Dora The Explorerer Cake

Hey everyone! So sorry for the lack of posting lately... it just seems that summers are so busy. Every weekend there is something to do whether it be a party, a cookout, a trip to the cape... I'm sure you all know how it goes.

Recently we have been experiencing a bit of a heatwave as well... 90+ degree temperature don't really motivate me to bake... but soon I will be resuming my baking as I have a couple of orders coming up next weekend!

As for this post... a few weeks ago one of our good friends was having a birthday party for their beautiful daughter. They asked me to make the cake and I was VERY excited! Hailey LOVES Dora so it was only natural to make a dora cake!

I started out with 2 10inch vanilla cakes. I colored some of the cake batter purple and marbled it through the cakes just for a fun effect.

The layers were filled with a creamy "fun-fetti" type filling and the cake was frosted in buttercream.

To get the Dora image on the cake I used the piping gel tranfer method. I found a picture I liked of Dora... printed it...and then traced it on parchment paper using piping gel. Once it was all traced I transferred it onto the frosted cake.

Once I was satisfied with the transfer I began coloring her in by piping using a star tip. I had a colored picture to use as reference while I filled in the outline.

Here is the final product....








Hailey loved the cake.... she actually just dug in using her face! I was happy with how the cake came out and look forward to making more fun cakes like this soon!

I hope everyone has a great week and stays cool!

Baby Shower Cake and Cupcake Tower

This cake was a fun cake to make!

The flavors were simple... chocolate and vanilla with buttercream frosting.
The challenge was in the fondant work.

The top cake had a lot of adornments. Out of fondant I made a little baby covered by a blanket, a toy teddy bear, some blocks, a bottle and a ball.



For the cupcakes I molded little baby feet. I also put a few baby feet around the sides of the cake.



Here is everything all together.....

Happy Birthday Patrick

One of the adorable Bunker babies turned 1 last weekend and I was asked to make his birthday cake!

One of his favorite things is Sesame Street so I ran with that and made the Sesame Street themed cupcake tower.

I started with a 6inch chocolate cake for the top. It was frosted in white buttercream. To decorate it I cut out orange and green circles from fondant and also cut out a green "street" sign for the side of the cake. On the "street" sign cut out I wrote Patrick and the # 1. On the top edge of the cake I piped out the Happy Birthday message.



For the cupcakes I made Elmo and Cookie Monster.



The frosting was still the same buttercream just colored red and blue. I used 2 different tips to frost the cupcakes. The eyes were store bought and for Elmo I cut his mouth out of fondant and for cookie monster I used 1/2 an oreo in place of his mouth.

Here is the final product....






From what I hear Patrick loved the cake and happily destroyed 2 cupcakes!

Happy Weekend everyone!

Flag Cake

When I was browsing my favorite blogs I came across this awesome cake on Glorious Treats

Her tutorial is much better then mine will be but either way if you have the chance you should definitely try and bake this cake!

So I started out baking all the cakes I would need..

2 8inch red cakes
1 8inch white cake
1 8inch blue cake

Now from those cakes, I cut the 2 red cakes into layers and the white cake into layers.
Then from one white layer and one red layer I cut out a 4 inch circle.

The blue layer should stay thick... and a 4inch circle should be removed from layer.

These are all my cakes waiting to be stacked...




From all the original cakes I had one full red layers left and the cut out red and white layers. I put them into a ziploc bag and froze the leftover cake for cake balls at a later date!

Now onto stacking... start with a red layer, then white, then red, then blue. In the cut out circle in the blue layer stack the 4inch white layer then the 4 inch red layer. There should be a thin coat of frosting between each layer.

At the end of stacking the cake should look something like this...




To frost this cake I wanted something light and summery. I decided on a whipped cream frosting. It was super delicious.



I kept the outside decorations simple since the real suprise would be when I cut into the cake. I brought this cake to a July 4th BBQ and it was a huge hit! I wish the colors in the layers came out brighter... hopefully next time!







Either way this cake was a huge success and the flag inside was an awesome surprise!

I hope everyone has an awesome 4th of July!

Recipe:
Whipped Cream Frosting

1 8oz package of cream cheese
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
a pinch of salt
1 pint of heavy whipping cream

Directions:
Whip cream cheese, white sugar, vanilla, & salt until smooth. Slowly add in heavy whipping cream while continuously beating until firm peaks form. Add in 1 cup of confectionery sugar and whip for 15 seconds.

Skull & Crossbones pull-apart cake

Last weekend was also my baby brother's birthday. I shouldn't say baby brother since he was turning 26 but you get the idea :)

He was throwing a joint birthday party with Vanessa who is just like family and I made them a cake for the celebration! Well actually I made them cupcakes!

I placed a bunch of cupcakes on a platter really close together like this....




Then I smoothed on some frosting. My brother requested purple frosting for Vanessa. I love how it was shaped sort of like a flower. I decided to leave the edges "rough" instead of piping a border... I liked the look of it better for this cake.



Next I transferred on the pattern using piping gel. My brother is a bit obsessed with skulls... he has a bunch of them tattooed on his body so I figured I should put one on his cake.



After the pattern was transferred I "colored it in" by piping stars. I used glitter black gel for the eyes and mouth.

Lastly using the black gel, I wrote out the Birthday message and wha-la.....









The best part of this cake was that when it was ready to be served people could just pull out a cupcake... no cutting necessary which worked out perfect for this outdoor party. I can't wait to make another one of these types of cakes.... So fun!

Well I hope everyone enjoys their Day and has a good week next week as well! Let's all cross our fingers for some better weather!

Reid's 1st Birthday Cake

The Family I nanny for asked me to make a Cake and Cupcakes for their daughter's first birthday! They decided to go with a Lady Bug theme for her cake and I seriously had so much fun making it!

The flavors were simple... Chocolate and Vanilla with Vanilla buttercream.... the adventure was in the design.

The cupcakes were frosted with Pink and Green frosting and topped with some different fondant pieces.

On the green frosted cupcakes I had these cute little pink ladybugs!



The pink frosted cupcakes were topped with black "ladybug" dots!



For the cake it was frosted in pink and covered in black "ladybug" dots. I also wrapped it with a green ribbon. For the top of the cake I made a number 1 out of fondant and also some little flowers to stick out of the cake on wire.



For the Birthday message I cut out a flower shape from white fondant and piped on the message.

Overall I thought this was the cutest cake I have made yet and from the pictures I saw Reid enjoyed it as well!!!









I hope everyone stays dry during these rainy days and stay tuned this weekend for the 3rd cake I made this past weekend!!

Graduation Cupcake Tower

So last week I made a graduation cake for Dominique and her family to enjoy on her actual graduation... Yesterday was her AWESOME graduation party and I was privileged enough to make a cupcake tower for the occasion.

I stuck with the school colors for this cake too. The cupcakes were vanilla and chocolate. I colored the vanilla cupcakes orange and frosted the cupcakes with buttercream.

I topped the vanilla cupcakes with black stars cut from fondant and dusted with edible silver shimmer. The chocolate cupcakes were frosted in orange.



For the top of the tower I made a 6inch cake. I wanted the cake to look like a graduation cap. To do this I took a square cake board and covered it in black fondant. I made an orange tassel out of fondant and added some wording to the top of the cap. The actual cake was frosted in white buttercream and I tried coloring it black using Wilton's Color Mist spray. It didn't come out as black as I hoped but it was was serviceable.



Here is the final product all set-up at the party...








CONGRATULATIONS DOMINIQUE!!!!!!!!

Keep checking back this week for posts about 2 other cakes I made this weekend!

Graduation Cake

I had a lot of fun making this cake!
The graduate was graduating from Newton North High School and Since I am a graduate of NNHS I was happy to make a cake in the school colors.

I started with 2 10inch vanilla cakes filled with a Dulce de Leche buttercream. YUM!

The cake is frosted in a bright white buttercream and instead of piping a border I decided to use a bling-tastic ribbon around the cake to dress it up.



For the other decorations I used fondant. I cut out all of the lettering and made some accent decorations using a star cookie cutter.



My fav part were the stars "floating" above the cake. I did this by cutting out the stars and pushing thin jewelery wire through the stars and letting them dry out. I then attached the letters using just a little bit of water. I just love the dimension it adds to the cake.

Here is the final product!!!!







I hope everyone has a fabulous week and that this rain lets way to some sunshine for all of us!

2 Tier Cirlce Cake

Tonight is Newton North High School's Senior Prom and one of my favorite clients requested a cake for the occasion.

She gave me creative liberty to do whatever I wanted for the cake, she just requested the cake be in colors that coordinated with her daughter's dress.

I started with 2 cakes. An 8inch and a 6inch, both chocolate cake with peanut butter filling.
I frosted each cake with a pink Buttercream and then stacked them into 2 tiers. This is the first tiered cake I have ever made.... not too bad for my first attempt I think.



After the cake was stacked I got to working on the decorations. I colored some pink and purple fondant and cut out a couple of different sized circles. I also cut out some letters from the purple fondant to say "NNHS Prom 2011"

I strategically placed the circles, piped a white border on each tier and placed the lettering on the top of the cake. As a final touch I topped the cake off with some hot pink and brown accent feathers.

I hope all kids enjoy the cake after they dance the night away!

It's A Boy!!!! Diaper Cake!

Last week, close friends of ours welcomed their 2nd child into the world. Since I am the one who is known to bring cakes or cupcakes for any sort of gathering I decided to try and make a non-edible Diaper cake as a gift for the new baby.

I have seen these Diaper cakes before at many baby showers so I thought I would give it a go and make one myself!

I bought some cute monkey themed items at Carters including a hat, stuffed rattle, binki clip and a super soft plush monkey to adorn the "cake"

After some research on how to assemble the cake I got to work and have to say I am very happy with the finished product!









Our friends loved the cake and of course appreciated the diapers since you can never have enough diapers around!

I hope everyone has a happy Memorial Day Weekend!