Opening up another session of the FNCC!  ALL levels of cakers are welcome to share their week, photos of their work, ask for help or provide help if you can!

Cat

Hi everyone! Hope your week was good. I had just one cake this week and forgot to take a photo of it! It wasn't spectacular...more of a "comfort food" type cake. Snickerdoodle with brown sugar frosting. One of our staff is moving away and we are very sad about it. Family obligations drag him away so I wanted to leave him with a reminder of home. His favorite cookie is the snickerdoodle and I happen to make this cake all of the time for my son so it seemed to be perfect. He loved it. 

So that's my week...nothing too exciting coming up except my grandson's birthday cake later in April!

Cat

@catlharper ‍Glad he loved it. Can't wait to see what you come up for with your grandson. 

I need to make a dinosaur cake for next weekend and have been looking up ideas. I am thinking about making a volcano  cake with plastic dinosaurs. It will be buttercream frosting. If I do the volcano I was planning on putting a  glass in the cake and using dry ice for smoke. Any thoughts or suggestions. 

Have a great weekend.

Marian

It's been awhile since my last cake so I volunteered to make my great niece, Miss Ella Rose, a "smash" cake for her first birthday.  My first time to make the large rosettes, Duff's easy fondant roses, and modeling chocolate, which I loved working with. I made the "1" using it. My niece is all about vintage lace and pearls for Miss Ella so I gave her a signature rose with a pearl drop.  Next week I will try my hand at doing a lace cake for her party.

Hi all.

@catlharper ‍ - how is the aftermath of natural disasters? Things are getting better? I have been out of the news.

@DormCat ‍ - smashcake looks adorable.  

@Marian64 ‍ - How about making cutout dinos from fondant? You can paint them, and stick them into a scene. But if for kids, they sometimes actually prefer plastic toppers, to play with. 

I had only a batch of cupcakes this week, for a dance studio. Not new, and not mine idea, but my personal execution. I unfortunately don't remember the original "author" of similar cupcakes, to give credit. The photo does not show the slight shimmer of the fondant piece. The cupcakes are vanilla bean with colorful confetti inside, and the frosting is made with natural strawberries, so it's diet, right?!  LOL

I also have an opinion "please" question. I am making a Cindy's castle cake, for my daughter's birthday. Topper is ready - 3-D fondant "towers" and pointy roofs. Middle 9" tier is in carving progress, to be the "body" of the castle. Castle wall colors (think Disneyworld), purply faint greys, blue rooftops... Fondant painted 2-D (small) cutouts of Cindy&Eric and the Fairy Godmother.

The bottom tier is what I am struggling with. I had "imagined" it as another level of castle. But not sure now. Should I make it into a woodsy colors - piped garden and woods "landscape"? Throw a b/c pumpkin on the side design? Or will it be too split in colors, and too busy, from the top tier? Should I continue as castle walls colors, but pipe some trellis vines and flowers? 

I am so-ooo overthinking EVERYTHING this morning (not just the cake).

It's not like I just started on the design, just got to the "writers' block" a couple of days ago. Cake will be served on Thursday, and now I am stuck with another dilemma: should I make the bottom tier a dummy, or real? There will be about 11 kids at the party. Some adults (oh, no thanks, I don't really eat cake), but maybe some will have it. Kids often ask for seconds of my cakes.I do not really want leftovers. But I don't want people be left out, either. The carved up cake will be less than a typical 9" round, since some of it will be cut out... Maybe more like an 8" X 4-ish in total. But the bottom will be at least a 10, or 12, to accommodate for the figurines and candles. 

UGH. Anyone has days like these? Just terrible. I am a very decisive and overall intelligent (so I think) person. But today is difficult for some reason. Maybe it's the weather.

I  am leaning toward a dummy tier, and maybe throw in a couple of cookies or cupcakes or such. 

@LelekBolek ‍ i thought about dinosaur cutouts, and may do them but I  am busy and not sure if I can fit them in and the cake is for a little girl turning 8. 

I love your cupcakes! I think I would go with the dummy for the bottom tier and make cupcakes. If you have a few leftover you can sen them away with the guest.

@DormCat ‍ love your little smash cake.  

Thank you. I enjoyed making it. 

@LelekBolek ‍ great job on the cupcakes, they're pretty. Looking forward to see your castle cake.

@LelekBolek ‍ Spring has sprung here in a BIG way thanks to all of the rain. Also thanks to all of the rain, our famous Hwy 1 is closed for about 30 miles. One of our historic bridges cracked and they have to take it down and replace it...will take about 9 months to do that. In the meantime we still have people stranded out on ranches with their stock and needing supplies air lifted to them. So while some things are great (like our recent weather!!!) there is a lot of clean up to do and things to deal with along the way. 

As for the castle cake...what about keeping the same blue/grey coloring but make the tier "stone" walls instead. You could definitely have vines and flowers climbing up the walls. 

P.S. Love the cupcakes!

@Marian64 ‍ What I did was put red gell color in the "inside" of the top of the volcano then put a bunch of candles in the very middle of it. When it was time we lit it and it looked like the volcano was going up in flames! It was a huge hit.

Hope everyone has a great week!

This week was the annual spring medieval/renaissance dance event, for which I always make a cake to be eaten during the evening ball.

This year the event fell on April Fools' Day, and people were encouraged to wear masks for the ball.

I decided the cake should therefore be Masked Balls (and a fool).

Side view:

Largest ball (8") was iced in buttercream with oreo crumbs blended in to make it look like stone.

Hi!

@DormCat your smash cake is absolutely lovely. The little perls bring so much elegance to a simple rosette cake!

@Marian64 I don't have any experience with volcano cake, but I agree that kids love plastic toys that they can keep and play with.

@LelekBolek your "diet cupcakes" are beautiffuly done! Hope you are overthinking a little less today and that your ideas are more focused. For your castle cake, I love your idea of a woodsy/garden bottom tier. I think it will bring an other dimention to the cake. Trust your instinct on that one. From what I've seen, week after week here in FNCC, your cake-work is brilliant and inspired. For your portions dilema, I think I would do a dummy for the bottom tier but cook a few cupcakes just in case? You'll have way to much leftover with a 10 or 12 inches cake. 

@Magda_MI great cake! Love the oreo buttercream idea for the stone effect. It's clever. And your buttercream is so smooth! Well done.

This week, I made a little cake for my nephew 5th birthday. Do to misscommunication, it was a last minute request. I knew the day before the party I had to bring the cake. I'm not pleased with how it turned out. I think it looks sloppy. Anyway, my familly and most importantly my nephew where happy and the cake was good!

@DormCat ‍ your smash cake is adorable! The pearls and fondant roses really add to it.

@LelekBolek ‍ cute cupcakes!  I'd love to offer up suggestions on the castle cake but I have been in the same boat lately with over thinking details after I thought I had everything figured out.  For me I think it s just from being overtired.  I'm sure you'll knock it out of the park & I look forward to seeing it :-) 

@Magda_MI ‍ great job on the ball cakes!  Very clever to mix the Oreos in to the buttercream.

@Laetia ‍ I think the cake looks great considering it was last minute.

@Marian64 ‍ if you use dry ice for the volcano, adding warm water to it works much better to get the smoke than room temp or cold water.

This week was our end of year potluck for the Chemistry Club and I always make a cake for it along with a main dish.  I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do for the cake this time around though as I am running out of chemistry ideas.  I asked a coworker for his thoughts and he came up with a good one.  Our (chemistry) building is being renovated so his idea was for the cake to be the building being demolished by a bucky ball wrecking ball. A bucky ball is something the students are all familiar with.  It is a spherical molecule with the formula C60 and it resembles a soccer ball.  It is made up of 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons with a carbon atom at each vertex of each polygon (black sixlet) and a bond along each polygon edge (grey fondant).  I shortened the building as if the wrecking ball had already torn through most of it cause otherwise it would have been way too much cake.  The building is cocoa banana cake and the bucky ball was vanilla bean cake. It was a huge hit with many saying it was their favorite cake so far.

My second cake was for a retirement party for gentleman who was a correctional services officer.  I had lots of great ideas for it but they went out the window in lieu of a simpler cake.  I really wasn't thrilled with the design idea but it was one of those times where I had to remind myself that the cake was not for me and different people like different things. Once it was done I liked it better than I thought I would and his wife and daughter both loved it when I delivered it which is what matters.

CC posting gremlin struck again, and ate my original long post.  

Thank you for all your suggestions and encouragements. 

@catlharper ‍ - glad things are better overall. Bridges do take forever to rebuild... The metaphor is strong with this one :-)

Love the oreos/bc idea.

@kstevens ‍ I love the retirement cake!!!

I think I am settling on the dummy tier in same color, but maybe different "wall" impression mat. And throw in some vines/trellis or such. 

Overthinking is a terrible thing. Mine, too, comes from just too many things needing attention. Making cakes rarely bothers me as much as this castle cake dilemma, I think it is because it is our own cake, not for a client. It is for my daughter. I am also making a card - paper "book", that starts with "once upon a time", and ends with "we're going to Disney World!!!". They have NO IDEA, it is a huge surprise we kept forever, and now it is only 6 days away. Probably the only time I will ever do this trip, I am not that brave, or rich ))) My kidos are 5 & 8, so just the right age, and hopefully, I will be able to manage well there on my own, as my husband can't join because of his work. 

@kstevens ‍ - I particularly love the bucky/wrecking ball.
I have a biochemistry degree, and work in a cell culture / molecular biology research lab.

@kstevens ‍ both your cakes look great! The retirement one is my favorite. Love the " I am outa here"! So fun

I am continually amazed at the creativity of everyone. Outstanding cakes by all

Beautiful cakes everyone! Love all the teensy bricks in the smashed building cake, they look great.

I've had a busy few weeks trying to learn how to drive (late starter as when I lived in London I never really needed a licence but now back in Aus I most definitely do - everything is so far away!) so haven't had a chance to post much of late.

The weekend just gone I had two wedding cakes and a birthday...

The birthday cake is Aussie on the outside with gum leaves and honky nuts and boozy black forest soaked in cherry schnapps on the inside.

More Aussie native flowers on one of the wedding cakes (choc/raspberry with ganache top and bottom tiers and banana/pineapple with cream cheese frosting for the middle tier) and then for the cupcake tower the bride really didn't like the look of flowers on cakes so came up with a different sort of finish for her cakes which were a mixture of choc/salted caramel, choc/ganache, vanilla/cream cheese frosting and red velvet with cream cheese frosting.

Hello all,

This is my 1st every cake using fondant....its a two layer chocolate fudge cake with buttercream icing and galaxy chocolate ganache.

Here is my first three tier cake!  Its red velvet with vanilla frosting.  I made it for an adoption party. I think it turned out cute!  I also attempted a leopard cake with left over cake. It looks better in person than in pictures lol My favorite color is purple. It was my first time trying chocolate ganache under fondant.  I loved it!

I  think your  jaguar looks fabulous!

Here is a small circus themed thing i did for today's order. I know. Oddly mid-week.

That looks so cute! Im doing a circus theme for my sons first birthday.  Im going to do a smash cake similar to your top cake and a carousel cake for everyone else. 

@Shanelly ‍ i love both them cakes!...the jag is great.

@LelekBolek ‍ I really like the them...like the cases you used.