Daisies for my friend...

This is a chocolate cake I did for my friend, Dana, for her birthday. I torted the cake and filled and iced it with chocolate ganashe. I've never made nor used ganashe before, but it was very easy, very yummy, and a perfect compliment to this particular cake. I cut out her initial in a fondant/gumpaste mix as well as daisies and a ribbon border. The initial turned out bigger than I had needed because it was actually supposed to sit on top of the border but I had to adjust. Overall, I'm pleased and can't wait to get a slice for myself tonight!

Peter Pan

This is a Peter Pan cake that I did for some friends of ours children. The cake ended up looking a little to "boy-ish" due to all the blue, so I added a some dots of color to help incorporate Tinkerbell's colors and make it a little more "girl-y". The image is an edible image (printed smaller than I had hoped). I couldn't find a treasure chest candle that didn't take 2-3 weeks for delivery so I decided to try and make one from a fondant and gumpaste mix. I hand painted it with icing color. I even put in "gold" (also from fondant). I really don't think the picture does it justice (I liked it). There are many things that did not turn out as my mind had envisioned it, though, but I hope they will be pleased nonetheless.

Ladybug

This is a ladybug cake I did for my friend, Christy. She loves ladybugs so this was my gift to her. I used a rounded cake pan for the body and made one cupcake to be the head. It is all buttercream except the eyes and mouth which are fondant. This was probably one of the easiest cakes I've ever done but I must say, too, it is one of my favorites!

Alvin and the Chipmunks

This is a cake I did for Zoie's 6th birthday. Clearly is it Alvin and the Chipmunks but she wanted to also include the Chippetts. She found this picture on the computer and wanted it to look like that. So, since I'm no artist, I enlisted the help of an edible image. I took the printed picture to the grocery store and they printed me an edible image that I transposed onto the cake. I added fondant accents but the majority of the cake is buttercream. She was excited and I enjoyed doing it for her!

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!

Royal Icing Flowers

As I've said before, I struggled a little bit with the royal icing flowers I learned in course 2. Last night, we learned more and I actually did better (I didn't thin my icing even when it said to and it worked MUCH better for me)! Here are my results for the poinsettia, petunia, easter lily, and morning glory.

Star Wars

This is a cake I did for a little boys 5th birthday. The theme was 'Star Wars' and he was having a Jedi / Light Sabre Training Academy party. His mom wanted the cake to be the light sabres. So, the sheet cake on the bottom is covered in a dark blue/gray to be like outer space, then there is yellow cake shimmer scattered throughout and yellow stars. On each of the four sides of the cake I wrote something different...one side says "Happy Birthday", one says "May the Force Be With You", one says "Star Wars" and the other says "Jedi Training Academy". Then I took another sheet cake and cut out two light sabres. She wanted one red and one green. So after icing them, I sprinkled them with cake sparkles to make them shimmer (since I couldn't find flourescent color). I used mini-m&m's for the buttons. I hope this meets and maybe even exceeds their expectations....I deliver it in a couple of hours!