cake on top of the rustic cuts of tree rounds.

@cara1982 that is so beautiful.

@Pastrybaglady  awwww. Your message made me smile. Thank you  Your macaroons look delicious, I want one! As for the cake, beautiful as always! The details are fantastic.

@julia1812  You're very welcome, glad I could help!

@catlharper  That's a great idea! Can't wait to see that cake!

@Marian64 No problem! Lights would look amazing on a Paris themed cake!

@CoinUK Love the cake 

@cara1982 That wedding cake is absolutely stunning! Great job.