Stuff I Make

His and Her Wedding Cakes

Two cakes, one to match the groom and one to match the bride. I am SO lucky to have clients with such brilliant ideas!

It was an Air Force Wedding, just like mine was. That made it even better.

Of all the little details, I wanted to get the medals and wings right. The groom sent me a picture and I looked up each one, copied, sized and printed them, then piped royal icing in the exact design. I used gold and silver petal dust to give a shine to each.

The grooms cake was red velvet and chocolate.

The brides cake was an interpretation of her dress and flowers.

The flowers are peonies in pale pink and champagne.

The ruched fondant on the dress was a first for me.

The brides cake was vanilla and butter pecan.

The reception was at Union Station in D.C. (one of my favorite places on earth) and the bride is perhaps one of the most amazing women I've ever met.

Her story is here.

I was honored to make these cakes.

 

Wedding Cookies

Last month, my dearest and closest (although furthest geographically) friend's daughter got married. I was unable to attend the wedding, and sadly unable to make her cake. 

I did however get these made as a gift and sent off through the mail:

I figured a cake cookie was the closest I could get to the real thing!

Congratulations Ieuen and Rachel!!

(When I was googling ideas for British themed wedding cookies, I stumbled upon the great blog "Katie's Something Sweet" which totally inspired these cookies, especially the bride and groom ones. Her work is amazing and I can't take credit for her amazing designs!)

Safari

A fun safari-themed baby shower cake. The design was based on the invitation.

There was a lot of grassy detail. I used a combination of fondant and royal icing to add color and texture.

Mr. Giraffe was my favorite.

The bowed tied it all together. Figuratively. 

The cake flavors were chocolate and vanilla.

Ink Can

I love the challenge of making a cake NOT look like cake. I also love making a cake that I know no one has ever made before.

The real thing is sitting on top... the cake (not quite so sharp in vertical lines) is on the board.

The inside of the cake is four layers of vanilla tinted blue, green, yellow and red. The fondant is made from chocolate and glazed with vodka and corn syrup. The logo is a combination of royal icing and hand-cut fondant.

Made for a company party.

 

Angry Birds are Still HOT!

My third angry bird order... and I still think they're pretty darn cute:

I made the slingshot by taking thick wire and bending it into a U shape then shoving it into a giant straw (bubble tea straw). I then molded the fondant/gum paste around it.

That wood grain impression mat has come in SO handy. I use it all the time. You can find it here.

Don't you think my birds are getting better? I think they look especially angry.

Here's my original Angry Bird Cake:

 

 

 

May the Cake Be With You

A vanilla and fudge cake.

The lettering was done with royal icing and the lighter sabers are made from fondant. I painted the bases silver with luster dust.

KitKat Cake

Easy and fun!

Inside was french vanilla cake and fudge filling.

Tintin

Two reasons I love this cake:

1. I LOVED the movie.

2. It was made for a Belgian who grew up loving Tin Tin. (Pressure's on!)

The Unicorn:

The cake was chocolate with cookies and cream filling.

Cake Painting

I love all my cake clients (well, almost all), but I have one in particular who gives me the most fantastic design opportunities. She has an innate faith in me that whatever I end up doing will be fabulous, but I must give her credit for seeing a design and thinking.... ah, THAT would be a cool cake!

Example:

This is a MacKenzie-Childs enamel cake carrier. Admittedly, I'd never heard of this brand, but I am in love. My client's mom collects pieces from this brand and she thought a cake made to look like the cake carrier would make a fantastic birthday cake.

At first I was a little scared at all the flowery detail - especially as to how I was going to recreate it in fondant. But then I thought... this design needs to be painted. And I love painting, but never have time to do it anymore because I'm always making cakes!

Worlds are colliding.

I never realized that fondant makes a perfect canvas for food coloring gels. I got new food-safe brushes, a cheap plastic palate and squeezed my gel colors in with a tiny bit of water.

Then I went to town.

I'm hooked! It was so fun to create this way. I felt like I was back in my old neighborhood after-school watercolor classes. I think I painted every week for 2-3 years... then went on to paint frequently with my grandma. I once even wrote a letter to Bob Ross that he replied to. Dude.

The courtly check pattern on the base is cut from fondant, then glazed with a corn syrup/alcohol mixture.

I only had that once picture to go from, plus a few grainy jpegs from image searches, so I kind of imagined a lot of these flowers.

The cake itself is butter pecan filled with vanilla buttercream and ribbons of caramel.

Now if only I could incorporate my other hobbies into cake-making. Crochet? Scrapbooking? Realty TV watching? Any ideas??

 

Moo

A baby shower cake for a couple who owns a farm out here in rural Virginia:

I carved out a portion of the middle tier to make room for the pond:

You're probably wondering why there's a hippo on a farm. I wish I knew... it was a special request. But I think he's pretty cute.

The barn is also made of cake:

As I look closely at these pictures I see that it's not perfect. This bugs me. But I'm going to have to move on with my life I guess.

For those wondering about servings, this cake served approx. 65 people.