Recent creating fun

So besides dipping my toes into the art fair market at the Steveston Salmon Festival, I've been busy trying out all sorts of ideas and projects. I'm currently trying to learn my Wacom tablet and Corel Paint Essentials and although I'm liking the results I'm getting, I still feel as though I'm fumbling around. I'll be asking for Corel Paint 12 for my birthday though as it looks amazing. Way over my head amazing.

I've also been starting some vision boards over at Pinterest. There are so many beautiful images that it's easy to lose and hour or two on the site. If you're on there you can see my boards here. I'm big on following craft and DIY boards. I found this great picture of a fruit salad bowl of a turtle made from a watermelon and I knew I had to try it out. Below is a picture of my version of the turtle. The instructions on the blog don't tell you that you need to use a strip of watermelon along the center for the head and tail but I figured it out.

I also did a couple birthday cakes recently. At the end of April I did a Great Valley cake for my niece who has a thing for dinosaurs. I made a "Butter Beer" cake in a slab form and used some chocolate cake that I had in the freezer in the shape of a cone for the volcano. This cake was really done on the fly but my niece was still really thrilled to get her dinosaur cake.

I also created something for my eldest' spring fundraiser cake walk this year. You had to know that I would jump at the chance to create a cake. This year's entry was "Hungry Man Dinner" which can be found in Hello, Cupcake!. I love the idea of cake disguised as savory food and this was so much fun. With the help of candies and great simple instructions I created these cupcakes that helped win my daughter an extra prize for the spring fair.

The third cake I did recently was for my daughters 5th birthday and we finally pinned her decision on a make-up bag. This one was from 50 Easy Party Cakes by Debbie Brown, my go-to book. I used a simple chocolate devil's food cake recipe and iced it with buttercream rather than covering it with fondant. I didn't really want to make marshmallow fondant for this cake as I need so little so I used fruit chewy candies for anything that needed modeling. It tasted better too.

So what do you think about my latest food creations? Which one is your favorite?

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?

A Honey Beehive cake for a six yr. old

The time has flown by so fast and I've made another sculpture cakes for one of my daughters. The pick this time was a design from Debbie Brown's book 50 Easy Party Cakes. I thought the design was going to be pretty easy to pull off and it was until I had to drape the enormous and continuous piece of marshmallow fondant onto the cake. I found it a bit tricky to smooth out the fondant without it wrinkling and overlapping. Worried about creating tears, I decided it was best to live with my many imperfections.

Once the cake was covered I saw all the errors in my carving calculations and cursed a couple of times under my breath. It will still taste like cake, right? As always, the kids had a lot of fun creating the final touches like the bees and the flowers. I was pretty happy with how much control I let go of with this cake as I know from previous birthday cakes, the kids will be "helping" no matter what.

So once again, I have a renewed sense of admiration for professional cake decorators. Art in the form of sugar. Here are a couple pictures and links to some cake artists that I have been following. Aren't they impressive? They are my cake inspirations!

Alana Hodgson ©

  

Coco Cake ©

A Debbie Brown cake for a three year old

My youngest daughter recently turned three and as the tradition has been of late, I created a sculpture cake for her birthday. I had long heard of Debbie Brown but hadn't seen any of her books here. As a treat to myself, I ordered the Debbie Brown 50 Easy Party Cakes on the recommendation of a friend. My daughter had changed her mind often about what kind of cake she would like but eventually she settled on the kitty cat tangled onto a ball of yarn. The only change I had to make was that the kitty had to be a princess and wear a crown and a skirt. That I could do.

Armed with detailed instructions and a whack load of marshmallow fondant, I created my daughter's cake over a couple of stages. The following photos are what I finally ended up with. The cake was finished on quite a hot day and the buttercream that I used to adhere the two sphere halves melted slightly and caused the cake to shift inside. By the time I served the cake the ball of yarn looked a little more slack than the photos. With a quick repair job with some additional fondant, the princess kitty was good to go.

If any of you are contemplating doing a sculpture cake I would highly recommend a Debbie Brown book for good designs and fantastic instructions. Just don't think about the obscene amount of fondant you will be using.

Next possible cake: a butterfly or a frog prince.