Tag Archive for Techniques

In Search of Cake Eaters (Part 3)

During the month of June, I volunteered to make fancy cakes for the price of ingredients. While most people would be willing to eat a delicious, FREE cake, no one took me up on my offer more enthusiastically than Marcy. In fact, the subject line on her email read: “CAKE—IMPORTANT!!!” My favorite snippet from her email request read:

saw that you are looking for people to make cakes for…..and let me tell you something…..CAKE IS MY FAVORITE FOOD. seriously.

Naturally, it was impossible for me to say no to making this gal a cake. About six back-and-forth emails later, we had narrowed down her flavor choices to one (she’s not joking when she says cake’s her favorite food!). For her birthday, she decided that she would like a wedding-esque cake. I was happy to oblige.

I’d seen people incorporating wire and beads into their cake creations, and since I was going for a very unique, elegant look for Marcy’s cake, I decided to give it a whirl. I did my research and learned how to correctly use wire and prevent food-safety problems.

I called my friend Jacee to help with the beading, since she has both the skills and the tools. She did a great job and Marcy’s cake turned out AMAZING. It’s one of the best cakes I’ve ever made (if I do say so myself). And it was fun to make, too!

The two-tier cake was a flawless white cake with classic white buttercream icing. To imitate a ‘wedding look’, I decorated the surface of the cake as well as the borders with dots.

While I cut and bent the wires, Jacee created the pendants out of fishing line and different combinations of black and hot pink beads with silver accents.

The wires were threaded through a fondant ball and into a small bit of fondant which was anchored in the base of a floral pick. The floral pick was then inserted into the cake (that’s how I kept the wires from actually touching the cake itself). Fondant spheres then surrounded the floral pick for both aesthetics and structural support.

Marcy was really pleased with the cake. Perhaps, even shocked. She didn’t know exactly what she’d be getting, and I think the final result really surprised her. She was also really excited that there were plenty of leftovers. ;)

In Search of Cake Eaters (Part Two)

Roger found me through my future MIL, Robin’s, blog. His youngest son was having a Kung Fu Panda party and they were in need of a cake. I jumped at the opportunity (I haven’t done many cakes for kids), and started scheming.

I wanted it to be quite different from the cakes you see in a store’s bakery case. Otherwise, what’s the point in having a custom-made cake?!

While I began sketching out design ideas, Roger and his wife Shelly set out to find the perfect Kung Fu Panda cake topper/action figure. Surprisingly, THAT was the most difficult part of the whole process! In the end, Shelly triumphed and found the most perfect Panda!

I wanted to experiment with Candy Melts, as I had read they are quite versatile (and taste good, too!). I got the idea to make ‘bamboo’ out of pretzel rods and Candy Melts and then add fondant leaves. Whenever I make a cake, I do everything I can to make sure that it’s nearly 100% edible.

The near-final result:

I used the candy-covered pretzels to make different lengths of “bamboo”, piped some jungle grass around the bottom perimeter and added fondant leaves here and there.

Their son loved his cake (I have seen him once since his birthday, and he greeted me with, “Hey, you made my birthday cake!!”) and Shelly snapped the following three photos (Thanks, Shelly!)

Doesn’t the Kung Fu Panda figurine just make the cake?!

Shelly and Roger, thanks again for the opportunity! Your son’s cake is one of the most fun cakes I have made this year! :)

In Search of Cake Eaters (Part One)

Back in June, I was wanting to do some ‘cake experiments’ and try some new techniques. The hard part? What do you do with a bunch of cakes after they are finished? I decided I would need to have a reason to make them before I even started. So, I posted on my blog that I was in need of some cake eaters.

I explained that I was by no means a “pro”, but that I was wanting to get better, and that I needed some reasons to practice. I offered to donate my time if the recipient would pay for the cost of the ingredients. Boy, did the requests POUR in!

For the next several posts, I will showcase some of the cakes that came from that exercise. Enjoy!

First, Donna requested a cake for her wedding anniversary (8 years, if I remember correctly). The cake was going to be a surprise for her husband. When I asked if she had any specific requests in terms of the design, I got a one word response: “Chocolate!”. Coming right up!

I hadn’t had many chances to work with my oval pans, so I started there and made a two-layer devil’s food cake. For icing, I took the opportunity to practice piping vertical lines, rope borders, and rosettes.

Rosettes are one of my favorite techniques to use. The piping motion is fairly simple, but the final result is so elegant!

I was pretty pleased with how the cake turned out, and Donna and her husband were, too!

Clownin’ Around

In my first cake decorating class, we learned how to do ‘figure piping’. This is a technique you can use to make all sorts of 3-D things out of frosting: animals, fruits, flowers, and (shown below): clowns!

For our second class cake, we were shown how to build up icing to make figures. We all purchased plastic clown toppers and then used icing to make their bodies. While it wasn’t something I normally would’ve thought to do, the cake did turn out pretty cute.

I made a 6″ two layer chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream icing. Because the cake was a smaller size than usual, it seemed “cuter” than it might have if the clowns had been on a big cake.

As was the case with many of my cakes, I gave this one away to friends. (I can only eat so much cake myself!) :)

A Tisket, A Tasket

Last fall I took a cake decorating course to spruce up my skills and learn some new skills. One of my favorite new piping techniques was the “basket weave”. For our final class, we created a two-layer oval cake. We then used classic white buttercream to cover the cake in basket weaving and ‘rope’ borders.

After the base was frosted, we decorated our cakes with royal icing flowers we had made the week prior. I used a combination of gerbera daisies and apple blossoms (my favorite flower to make out of icing).

The cake was then delivered to my friend Mikie’s wedding shower. Gerbera daisies are her favorite flower, and I thought the cake would be a nice way to celebrate her upcoming wedding. Even though it was a ‘classroom cake’ (and therefore my first attempt at many of the techniques), it impressed Mikie as well as the guests at her shower.