Cake Endeavours

 Do you know how hard it is to find small sized soccer balls in the city!?  It's virtually impossible.  Well, I tried 3 stores.  Finally, found these really little bead soccer balls.  That was it!  But they worked for what I needed.  I do wish they were a little bigger.  Of course, I'm sure I'll find exactly what I would have wanted everywhere now.   This was a 3 layer 8" vanilla cake with buttercream filling and icing with a chocolate ganache drip; I did say I was getting lots of practice.  Added some "grass" along with malt balls and Toblerone pieces.  For the topper, I designed it and cut it out on my Cricut machine.

 This cake was technically supposed to be an Avengers cake but after I added all the emblems for all the characters, Miss E kindly pointed out that I had combined DC and Marvel characters.  As I'm typing this I still can't recall who falls under the Avengers title.  I was going to change them out, once I figured out which ones didn't belong, but I checked with Keaton's mom first and she said it was a good timeline of all the characters that Keaton has liked over the years.  Ha!  Love happy mistakes. For decorations, I covered this 6" 3 layer vanilla cake in a golden buttercream and chocolate ganache drip, with some malt balls and peanut M&Ms.  The rest I printed off and fussy cut out, then laminated.  Thankfully, I have circle punches for all them emblems which made the task much easier and more professional looking. I can't believe Keaton is now 13.  I feel like it was just yesterday I delivered coffee to his mom in the hospital when it was born.  *cry*

 Lately I've been getting together with some neighbours in my building outside every weekend for cocktail hour but we call ourselves "Ladies who Lunch".  I either bring a cheese dip or cupcakes, depending on what cakes I'm doing that weekend or not.  This weekend I had some leftover filling from the strawberry shortcake cake and extra batter, so I made these cupcakes. I didn't add the strawberries on top until I was ready to go as I didn't want the cupcakes to get soggy.  They were a big hit.  Of course, now the pressure is on for next week!

Chocolate explosion cakes never get boring.  Thankfully, there is lots of chocolate out there to choose from that each cake will be unique.  Costco had some Belgium cookies on sale and so I used some of those along with Oreos, Hershey bars, Lindor chocolate, etc.  This was a 3 layer 8" chocolate cake with chocolate filling covered in vanilla buttercream icing with a chocolate ganache drip.  I'm getting lots of practice doing the drip technique.  I love it.  This cake was for one of Mr T's coworkers.  After we delivered the cake, you could still smell all the chocolate in the car!

 For Damian's cake, Sonya's brother I did a 3 layer 8" chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream icing.  The lettering clouds, and pilons were done in fondant.  Fondant is much easier to work with on a smaller scale. For the cake topper and the construction trucks I cut them out on my Cricut machine.  I laminated the trucks, which made it easy to set them into the cake to stand up.  I added the white line down the two to make it look like a road with my gel pen.  So much fun.

 After the fiasco of working with fondant and the humidity this weekend I decided to shy away from using it as much as possible on the rest of my cakes!  Thank goodness for my Cricut machine!  It has become a great tool to add decorations to my cakes.  They can also be kept as keepsakes, which is fun. For this cake it was a 3 layer strawberry shortcake 8" cake.  I did use fondant for Sonya's name and the flowers to decorate.  The cake topper and the unicorn were made using my Cricut.  I laminated the black silhouette so that it could stick on the cake and not ruin the sweet unicorn.

 Friends is without a doubt my favourite TV show of all time.  I've seen every episode multiple times over and quote it daily.  When I was asked to do a Friends birthday cake I was so excited.  Finally, getting to do one on a show that I know everything about. This cake was a 3 layer vanilla with vanilla butter cream icing.  I also did 3 dozen cupcakes (chocolate and vanilla) to go along with the cake for the birthday celebration.  For the decorations I printed off the images that I wanted and laminated them to go on the cake.  For the lettering I cut them out in vinyl on my Cricut using the "Friends" font.  I haven't covered a cake in fondant in a very long time.  Of course, for this cake I decide to do it and it's so humid out as you can see.  The fondant is sweating.  It's so hard to work with when it's like that.  Plus, the brand of fondant that I am used to working I can't find anywhere.  So frustrating!  In the end it turned out ok; next time I m

 Last night we dropped off these cupcakes for Cachet's anniversary celebration today.  The owner is celebrating 40 years in business today.  I love getting to be a part of celebrations in my home town, Bowmanville.  It's always an honour. I made 4 dozen vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream.  I added some flowers and leaves for a little bit of colour.  For the toppers I used the Cachet logo with 40 behind it and backed them with some black cardstock.

 One of Mr T's coworkers asked me to make this cake.  I was so excited to do a Black Forest cake when cherries are in season.  I haven't been able to do this before now.  Usually, I have to use frozen and maraschino cherries, which are fine but in season fruit is the best! I love adding the bark look with the chocolate on the sides.  I never know how it's going to turn out.  Working with fresh whipped cream, I'm never sure how sturdy the cake will be.  It came together just right. Look at all those lovely cherries.  Yum!  After manually trying to pit the cherries I went in search of my cherry pitter.  I was almost certain I had one.  Thankfully, it was right were I thought it would be.  It made the task so much easier. Mr T was thrilled to learn that there was leftovers when I was done, so I made him a deconstructed dessert.  Miss E was able to have the remaining whipped cream with a few cherries for her dessert.