Cake Endeavours

When I was planning out how to decorate this cake I was really at a loss.  Ben's wife, Rachel, asked me to make the cake for his birthday celebration that she was having while they were home visiting from Germany.  This was going to be a surprise.  The theme was to be gangsta.   The night before I sent a message out to the group for some ideas as Pinterest wasn't cutting it for this theme!  Thus the themed evolved into Snoop Dogg, which produced a multitude of ideas. Mr. T went out to lots of dollar and party stores in search of gold chains and for one with a big dollar sign.  No such luck.  Instead he ended up at the Bulk Barn coming out with gold coins and edible gold spray. This was such a fun cake to do.  I was able to watch some great Christmas movies while working on it.  Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon!  This was a 9" three layer Perfect Chocolate Cake. I found this awesome silhouette of Snoop Dogg on Pinterest.  Traced the tag BEN out

This was the first order I did while on the mend with my back.  It was the perfect one to ease back into.  Two dozen vanilla cupcakes with red 50s on top. These were topped with vanilla butter cream icing followed by a white fondant disc with the numbers on top.  I used two different fonts for some variety. I did learn for the curly font it is much easier to get the numbers to come out if you let the fondant sit rolled out to dry for 15-20 minutes.  It went much faster and they held their shape better too.

I'm doing some catch up on my blog postings.  At least I'm not as behind as I originally thought.  I had to take a break from baking and even cancelled two orders for the first time ever.  It's harder to bake with a bad back than I realised. Fortunately I am on the mend and slowly getting back into the groove. I made this cake before my "episode" for a co-worker's sister's 50th birthday.  It's been so long that I've forgotten what flavours I did this cake in.  Yikes!  I believe the bottom tier which was an 8" two layer chocolate and the top was a 6" two layer cookies & cream.   On the board, you can barely see it, but it does say Happy Birthday Ani. I am loving using the 1/2" white boards.  I can add ribbon around the base for extra decoration.  I still have a bunch of silver foiled boards to go through but I might just switch over to the 1/2" boards only going forward.  

In October we had a bittersweet farewell for our Senior Director.  I was asked to do a cake for her.  Her favourite colour is red and she loves flowers.  I thought that this design would be appropriate.  I really love this technique.  It's very simple and quick to do.  Just requires a lot of icing.  This also makes it easier to cut as the slices are defined by the ribbon. I did add a banner that had the quote "Where flowers bloom, so does hope." This was an 8" two layer cookies and cream cake.