Bring on the Ducks

I had a fabulous time teaching my son's 6th grade class about cake decorating today.  His teacher, Mrs. Fossum, was such a wonderful sport to let me come in and spend time with her kids. 

This is a picture of the cake before the class helped me finish decorating it.

Each of the kids in the class have one of these notebooks.  It says CAS Mrs. Fossums Class - Necessary Information for Success and Survival

The doughnut on this cake is made of gumpaste and it's my favorite part of the cake.  I also love all of the worms.  One of the kids told me the worms looked way too real to eat.

 Mrs. Fossum's amazing collection of rubber duckies was the inspiration for this cake.  The story behind this cake is pretty simple.  It's a section of the sidewalk outside of their school just after a rain storm.  The ducks have come to play in the puddles.  I spent a few minutes talking with the kids about the basics of cake decorating and what they had to work with and then I taught them how to make their own ducks.

 I was totally impressed by all of the kids in the class.  They did such a great job making their ducks.  It was so fun to see all of the individual touches.  We had ducks with big hair, hats, scarves, bows, even a duck with headphones.  I loved it.  

Everyone got to put their duck onto the cake.

I think the ducks look awesome!

This is a picture of the entire class with the cake that they helped to decorate.

Cutting the cake.  It was chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and oreo cream filling.  It was so good.

Butterflies for Sadie

The butterflies and ribbon are completely edible.  They are both made of gum paste.

Sadie's mom only had 3 requests for this cake.  She wanted it to be pink, white and it had to have butterflies on it.  The 6 inch top tier is lemon pound cake filled with alternating layers of lemon curd (an intense lemon filling) and lemon swiss meringue buttercream frosting.  The 10 inch bottom tier is a cream cake filled alternating layers of raspberry puree and vanilla swiss meringue buttercream frosting.

Apple Cake

Filled with chunks of apples and spices this cake is perfect for fall.  I frosted mine with a caramel swiss meringue buttercream but it would be fabulous with a cream cheese frosting as well.

I spent several days this last week making applesauce, apple butter, and apple cider.  You'd think I'd be tired of apples after all of that but instead I just wanted apple cake. 

Captain Katelyn's 7th Birthday

Katelyn loves chocolate so I didn't mess around with this cake.  It has six layers of chocolate cake with alternating layers of vanilla and chocolate swiss meringue buttercream frosting and a single layer of oreo cream filling in the center.

These little treasure maps have 7's on them in honor of Katelyn's 7th birthday.  She chose brownie swirl cupcakes with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream frosting.

When I talked with Katelyn's mom about what kind of a party and cake she wanted, she told me that Katelyn was more of a pirate than a princess. 

The cake was made to match her cute little party invitations. 

Happy Halloween!

I made 7 dozen cupcakes for a company party.  Coconut Cream, Chocolate Chocolate, and Pumpkin.  I hope everyone has a sweet Halloween night!

The Billion Dollar Experience

This is a classic chocolate cake with chocolate french buttercream frosting.

When my 11 year old son, Will, tasted this cake he exclaimed "That is a billion dollar experience!"  It's that good.  Sometimes you just need really good chocolate cake, fortunately, it won't cost you a billion dollars.

Funfinity

I put a cake insert into the wedding cake to allow Becca and Jeff to cut their cake.  You can see that section above.  I've decorated it to look like pumpkin chocolate chip cake with cream cheese frosting.

If you'd like to have a closer look at Jeff and Becca's wedding cakes stop by Funfinity - 222 East University Parkway, Orem, Utah.  Funfinity is an awesome toy store that also sells lots of fabulous cake decorating and candy making supplies.  My Tangled Tower cake is still at the store and you can check out all three cakes when you stop in.

Becca's Wedding

Jeff and Becca Johnson admire the grooms cake at their reception.

On Saturday September 17th my sister in law married Jeff Johnson.  I made the wedding cake, the grooms cake and 500 assorted cupcakes.  It was a beautiful day enjoyed by all.

If you look really closely you can
see the tiny gelatin sequins I made.

I looked at dozens of cakes with Becca and we talked over lots of ideas but nothing really seemed right until I started thinking about her wedding dress.  I was storing the dress for her and so I was able to pull it out and really look at it.  Her ivory colored dress was covered in beautiful white lace and I immediately thought about how pretty it would be on a cake.  So, in the end, I designed something original for her to match her wedding dress.  We didn't want to have to cut up the entire cake so I made the whole thing out of styrofoam except for a small section on the bottom tier.  I put carrot cake into that section so that Becca and Jeff could cut the cake together. 

Jeff loves pumpkin pie and the outdoors which explains the pie and the setting of this cake.  But there are so many personal details on this cake we had to write  " The Grooms Cake Deciphered" to help the guests at their reception understand and appreciate everything I included on the cake.

This is a picture of The Grooms Cake Deciphered - a list of all of the details on the grooms cake and what they meant.

The 500 assorted cupcakes were: 

pumpkin with orange cream cheese frosting

chocolate chip caramel swirl with chocolate swiss merengue buttercream

vanilla pound cake with vanilla swiss merengue buttercream

strawberry lemon twist with lemon swiss merengue buttercream

and

gluten free chocolate with chocolate swiss merengue buttercream

Sweet Summer Cupcakes

Delicious cupcakes in three flavors; Snickerdoodle (just like the cookie but in a cupcake), Vanilla Vanilla and Strawberry Cream.  My favorite were the strawberry cream cupcakes.  Strawberry pound cake with strawberry cream cheese frosting.  So good.

Rainbow Fairy Cake

I asked Alicia what kind of a fairy she wanted to be and without hesitation she said a rainbow fairy.

  On the outside this cake is light and airy with fluffy white clouds but on the inside I've made chocolate blackout cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream frosting and caramel snickers candy bar filling. 

The best part about making this cake was the delivery.  Alicia was so excited!  She wanted to keep the fairy version of herself so I made the topper easy to lift off and save.  I'm sure it will be fun to remember this birthday every time she sees it.

Rapunzel Revisited

I was asked to display one of my cakes at Funfinity, a great toy store in Orem, Utah that also sells cake decorating and candy making supplies.  We thought it would be fun to show off my Rapunzel tower with a new cake base.  If you live in the Utah Valley area you should definitely stop in and check it out.  The cake is over 3 feet tall and has lots of fun details that Tangled fans will enjoy.  It took me over 100 hours to make this cake. 

              The front of the cake says "Once upon a Time"  

The back of the cake says "Happily ever After"

I had to put Maximus on this cake somewhere. 

I love all of the wanted posters in the movie.  I chose to draw one with a particularly ugly nose.  You can see Flynn climbing up the side of the cake here as well.

Here you can see Rapunzel and Flynn's campsite, the famous satchel, the frying pan and the sign for the Snuggly Duckling.

My cake on display at Funfinity - 222 East University Pkwy, Orem Utah

Happy 4th of July!

Yummy 4th of July cake pops.  These are strawberry cake and cream cheese frosting on the inside, white chocolate on the outside. 

Walnut Maple Cake

This beautiful 12 inch Classic Cake is gluten free.  Three layers of vanilla cake are complimented by three delicious flavors.  Apricot jam, maple buttercream and toasted walnuts.

Variations on a Theme: Banana

Banana cake with peanut butter filling and cream cheese buttercream frosting.

These two cakes are what I like to call Classic Cakes.  With no fondant or specially made gumpaste decorations these cakes are simply delicious.  Both cakes feature three layers of incredibly moist banana cake complimented by caramel and pecans or peanut butter and cream cheese.

Banana cake with caramel filling, toasted pecans and cream cheese buttercream frosting.

Happy Birthday Allison

This 10 inch square birthday cake was for my favorite client.  It was three layers of gluten-free chocolate chip cake with mocha swiss meringue buttercream frosting.

Harold and the Purple Crayon

My friend Ashley named her son Harold after his Grandfather and to celebrate his 1st birthday she asked me to make this special cake. 
She wanted the theme of the cake to be the book;  Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson.  Harold and the Purple Crayon was first published in 1955 and Ashley remembers reading it as a kid.  It is a darling book and I was thrilled to make it a cake.

Harold Isaac's real bedroom is decorated in a woodland theme.
I chose to recreate elements from his real bedroom in this imaginary room.

In the book, Harold draws himself an adventure with his purple crayon.  In the end, he wants to go home and has to find his way back to his bedroom. 
The sides of the cake feature Ashley's favorite scenes from the book. 
On the top of the cake I created a little scene from Harold Isaac's future.   He has fallen asleep after spending the day reading Harold and the Purple Crayon and drawing pictures just like Harold in the book.

This is my favorite part of the book.  I love that hungry moose and deserving porcupine.