Did you hear? I've started a new blog.

I guess I've been a little quiet on this blog lately. It's not because I haven't been busy but rather that I've had to split my time up a bit and away from my studio. If you hadn't seen already, I've started up a new blog that will feature all my cake decorating adventures. Custom Cakes by Lori will show process photos, final pics, tips I've learned and links that I think are helpful for the cake decorating hobbyist.

Vegan vanilla cake

I hope you join me over there and we indulge our virtual sweet tooth together.

Cake pops for a 9 yr. olds birthday

Today I've got a couple photos of the birthday cake pops I made for my daughter's 9th birthday. I have never done cake pops before so it was a perfect reason to learn. I had planned to use half of the cake batter for the pops and the other half for a decorated cake that would hold the pops. Unfortunately the base cake was too thin to hold the cake pops and they had to be served separately. How do you serve your cake pops? I've seen some unique displays but I ran out of time and just brought them to the birthday party poked into my drying block.

For the ears on the cat I used chocolate chips and the ears on the dogs are made from chewy caramels. Noses were made from cut mini-M&Ms and shaped Starburst pieces. I got to use my edible pen for the eyes and faces.

So what kind of cake pops have you made? Do you have any tricks to share?

A plane birthday cake for a 3 yr. old

Recently, as a way to make some extra money, I started offering my creative abilities in creating custom cakes. I've posted up signs and put up some Craigslist ads and I've  gotten a little bit of interest from people. The other day I was able to deliver a custom birthday cake for a 3yr. old. I can now add airplane cake to list of cakes I've created.

The client decided on a fondant covered chocolate cake. Because this was for a little boy I decided to go for a cartoon look and give the plane a happy face. Thanks to the help of a Google image search I was able to get some idea about how to construct the cake. Below are pictures of how I created my cake. 

I'm pretty happy with how the cake turned out and luckily for me I have another cake order coming up. Stay tuned for that one as I will be doing a frozen buttercream transfer for that one.

Mushroom Fairy Cottage Cake for a seven year old

I can't believe another year has past and I've created another 3-D birthday cake for one of my children. As I've said before, I really enjoy the challenge of cake decorating and I always learn something new with each one.
For this year's cake I created a mushroom cottage complete with fairies. This is the second toadstool I've done for my daughter. The first one you can see here was a large icecream cake. My then 2 yr. old enjoyed it very much... well the decorative sugar on it at least.
This year's cake was inspired by Debbie Brown's "50 Easy Party Cakes" and I followed the general instructions for it. Because most of the guests don't seem to like too much fondant, I decided to ice the cake with buttercream and use the fondant as accents.

I created the toadstool shape with the help of a giant cupcake mold and half of a Wilton sportsball mold. As always, I froze the cake before carving and putting on the crumb coat. Some people don't believe in freezing cake but I feel the large amounts of butter and sugar keep it perfectly for the short amount of time it sees the freezer. Once the crumb coat had set in the fridge (15 min.) I frosted and assembled the cake. My girls helped create the fondant fairies, the door and the paths.

I'm pretty happy with how smoothly this cake went and it was right in line with my current mushroom obsession. Stay tuned for another cake as my niece will be turning three soon. What will it be?

Birthday Monkey Cake for a 1 yr. old

I have had the chance to dabble in cake decorating again and made a monkey cake for my niece's first birthday. This cake is a banana cake with chocolate fudge icing.

I got the design idea from Scribble on CakeCentral.com and you should really take a look to see how the cake should be done properly. I think I should've used chocolate buttercream icing instead of the glaze as I'

m not that skilled at creating a smooth finish in all the nooks and crannys with a pour-on icing. I had never made the icing before and it's quite sticky as it starts to cool.

I think with this cake I've learned that:

you should always do a practice cake

it's too hard to decorate sculpture cakes with kids

give yourself extra time and space to get messy

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