Eagle Scout Cake for J.J.

02 Tuesday Jan 2018

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Eagle Scout cake, homemade marshmallow fondant, Sour cream vanilla cake

I was extremely honored when asked by a dear friend to create this cake for her son’s Eagle Scout celebration. Making Eagle scout is such a huge accomplishment for any young man and deserves a special celebration cake…

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Before I go too much farther, let me say that the Eagle topper is an actual statue provided by the client that I added to the finished cake…I didn’t make it.

But all of the other details are made from homemade marshmallow fondant.

The 2-tiered (8″-6″) vanilla sour cream cake is smooth-iced with vanilla buttercream. The draped flag, gold cording, and fleur-de-lis symbols are made from fondant.

I had had to create a special platform covered in fondant with extra support on the top tier to hold the heavy Eagle statue, which was placed on the cake at the venue. It made it easy to remove the topper in order to serve the cake.

Congrats again on the incredible accomplishment, J.J., it was an honor to make your cake!

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“Finding Dory” Nemo Cake

28 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by Laurie in Cakes

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banana cake, Disney Nemo, Dory, homemade marshmallow fondant, Sour cream vanilla cake, vanilla buttercream

I created this cake for a 3rd birthday for little Michael earlier this month. It was so fun to do that I kept adding details once I got started decorating.

Perhaps I went overboard….ya think?

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The cake is a 2-tier (8″-6″) with banana cake w/ cream cheese filling for the 6″ tier and vanilla sour cream cake with strawberry filling for the 8″ tier. It’s smooth-iced with blue vanilla buttercream with an ombre effect to make it look ocean-y (if that’s a word…?). The details and figures are made from homemake marshmallow fondant.

I handmade Nemo, Hank, and Dory from fondant mixed with some tylose powder to stiffen it up and I let them dry for a few days before adding them to the finished cake. It’s hard to see, but Nemo is suspended above the surface of the cake on green straws to give the illusion that he’s swimming though the plants on the sea floor.

The “Michael” was hand-cut from fondant using my KopyKake projector and a sharp Exact-o blade.

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It was fun adding all the details to the characters to make them recognizable…I especially liked doing Hank the octopus, he has so much going on.

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I loved doing your cake, Michael…Hope you had a fantastic birthday!!

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Fall Flower Cupcake Bouquet

20 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by Laurie in Cupcakes

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cupcake bouquet, double chocolate cake, fall flowers, Red velvet cake, Sour cream vanilla cake, vanilla buttercream

I made this fall flower cupcake bouquet as a special gift for a friend to take to her grandmother’s 80th birthday.

I loved working with these fall colors. The cupcakes were an assortment of chocolate, vanilla, and red velvet flavors, all with vanilla buttercream.

I variegated the icing colors in the piping bags to make the flowers look more realistic and used 3 different Wilton piping tips to pipe the petals: #18 for the green hydrangeas; 1M for the red roses; and #81 for the yellow mums.

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Once the cupcakes were piped, I popped them into the fridge for a bit to firm up. I used wooden skewers and foam blocks to arrange them in the basket, then added green and orange tissue, silk leaves, and a few fronds to add height and interest (I made sure nothing “foreign” touched the icing…:0).

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Hope you had a great 80th birthday, Louise’s grandma!

I really enjoyed making your cupcake arrangement!

Nautical-Themed Baby Shower Cake

06 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by Laurie in Cakes

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Baby shower cake, double chocolate cake, homemade marshmallow fondant, nautical themed, sailboat, Sour cream vanilla cake, vanilla buttercream

I did a bunch of baby shower cakes last year and I’m so behind on posting, I’m only now getting to them. I also had orders for lots and lots of nautical or ocean-themed cakes. Not sure if there were enough to qualify as a “trend,” but it seemed like a wave of them during the summer and fall months (no pun intended :0).

This cute baby shower cake was fun and used a number of different icing and fondant techniques, so I thought I’d share…

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The mom-to-be knew just what she wanted in terms of style, I just added a few tweaks of my own.

For the cake, the bottom tier is a 9″ round chocolate and the top is a 6″ round vanilla. Both are filled and iced with vanilla-bean buttercream The decorations and boat are made from homemade marshmallow fondant (except the red, I buy that because it is so hard to make large quantities).

The little sail boat is made from brown fondant with lots of tylose powder (to make it stiff); I used a woodgrain stamp on the sides to make the fondant look like wood. The biggest trick was letting the sails dry long enough to stand up and stick to the skewer, which goes down into the top tier to hold the boat in place and keep everything together.

The baby boy was fun to make….There’s actually a cute little body under the blanket (wish I would have taken a picture). I wanted the details on his little face to be subtle and soft, so I pressed them into the pliable fondant with a needle tool and added a little dot of flesh-colored fondant for a nose. I drew his hair on with an edible marker…so cute.

The anchor and lifebuoys (that’s really what they’re called) are cut using cutters and the roping is 2 strands of fondant twisted together.

The bottom tier is iced with a rough surface to look like the water using a dark to light ombre technique. The top tier is similar, just more smooth-iced.

This was a fun cake for an excited mom-to-be. It was back in November, so I’m sure she’s a happy (and exhausted) mom by now. Congrats, Maria!

Disney’s Frozen Elsa Doll Cake

26 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by Laurie in Cakes, Cupcakes

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Disney Frozen Elsa doll cake, doll cake, double chocolate cake, homemade marshmallow fondant, rosette, Sour cream vanilla cake, vanilla buttercream

Doll cakes are making a comeback. Really.

I haven’t had a request for one in 4 years, but have made 3 in the past month… Crazy! This most recent one was for a darling little girl who just turned 3.

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I remember my mom getting me a doll cake for my 5th (I think?) birthday. I’m pretty sure she didn’t make it and, when I laid eyes on it, I thought it was the most wonderful, glorious thing I’d ever seen in my life (wish I had a picture). It was covered in thick pink and purple icing and, up until that point, was the most treasured thing I’d ever received for a birthday (until I got my horse, Cactus, when I turned 10).

Because I raised such a fuss when it came time to cut (i.e., “destroy”) it, my dear mother only cut cake out of the back of the dress to preserve it as long as possible….I recall we kept it for waaayyyy too long (it got pretty stale so my mom eventually threw the uneaten cake away).

Of course this was all before the Disney princess craze, so it was just a regular old Barbie Doll, but I loved that Barbie forever…

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This was a 4-layer vanilla cake (9″-8″-7″-6″ rounds) with blue vanilla-bean buttercream between the layers. After carving, I iced on a thin crumb coat, inserted Elsa, and popped the entire cake into the fridge to firm up.

The blue rosettes (tinged with white) were piped on with a Wilton 1M tip and the ruffles around the bodice were piped with a 104 tip. I added small snowflakes cut with my punch cutters and crystal sugar flakes to add the illusion of snow.

I also made a dozen chocolate cupcakes with blue rosettes and adorned each with a single fondant snowflake.

A fondant inscription was added to the cake board.

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