Fly, Fight, Win.

I am so proud of our Nation's troops, regardless of branch, however, as an Air Force Wife, I will admit to having a soft spot. That's one of the reasons I was so happy to do this cake! (That and it's practice for the next time Eric needs one at work!).

This cake is half chocolate, and half white, on each layer. The bottom is four layers high, the top is made from two higher layers. Regular buttercream and marshmallow fondant. 

This is the first time that I worked with draping fondant, and I have to say, it is -way- easier than ruffles. I may have to do a different sort of princess cake for Chloe's next birthday!

The finished cake is magnificent. It's huge, weighty, moist, and delicious.  Completely worthy of the occasion!

It's coming up... poppies!

This cake seriously moved me, because it was for her Mother-In-Law. Now I've had bad in-laws before, I have, and I get the whole stereotype for them and everything, but this time around I am blessed with great in-laws, and it makes me so happy everytime I come across others who have such a good relationship with their in-laws. Family is family, whether you're married into it or not, and I wish more people realized that.

This cake turned out terrific! It's classy and understated with a bright pop of color in the form of... you guessed it, Poppies! (There's a story behind them that made it even more touching!).

I absolutely love this quilting with the black brads (chocolate buttercream). They give the cake a lovely texture. 

These poppies were made using the same method I use for my gum paste roses. They're adorable, and the center is chocolate buttercream as well. 

Vrooom vrooom!

I was very excited for this cake, not just because I'm excited for every cake, but because this time, I got to use THEIR family recipe. I LOVE family recipes, LOVE, and I wish I had more from my family. So, I am ridiculously happy every time I get to see another family recipe, much less use it! The whipped icing was a bit difficult to work with, and if I do this again in the future I think I will add a stabilizer, that way I can do more decorative work, but boy, did this cake turn out good!

There's a lot of detail on the car, however, it was rather difficult to photograph. 

I'll tell you what, this guy is lucky to have such a thoughtful wife :) 

They did the MASH....

The monster mash!   I was blessed to be able to work on these cakes for a very lucky little girl's birthday!  A quarter sheet cake, a small monster cake, and lots and lots of cupcakes! 

 Along the side and the top of the cake you can see monster eyes peeking out, the sides of the cake were intended as caves, and the eyes and bright colors tie it in to the monster cake and cupcakes. The green that was fur for several of the little monsters is brought to the fore as moss, black piping is used to hint at the depth of the caves while not detracting from the bright purple. 

 The piping is rough and jagged, but still somewhat elegant, perfect for the monster theme of the party. I also brought the eyes and moss detail out onto the top of the cake. 

 These little guys were so much fun to make! My girls loved them also so I had to make extra for them. Can't blame them though! Who wouldn't want to munch on these?

This is the birthday cake speficially for the birthday girl! Not pictured are the chocolate antennae with hearts at the ends. These were very delicate so I did not insert them until right before pickup. 

And, I'm leaving you with a picture of my own Littlest Monster. Rawr!

Teenage Mutant..

 Ninja tuuurtles, turtles in a half shell, TURTLE POWER!  Ok, so obviously me and my sisters may have watched a bit too much of the cartoon when we were younger. Apparently, it's been remade, and although I'm not quite sure how I feel about the remake... it's nice to see pieces of my childhood popping up here and there. This cake was made originally for Turtle figures, but that wound up changing to candles. For a picture of the cake with the candles you can check the comments on my facebook page! Sew Sweet.

 How cute is that Pizza?

And the manhole cover, LOVE IT!

To make the cake a little more grungy and sewer-esque (new word!) I took the airbrush to it after everything was in place. Love how it turned out!

Almost there!

So close to being caught up! Then again, that's not including this weeks cakes! Yikes!!

This cake was a lot of fun. the fondant cutouts were relatively simple, and my daughters love stars... so besides the fact that the ones I had kept going missing.. and I had to cut around six extra sets, but that's ok! 

Rather than pipe the letters on, I decided to paint them, primarily because I felt that it would be more stable than piping at this point. 

To give you a hint...

Of how behind I am... this is the cake I made for a Superbowl party... Yup, that's pretty far back.. and it's not the furthest thing I've yet to post. 

 The helmets are made from fondant and gumpaste, the team emblems are cut from white and then hand painted. 

I love the texturing on the little footballs. The cuteness is in the details!

na na nananananana na na nanananana.... BATMAN!

Ok, so the title of this post makes it obvious what it is about.... yup! A batman cake! Featuring Batman, the Joker, Harley Quinn, and Nightwing!  Images were taken from the movies and Arkham Asylum and used to cut the fondant shapes, at this point they were then hand painted. The quartered fondant was rolled into the pattern seen, rather than cutting and laying each piece separately. 

I don't normally have the opportunity to work on "boy cakes", although they are growing in number, so anytime I get to do something that is not purple or princess related I'm pretty stoked. 

I think next time I would leave the fondant cutouts to dry a bit before painting, so I could get greater detail, and roll the fondant thinner before cutting it, but all in all I'm happy with how this came out!

An exercise in fondant...

This cake is actually from a while back. I will say that it was one of the most nerve-wracking cakes I've done to date. Not because of the difficulty, but because the girl the cake was for had allergies. Luckily, I've been blessed for the most part with my girls. There are no major allergies, although Chloe keeps flirting with lactose intolerance. However, If they did have allergies I know that I would be absolutely terrified of someone else preparing their food, which is why I was so nervous about this cake. The ingredients were double and triple checked to make sure that they were nut free, and then, only then did I get to work on the cake.  

The cake itself is a delicious double chocolate cake, made from scratch (as was the icing and fondant) and featuring Hershey's unsweetened cocoa. 

On top of the chocolate buttercream is marshmallow fondant. Because of the lightness of the colors, I decided not to go with chocolate fondant, but oh, how good that would have been! The basic shape for the logo was cut from the fondant and then hand painted, to allow for greater detail. 

Fan Favorites!

I've done a couple of fanboy/girl inspired cakes lately! This Dr. Who cake was the latest (I've been hooked on the series since I was a child so I'm posting it first.) First all, I would like to say I am way to emotionally invested in my Doctors, I cry, often, such as the Ponds' goodbye, and of course, Goodbye to the Raggedy man. 

This cake is based upon the Eleven's costume, and the often uttered phrase, "Bowties are cool". 

 This was the third bowtie I made, it's not quite perfect, but it was as close as I was going to get. 

I love the details of the buttons and the threading along the shirt. So much fun!

The shirt itself is a plain marshmallow fondant, the jacket and bowtie are both done from a chocolate fondant. The bowtie was then tinted red and the fabric pattern was handpainted on the jacket. 

Bowties are cool, yes, yes they are, and Raggedy Man you will be missed. 

Catching up is hard to do!

Ok, so I'm SUPER behind with posts. And because of that I may duplicate posts... but you know, that's how life goes! This cake was for a baby shower that my book club was going to host... except weather hit.. and yeah, it got cancelled.. however, the cake was ADORABLE!  The theme is Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places you'll go.   It's painted straight onto fondant, and free handed, so you will see mistakes here and there. 

 I absolutely love the lines on this baloon, I don't know why, but I do. 

And the baby! Oh So cute! The bag, love it all! And all together, it is just adorable!!