Pimp My Jeep!

So in the last post I talked about the Baker's Cut-Up cake book. Well my kids like to look through it, and they were doing it one day and I saw this truck cake and I thought I would try to make it for my good friend Kelli for her birthday. She has a Jeep and she loves to go 4-wheeling. So this picture was my inspiration.

I did not have the correct pan size it called for so I just made a 9x13 and made my cuts from that. It turned out that it made a pimped out version of the Jeep! I used ding dong for the wheels to make it easier, they were a little too big, but the mini donuts were too small so the ding dongs kept up the pimped out look!

This also was my first time using ganache to cover the cake before covering it with fondant, and it worked out great.

I was going to be out of town on Kelli's birthday so I decided I would make it early, and I invited her and my other friends over for a movie night and then surprised Kelli with the cake.

I have known Kelli since 1998 when I was in college and needed a room to rent. I was looking through some wanted ads and found an ad that seemed good. When I called, Kelli answered and I told her I would like to come look at the house and room for rent. We set up a time and she said this to me. "If a girl named Trish answers the door just walk away!" I was wondering what the heck that was about, but went to the appointment anyway. I got there and Kelli answered the door and I took a tour of the house. I remember her showing me the whole house even her room and she had the whole The X-Files tv-series on video tape and that made me think she might be kind of a sci-fi geek. But I liked the place and felt good about living there.

Kelli quickly became a great close friend and we hung out a lot. I moved back east for a year, and then we became room mates again and then even bought townhomes next to each other. Kelli is the kind of person that would do anything for you. She has a very caring heart, and does not think about herself first which has upset me at times. Many times I had told her she needs to not always say yes. I am sure she has been better at doing that, but still to this day even after I have moved away for many years, and we don't hang out like we used to, she is willing to help me out in anyway she can.

Happy Birthday Kelli! Thanks for being a most spectacular friend this girl could ever have!

First Wedding Cake

A few weeks ago I got a message from a dear friend, KayLynn, from the old neighborhood we used to live in. KayLynn took care of my children during the time I left for work and my husband came home. She was amazing and willing to always help us out and my son loved her. I miss her dearly and wished we still lived close.

KayLynn's daughter was getting married and she wondered if I would do a small wedding cake. I asked my husband if I should do it since the few times I have made cakes I get a little crazy and all stressed out but I told him that I think I will be fine.

She sent me a couple of designs that they liked and I said I could do either but I also showed her a design I found in The Contemporary Cake Decorating Bible by Lindy Smith. I thought it would be cute with her colors and I have been wanting to try it out. They both liked it and so I went ahead with my preparations.



I made butter-cream flavored MMF and I LOVED it. I could just cut it up and eat it as candy.


I made a vanilla bean cake and did a raspberry cream filling on the bottom tier and a lemon cream filling on the top tier.

It was a little stressful as the day I was covering the cakes with fondant, the lovely weather decided to rain and be humid. I live in the dessert and humidity is something we usually never have and I think it made the fondant a little difficult to work with. But I powered through it.



I am so grateful to KayLynn for trusting me to do her daughters wedding cake especially since it was my first wedding cake ever!!




They added their own flowers to the top and here is a picture they sent of the displayed cake.

Mia's Birthday

My good friend asked me to make a birthday cake for her daughters 5th birthday. I was flattered. First we talked about doing a Disney Princess cake but she saw the dog and cat cakes I had made previously this year and since Mia loves her dog so much she decided to do the duo.



This is the third time I have made this adorable duo but this time we get a black dog and grey kitty.
I just love the tails. :)



I made a chocolate cake and used "The best frosting I've ever had" to fill and ice the cake. It seriously is so yummy especially paired with chocolate cake!



My friend said that Mia tried to eat the animals but they were too hard. I used gum paste this time, I felt bad after she told me that cause I could have just used fondant and she probably could have eaten it. But she said they put them in a bog cause Mia wanted to keep them.

Please Toss that Bouquet!

Some type of bouquets are meant for tossing in the air this bouquet may have caused some one to "toss" up the contents of their stomach. Here is the tale of my cupcake disaster................

I saw a bouquet of cupcake flowers on a site some where, not exactly sure where, but I thought it would be a cute idea to give to a friend in my neighborhood whose mother just recently passed away. This friend is on a gluten/diary free diet so I searched the internet for recipes, I have made gluten free sugar cookies before and they were not too bad, the texture is not so great but from what I have heard there is not much you can do with the texture of gluten free when making cakes.

So I made the cupcakes and tasted one that day and it was pretty good. Enter the problem I thought she was going to be back from out of town the next day but in fact she was out of town until Monday and I made the cupcakes on Friday. Well I guess keeping cupcakes from drying out it a little difficult. I read that refrigerating them would dry them out and so you might be able to freeze them if wrapped well so I did what I read but it was to no avail.




Monday I frosted and decorated and then dropped them off and told her I was afraid they were totally dried out. When we came back home my son and husband ate a couple of the leftovers and my husband said they were indeed REALLY dry and my 5 year old wouldn't even eat the whole thing.  :(

I was mortified! I quickly sent my friend a message telling her to just throw them away. I have no idea if she did, I can only hope that she did and that she did not bite into one and then try to swallow it down or spit it out crumb by crumb. But guess what is even worse.... I think I am a decent baker and that my skills are not that bad, so I have a bad day and I decide to take my DRIED out gluten free cupcakes to my friend whose brother just happens to be the right hand chef to celebrity chef Curtis Stone.

Why yes, Steven, the brother and Curtis Stone's right hand man is indeed at my friends home along with all of her siblings....... That right there my friends is why I am the defintion of stupidity!!

Good thing out of this is that it has made me determined to find a gluten/diary free treat that I can make that will actually taste good so I can redeem my baker skills.

P.S. the frosting was fine. It's not to hard to make gluten/dairy free frosting you can just use margarine or shortening instead of butter. Maybe she just scraped off the frosting and ate that. I can only hope.

Ombre Lemon Cake

Ombre is everywhere lately and this is my spin on it.

I thought I would just try frosting a cake in an ombre style using lemon flavored butter-cream. I saw this cake over on Bake at 350's blog and thought I would try out the Lemon-Vanilla Bean Layer Cake. I was not too impressed with the cake, mine turned out very dense but the lemon curd was yummy.

Anyway I just crudely piped on the icing in the three different shades from top to bottom and then smoothed it out with a decorating comb/icing smoother, let it crust and then did the VIVA paper towel smoothing technique. I quickly made a Gerber daisy out of gum-paste to top it off.

It was not my best effort that is why there is just one shot that I am sharing because this one didn't show off too many of my mistakes. :)

When I was in Light Room exporting my picture I accidentally clicked on a preset filter and I really liked it so I am sharing it as well. It actually shows the three different shades better.

Wilton Course 4

Back in February I started taking the Wilton Method classes at my local Michaels. You can also take them at JoAnn's or Hobby Lobby. I tool course two and then wanted to take course 3 but no one else signed up so then I ended up doing both course 2 and 4 in March. It was a busy Month. Course two was making all kinds of flowers out of royal icing and then we did the basket weave as well on a cake for the last class. Click here to see my cake.

Anyway the course 4 is advanced gum-paste and fondant, which really is just gum-paste. We made all these flowers below and then on the last class wired them together. The flowers are edible not sure I would want to make these for cakes, just buying fresh ones would be easier and cheaper for a customer to have on a cake!




Gum-paste can be pretty fragile especially with these flowers because you have to roll them out pretty thing. You can see on the flower on the right one of my petals broke when I was trying to add it too my corsage.



Stargazer Lilly

High Heeled Fondant

So it was my friends birthday this last week and I have been wanting to try out covering a cake with fondant. I had never tried it before so I figured I would give it a shot. As you can see it was not very successful.
Let me tell you that professional cake decorators have to have some upper body strength, cause I sure did have a hard time rolling out my fondant thin. Pretty sure my problem was that this was too thick but once I had it on I could not take it off with out ripping it to shreds so I just did my best with trying to hide all the flaws.
I saw a tutorial on how to make a high heel shoe here and template here.
I thought it would be perfect for Michelle. I changed it to an open toe shoe but was happy with my first attempt at the shoe and it seemed to be a hit at the dinner celebration.
I will continue to practice and learn and hopefully one day it will improve.

First Customer Cake

So a few weeks ago I got a message on FB from Jen. Jen myself and our husbands were in the same Bradley Method Birthing class a little over 5 years ago.

So fun were the weekly nights of learning how to focus, making low noises and watching live births on tape!! Mikko and I did not finish our class since our son decided to come a month early but what we learned in that class was great and we used the methods again when our daughter was born.

Ok well let's come back to the present. I get a message from Jen saying she really likes the pictures of all the cookies and cakes I have posted on my Facebook page and asks me if I am interested in making her daughters birthday cake.

I was a little surprised as cakes our not really a strong point for me but said I would give it a shot.

Her daughter, Paris wanted a dog and cat cake and after I realized she did not want a cut out cake but a cat and dog made of fondant, I told her I did not know how to do that.

A day later I thought well maybe I should try to do it. I mean hey I have watched plenty of cake decorating shows where they make things out of fondant, so that means I could do it right? :)

Well I Googled a dog fondant tutorial and found this. I watched a few times then did a practice run. I then just looked at a picture of a cat made from fondant and then made the cat.

This picture is the original cat and dog that I did.

I sent the pics to Jen and she liked it and so I was "hired" to make the cake.

Paris picked all the colors for the cake including the dog and cat. She also wanted a Vanilla cake with lemon filling and lemon frosting.

I think it turned out pretty good. What do you think!

I love the little tails, so I had to take this shot.

I hope that they enjoyed the cake. Happy Birthday to Paris.