One Year Later...

About a year ago I entered into the world of making yummy things look pretty. I got the idea in my head that I wanted to make a layered, decorated cake. Looking at it now, its a pretty sad little cake with only the basic of decorating. However, for my first try, I was pretty proud of what I accomplished. Even better than the cake though, is the path that cake set me on. I began to explore the world of the Michael's baking aisle and listened as the icing tips, bags, and gel food colors called out to me.

At this point, I make cakes occasionally, but cookies have become my primary decorating method. The cake learning curve is much steeper than the cookie learning curve. I bring all this up because once again, I recently had another birthday. And once again, I chose to make my own cake. A year later, I've learned a lot, I've grown, yet I still found myself driven slightly crazy in making this cake! I loved how it turned out, but i forget sometimes how many ways a cake can go wrong. That's all I'm going to say about that.

This cake is a modified version of a cake picture I saw several months ago. What excited me most about this cake was the big flower on top. I really wanted to see if I could make. Thankfully, the creator of it had some awesome youtube tutorials that were really easy to follow. Once I switched from gumpaste to fondant, making that flower was practically the easiest part of the cake!

A Tiered Cake!

I know..it's been forever. Here, I tell you all about my new oven and then show you none of the fruits of what has come from it! Truthfully, until yesterday, everything out of it has been stuff other than cookie/cake decorating. However, you don't get yesterdays cookies yet ;) Today's post is about the first tiered cake my friend, L, and I made. It was in honor of a friend who moved across the country.

It isn't perfect, but it stayed together and upright, looked cute, and tasted yummy-so pretty much everything we could ask for.

The cake In progress...2 layers stacked, one more to go!

Birthday Pinwheel Cake!

I married into an awesome family. However, this awesome family has 3 June birthdays, all within about 5 days of each other (the birthdays are my MIL's, her sons,and my Sister in law who married into the family, in case you were wondering how they managed all those close birthdays). Really, who does that? It's like Christmas in June- people to buy for, lists to get, etc. Actually, it's kind of fun celebrating thing the all birthdays all at once. Thankfully, they are all willing to share, so we just do one birthday bash for all 3.

I knew I wanted to make a cake, but what to make for 3 people??? I had elaborate grand visions in my head, but thankfully reality intervened before I committed to anything in my mind. SO....I just picked a fun, summery cake that I'd been wanting to make for a while. Pinwheels and polkadots!

I got the idea for this cake from this blog here.

Happy June Birthdays!

A Spring Cake

A couple of week ago, I had a baking fail. Now, I don't know about you, but I hate that. Especially when it is something relatively simple that I've tried (and failed) at before. ugg! Maybe one day I'll tell that story. However, this post isn't about that, it's about the cake I made the day after that to make myself feel better. To be fair, I had been wanting to practice my buttercream frosting techniques and had been itching to make a cake anyways. The previous days failure just neccesitated the need to bake something and have it actually turn out. I'm certainly still learning the ins an outs of cake decorating (there's a ton to learn), but it was fun to practice.

So without further ado, here's my cake-

Mario Brothers Cake!

My Brother-in-law's birthday was a few weeks ago and I offered to make him a cake. After coming up with a few ideas, I decided to go with a Mario Brothers cake. I thought it would be a fun throwback to childhood.

The outside is buttercream frosting with fondant decorations. The castle walls are made out of fondant and "glued" together with candy melts. I also attached sticks to the inside of each wall so I could stick it into the cake and have it stand upright (worked great, except a bunch of the icing came off with the castle when I pulled it out to cut the cake.

You'll notice that Mario is just a little print-out :( This saddened me, but there was no other option (other than not having Mario at all on the cake and that just didn't seem right!). I tried to have an actual Mario. Really, I did. My first thought (though she had/has no idea) was to see if my friend who is good at fondant figures could do one for me. However, she and her family got sick that week and so I didn't get to spend the time with her I normally would. Then, I figured, well I can do this! So I got started....and about halfway through I could tell it wasn't going well. He just wasn't looking right and I hadn't gotten anywhere near doing his face (which I knew would be the hardest part). I had already checked a nearby cake store for a plastic Mario figurine and they didn't have any. So there you go-that's how I ended up with a Mario print-out.

Valentine's Cake

And now begins posting catch-up....

I made a cake  for V-day, it was a fun 3-layer, 6 in. cake. It was my first time do 6 in. rounds and my first time doing 3 layers. I think because of inexperience, it ended up being a little lopsided and the top layer was a bit smaller than the others. Certainly not perfect, but I learned for the future! I did the hearts using a technique called quilling. They were made out of fondant, but the actual cake was covered in buttercream.

Helicopter Cake!

My Brother in Law's birthday was in the beginning of December and since he is really into RC helicopters, I thought it would be fun to surprise him with a helicopter cake (admission-the surprise factor may have had to do with uncertainty of how it would turn out in addition to a surprise just being fun).

I used my trusty pinterest and google search skills to find inspiration and then set about creating my own version of things I saw! I was really pleased overall with how it turned out.  I did find myself  slightly dismayed at how small a 9 x 13 cake is-haha. Its certainly big enough and feeds enough, but after looking at a bunch of professional cakes and watching too many episodes of cake boss, I had somewhat inaccurate estimations of the amount of cake I had to work with ;) oh well, I made it work anyways!

For those curious, I used butter cream frosting for the edges of the street, grass, and the stream. I used fondant (and cookie cutters) to create the helicopter pad and the rocks.
The bridge was made from graham crackers and fondant and was the only part I would do differently if I were to make this cake again. I was never really happy with how the bridge turned out but i didn't have the time or extra icing to re-do it.
The helicopter was a toy helicopter we had around the house.

Here are the pics-

More baking!

Well. I found out I passed one of my exams! I won't know about the other one for a while, but at least it's done with!

In early September, I made my birthday cake! It certainly won't win any awards and the writing is quite crooked, BUT, it was my first layered cake (just 2 layers), it didn't fall over, and it sure tasted good-so I was pleased.

A little while later, a friend and I made some more cake pops. They turned out pretty well, though I learned the lesson that even though making them bigger might SEEM like a great idea, it really isn't-unless I want them all to fall off their sticks, that is :) oh well, ya live and learn.