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?

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.