Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Birthday Cake

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Cake

 Jessika asked me to make a birthday cake for her 4 year old son, Jaxson.  He wanted a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cake for his birthday.  We had a lot of ideas, everything from a 3d cake to a simple sheet cake that is star-tipped.  Jessika wanted something in between. So, we did a two tier cake with a white butter cake on the bottom, and a double chocolate cake on the top covered with a butter cream frosting and fondant accents and also had fondant covering the board.  The silver color is a new color of edible spray paint by Wilton.

fondant bricks and buttercream grass

I have never watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so it took a lot of research.  We looked at cakes and pictures online.  The only thing one of my sons thought it still needed was a piece of pizza!  LOL!!  This cake was a cool cake to make, but took longer than expected... It was a good thing we didn't do the 3d cake!! 

Chocolate Cappachino Cake

 I taught a Wilton Course 1 class on Saturday and during this first session, I have to teach them how to make frosting and frost a cake to make it look more professional.   I tried a new twist on the Wilton recipe adding unsweetened chocolate and instant coffee. 

I made the cupcake cake you see to the left for class and let the class eat some and then left the rest for the employees to finish off. It really needed a red cherry for the top, but I didn't want to mix up a small amount of red and dirty up another bag for just one cherry!







Since we only use one layer of a cake mix for class, I decorated the other one for my family.  The picture to the right is the cake I made for my family for Sunday's lunch. Eight frosting roses around the top, each with three leaves and a vine coming down. 





I am not one much for coffee, which does not put it on the top of my list of favorite cakes.  But, my boys seemed to like it today for lunch.  It was simple to add a little instant coffee to the chocolate cake batter, the frosting, and the filling...  although to me it seemed to make the chocolate taste bitter... I guess those that like coffee will love it!!

Thanks for looking! 

Clown Baby Shower Cake

     Joy and I have always wanted to make a baby shower cake that reveals the gender of a baby...  Jessika asked if we would do it and it was at a really bad time.  After a few schedule changes, we decided to squeeze it in anyway at the last minute. 

     The exciting part of this cake is the mother has two boys...  this one is a girl!!!  She was SOO excited when they cut into it!  The cake inside is a white chocolate cake with pink food coloring with butter cream frosting.   So happy for this couple!

Wilton Butter Almond Cake with Swiss Buttercream

Royal Frosting Pansies

I tried one of the recipes on the Wilton website this past weekend.  It is the butter wedding cake with almond extract...  We LOVED the cake, it was very moist and flavorful. 

The swiss buttercream was not as good as I had hoped for though, unless you like HyVee's greasy frosting!!  It was easy to make, but is not a crusting recipe, which means it would not dry to touch to be able to smooth it more.  The buttercream recipe came from Craftsy.com.

The flowers are just a simple pansy made with royal frosting flowers which were made two months ago after a class.  

We brought it to a church potluck... so we didn't eat the whole cake!!  I love to experiment on OTHER people... LOL!!!  Thanks for looking! 

Fondant Covered Cake with Flowers

Fondant Covered Cake with Fondant and Gumpaste Flowers

I had to cover a cake and cake board with fondant for my Wilton Class - course 3.  It takes a lot of patience to cover a cake with fondant, but my students did an awesome job this month!!  The purple fondant on the cake board also has a flower design imprinted on it.   After class,  I brought it home and Joy and I decorated it with some gum paste and fondant flowers and a simple ribbon and bow.  This is a very simple design, but the colors add SO much!  We made a lemon cake, with lemon filling, and lemon frosting!   Yummm!!

A Simple Bow with a Fondant Daisy and a Gumpaste Blossom

John Deere Cake

A good friend was able to get a job at John Deere about a year ago.  So for his birthday, his family decided they wanted a John Deere cake.  They really thought it would be great to have a combine cake, and I REALLY wanted to make one, but I just didn't have the time this week.  After a LOT of discussion about everything going on this weekend and our available time, we decided we just could not do it.  They decided on a marbled sheet cake with the John Deere logo.  We used the Wilton method of transferring a design to a cake and star-tipped it.  For my students that watch our blog: I used kelly green and lemon yellow, and the bottom is wrapped in freezer paper.  This is a pretty simple cake with less colors and a simple design - which always saves on time and clean-up. 

Bubble Guppies Birthday Cake

Bubble Guppy Cake

I met Jessika over a year ago because she did a search online and found our blog.  We became friends on Facebook, got to know each other, and a month ago she took one of the Wilton cake classes at Hobby Lobby.  She asked if I would make her daughter's cake for her birthday and requested a Bubble Guppies cake.  She gave us some pictures of some ideas, but also gave us liberty to do whatever.

Coral, Sea Shells, and Seaweed on Cake

We did some research and printed off some pictures from online and planned our cake. The bottom layer is white cake, the top cake is chocolate with butter cream frosting. The border is self designed to look like waves.   Everything we added onto the cake is made with fondant. Some things were made with Wilton molds (pink and yellow coral and shells), but most things were made by hand. We put Finley's favorite characters on the top of the cake with her name. The sand at the bottom is brown sugar - one of the cakes we looked at online had that, and we felt it really added a lot to the cake!!

One of the highlights of making a cake is seeing the reaction of and hearing comments from people.  Jessika sent me a text that said it was just what they wanted and their daughter loved it.  That is probably the most rewarding part of making a cake!!

Baby Shower Cake

Pea Pod Cake

Christina asked if we would make a baby shower cake for Chantelle.  She sent a few ideas and we picked the Pea Pod cake idea.   Orrin and Chantelle have been calling their little one 'Baby P' for many months, so it seemed to fit well!!  Chantelle's favorite flavor of cake is yellow cake and the frosting is butter cream with fondant accents.

The baby pea pod, leaves, flowers, and vines are all hand made out of fondant and completely edible, except for the center and stem of the little flowers.

The stripes and spots are fondant placed onto two buttercream frosted layers and the writing is buttercream.

 The shower was really nicely put together by Christina and other family members and we really enjoyed being a part of it also! I actually won a drawing!!

 For my students that watch the my blog regularly: the board is two cardboard disks taped together and wrapped with freezer paper, with ribbon hot glued around.  The cake pans are sizes 6" for the top and 8" for the bottom.  

Thanks for looking!

Anniversary Cake

My husband and I celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary.  I made a chocolate cake and torted it  into 4 layers with chocolate bavarian cream in between each layer.  That is my husband's favorite flavor!!  The colors and flowers on the cake match our wedding cake.  We are looking forward to another 28 years together!!!!

Gorgeous Grandma Day Cake!!

Gorgeous Grandma Day Cake

My mom and dad came for a visit this past week.  Gorgeous Grandma Day was the week before, but she asked if we could make a cake to celebrate it.  I always like a good reason to make a cake, and she was wanting to give us an excuse to make one, so she could watch.  

 My dad  bought a carrot cake and a canned cream cheese frosting with extra cream cheese to add to make it their favorite way.  This is a hard frosting to frost a cake with, so we went with the 'swirled' look.  

Primroses, Daisies, Pansies, Violets, and one Daffodil are the royal frosting flowers that brighten this cake!!  For the border we had to add extra powdered sugar to get it stiff enough to pipe.  She was happy with the final results!!

Simple Chocolate Cake

We had a ministry team come for a week, and one of the team members had a birthday!  We were told he likes chocolate, so we made a chocolate cake with a chocolate Bavarian filling and chocolate frosting.  His favorite color is green, so our writing is in green.  I thought it really needed a few flowers, but Joy kept saying telling me you can't put flowers on a guy's cake.  Although it may look a little boring, it tasted GREAT!! 

Rainbow Birthday Cake

    Tammy S. asked for a cake for her little girl who was turning one year old.  She emailed me a picture that had 6 layers of cake, each a color of the rainbow, with fondant colored strips around the cake.  

   I usually use freezer paper and ribbon to cover the board as you can see in this picture. 

   A simple white cake with Wilton food coloring to make the colors seemed simple enough.  Baking the thin layers of cake was a lot harder than I thought it would be though!  They did not want to raise evenly, even with bake even strips. 

   

     All 6 layers are brushed with simple syrup and stacked - ready for frosting and decorating!! 

I used a simple technique to pipe strips around the outside of the cake...  it was a lot harder putting it on the side of the cake than on the top surface of a cake!  Frosting 'balls' on the top and sides and fun party writing finished the cake!

Groom's Cake - Soldier Field & Wrigley Field Combined

Chantelle wanted me to do her wedding and groom cakes, but after much prayer and discussion my husband and I decided it was too hard to do large wedding cakes in our small kitchen at this time in my life.  I still offered to do the groom's cake and was excited about being able to do a groom's cake without also doing the wedding cake.  Wedding cakes are always such large structures, that I have to spend more time on them!!  

Chantelle wanted two half stadiums (baseball and football) put together.  At first I thought there was NO way, since the fields are such different shapes and sizes.  We spent a lot of time studying and researching both and discussed it with Chantelle a second time.  She told us we could do whatever we wanted to do, just to tie in both the Bears and the Cubs together... although she still liked her two stadium combo cake idea! 

Even as we started this cake we were not sure where we were going with it... so I took pictures as we went along!  The shape is a football stadium.  But on the outside we decorated one side as Soldier Field and the other side we decorated for Wrigley Field. The cake is carrot cake (Orry's favorite cake) with cream cheese frosting.

Fondant/Gum paste Wrigley Field Sign

On our Wrigley sign, we put Chantelle and Orrin's names! I always tell my students to practice writing on something before putting it on the 'real' cake or item...  After YEARS of decorating I still practice, as you can see on the wax paper!!

Wrigley Field brick wall and vines

On the inside of the Wrigley field, we put ivy on a brick wall. One thing Chantelle mentioned she would like. (Picture taken before 'people' added.)

Stadium advertisements

On the inside of the Bears Stadium, we put advertisements (what is a sporting event without some of those? LOL - picture also taken before 'people' added.)

Close up of Soldier Field side.... love the lights!!

Front of Soldier Field

 On each side, we also put a cap/helmit and a ball to go along with the 'sport' represented. 

Here is the cake at the wedding reception near the wedding cake!! 

Joseph's Birthday - July 4th, 2012

At first, Joseph told me he didn't want a birthday cake this year... but the night before he changed his mind.  After looking online with his sister, Joy, they picked one similar to this - a nice July 4th themed cake!  The thing he liked the most on this one was the 'banner' with the birthday message on it.  

This is a triple chocolate cake with butter cream frosting covered in fondant - another of Joseph's favorites! It was quickly made and put together on the 4th of July since we had other things going on too.  Good thing it was a simple design!!

We bought some new items from Wilton recently and it was fun to be able to use them on this cake!

Carrot Cake

For Sunday I made a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.  Around the sides I put crushed pecans...  since that is the big thing to do now on the food channels!!   There is a simple shell border around the bottom and carrots on top. 





One of the first techniques that I teach in the Wilton Basics Course is to do dimensional decorating (piping).  The carrots are made using this technique.

A New Cake for the Hobby Lobby Display Case

Basket Weave Cake with Royal Frosting Flowers

     My first cake for the Hobby Lobby display case did not work too good.  The sun shines into the case and melts the fat in the frosting and turns the frosting weird colors...  So, this is plan B and I am hoping it will at least last longer than 3 weeks!!  It is made out of royal frosting - a frosting that has no fat and dries hard.  I also made the colors a little lighter so that they will not fade as quickly as a dark or bright color.

     The sides of this cake have a basket weave design and a reverse shell border on the top and bottom of the cake.  The roses, violets, apple blossoms, basketweave, and reverse shell border all come from Course 2 - Flowers and Cake Design!! 

     I am also working on a fondant cake to add to the display, just not sure how the sun will affect the fondant. A gift cake with a big bow on top would look awesome, but the heat would possibly make the bow fall flat.   Gum paste flowers from the Advanced Gum Paste Course 4 might be the way to go and it will help advertise Course 4 for the month of August!!

     Thanks for stopping by!!

Joy's Birthday Cake

Wilton Roses on white chocolate cake and frosting with raspberry filling!

Here is my daughter Joy's birthday cake!  She didn't care about it being pretty, she wanted it to taste good!  She chose white chocolate cake, raspberry filling, and with white chocolate frosting.

White chocolate frosting is very hard to work with!  It is hard to smooth nicely and also hard to pipe.  I was still happy with the end results.  I was hoping Joy would be able to help with this cake, but she was busy working with the Netcaster team that was at our church that week.  At least she was able to be home on her birthday!!

Thank You Cake

 Here is a cake given as a thank you.  Debby E. had surgery several weeks ago and her husband and their dog have been taking great care of her!  She asked for a small white cake with white frosting.  We talked about doing a bandaid cake, but when she sent us a picture of Curly and their dog, Daisy, I couldn't resist using it. 

The picture was printed with edible ink on potato paper. The frame is made of fondant that has been indented to look like wood, then painted with food coloring and flavoring.  The roses are simple rose buds, knowing that Debby loves roses, it seemed like a good choice!! 


This was a fun cake to make!  Hopefully Debby will be up and around SOON... we really miss her!!