Piggies Playing in the Mud Cake

Here is Katie's birthday cake.  She wanted piggies playing in the mud so we searched online for some inspiration and then came up with this.  It is very similar to ones that we saw on Pinterest.  Katie helped me to make the little pigs.  

Birthday Cake

Animal Cake

The inside of the top tier is leopard print on the inside and the bottom tier is zebra print on the inside.  Here is a picture of the leopard cake.

Princess Birthday Cake

Halloween Cupcakes

Mummy- used Wilton premade eyes and just piped
frosting bandages.

Ghost- unwrapped a dum-dum and
poked it in the center of cupcake and covered with
a circle of fondant.  Used food coloring pen for face.

Easy Pumpkin

Melting Witch- legs are lollipop sticks, feet and
 hat are fondant.

Spider- web is just circles of black
icing, I used a toothpick to drag the
icing into the cobweb design.

Zebra Print Birthday Cake

There are two things that I really like about this cake, first I love how the letters in "happy" look like they are spilling out of the nail polish bottle and second is that the cake is zebra print on the inside too.  I wish that I could have been at the party to get a picture of the inside.  I got to use my new extruder for the lettering and I it worked really, really well.

Pregnant Belly Cake

     For the chest I baked two cakes in the Wilton ball pan and for the tummy I baked a cake in a Pyrex bowl.  I put a flower nail in the bottom of the Pyrex bowl and then poured cake batter up to the top of the nail.  Using the flower nail is supposed to help the cake to be done in the middle more quickly.  This was the first time that I used a flower nail in a cake and it worked really well.  I did quite a bit of reading about how to bake a cake in a bowl and from what I've read lots of people were worried that a Pyrex bowl would shatter if baked unless the bowl is marked oven safe.  Well, my bowl did not say "oven safe" but I baked the cake in it anyway and it turned out perfectly.  It did take a bit longer than a regular cake to bake, about 40 minutes.
        After baking the chest and tummy I baked a large sheet cake.  I put the tummy and chest on the sheet cake and carved the shape that I wanted then frosted and covered with mm fondant.  Hopefully these little tips will help someone out there who may be trying to make a similar cake.

The bow was supposed to be camouflage so I ended up painting brown and more green onto it.  In this picture the chest looks quite lumpy.  I'm not sure why,  but I do think the bow looks more like camo after it has been painted.

Minecraft Cake

Here is Jacobs Minecraft cake.  I tried to make a grass block with a creeper on top.  Even though it is a very imperfect, very rushed job Jacob was super happy with it.

Simple Wedding Cake

I was asked to make a simple wedding cake so this is what I came up with but, then I thought that it needed something.  Maybe a topper of some sort.

One flower???

A flower and a bow???

Three flowers???

Three flowers and a bow???  I was having a really hard time with this one.  It would have been nice if I had had a crystal temple to put on top.  That would have been perfect.

In the end I did one flower on top and one on the side.  The "bling" in the bow is a fancy button that I found at the Wal-mart fabric department.  They only had one.  I would have liked them to have two so that I could have used it on another bow.

Motorcycle Cake

This cake was made for a motorcycle club.  I made the guns and the handcuffs out of chocolate and sprayed them silver with edible spray.

Burger and fries

How to make Chocolate Fondant

Usually I do not post "how to's".  Mostly because everything that I do I've seen somewhere before and everyone seems to have great "how to" videos and tutorials on everything cake.  I just don't need to post "how to's".   That being said I think that someone out there might benefit from my chocolate fondant recipe.  When I first wanted to make chocolate fondant I did lots of searches and tried lots of recipes.  Not a single one of them came out great so I made up my own recipe.  It is easy and includes only those ingredients that I keep in my cupboard all the time.  I don't have all kinds of pictures but here are the simple directions.

1. Pour  one 10 oz bag mini marshmallows into a large microwaveable bowl. Add 2 T. water.
2. Microwave for 1 minute and then stir.  Continue to microwave and stir at 30 second intervals until marshmallows are all melted.
3.  Sift 1 cup cocoa powder over the marshmallow mixture and stir.
4. Sift in powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time until the mixture is too thick to stir.
5. Dump out onto a counter dusted liberally with powdered sugar.  Knead until smooth, adding powdered sugar until non-sticky.  If your fondant gets a little too dry just add a few drops of water and knead until desired consistency is reached

That's it!  It's easy!  This chocolate fondant can be seen below on the Oreo Cake.  When I roll out chocolate fondant I find that it is sometimes difficult to brush off all the cocoa powder or powdered sugar from the fondant so once the fondant is on the cake I take a damp paper towel and wipe the cake.  This makes the chocolate fondant shiny and nicely chocolate colored.

Hopefully these directions help someone out there in cake land!

Oreo Cookie Cake

For this cake I made two 9 inch chocolate cakes and then filled it with vanilla butter cream.  I stirred in about 30 crushed up oreos into the frosting.  It was tasty filing.  For the top I made my homemade chocolate fondant.  The sides is just white mm fondant.  I think it looks okay.  Like a giant double stuf oreo- yummy!

30th B-day cake

This cake is supposed to be a "this is your life" type of cake.  On the cake are things from her life like favorite TV show as a kid, high school, college, and then I put some black boards and an apple for her being a teacher.  

                I tried to make the family, they came out a bit pudgy.  In real life these people are fit and trim so hopefully no one gets offended by my chubby fondant family!

           Here you can see her college logo and a chalk board and apple because she is a teacher

Her favorite TV show as a kid was 90210 so I found a pic of the cast to add to the cake.  Also, her high school and favorite football team are represented.

I have lived in Texas for about 10 months and I have made several cakes here so I have learned a few things.  One thing is that Texas too hot to make cakes in the summer.  Even the AC has a hard time keeping up with the hot Texas weather.  I can start making a cake smooth and then the heat causes the fondant to ripple a little bit.  I had this problem with the Nascar car cake and with this one a little too.  So, that being said, I am not going to make anymore cakes this summer except for one cake already promised in August.  So if you are thinking of ordering a cake in June, July, or August you will just have to wait until the fall.  Sorry-  Have a happy summer y'all!

Nascar Cake

I don't feel like I ever got a really good picture of this cake.  I finished it pretty late at night and just snapped a few quick ones.  The bottom tier is supposed to be a waving race car flag.  If you look closely you can see ripples in the fondant.  Those are supposed to make it look like it is waving.  It is not a perfect cake but it's okay.  I really like the tire on the top.

Elan Cake

This cake is for 2 ladies who are celebrating 15 years of working with the company.

Teacher Appreciation Cakes

These cakes are for the kids to bring to their teachers tomorrow in honor of teacher appreciation week.  The cakes all say "Whooo's the best teacher???  You Are!"

"Oh Boy" baby shower cake

 This cake is for a teacher at the Intermediate School.  Some of the girls from church are having a surprise shower for her after school. 



The baby is made out of gum paste with a 1st impressions mold and the little shoes are gum paste too.  They are actually pretty easy to make.  If you ever need to know how to make them cakecentral.com has a very simple printable pattern.  I'm so glad that so many talented people have put free patterns on the web for beginners like me.  For the Oh Boy lettering I busted out my cricut cake machine.  I am still getting used to using it.  I don't like it as much as I thought I would.  As you can see it made my letters a bit rough around the edges.

Strawberry Shortcake Cake

 My very favorite cakes to make are the cakes that I make for my kids!  Aubrey is turning 6 and she wanted a Strawberry Shortcake reading a book in the grass cake.  I usually don't let the kids help with cakes because they are being sold but because this was her cake I let her help.  She was so excited!  Aubrey put all the little indents on the strawberries and painted the inside of the flowers then she made the little kitty, Custard, for the top.  She was so proud of her work!  We may just have another cake decorator in the family!

Fishing Retirement Cake

I always have a hard time photographing cakes and it is especially difficult with a cake with all over decoration.  I never know which angle is best.  The picture above makes the top look lumpy but it is really flat.

                                       Okay so I can't make fish!  The ducks are cute though.

                                               The turtle was Aubrey's great idea.

Relief Society Birthday Cake

For Relief Society birthday cake I wanted to make something elegant.  They are doing something with keys as a theme so that's why there is a chocolate key on the top.  I made several keys but they looked funny on the cake so I just put the one on the top.  The RS seal is printed on edible paper and then outlined with edible pearls.  If you ever need anything to be copied onto edible paper most grocery stores will do it for about $10 a sheet.   

This is just a little cake that I made to go on the side, just to make sure that there was enough cake.