Introducing the puppy cake!

When I made the horse cake two weeks ago, my 12 year old neighbor asked for a cake of her dog for her party this past weekend.

Making the horse had been good practice and I felt pretty confident about making the dog, a Shepard with one blue eye, one brown. In fact, I was pretty excited to try the shape again as I had learned a lot when making the horse.

The beginning went great. I baked the cake in loaf pans, stacked them together and used chocolate frosting as a middle layer and as a glue to keep the pieces together. Then I shaped the cake, carefully cutting with a bread knife to get the desired shape, pictured below.
Using a star tip and vanilla and chocolate buttercream, I began decorating. Then the humidity set in, making the buttercream too soft. October is usually a great month where I live, with cool temps and rain. But the tradewinds decided to stop this week and we were left with high levels of humidity and heat. I began my routine of putting the cake in the fridge for 10 minutes at a time. This worked for a while until I opened the fridge and saw that the entire muzzle of the dog had fallen off and was now lying on the bottom of the fridge - with a white frosting trail on every shelf.

I originally had the nose resting on the feet with a gap below - a major flaw in the plan. The frosting made the cake too heavy and it collapsed and fell forward.

Looking back, it was pretty funny and I should have paused to take a picture of the fridge and the nose at the bottom with the body at the top, but I was so concerned about the time that I immediately focused on fixing the problem.

Fortunately I had cake left over from the shaping so I cut off a large square piece and placed it on the cake board in place of the nose. It made his head look bigger, but also made him look like he was resting his head between his paws and not on them.

I quickly decorated it with the buttercream and the nose turned out great! I know now to be wary of design flaws for the next time.
The eyes and nose were made out of fondant and decorated with my food coloring pens.
My neighbor was thrilled and the cake was a big hit at the party. I think I'm getting the hang of these shaped cakes! I have blog requests for a tortoise and a camel. Stay tuned. :)

A Horse is a Horse...

My neighbor turned 12 this past weekend and is an avid rider, spending most of her free time at the barn. I offered to make her a horse cake as the hubby and I were going over to their house for dinner on her birthday and she eagerly nodded. Her favorite flavor: Chocolate. Great, chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. That was the easy part.

I was stuck on how to do it. I first thought about doing a sheet cake in the shape of a horse's head, but that wouldn't be a challenge.

So I tried my first 3D cake. After arranging all of my baking pans in different configurations, I finally decided on baking in two loaf pans and four mini loaf pans.
Slicing off the end of one loaf, I added it to make the rise in the head and a curve in the back.
I frosted each portion with buttercream as I transferred it to a decorated baking sheet. I used wrapping paper but then covered that in plastic wrap - I wasn't sure how the paper would take the frosting. At this point, the hubby and I joked that it looked like an alligator.
From watching various cake shows, I knew I should make the ears out of rice krispies but we didn't have any in the house, so I used cornflakes. They worked okay, but I think I would use rice krispies in the future. Unfortunately at this point my battle with the humidity had begun, so the cake was decorated in 10 minute increments, placed in the fridge between segments.
I used fondant for the eyes, nose, mouth and horseshoes.
Even my cat seemed interested by the strange creation on the table.
It wasn't easy and took all day but I learned a lot and I know the next one will be even better - in two weeks when she's having a party with her friends and has requested a cake like this but of her dog. She also pointed out that the back legs of the dog need to have a round bit if he's sitting down. Oy. :) Watch this space...

Speaking of Cakes...

Here are pictures of the cake I made for the hubby's birthday two years ago. I have better quality pictures somewhere, so when I find those, I'll repost.
The theme of the cake was inspired by the cover of Woman's Day magazine, although I changed it a bit and added a canoe in there too as we canoe frequently.
It took me a few days to decorate all of the teddy grahams with royal icing. I didn't have a cake decorating kit then (as I do now) so all of the piping on the teddy's was done with a toothpick.
All of the surfboards and blankets were created out of Airhead bars and the sand was made out of crushed vanilla wafers. The flavor of the cake was his favorite - carrot cake with creamcheese frosting.

What I didn't factor in was the level of humidity on the day I decorated the cake. The place we lived at the time did not have air conditioning and being that it was a very humid August day, everything did not go as planned including having the frosting fall off in globs. I also had created palm trees for the cake which folded in half five minutes after being placed on the cake. Fortunately I had enough "sand" to cover the mishap and decorated the rest of the cake ten minutes at a time - ten minutes in the fridge, ten minutes out, ten minutes in the fridge, and so on.

Cake decorating has only gotten easier for me from here!

Baby Shower Cake!

One of my closest friends is having a baby girl in September and I was honored to make a cake for her recent baby shower, themed with pink, yellow and white.
Her favorite cake is funfetti so I made two 13x9 funfetti cakes and stacked them together with funfetti frosting in the middle. Then a layer of buttercream frosting to serve as the crumb layer.
The crumb layer locks in all the crumbs so when it is time to put the next layer of buttercream down, the frosting is crumb free.
The start of the baby blocks...
Baby blocks complete. The long sides says BABY and the short sides says 09.
Because the theme was ducks, I bought a small duck mold and pressed pink and yellow fondant into it.
Once the fondant had slightly hardened, I lightly painted the beaks and eyes with food coloring
and placed them atop the cake with some baby roses made out of fondant.
This is the only picture I took of the inside of the cake which was quickly devoured at the shower.
Total number of hours spent on this cake: 12. :) But the mommy-to-be was thrilled and that made it all worth it.

Play It Again...

I belong to a book club and every month we meet and discuss the book while eating the goodies that everyone has brought. It was only recently that I decided I should make a cake to go along with the book! I don't know why I didn't think of it before!

This month's book was The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason. It was a good read, about a man traveling to Burma to tune a piano. So of course, I made a piano cake.


The cake was carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I found the cream cheese frosting slightly harder to decorate with than the buttercream I have been using on other cakes, but it turned out okay! And it was a big hit at the bookclub!

The next book might be a little tougher - Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. But I have till August to read it and plan the cake! Watch this space!

Wedding Cakes

Our good friends were getting married and I offered to make their wedding cakes for them. I thought it would be a fun adventure, but as soon as I said I would, I started to panic. There was a lot on the line here. These were wedding cakes! After convincing myself that I could do it and a couple of practice rounds, and I started making the cakes - a guitar hero cake for the groom and a white wedding cake for the bride.

The bride's cake was a three layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting in the middle and covered with vanilla buttercream. Everything made from scratch.
Two out of the three layers ready to go.
After all three levels were together, I applied what is called a crumb layer. This is a thin layer of frosting that basically glues all the crumbs to the cake. This is done so when you do the outside layer of frosting, crumbs won't show. And it was important as it was a chocolate cake with white frosting, and the crumbs would really stand out.
I then frosted the rest of the cake with vanilla butter cream and decorated using a star tip.
For the center, I made some small flowers out of fondant. I have to say, I was quite impressed. I didn't think I could do that!
The cakes were a huge hit at the party and everyone loved them. You can see the grooms cake below which was a lot easier as I happen to have a guitar shaped cake pan and the cake was only one level.
Anyone need any cakes made? I think this could be a new path for me!

Introducing the Maui Cake

I'm calling this the Maui cake and you'll soon find out why.

It all started when our neighbor brought over some bananas from his yard and the hubby said he would like me to make a banana cake. I'd never made a cake with bananas before so I immediately turned to the Food Network. After reading all the reviews, I chose one of the recipes and baked the cake which turned out great!
As the cake was cooling, we decided it would be fun to put pineapple in the middle. I cut the cake in two pieces,
And then covered one side with frosting and slices of pineapple.
I carefully placed the two pieces of cake back together and created a coconut buttercream frosting for the top.

And to top it off, I sprinkled it with shredded coconut.

It was a completely tropical cake - Bananas, coconut, and pineapple - and tasted great! In a way, it was like a pina colada cake!
This experimental baking is fun! I'm going to try some new combinations in the future. And the Maui Cake will definitely be made again in this household!