The Nightmare Before Christmas

I was born to make a Nightmare Before Christmas party! This was for my daughter's 8th birthday. Topped by the Mayor (hat and most of Christmastown are RKT) - LED lights around Christmastown's windows, but otherwise completely edible.

Pirate Cake!

This was for a combination birthday party where we lumped both of my boys together, since we will be moving cross-country soon and my youngest wouldn't have a party with his friends if we waited till his actual birthday. My oldest picked the theme, and then astutely convinced my littlest one it was his idea, hehe. My daughter had some friends over as well and we treated it as sort of a going-away party, while we were at it! Chocolate cake with Oreo filling and ganache for the bottom tier (in our 90+degree weather, I used RKTs to cover the sides of the cake to at least give the sides something to "wear" once the icing melted off as I was expecting it to! :) )' middle tier was honey cake with peanut butter filling, and the top tier was raspberry cake with lemon filling. MFF and gumpaste for everything ... got to do some of my favorite go-to techniques for this one ... I absolutely LOVE painting on cakes, and incorporating 3D elements! :) Thanks for your comments! :)

Pinkalicious!

For my (now) six-year-old daughter's birthday this weekend. Many firsts on this cake! First stencil ever, first peonies (was actually quite disappointed that my peonies looked more like roses than they should have ... oh well, live and learn!), first use of impression mat and "inking" of cake board ... lots of fun! She wanted a Pinkalicious cake, and we made it quite pink! Pink lemonade bottom tier (strawberry cake, lemonade filling, white chocolate ganache), cherry chocolate chip middle tier (cherry cake with chocolate chips, chocolate ganache), and PBH top tier (peanut butter cake, honey creme filling, white chocolate ganache). Loads of fun! Thanks for your comments!

A Very Smurfy Birthday!

Love how cyclical trends are! A little friend of ours wanted a smurf birthday ... she didn't want smurfette, she wanted a smurf, but she wanted pinks and flowers and dstuff (she's 4, and you can't argue with a 4-year-old! ;) ). So this is what I came up with! LOVE the carved novelty stuff! Thanks for looking!

R2D2 Storm Trooper Cake!

A very last-minute cake for a friend's little boy. They've been living on the East Coast for for the last year, and ended up coming for his birthday on the spur of the moment. We were super happy to have them, but I had to throw something together in a rather improvised fashion, and ended up flat doing a Charm City stormtrooper design and adding on the mini R2 as a sort of smash cake for the little boy. Thanks for looking!

Topsy Turvy Baseball!

A friend of ours put on a huge birthday bash at our local baseball stadium for four other friends who were all having their birthdays within the next couple of days. 103-degree weather and a looooong bumpy drive made me super apprehensive about embarking on my first topsy-turvy cake ever (please see my posts regarding my mess-ups in the meantime!), but all's well that ends well :). Bottom tier was chocolate with peanut butter filling and dark chocolate ganache, middle tier was Macsmom's citrus twist (orange and lemon swirled cake with lemon curd and cheesecake filling ... sounded so good, I used it exactly as she described it, and loved it!), top tier was straight-up WASC with raspberry mousse filling. All details hand painted ... I included all four birthday people's names on the cake in two different places, puttiing their "autographs" on the top tier "ball", then I made a fondant list of the starting line up for the baseball team and included one of our friend's names as the pitcher (the general manager is the name of the guy who put on the birthday bash, hehe!); the other names are on the pennants and banners.The yoga "om" sign was because all of our friends are from the same yoga class. I can safely say that, given the fact that I almost stroked out trying to protect my cake from the inevitable sagging that accompanies this kind of heat and bumps (thank goodness for SPS!!!), I won't be doing another topsy turvy for a very long time ;). Based on mamacc's wonderful design. Thanks for your comments!

Pretty Teapot For A Pretty Girl!

My friend's little girl turned 9 this weekend, and had a very prim and proper tea party with her little friends. Everybody dressed up, and there was much tulle and rhinestone involved in the celebration, hehe! They asked for a teapot cake, and had originally asked for a small teapot on a table to give sufficient servings (50+ servings). I thought it would be so much more fun to carve a much larger teapot out of cake and make it only a teapot without the table. So much fun! So, the cake was a hot cocoa cake with marshmallow creme filling and chocolate ganache. I added an extra coat of white chocolate ganache over that just to give myself a nice light base for my white fondant ... painted the flowers onto the fondant with tinted white chocolate. The little girl flipped! :) Thanks for your comments!

Melty Mater

For my little boy's fourth birthday! He LOVES the Cars 2 movie, so I did this with the bottom tier as Mater, the middle as Lightning McQueen and the top as Professor Z (LOVED working on him!!). My Mater (Chocolate cake with chocolate chip cookie dough filling and dark ganache) completely melted in the sun, as you can see ... the ganache was liquid by the time we cut the cake, and the fondant had all slid off. Made for a great "after" picture too :). The other tiers (vanilla cake with coconut mousse filling, and peanut butter cake with honey filling) were covered in buttercream, and though they sweated and drooped, nothing slid down onto the next tier, thankfully, hehe. Thanks for your comments!

Pole-Dancing Cake For Bridal Shower!

Pink champagne cake with cheesecake filling for a friend's bridal shower/bachelorette party. She's having a pole-dancing class for all the invitees, so I thought we could have a little fun with this ;). Very bling girl, and very into hot pink, so I figured that's what we would do, hehe! All fondant, imprint mat used for the corset. Thanks for your comments!

Reptiles And Amphibians Cake

My oldest son's birthday cake! The little stinker knew exactly what he wanted, too ... drew it up (will post in a bit) and specified how he wanted the "strawberry-backed poison dart frog", as opposed to the red-eye tree frog or some other inappropriate critter, hehe. A blast to make! Chocolate cake with cookie dough filling and dark ganache at the bottom; WASC with raspberry mousse and raspberry fruit filling for the green tier; Pecan French Toast (butter pecan cake with maple-cinnamon filling) for the blue tier and the tortoise up top. All fondant decorations, except the snakes which were RKTs covered in fondant. So much fun! Thanks for your comments! :)

Amy's Cherry Blossom Cake

For my good friend's wedding! The cake (and cake server!) were my gift to the couple, and I was so happy to get to do this for them! Special thanks to cr8zchp for all of her wonderful tips ... her gorgeous cake served as great inspiration as well. Pink champagne cake with whipped vanilla mousse filling, and strawberry glaze. My first wedding cake ... nerve-wracking, but great fun! Thanks for your comments!

Cleavage!

For a friend's bachelorette party! They wanted something risque, but not too risque ;). RKT for the torso - lots of fun to do! :). Macsmom's Pink champagne cake with cheesecake filling, and MFF. Thanks for looking, and thanks for your comments! :)

Back To The Future Cake!

Had some trouble the first time I tried to post this :( ... but here we go again! :) For a friend's hubby who adores the movie, turning 30. The quote is one of Doc Brown's, "30 years, a nice round number" ... hot cocoa cake with marshmallow mousse filling, dark chocolate ganache, and fondant panels all around. The birthday boy is a redhead, so the driver in the mini DeLorean is red-headed. Thanks for looking! :)

Frosty The Cake Pop!

Last cake ball (or pop!) of the season! A la Bakerella! White Russian cake balls in white candy melt ... just for the family, so didn't go all out on details or anything (sloppy hat and all, but I wasn't stressing since I was making it with my kiddos :) ). They did marshmallow pops and dipped them a well. So much fun! Thanks for looking ....y

Rudolph Cakeballs!

Just spent waaaaayyyyy too much time making these for my kids :) ... but it was a blast! Rudolph, Hermie and the Bumble! I'd made a bunch of cakeballs to give to friends for the holidays and to bring to work, and had some left over, so I'm using these to decorate for my own personal fun ;). The kids got to do some of their own, too! :) Thanks for looking!

Rudolph Cake Balls

Chocolate Kahlua cake balls for my son's Polar Express pajama day at school. Based on Bakerella's design.

Baby Shower Cruffles

Two boxes, and 50 of these cute little cruffles. I did them in ten different styles, Chocolate Guinness cake with dark chocolate ganache, and pink champagne cake with white chocolate.

Fancy Nancy!

Here's my little girl's Fancy Nancy cake! Also my first experience with SPS, though it wasn't a true SPS cake through and through (bottom tier was a cake dummy, and very top tier was 4 inches and I didn't see a plate that size :) ). The very top tier is the messy "hairdo" that Fancy Nancy always fills with butterflies and flowers and glitter and other pretty sparkly things. SO much fun to make!!!! I loved it that there was no way to overdo this cake ... when my elaborate royal icing tiara fell apart, I threw a simple fondant cut out one on the "hair" and mounted the highlights of the tiara on top. Alternating layers of raspberry and blueberry with strawberry and cream fillings in the corset tiara; peaches and cream for the other two tiers. Special thanks to Peechekeeno and Grammasue for their awesome help with the tutu!

Baby Jungle!

Here's a Jungle cake I made for a baby shower for a friend. Inspired by naomi on flickr, and including the animals the baby shower "safari" theme was based on. Creme brulee cake with a caramel cream filling, and MFF ... had to throw it together fastfastfast, so didn't have time to make it as clean as I would have liked, but it served the purpose! :) Thanks for looking!

Ye Olde Dragon Slayer Cake

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T-Bone Cake!

Toy Story Faces For My Baby!

My littlest guy turned 3 this weekend, and this is what I came up with. The weather was a nightmare to deal with ... so stinking hot that the cake was permanently droopy and saggy and there was little I could do to make it sharp and perky (you can't even imagine what it did to my cake pops!). But my munchkin loved it, so I was happy. Bottom tier was rainbow WASC with cheesecake filling; middle tier chocolate with choc chip cookie dough filling, top chocolate with banana cream. I actually broke Woody's face when making it, and had to scramble to fill in the gashes ... ARGH! Thanks for looking!

Relocating Cowboy Cake!

A friend of ours is moving, and this was for her going away party. Since the friends throwing her party was her yoga group, there's a lotus flower on the belt buckle. Lots of cakes along these lines in the galleries, but thanks to CareyI and jylbug for great cakes to draw from. Bottom tier dark fudge with chocolate raspberry ganache, middle is orange dreamsicle with vanilla mousse, top is WASC with cheesecake filling and raspberry fruit filling. All fondant. Had a BLAST with the bandana!! Thanks for looking!

How To Train Your Dragon!

For my little guy's 7th birthday (note the blazing number 7 he insisted on having as a topper next to Toothless, the dragon ;) ). Had a GREAT time with this one, making the figurines out of gumpaste and then painting them afterwards. Tried gelatin for the wings for the first time, and I am an absolute convert - LOVE the stuff! The hardest part of all of this for me was to try to remember to make the mountain PURPOSELY bumpy and misshapen. Hand-carved the cobblestone finish in gumpaste onto the cakeboard. I ran out of candy melts, or would have made the snowcaps a little more prominent, but oh well! Live and learn! :) RKTs and carved cake for the rocky mountain. Top tier is coconut with pineapple filling, middle is rootbeer float, bottom is hot cocoa with chocolate chip cookie dough filling and ganache. So, in all their glory, the Night Fury, Hideous Zippelback, Monstruous Nightmare, Terrible Terror, Gronckle, and Deadly Nadder ... LOVE that movie! :)

Hello Kitty Strikes Again.

Been out of practice lately, and was shocked and dismayed at how difficult even the most basic and elemental caking tasks were ... at any rate, it's done, and delivered :). Piña colada cake with coconut creme filling alternating with pineapple fruit filling - not your typical kiddie flavor, and I was thrilled that was what my friend wanted for her little goddaughter :). Cake made to match all the napkins and partyware. Thanks for looking!