Alex's Graduation

Alex played basketball for Mercyhurst Prep so his grandmother requested a cake to represent his high school career.  The jersey was cut from a 17x22 Chocolate cake with Vanilla Custard filling. It is covered in a deep green fondant and trimmed in white.  The basket ball is half of the ball pan with the lettering and emblem hand painted on.

Alex will be attending Daemen College in the fall for pre-med. Therefore, the second sheet cake was cut from a White cake with Chocolate Custard to represent a lab coat. Again it is covered in fondant with fondant embellishments.

Congratulations Alex!

Tom and Barb's 50 Anniversary

50 YEARS

The cake features a 10' Chocolate cake with Fudge filling and a 7" White cake with Raspberry compote.   The cake is frosted with Buttercream.  

On the base cake, is a scallop cut fondant ribbon painted with Gold Luster Dust and trimmed out with buttercream shells tip.  The top tier is decorated with piped cornelli lace.  

The arches are made of fondant painted gold and the top border is piped shell. 

The roses were made of white gumpaste and dusted with gold.

Dad's Dog Food

Jim retired as the Pilot of Dad's Dog Food.  His cake is White with Strawberry Compote.  A week in advance of the celebration I cut and dried the plane wings and tale of mexican paste.  The logo is from the internet and printed as an edible image.  The cake is covered in fondant.

Ireland's First Birthday

That all important FIRST birthday....Little Ireland is the daughter of a couple who's wedding cake can be seen at Heidi in August 2011 of this blog.

 Ireland's cake consists of two tiers, the bottom is Chocolate Peanut Butter cake with Peanut Butter mousse and the top tier is Italian Cream cake with Raspberry Compote.  It is covered in Buttercream and the embellishments are fondant.

This is her little "smash cake"  It is a 3" white cake.

Ashley and Tony

Several weeks in prior to the wedding date, I started the flowers for this cake. 

 This is a filler flower (these are not always based on a real flower, for this cake, it allows the brides apple green color to be incorporated into the finished bouquet)

                 Seven of the flowers are wired together to create a cluster once they have dried. Fourteen groups were needed.

                          

  

These are the steps to make baby's breath.  The JEM cutter cuts 6 blooms at once.  I then insert one stamen into the center of each bloom and then tape the 6 blooms together on a 26 gauge wire.

I chose to make the centers for the white Peonies.  First, white silk thread wrapped around my fingers 50-60 times.  I then attach a 26 gauge wire with floral tape.  Then I dampen the ends of the silk thread with gum glue and insert it into a dish of sugar tex to create pollen.  If you do not have access to sugar tex you may also create this by using grits.

Once the centers have dried overnight you are ready to attach the first row of petals.  I cut the petal from gumpaste and using the ball tool create a cup shape with the clay and attached 5 of them to the center.  Again allow this to dry several hours before adding the next row of petals.   I generally dry the first two rows of petals 24 hours each to insure that it has good support.

This is the flower spray being put togethers (I am using a cake pan the size of the tier for measurement).

The whole cake was White cake with Raspberry Compote.  It was frosted in buttercream with fondant ribbons at the base of each tier.  The filigree was done in a free-hand style of  black buttercream.

Morgan

Our niece, Morgan, graduated from high school this year and asked me to make the cake for her party. Morgan holds 17 World Jump Roping Titles.  We are VERY PROUD of her!!! 

I first molded the torso of gumpaste and allowed it to dry for several weeks as it would be the main support for the rest of the figure.  (I used a 20 gauge wire to insert the holes needed to attach the arms, and then into the trunk of the torso to attach the legs.)

After a few weeks I molded the legs and arms.  The arms were bent into position and dried on a block of foam rubber for a few days.  The legs were bent and attached immediately. The separation in the two pieces will be filled in when the legs are dry.

After a week of drying the legs, I then filled in around the base of the torso with gumpaste.  I also filled in any dents made while handling and attached the support arm.  The wire extending from the hand with be inserted into the cake to hold the figure in place.

                                                              One last arm to attached.

Once the whole figure is dry, I sand it using a Dremel tool to remove any seams from molding.   The face is painted and hair and clothes finish off the figure.

This cake was baked in the Fat Daddios Triangle pans.  The bottom tier was Chocolate with Fudge and the top two tiers were White with Raspberry Compote.  It was frosting in buttercream and trimmed in fondant.  The white roses were gumpaste.

This is Morgan!!! She is amazing with a jumprope, and we all had a wonderful time at her celebration.

Crab Fest 2013

  I had a request for small treats which guests could serve themselves during a crab boil.  The client choose cake pops, mini cupcakes, fondant sea shells and sugar cookies to arrange on her dessert table.   (Well I did remember to take pictures of the cake pops, cupcakes and shells but not the sugar cookies.  I was hoping to get a picture once the table was complete, however, I have not received it from the client, so I decided to post what I did have)

                                                The five cake pops included:   A sand pail

                   A starfish. (The texture is made of dried sugarveil crumbs and powdered food coloring)

                            Of course, the CRAB (his legs and claws are made of chocolate clay)

                                    A solstice sun (again the rays are made of chocolate clay)

                                       and a beach ball (the stripes are fondant which is applied
                                                    while the chocolate is still wet)

I made the shells about a week in advance to allow them to air dry slowly (this was difficult as we were having a lot of heat and humidity, so it took a full week to get them to the correct dryness)  The are generally used as decoration; however children love the idea that they can eat them :)

The mini cupcakes were five different flavors: Key Lime with Lime Curd, Devils Food Chocolate with Fudge, White with Strawberry Compote, Pina Colada with Pineapple Compote, and Chocolate Peanut Butter with Peanut Butter Mousse.  I placed a casted sugar shells or tropical fish atop the buttercream.