June through September

June through September were really busy crazy months for our family.  We had all our kids coming and going at different times for different things.  Ben went to a two week camp and to Cameroon, Africa. Joseph and David were working every hour Fareway would give them.  Becca was working full time in the produce department at Fareway.  Joy was working at church and packing for her ministry trip with the Netcaster Team from BCM. The other thing that slowed me down was poison ivy... I pretty much kept it all summer with the exception of a few weeks, when I would go to the doctor to get medicine. So, we did not make many cakes and actually only made cakes for those that had asked us before summer came.  There was one exception to that rule though...  My neighbor was diagnosed with cancer and was not given long to live.  His wife planned a big birthday party for their family and close friends and at the last moment decided she needed more cake.  She came by and asked for a simple chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  With this situation, we did make the cake you see here...  (I had lost the picture and just recently found the memory card that had it!)  He did pass away, within a month or two of his birthday.  I am not sure how old he was, but I will never forget him walking his dog, loading up his van with golf bag and clubs, and yelling at cars that would speed down the road!  He was so protective of the safety of all his neighbors and he will be missed!

Russian Sweet Milk Cake

Russian Sweet Milk Cake

When my parents lived in Russia for 7 years, they learned a lot about Russian food.  I have had the privilege to taste many of their foods, but I must admit this is one of my favorites!!  Probably because I love caramel SO much!  This has layers of wafers with caramel between each layer. We have to buy the wafers at an import store in Moline.  The caramel is made by boiling cans of sweetened condensed milk for 3 hours. (If you try this at home, be sure to keep the jars completely covered in water the whole time - or they might blow up!)  We drizzle it with a little bit of chocolate for a little added flavor and beauty!  It is such a rich, sweet dessert!!!  Mm mm...

This is not a fancy cake like we usually make, but if you like caramel, it just might be on your list of favorites too!

Another Baby Shower and Another Baby Bottom Cake

We were asked to make another 'Baby Bottom Cake' just like the last one.  The cake is a Chocolate cake with a thick layer of butter cream frosting under the fondant.  We did make our own marshmallow fondant that tastes SO much better!!  The legs and feet are rice krispie cookies covered in fondant.

The other day, we were watching a part of a Cake Boss show and they actually made one of these!!  (Maybe they are more popular than I thought!)  The neat thing they did for this shower was - they used the cake color to tell the couple whether they were having a boy or a girl!!  But since the outside of the cake could not give away what it was, they didn't put a skirt or a blanket on the baby bottom... personally the skirt / blanket adds SOO much!

Thanks for looking!!

Angry Birds Cake Contest Update

Today we received an email telling us we won 4th place in the Angry Birds Contest on Cake Central.  They asked for our address and other information and will be mailing us a certificate.  We actually won with the second cake we made (when we were tired and took a few shortcuts)...  We almost did not make the second cake, but since we had already baked the cake and had the fondant made, we went ahead with it.  We stayed up until 11:00 to finish, then took pictures and rolled in bed around midnight.  I guess it was worth it!  Here is a link to Cake Central and the Angry Birds Contest - http://cakecentral.com/contests/angry-birds-cake-contest/

Angry Birds Cakes

Cake Central put up a competition using Angry Birds as the theme.  The only problem about entering a Cake Central competition is...  it is an international community with professional decorators. We decided to try it anyway for fun!!  We also each have an account on Cake Central to save and share photos, so we decided to enter two cakes.

For these cakes we made a new cake recipe we found on Cake Central.  This recipe is really flavorful, moist and tasty! It took a few tries to figure it out, but we now have a GREAT new recipe!!  We also experimented with 4 fondant recipes.  We even had a taste test!!  The four kinds were:  Wilton premade, marshmallow, completely from scratch, and a powder fondant that someone gave us (thanks Dana).  It was interesting that we ALL picked different fondants as far as taste, but they did not all work the same when covering cakes and working with them.  The marshmallow fondant was extra rubbery, the scratch recipe and powder fondants were crumbly, and the Wilton was the easiest to work with. It is hard to experiment on cakes that you make for someone else, so this was a good time to make and compare. 

Cake #1 is a structure from I - 2 on Angry Birds.  The cake is an almond butter cake covered in frosting and fondant.  The brown fondant is a chocolate fondant.  The structure is rice krispie cookies covered in fondant. The sling shot is gum paste with a little fondant and painted in a cream cheese frosting to make it look like wood.  The birds and the pigs are made with fondant.  We also made a background made to look like the background of the game.

Cake #2 is a stacked cake with three tiers.  Each side represents a different level of Angry Birds.  Everything is hand made using fondant and gum paste mixtures.  The topper is gum paste painted with food coloring and/or food writers.

We joked that these were "The Cakes that NEVER End..." because they took so long and we thought we would NEVER finish them!  Enjoy the pictures below, you can see more at:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cakes-by-the-Sugar-Cains/112478982183338

Angry Bird Cake #1

Angry Bird Cake #2

Angry Bird Cake #2

Baby Shower - Baby Bottom Cake

Baby Bottom - Baby Shower Cake

Chantelle V. sent me an email with a picture of a 'Baby Rump Cake' earlier this week.  I have always joked about this kind of cake looking like a headless baby cake.  But, I must say, after we finished the cake, it was not as weird as I thought looking at it in person!

We didn't have much time, but we started looking online at a lot of different ones, tutorials, etc...  and decided on things we did and did not like.  There are several changes we will make if we ever do one again, but we were mostly happy with the results.

The cake is a vanilla cake with butter cream frosting.  There was suppose to be filling, but I forgot, so I sent some filling with her. LOL (This getting old and my bad memory is for the birds!!)  The baby bottom is chocolate cake with butter cream and fondant covering it.  The legs are rice krispy cookies covered in thick fondant.  The dots, skirt, ribbon and bow are fondant and the writing is butter cream.


It was nice for Joy and I to be able to work together on this cake.  Many of the last few cakes were either just me working on them, or we worked on separate things at separate times.  We love making cakes together and the challenge of figuring them out with the best way to do something!  We make a great team together and always have a lot of fun!! Thanks for stopping by!