Mickey Mouse Baby Shower Cake

The cake

This is a baby shower cake I did for my friend, Amanda.  It was a Mickey Mouse themed shower because that is what she is decorating the baby's nursery with.  The cake needed to be big enough to feed 80 people.  Wow!  So, this is what I came up with.  I was super excited because I had ordered a sleeping baby mold and was eager to use it.  This thing is so cool.  The detail is outstanding.  You see skin folds and wrinkles, little lips and ears, and even strands of hair.

This is a close up of the sleeping baby.  I placed him on a big Mickey Mouse fondant cut out and then covered him with a red fondant blanket.  I need practice painting the hair, but I felt like my coloring was pretty good with the flesh and pink cheeks, etc.

This is the top tier.  It was vanilla cake with a strawberries and creme filling.

This is the middle tier.  It was chocolate with Nutella filling.

This is the bottom tier.  It was vanilla cake with caramel marshmallow filling. 

I was unable to actually attend the shower because it fell on Charles' birthday, but I've had positive reviews about how good it tasted and what a hit it was.  That makes me happy.  As long as Amanda was happy, though, is what matters most!  

Wedding Cakes

These are wedding cakes I did for my best friend and her new husband, Bryan and Shelia Easley.

The brides cake is vanilla with vanilla pudding filling and buttercream icing. It is four tiers with the top and third having a ribbon border and the second and bottom with a diamond impression and edible pearls at each corner of the diamond pattern. These tiers have fondant pearl borders. There is a fondant 'E' on the top tier for Easley. The flowers, though, is what I think make the cake.

The grooms cake is chocolate with chocolate chips. It is iced with chocolate buttercream and then impressed with the diamond pattern. It is topped with chocolate ganache and accented with chocolate dipped strawberries and grapes. The top has Ephesians 3:20 written on the top.

This was definitely a labor of love. If I ever doubted what God revealed to me about the baking business not being His plan for me, it was confirmed through this cake. It was very time consuming and very stressful. I placed all of the stress on myself because I wanted it to be perfect...which it wasn't. Don't get me wrong, I was happy to do this for my dear friends that I love so much and I have talked to Shelia about doing her wedding cake one day for years. But, I couldn't do this all of the time for people who really do expect perfection. Thankfully, Shelia loves me and did not expect perfection...she was so gracious (and brave) to give me this chance and be my guinea pig. I've always wanted to do a wedding cake and now I can say I have. But I know that on a daily basis my focus, time, and attention is meant to be given to my family. So, thank you Shelia and Bryan for believing in me, but I think I'll stick to birthday and special occasion cakes that I can do in a couple of days :)

PS...I had to include a picture of me and the beautiful bride :)

Polka Dots

This is a cake I did for two little girls who were going to be sharing a birthday party. Their moms just wanted a girly, polka dot cake, similar to the invitation. It is a 10 inch square on the bottom, then an eight inch and six inch round tiers. I took all of the colors from the invite ~ pink, green, purple, and teal ~ and made letters and polka dots out of fondant. The cake is iced in buttercream with the same for the border done in the same color combination. I put each girl's name on a tier as well as the age they are turning. Hope they like it!

Course 3 Finale

Course 3 was all about fondant and tiered cakes so it goes without saying that the final cake would be a combination of the two. The whole cake is edible! The roses are made of store bought Wilton fondant and WHEW were they time consuming! Not hard, just very time consuming. For the white fondant icing, I made my own marshmallow fondant (I've been told that MMF taste way better and is much cheaper than the store bought kind). Anyway, I think it turned out right :) though I still don't think it looked as smooth as those who used the Wilton brand. I used buttercream for the ruffle at the bottom. There are also white fondant flower cut outs that didn't show up too well on the pix (they kind of look like white dots...but they are flowers). Overall, I am pleased with the result. My mom took it to work with her so I'm sure I will get some very straight forward feedback!

Over the Rainbow

This is a Wizard of Oz cake I did for a little girl's 6th birthday. It told the story from the ground up. The first tier was vanilla cake and had a gray sky with the house, a tornado, bare trees, and blowing grass....as well as her birthday wish and name. The next tier was chocolate and took her over the rainbow. There was blue sky and six rainbows, of course, since it was her 6th birthday. The final tier was again vanilla and displayed the yellow brick road which led to the Emerald City. Thankfully, her mom had the cake topper as it was done on sort of short notice and it is HARD to find Wizard of Oz stuff! This cake was so much fun to make and I was sooo excited to get to do it. It was certainly my biggest venture yet and I'm so thankful it turned out so well. Thank you, Lisa, for giving me the opportunity. And most importantly, thank you Heavenly Father for giving me a dream and blessing me with capable hands and showering me with Your perfect love!