3rd Birthday: Toopy and Binoo Cake

And just like that, my daughter Sidney turned 3 last week.  She had been asking for a Toopy and Binoo cake for the longest time.  For this design, I made fondant cutouts and drew the characters with edible marker and edible colors.

It was just a small celebration with family so I had a simple sweet table including mini strawberry vanilla cupcakes (with a side of Patchy Patch), fresh market cherries, paleo chocolate cake bites and rainbow fruit skewers.

Here's a blurry picture of me and my little one.  Happy Birthday to my sweet Sidney!

Dr. Who Cake n' Cupcakes

For all those Dr. Who fans out there....  I had a lot of fun making this cake and handmaking the sugarpaste characters.  It was harder than I thought it would be, but I loved how it turned out!

I also dug out this photo from a while back of these cupcakes that I never posted.  Enjoy!

Lost Cake

Anyone a Lost TV Series fan?  I don't watch this show, but when I received this cake order, I had to do lots of research.  Sounds like a great show - someday I will have to rent them all.

This cake was ordered for a surprise 28th birthday party for a guy who loves Lost.  His girlfriend asked me to recreate the members of Season 1.  I designed this 2-tier chocolate sour cream cake - first tier of cake is the island and top tier is the charred remains of the airplane.  Everything and everyone on this cake is handmade and edible.

For those Lost fans out there, you are probably wondering who the character in the Red Wings Jersey is - its the birthday boy.

Here is a view from the top.

Furniture Cakes

Many times I get really sweet descriptions from clients of their special occasion, the person or the cake they envision.

Here's what my client wrote:  "A cake to celebrate 25 years of movie nights.  In some respects her tolerance (although I know she loves them) for movies like Alien, our first movie date."   So, I made a collage of all the movies he listed for me as the cake board.  Then added in all the family members which I made with sugarpaste.  The beige couch and the TV are Chocolate Sour Cream cake with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

A view from the top.   Does anyone still have a TV like that other than me?  :-)

Here we have two white armchair cakes.  This was a joke birthday cake for someone who was pining away at the armchairs for a while and hoping to get them for her birthday.  Well she got them...... in cake!   Actually, she did get one "real" armchair for her birthday and then another one at Christmastime.

I've pulled one of my cakes from the archives.  This armchair birthday cake is from a few years back when I did not know how to make gumpaste characters.  The green armchair is cake and the Family Guy characters are plastic.

Party Cake for Gail Vaz-Oxlade and TV Show: Til Debt Do Us Part

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be asked to design a cake for the TV show Til Debt Do Us Part. They were celebrating their 100th episode and it was also the host, Gail Vaz-Oxlade's, 50th birthday. The party was held on the the rooftop terrace of The Fifth Grill and Terrace in downtown Toronto. For this cake, I tried to really incorporate the elements of the show (the money jars, credit cards) and of course Gail, her big black bag and her TV crew. Her TV crew is so important to her and she truly appreciates them.

The cake was 3-tiers: Chocolate Sour Cream Cake, Lemon Cake and Banana Cake. I was also able to incorporate the glass money jars in the cake and even made sugarpaste coins and bills inside. Aside from the sugar people, the calculator was one of my favorites to make.

I was also lucky enough to attend the event in Toronto and meet Gail and her daughter Alex. They were the most friendly, down-to-earth and wonderful people. They loved the cake, appreciated the small details and even saved some of the sugarpaste items.

Lots of pictures today - most of them (I'm sure you can tell which ones) were photographed by Tanja at Double Crossed Photography.



These next 3 photos are sound guy and the 2 cameramen looking at themselves made out of sugar. I love the picture below as the sound guy, John, is laughing that I included his rolled up sleeves in his sugar character.


Behind the Scenes: Some of my regular readers have asked that I post some of my "in progress" pictures. You can see how I made the sugarpaste money and divided them up into their proper amounts. I know, I know - that is a bit excessive... :-)



Cake Decorator's Tip: The event was held on a hot evening on the rooftop terrace in downtown Toronto. Can you imagine how worried I was about that? I was trying to negotiate an inside spot to display the cake - but there was a nice breeze, so I set up on the terrace. However, throughout the evening I kept my eye on the cake and was ready to repair at a seconds notice in case any of the sugar characters started to tilt over. So my tip really is to get yourself invited to the event! :-)