Easter Cake

Here is my Easter cake! I made it for an Easter party-thing, I decided since I signed up to bring dessert I might as well make a cake!  This cake was a new experience for me.  For one, I've never made a true sheet cake before (very easy) and I've always wanted to try a Frozen Buttercream Transfer (I will post the tutorial later) and I got to try it out on this cake.  It wasn't too hard and turned out pretty cute I think.  Besides the buttercream transfer, it was a piece of cake decorating the rest (ha. I'm hilarious huh). 
I totally spaced it while picking out the cake mixes...I originally wanted to have it all white cake with key lime filling, but I accidentally bought all different cake mixes! Duh.  So I improvised and used chocolate for the bottom and white cake for the top, with strawberry filling.  Sounds yummy, right?  Not really.  The flavors just didn't mix.  And I couldn't even taste the filling, even though it tasted delicious when I tried it by itself.  Also I really hate the buttercream recipe I have (I use the Betty Crocker recipe).  I made the frosting from scratch, and I think it is just nauseatingly sweet.  So much for all my hard work!  Bleeeech.  I need to find a new recipe that is a bit more mild.  Sorry about the not-so-good tasting cake, for those of you who were subjected to it!  I think it turned out cute enough for being just a sheet cake though. 

Ladybug Baby Shower Cake

 Here is my latest cake! It was super fun to make.  I made it for my friend who is having a girl and is due the same day as me! Her shower theme was ladybugs, and she requested this cake.  It is strawberry cake with strawberry frosting.  The lady bug, however, is not cake and certainly NOT edible!  The body is made of styrofoam and the head is made from a little plastic ball I cut in half (sorry Gabe!).  I covered the styrofoam and half-ball in fondant, and painted the face with black food coloring.  The antennae are pink wire.  For the name I used my clay extruder and I put ladybugs and a few flowers around the cake.  The mother of honor loved the cake so I'm glad how the cake turned out!    

Train Cake

 My sweet little boy just turned two! In honor of that, I threw him a train-theme birthday party (he is obsessed with trains).  Of course no party is complete without a cake!
Instead of the two-tiered fondant cake like I tend to do a lot, I thought it would be more fun and kid-friendly if I made a train out of cake.  It was fun and relatively simple to make, though I did have a problem with the back end of the engine falling over onto the yellow car next to it.  Oops.  Probably should have put more supports in it.  Oh well.  It actually held up fairly well despite that.  I let my little sister-in-law decorate it with candy.  It's not super professional-looking or amazing, but I think it was just perfect for a 2-year old's birthday party!

 

 

Ships Ahoy! Baby Shower Cake

 I threw my friend a baby shower the other day, and her theme was "Ships Ahoy! It's a Boy!".  I had fun making all the decorations but especially the cake.  The bottom is the cinnamon roll cake mix and the top is confetti cake mix, as requested by the mother-of-honor.  The rope border was especially fun to make...quick, easy, and clean-looking thanks to the clay gun extruder!  I attached the sail boat to the cake by using a short plastic dowel rod.  I stuck the stick end of the sail boat (a popsicle stick was used to support and connect the boat).  Then I put some gumpaste in to keep it from tipping, and then stuck the whole thing in the cake.  It's an easy way to keep cake toppers in place! The lettering annoys me, but that is because the red fondant I used was too soft so I was very difficult to get it to go on the cake right.  Oh well.  Everyone seemed to like the cake so it's all good!

Cake Decorating Demo

New cake coming soon!  I promise.  In the meantime, here are some pics of a little activity my church had about a month ago. My friend and I were asked to do a few demonstrations on basic cake decorating skills for the women.  It was fun but my presentation skills are severely lacking, so I hope that most understood what I was trying to teach them!  My demonstration was how to do the Wilton flower (and the flower spray), which I didn't expect anyone to get right, let alone try! But I had a few girls surprise me when it came to the rose, because that is not an easy cake decorating skill to just pick up.

 See that huge belly on me? That's from eating too much cake.  Just kidding.  It's a baby belly :)

 The rose demo...

 Some of the ladies decorating their cookies

A few of my favorite girls :)

My flower spray.  Man it was soOo SO HOT in there I thought I was going die!

Valentine's Day Cake

 Here's my Valentine's Day cake! Fondant free. I'm doing a rose demonstration this week at an activity for my church, so I thought it would be a good idea for me to brush up on my rose-making skills.  Which was sorely needed--I haven't made buttercream roses in over a year, and it didn't help that the disposal ate my flower nail.  I got a new one for Christmas though.
There isn't much to be said about the decorations on this cake.  Pretty basic, not very original, but cute enough for a Valentine's day cake.  I wasn't sure what to do with the center, so I just piped my husband's and mine initials.  The initials could stand to be more centered-or something cuter could go in the center. Meh.
I have to say though, this cake is DELICIOUS!!! I tried out a new cake mix, Better Crocker Decadent Supreme with a Cinnabon cinnamon packet that you add in the batter.  I frosted it with cream cheese frosting and it tastes like a big cinnamon roll!  Super yummy, especially if you like cinnamon rolls.  It's definitely my new favorite cake mix.  

Eli's 1st Birthday Cake

Here is the cake I did previous to the purple flower cake.  I made it for my friend's little boy who just turned one.  I'd  be out of business if it weren't for her!
Anyway, I had lots of fun making the trucks.  The little car and truck are made out of gum-paste.  I originally was planning on making the big dump truck out of gum-paste, too, but I thought it would be too heavy and I didn't trust that it would dry in time.  So I made some rice krispie treats, molded it into the separate parts, put them in the freezer and then covered them in gum-paste and stuck 'em together with frosting.  Slightly time consuming, but nothing too complicated.    
Overall it was a fun cake to make.  I also was planning on putting little road signs around the sides of the cake but I thought it would distract from the trucks plus I ran out of time--I was already an hour late to the party trying to put the cake together!  It is white cake with vanilla pudding filling and vanilla frosting.