Cake #28: Happy Birthday, Lynne

Since I was somewhat pressed for time this week, I chose this relatively simple design to celebrate a co-workers birthday. The cake was merely frosted in a basic white-buttercream; then, I added various strips of colored-fondant to create the exterior border.

After completing the fondant strips, I completed the look by adding purple-buttercream dots around the top and bottom of the stripes. Finally, I pulled out my best penmanship to add her name as the final touch.

Cake #19: Ducks in a Barrel

Although I first saw this cake used for a baby shower, I thought it was just too cute not to try myself! I simply had to start by frosting an 8" round cake in light blue buttercream. Then, I added 1.25" strips of brown fondant to the sides to create the barrel; if I were to recreate this cake, I would use much thinner strips to create the illusion of a taller barrel. To complete the cake, I merely added two rubber ducks (purchased at Walmart for 50¢) and small blue bubbles crafted from fondant.

This cake was extremely simple and quite the hit at work! Plus, the evenly-sized strips of brown fondant along the sides made cutting the cake a breeze!

Cake #16: Fondant and Gumpaste Finale

Tonight was my final Wilton cake class. Although I'm somewhat glad to be finished (not having the pressure of having to bake a cake each Monday and not lugging all my boxes of cake decorating supplies to Michaels), I'm going to be at a loss without my weekly cake instruction. I guess I'll just have to set up a cake schedule for myself...I definitely have a lot of ideas I'd like to try! Thank God for Cake Central!

For my finale cake, I decided to make several new gumpaste flowers from the Wilton gumpaste kit I recently purchased. I made a handful of pink orchids, which were extremely time consuming; unfortunately, they are also extremely fragile, so most of my orchids broke before I could even attach them to my cake. I also made numerous blue sweet peas, which proved to be much easier than the orchids! I had hoped to make many, many more flowers than actually ended up on the cakes, but with the extra difficulty of the gumpaste flowers that just didn't materialize. I'm sure the people at work won't mind!

Cake # 15: Pansies and Daisies for Sale

One of my co-workers is having a special family function, so I agreed to make this cake for her. Since her mother-in-law's favorite flower is the pansy and her mother likes daisies, I combined the two to create a wreath effect around the cake's top.

I iced this cake in a light-yellow buttercream and then covered the sides with the basket weave. I created the pansies from the basic royal icing and the daisies and leaves from fondant. I was really happy with how the daisies and leaves came out...the pansies could have been a little better though. However, once it was all combined together on the cake, the end result was quite pleasant - I hope she likes it too!

Cake #14: More Fun with Fondant...and Gumpaste!

Tonight, in my latest Wilton Course (Fondant and Gumpaste), we learned several new techniques, which we could add to our cakes tonight. Among the techniques were: the draped cloth, handkerchiefs, the zig-zag swags and borders.

I chose not to add all these new elements to my cake, instead going for a more elegant look of the draped cloth and roses. I am extremely pleased with how well this cake turned out; after my last disaster with my co-worker's birthday cake, I was beginning to doubt my abilities. Fortunately, all the gumpaste and fondant things were extremely easy and provided a real boost to my esteem!

Cake #13: Happy Birthday, Stephanie

This week, one of my favorite co-workers has her birthday. When I asked her what type of cake she wanted, she requested that I make a large Starbuck's cup. Since I'm not comfortable actually sculpting a cake, I decided to make a stacked cake with a smaller Starbuck's cup of Rice Krispies covered in fondant. However, when I tried to cover the Rice Krispies in fondant, it didn't turn out exactly as planned.

Having to scrap my plans at the last minute, I had to hurriedly re-plan the design. Being slightly unhappy about this turn of events, I simply added a few quick buttercream decorations and called it quits. I'm sure my co-workers will care much more about the inside rather than what's on the exterior!

Cake #10: Stacks and Stacks of Cake

Tonight was the final night of my Wilton Course III: Fondant and Tiered Cakes; for my final project, I made this three-tiered stacked cake. (The top and bottom cakes are chocolate with an Oreo buttercream filling, and the middle cake is lemon with a lemon custard filling.) All three cakes are covered in the Wilton fondant, which I dyed blue.

To decorate the cake, I piped buttercream flowers along the sides and then used a paint brush to soften the edges and give the flowers an embroidered-look (hence the reason this technique is called "brushed embroidery"). To finish the cake, I added a multi-looped fondant bow atop the cake and a ribbon border around the bottom of each cake.

Although I am fairly content with the finished cake, I definitely feel there's lots of room for improvement. I again had difficulty in getting the fondant to smoothly cover the cake; however, I did find that my ability improved as I did each of the 3 cakes. Fortunately, the ribbon borders were a big help in covering some of the mistakes. I also want to comment on the great amount of time and energy I had to invest into this cake. I would say that to bake and decorate this cake took approximately 12 hours! I can understand why wedding cakes are so expensive!!!

Cake #9: Fondant Surprise

For my first fondant cake, I decided to make the classic "gift" cake. I had originally hoped to make this cake yellow with a blue bow; however, since the cake inside is chocolate with a raspberry filling, I thought the yellow/blue/pink combo would be a little too off-putting. Instead, I decided to use green and pink to coordinate with filling.

The most difficult aspect of the cake was actually getting the green icing to lay flat against the cake. Apparently, square cakes are the hardest to cover in fondant since you're trying to cover a square object with a rounded piece of icing. (It would be kinda' like trying to wrap a present without having any visible seams in the gift wrap!) Fortunately, I was able to cover many of the mistakes with the bow and circles.

The bow is constructed of 5 smaller strips of fondant which were shaped individually and then assembled on the cake once they had dried. The circles were merely cut using a set of different-sized cookie cutters. To finish the cake (and to cover all those unsightly cracks along the bottom) I added a simple dot border using white buttercream.

Overall, I am fairly happy with my first attempt with fondant. One of my friends mentioned that this cake looks very "Dr. Seuss-ish", and I have to agree with him....perhaps I'll have to serve it with ham and eggs!

A Whole New Rose!

Tonight in my Wilton Decorating Class, we finally began working with fondant. Now, while I had a great deal of difficulty in actually covering the entire cake with the fondant, the fondant rose was remarkable simple - ok, perhaps simple isn't the correct term. With numerous steps the fondant rose making process can definitely be time consuming; however, none of the steps are particularly difficult and the finished result looks pretty darn nice! I've yet to decided what I'm going to do on my final course cake, but the fondant rose is certainly looking like a contender.