Tulip Cake

Anyone who knows me knows that I like tulips. I was asked to make a round cake decorated for spring. To me spring is tulips so here is my cake. I made the tulips from gumpaste and frosted the cake with swiss meringue butter cream. This was my first try with swiss meringue butter cream. I have read that Duff uses swiss meringue on his cakes and that made me want to try it. It is nice to work with but it tastes so buttery I'm not sure I'll use it again. The plus side of swiss meringue is that it doesn't take powdered sugar so if I am ever out of powdered sugar I could still make frosting. This picture is a little blurry but it is the best angle of the cake. I put big stars on the top and bottom of the cake. Tim said it looked like cottage cheese- maybe it does but I like it!

Mermaid Cake

Aubrey loved her mermaid cake. I made this cake the same weekend that I made the Toy Story cake so I was pressed for time. If I had more time I would have added more shell and added star fish and maybe an octopus. If she wants a mermaid cake again next year I'll be sure not to do another cake the same weekend. The mermaids are made with gum paste because it dries faster than fondant. I painted the tails with shimmer dust to make them pink.

Toy Story Cake

I am really happy with the way this turned out. I tried to do a cowboy theme at the bottom and space theme toward the top. My only problem with the cake is that Zurg kept wanting to fall over. I popped him onto a blob of fondant and he seems to be staying put- at least for now.

Princess 1st birthday cake

I made the princesses skirt using half of the ball pan and a round cake. I put the ball cake on the round cake and trimmed the round cake to fit and then covered it with fondant. Her torso and head are mm fondant. I frosted the 1 with butter cream. It is really hard to frost a chocolate cake without having crumbs show. I tried to place the flowers on the cake everywhere I saw a big chocolate cake crumb. Thank goodness for the flowers to cover my imperfections.

Baseball Cake

I have mixed feelings about this cake. I love the hat. It is very realistic-which I like. I used a stitching tool, normally used for sewing, to make the stitching lines on the hat. The back of the hat is super great too. I covered the cake board with fondant to make it look like a baseball diamond. I was going to put a ribbon around the cake board but then I decided to let the wood show. I like the rustic look of the wood. I really don't like the ball too much. I tried to get it round. I even bought Wilton's ball pan but still it is not perfectly round. The pan instructions called for putting stars all over the ball. Had I done that I may have been able to cover my imperfections more easily.

Jungle Cake 2

I like this jungle cake much better than the first jungle cake that I made. It could use a few more animals. I wanted to put a giraffe on the cake but my Katie took a big bite out of it so of course I couldn't put it on the cake!

75th Birthday Cake

The butterflies on this cake were a new technique that I tried. I bought the butterfly cutters last summer and I have been waiting for the right cake to try them on. I really like how they came out.