Cake Endeavours

 To decorate this cake I covered it in vanilla buttercream.  The sides I covered in black fondant. To hide the uneven edge of the fondant I added a red border around the top.  For the corners of the ring I used red bubble tea straws I had on hand wrapper with some DMC black floss and topped with black fondant.  Happy Birthday I cut out with fondant.  The WWE logo I printed off and backed it with a laminated piece of red card stock.  Tommy was cut out using my Cricut machine. Cake: 10" chocolate layer and vanilla layer with vanilla pudding filling.

Tonight we got to celebrate Michael's milestone birthday at the bowling alley and I was asked to do the cake.  Michael is a major Bluejays fan so of course that was going to be the theme of the cake.  I pulled out my Cricut machine to make all the decorations.  It was a surprise party and I really think he was surprised.  Sadly, I did not beat Mr. T in the bowling game we played. Cake: 8" 3-layer chocolate cake with strawberry cream filling (not my normal combination as I am not a fan of chocolate combined with fruit, but the birthday boy and guests thought it was great).

To celebrate this milestone birthday I was requested to make a carrot cake with cream cheese icing.  This was a 6" cake with 3 layers.    For the New York Rangers logo I printed it off and laminated it, then trimmed it out and adhered it to the cake with icing.  I used blue and red M&Ms for decoration.

 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.

 For Dan's cake this was a 3 layer vanilla cake with buttercream icing.  Dan has a couple of classic cars; a black Trans Am and a blue Camaro.  For the cake toper I cut out a silhouette of a Trans Am and covered the cake in blue buttercream icing to represent the Camaro. For the lettering I cut them out in white cardstock and did a fire ombre effect with my Copic markers. After I was finished I thought the cake could use something more so at the last minute I decide to do the flames around the base of the cake.  I cut out the border on my Cricut Explore in two layers then coloured in the flames.  I love how it turned out!

For Brian's birthday cake I made a 2 layer 9 x 13 chocolate cake with chocolate fudge icing.   Brian is a hunter so I found a silhouette of a deer to cut out in fondant to add to the cake. Mr T thought it would be funny if I added a red nose.  Sometimes he has a sick sense of humour. :)

For this cake Tyler's mom gave me a picture of what he wanted and I replicated it best I could.  I think as a Canadian we all aspire to one day to be able to draw the maple leaf free hand; that day has not come for me.  I can trace it though! This was an 8" two layer vanilla cake covered in buttercream icing.  Any imperfections on smoothing out the icing I covered with a star or a maple leaf. :)

I love getting to do a cake for this family's milestones!  This time is for a 40th birthday and the theme is rugby.  This cake is the first of three for this weekend.  Thankfully I have two amazing helpers with Mr. T and Miss. E. so I'm not up to the wee hours of the night!  This is a 9 x 13 two layer lemon cake with cream cheese filling.  The family's favourite flavour. :)  For the lines on the field I used my clay extruder and it went quite fast.  I have no idea what the lines mean though.  For the 0 in 40 I turned it into a rugby ball, which I had to look up.  For the goal posts I used popsicle sticks.

For this cake I was requested to make a yellow mountain bike and the flavour was to be chocolate.  This was an 8" two layer chocolate cake with chocolate filling. To this day I still cannot draw a bike from memory.  The frame always looks slightly off.  Thankfully I didn't have to rely on my memory and was able to print off a clip art drawing to use as my guide. Thank goodness for my clay extruder to do the bike wheels and frame.  You have to use fresh fondant.  If it's even slightly dried out it becomes virtually impossible to twist it out of the extruder.  After two tries with the yellow I broke down and made some fresh yellow fondant and it came out like butter!  I made the trees out of three different shades of green using my small oval cutters.  For the little rocks I had three different shades of grey and rolled up tiny little stones or rocks.

I was asked to make this cake for the goalie, #30 for the Queens University hockey team.  I'm so not into sports.  I couldn't even tell you the name of my alma mater's hockey team or if we even had one.  Though York U did build a mega hockey complex so my guess is that that would be a yes to having a hockey team. The idea was to have his hockey mask as the main feature of the cake.  The helmet has amazing art work on it that I didn't even want to attempt to replicate so we went with a more basic interpretation.  I printed out a goalie mask colouring page and drew a rough design.  One side, batman symbol and the other Thor's club.  In the middle Queens crown and number 30.  The bottom has a brick pattern on it. That I could handle replicating.  Ha! This was a 10" 2 layer chocolate cake with chocolate fudge filling covered in white fondant.  To finish off the decorating I added the lightening bolt and the full batman symbol alo...

This was my first time doing a Jays cake.  Originally I was going to do the bluejay all in fondant but after the maple leaf it did go so well.  I abandoned that idea and went with painting it on. The red accents were done with edible marker.  I'm forever on a quest to find circle cutters that are larger than 4".  No matter how hard I try I just can't get a clean circle cut out by tracing it. Luckily I had a Tupperware container that was the perfect size for the logo. This was a 6" chocolate cake.  I love how the little baseballs turned out.  Mr T was kind enough to be my delivery boy for this one.  While I finished up the next cake that was due for pick up in a few hours.

This the last of the cakes for this crazy weekend.  A 9 x 13 cake that was half chocolate and half vanilla covered in vanilla buttercream.  The Jets logo and lettering I did in fondant. The logo is very cool.  Without the jet there is a maple leaf underneath.  It was amazing to see how the jet fit in perfectly over the maple leaf. It was pretty cool to get to do a cake for one of the Jet's newest players.

For this order I got an education in soccer.  Before doing these cupcakes I couldn't name one team in the F.C.  Actually, is it the Football Club?  Regardless, I can name three, PSG (Paris St. Germain), Arsenal, and A.C. Milan. I made 4 dozen cookies and cream cupcakes.  I printed of the three teams' logos and punched them out with my 1 1/4 inch punch. Then added them to a toothpick.  Originally, I had planned on making the tops of the cupcakes look like a soccer ball.  However, I don't have a pentagon shaped cutter of any size.  I tried cutting a few free hand and it wasn't pretty.  Instead, I opted to put 18 on each cupcake since the birthday boy was turning 18.

This past Monday one of my co-workers came to me in a panic asking if I could make a cake for her son's birthday to bring in on Thursday.  After the craziness of the week before, this was going to be much easier.  Of course I was up until 1:30 in the morning finishing the decorating, but that's besides the point. I made a 2 layer 8" vanilla cake.  In my soccer ball pan I pour about 2 inches of batter and baked that to make the giant golf ball.  Covered the ball in white fondant, then used a bouncy ball to make the dimples (I think that's the proper term) in the golf ball.  Finished off the decorating with the argyle pattern.  The little purple diamonds are why I was up so late.  I cut them out at the last minute to cover the seams of the white fondant.

Last week I made 18 dozen cupcakes for my town hall at work.  Crazy!  We were kicking off (ha) FIFA fever and I was asked to add something FIFA onto each one. I made 9 dozen chocolate and 9 dozen vanilla cupcakes; all decorated with grass green buttercream icing.  I bought a container of multicoloured tooth picks that went with the FIFA colours and printed off a small mailing label with the FIFA 2014 logo on one side and the ball on the other. It is much easier to fold the label sticky sides together first and then slide the toothpick through.  This helps to eliminate creases in the label.

For Terry's family celebration of his birthday I made 9 x 13 cookies and cream two layer cake.  To make the jersey sleeves for this cake I trimmed off about an inch from a short end and then an inch from the long side so that I was left with an 8 x 12 cake. On the sides of the arms I added the number 12 for the age he was turning.  I've got to find some smaller upper case letters for cakes like this.  A slightly smaller set would have looked more authentic on the leaf!

Last year I made Valencia the  Ladybug Cake  for her 2nd birthday.  So, I was delighted when I was asked to make her cake again. This two tiered cake is so adorable, if I do say so myself.  The bottom is 10" with the Perfect Chocolate cake and peanut butter icing for the filling.  The top is 8" with Cookies and Cream. Oh how I love to do a girly girl cake!   Now the picture that I was given to go by had a lovely  ballerina  on top. I'm still not a fan of putting a lot of time and effort into making something like that only to be eaten or tossed.  Not to mention trying to charge for that time and effort!  Instead, I pulled out my cricut machine and used the  Twinkle Toes  cartridge to make the three paper dolls.  Originally I was only going to do one but that looked bare.  So, I added two back ups.  Besides, what kid doesn't like having something play with off of their cake?  Also, because I'm a Vir...

On our way home from a very relaxing week at a friend's cottage up north we stopped at a Wal-Mart in search of board games.  We didn't find anything exciting but we did find some minion figurines from Despicable Me 2.  Miss E saw the golfer minion and thought that we should get it for Poppa.  I thought that it would make a perfect topper for his birthday cake. For my dad I made the Perfect Chocolate Cake, of course!  This is a two layer 8 inch version.  I just added the green and the water with some fondant then with the grass tip added the green buttercream.  The birthday boy was happy.  :)

I have no imagination for my subject lines.  *sigh* For a school fundraiser I donated a cake for a silent auction.  The winner of the auction asked me to do a cake for her son's birthday. The request was to have a soccer theme with some blue and pink on it. With one recipe of the Perfect Chocolate Cake, I divided it into 2 8" trays and the soccer ball tray I have.  I only filled it up with about 2 inches of batter.  Just enough to get the shape of the ball to come out of the grass.  I do enjoy using the grass tip.  It's a lot fun and I'm always surprised at how much it looks like grass when it's done.

On Monday one of my co-workers emailed me to see if I could make a cake for her son's birthday.  I already had two cakes to do during the week but I couldn't pass up doing this cake.  It's just so cute.  The picture she sent me had the ninja standing but with the humidity I just couldn't get it to hold. This was a two layer 8" red velvet cake with buttercream filling.  I love the lettering.  It's basically curved triangles.  I did mix up two of the triangles on the M which made it shorter on one side. Again, thanks to the humidity there was no way to get it off once it was on.  Not only is the humidity nasty on my hair, it's nasty on fondant! Especially white fondant, everything sticks to it.