Tuesday, August 25, 2009

1st Birthday Cake: Sweet Monkey Cake

Today's blog post has a monkey theme to it. Firstly, a monkey birthday cake for a little girl who turned 1. I also added a cute little red bow just in front of the ear after I took this picture.
This cake was many layers of zesty lemon cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream covered in chocolate fondant (the stuff that tastes like tootsie roll)

And what is yummier than Banana Sour Cream cupcakes with chocolate buttercream? Actually maybe cream cheese icing on it....

These monkey cupcakes were chocolate sour cream cupcakes with vanilla buttercream with a design that I picked up from the Frosted Caken Cookie
I also made these with a more 2D-ish monkey face too. These were banana cupcakes with cream cheese icing.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Fashionista Cakes: Coach Purses

Is Louis Vuitton so 2008? Because I am getting so many more requests for Coach Purse cakes in 2009! Here is the purse that I was trying to create as a cake - there were lots of "C's" to be painted and white stitching.To personalize the cake for the birthday girl, I added in sunglasses, her Motorola cellphone, her driver's license because she always gets asked for ID and a keychain that says Princess (that's what her parents call her).
The other coach purse was a surprise for my clients wife. It was her birthday, their anniversary and he just wanted to show her his appreciation as a mom because they have a 5 month old son. He surprised her with this cake AND the actual coach purse in Spearmint color.

This cake was personalized with her pink coach coin purse, keychain with Niagara Falls on it (that's where they honeymooned) and a plane ticket with the "Lost TV show" Oceanic logo. Did I mention he was also going to surprise her with a trip away? Husbands/Partners - Take note!And inside the purse, I added in their son's favourite toy Sophie the Giraffe, her pink LG phone, a soother and her favorite Simply Irresistable Givency Perfume bottle. What a sweet surprise!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Star Wars: Yoda Cake

"Do or do not.... there is no try" ~ Yoda.

And here is Yoda - 9 layers of Vanilla Butter Cake!
I really had a lot of fun (and stress) making the Yoda cake for a little boy who turned 4. Yoda was quite challenging, as he is a pretty thin character and he's got a big head. I also wanted to make him all out of cake, so I didn't want to use Styrofoam or Rice Krispies.

I worked hours and hours on him into the wee hours of the morning. At 2am, was still a bit shakey so I thought I'd let him "settle" overnight.

In the morning, I made a little tweak to his cane, turned around to do some dishes and "Thump"! He fell over on the table and cracked in half....

His head survived, but the body did not. I had less than 2 hours to make buttercream, dye more fondant, carve out his body and decorate him again.... I never worked so fast but the result was great - he was a little fatter than I planned - but now he was not going to fall again. Here's a view from the top!

Cake Decorator's Tip: Don't try to push the limits on gravity, gravity always wins! :-) And always make extra cake for sculpted cakes. I lucked out on this one as I had lots of vanilla cake on hand which was for my next cake.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Multicultural Wedding Cakes

Isn't this such a fun wedding cake? The couple wanted to incorporate their different cultural background into the cake. The bride is from Hong Kong which is the flag design on the bottom tier. The groom is Portuguese and Korean which is the flags design on the next two tiers. And a gumpaste Canadian Flag on top.

They also have a love for pandas which was the sugarpaste topper. I also made these panda cupcakes for her bridal shower a few months back.
Continuing on the theme of multicultural cakes - I made this cake for Korean and Scottish couple. The cake topper was my favourite which also matched a pattern on their takeaways. I made his Scottish Tartan out of gumpaste and also the Luckenbooth brooch which is a Scottish love token.

The last cultural cake is actually the first wedding cake I ever designed, sketched out and made. It was a few years back for my Cake Decorating III class at George Brown. I love looking back at my older cake photos. :-)