Hot Air Balloon

My middle child turned 7 yesterday.  She wanted a balloon cake.  After discussing it in detail, she decided that she really wanted a hot air balloon that stood up.  So that’s what I attempted. 

I started with rice krispie candy molded in a pail and a Pyrex bowl to make the balloon part of the cake.  After it was completely cool and formed to the bowls, I put them together with dowel rods and covered it with purple fondant.  After finishing the rainbow that my daughter wanted for the balloon, I added some stars in the same colors on the top of the balloon and 7s around the balloon with purple edible marker.

I then made chocolate cake (my daughter’s favorite) in 6 inch square pans.  I did a basket weave with peanut butter icing (again my daughter’s request) to make the squares look like a hot air balloon basket. 

To make the balloon attach to the basket, I sharpened the ends of dowel rods to make them stick into the cake board covered with fondant.  I drove them into the rice krispie candy and then put it into the cake.  I was so happy with how it turned out.  Jamie was thrilled that it stood up!  Thanks to my engineering husband who helped me with the design!

Student Cakes

I had such a great month of teaching students at Hobby Lobby with the cake decorating classes.  It seemed like the students were genuinely having a great time.  I know I was! 

So in my basic course, the students did some fantastic decorating…

I’m not sure where the other pictures went.  I had 8 students in the class!  Two of the cakes above were decorated by 11 year olds.  I was totally impressed.

Then there were the students in my flowers and cake design class.  There is quite a bit of talent here…

I can’t wait to see what next months’ classes hold!  Good job to all my students.

Easter Cake

When I asked my family what they wanted for dessert on Easter, all 4 of them answered with “Cake”!  So I prodded further to find out what flavors and after some deliberation, everyone agreed to chocolate cake with peanut butter icing.

I also decided this year I was going to try my hand at home-made peanut butter eggs.  I’ve never made them before but being from Pennsylvania, I’ve enjoyed them many, many times!  I planned to put the two together.  Why not make an Easter basket full of peanut butter eggs?

I made two 6 inch chocolate cakes.  I torted and filled them with the peanut butter icing.  I did the basket weave with tip 21.  I tinted some peanut butter icing green to add grass to the basket for the eggs to have a place to lay.  I think it all turned out nicely.  What do you think?

Wilton Method Instructor

I’ve been meaning to blog about my coordinating job with Stahrs Cakes.  I am a Wilton Method Instructor at Hobby Lobby.  I have taught my first month of classes and am on my second month.  It’s been so fun!  I love seeing the students excited about decorating cakes the way I am.

I started in March and my first Decorating Basics class was awesome!  I will not be giving names of my students ever but I would like to post their final project cakes here.  These are in no particular order.  The students worked very hard on these cakes.  The final project was to bake and ice a cake smooth.  They could torte and fill it if they wanted to but it was not required.  Then, in class, they had about an hour to decorate their cakes based on what they learned in the course.  I was so very impressed!  They should be very proud of themselves…I know I’m proud of them.

I can’t wait to see what this month holds for my students.  I have a Decorating Basics class and a Flowers and Cake Design class.  I can’t wait to see their final projects at the end of the month. 

So a little information about the Wilton Method Cake Decorating classes at Hobby Lobby…You can go to this website to see all the information about the classes that I hold.  Also you can see the schedule of classes coming up.  You can also go to your local craft store, such as Hobby Lobby, Michael’s, or Joann’s to name a few, and ask about the classes they have going on there. 

This is so exciting for me.  Not only do I get to brush up on my basic decorating skills, I am teaching others to create cakes they are proud to serve.  So check out cake decorating classes at your local craft store today!

Zoo Cake

My son turned 4 on Saturday.  He ordered up a “Giraffe Cake”.  I asked if it would be ok to make giraffes to put on the cake instead of a big cake that looked like a giraffe and he said, “Yes, and monkeys, and hippos, and tortoises ’cause those are my favorites.”  So I went to work. 

My son’s favorite color is green so naturally the icing had to be green.  I tinted vanilla buttercream grass-green and also a little moss-green for a contrast.  I also made a small batch of chocolate buttercream for the tree trunks.  The cake was chocolate, his favorite.  I stacked 6 inch layers on top of 10 inch layers.  The animals were all made from modeling chocolate.  This was my first attempt with modeling chocolate and I love it!  It’s so much easier to work with than fondant and it tastes way better.

The hippos had to be placed in blue water, naturally…

The  monkeys near a tree…

The tortoises in the grass with some leaves to eat.  We were informed that turtles are the ones that swim so these were tortoises. 🙂

And the giraffes were near his name, of course.

He was pretty pleased with his fourth birthday cake.  I have to say that I was too!

Cake Pops!

I am so excited to announce that we are offering Cake Pops!  I mean, really, what’s not to love about these treats?  Cake, icing, all mushed together, and on a convenient stick!  Bakerella really knew what she was doing when she thought to make them into cute shapes. 

So I attempted to make the cupcake cake pops for my son’s school snack.  They are celebrating his birthday tomorrow since his actual birthday is during Spring break.  I used chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream.

I dipped them into dark chocolate for the cupcake part.  I inserted the stick and let that dry completely.  Then I dipped the tops into green vanilla because that is my son’s favorite color.  Then used some colorful nonpareils for the sprinkles and topped them off with a red M & M candy for the cherry on top.

My son was thrilled to see these displayed, knowing he will be sharing them with his friends tomorrow!

I also made some circle cake pops just to see how they would turn out.  This was my first attempt.  I used a few different colors for the candy coating and a few different toppings.

These are available for shipping, just in case you were wondering! 😉

Power Tools

A customer called at the beginning of February to find out if I do power tools for cakes.  I answered honestly with a nervous laugh by saying, “No one has asked me to do a power tool before”.  She laughed too and said that is the response she has been getting from everyone she’s called.  I asked her to send me a picture of what she was thinking of and I would let her know what I could do. 

This was the picture she sent…

We talked details and she really wanted the cake to be without the fondant.  I said I would do my best.  Her friend was turning 50 and she happened to love power tools.  When someone is turning 50, it’s a big deal, right?  So this is what it came down to…

I bought a board at Lowe’s and Jeremiah cut it to the dimensions I needed to put a cake on it.  I actually may use wood boards for all my big cakes from now on.  It was so sturdy that I didn’t have to worry about all the weight from all this cake falling through the middle!  Jeremiah used the staple gun to attach the tape measure for the border around the board.  (Seriously, you really didn’t want me to be using the staple gun :-)!

The only fondant I used was for the “accessories”.  I made a tape measure that had the 50 on it for her big birthday.  The guide for the saw was fondant tinted grey and then sprayed with edible luster spray for a sheen finish.  I also did the cord and plug were out of fondant as well.

The “board” that being cut by the saw was a quarter sheet cake with buttercream icing tinted to the blonde shade of wood.  The motor was a 6 inch round standing on its side.  The saw blade was a 10 inch round cut so it would sit flat on the “wood” piece and iced with grey tinted buttercream.   The handle on the motor was 5 marshmallows put together with toothpicks and iced with teal tinted buttercream. 

I also added ground Nillas for the “saw dust”.  The cake was all chocolate which made the whole thing very heavy!  The customer was pleased with the finished product when she picked it up.  I was glad it came together.  So now, if someone asks if I can do power tools, I guess my answer is “yes” with a nervous laugh!

Super Mario Bros

Does anyone out there remember when the Nintendo came out?  I mean the real Nintendo.  Not anything with an EX or any other letter behind it.  It was light and dark grey and you actually had to put cartridges into the machine to play?  Remember Duck Hunt?  And Super Mario Bros?  Wow I was good at those games.  Now they are even cooler with whatever system they run on.  There are more characters and things to do. 

I had a nice lady call me in a little bit of a panic this past week.  The party she was planning for her soon to be 7-year-old son had to be moved up by three weeks because of her husband deploying.  And when she searched for someone to make the cake she wanted, they were pretty overpriced.  Then she found me.  I gave her the right price and told her that I could do it.  She even dropped off figurines that she wanted to be placed on the cake and a picture of what she wanted it to look like!

So after making strawberry cakes and lots of vanilla buttercream, I went to work on decorating.  Since she had given me a lot of the figurines, we decided that adding clouds, stars, boxes, and shrubs to make it look like the game.

I’m with Mario on this one…I was ready to “high-five” anyone who was around when I was finished.  I was pretty pleased with the outcome since it was a last minute order…

I hear the birthday boy was thrilled with his surprise cake.  I was so happy to help!  I love it when things turn out so well.

Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is on Sunday.  Any Steelers fans out there?  How about Packers fans?  I’ll admit that even though I’m from Pennsylvania, I am a cheesehead!  But that’s not what you are here for, right?  You’re here to see what’s up for possible goodies to be served on the big game day, right? 

Well, last week I found the ultimate Super Bowl treats.  I discovered that bacon and chocolate really do go together!  I know, I know…it’s sounds absurd.  But I can’t stress enough that these are THE best chocolate chip cookies I have ever eaten.  And I’ve taste-tested a lot! 🙂

The salt from the maple bacon makes this chocolate chip cookie so savory.  YUM!

Then I decided to try a recipe for these Dark Chocolate Bacon cupcakes…

Oh my goodness! These are just sinful.  So, so rich.  I used a chocolate buttercream for the icing and then topped it with a few extra bacon crumbles just for kicks…

Again, YUM! 

I think I will try my hand at bacon fudge brownies next.  I hear they are just divine…

M-I-C-K-E-Y

M-O-U-S-E…Mickey Mouse (come on, sing it with me!).  Ok, enough of that fun.  On to the cake because that’s why you are really here, right? 

So my oldest daughter turned 9 last week.  For her actual party, she requested a Mickey Mouse cake.  She really wanted to have her favorite cake which is strawberry but really wanted the outside to look like Mickey.  So I suggested that we try chocolate and vanilla icing for the decorations.  So I made 2 six-inch rounds and a 10-inch round for the ears and face.  I tinted chocolate icing black and star-tipped the ears and top of Mickey’s head.  I then star-tipped the face with vanilla icing.  Then added black for the eyes, nose, and mouth with the star tip.

I tinted some vanilla buttercream red for his tongue.  And since I didn’t really want to mess up all those stars by writing on his face, I just wrote “Happy Birthday Mazie” in the leftover red icing right onto the cake board that my husband made out of a card board box.  I just put some foil over it to make it look nice!

By the way, just in case you were wondering, the chocolate icing tasted very much like dark chocolate with the strawberry cake!  I’ve never paired the two before.  I will probably do it again soon.