Tattoo Birthday Cake

So.. two lawyers, two firefighters and a drag queen walk in to a bar.

...no seriously.

This cake was exactly for the people mentioned above. The only stipulations they had were that it had to be a tier for each person and they wanted each of their names and professions included somehow. Of course none of these things really have anything in common, so I went with old sailor tattoos, which I drew out on separate pieces of fondant. I used a gold and black airbrush to put some shading behind the tattoos and used food color markers to do cross hatch shading along the layers and around the tattoos. The cake fed 200, which was by far my largest cake. Its a strawberry-amaretto cake with vanilla-almond frosting.

Penguin!

So... This is incredibly easy to make. I poured cake batter into a 4 cup pyrex measuring cup and bam-o, penguin shaped cake (well, once you turn it upside down). This was for a friend's friend's birthday.  The cake is a caramel butter cake with vanilla frosting and raspberry white chocolate fondant.

Overall I totally love this little guy and I hate that someone had to eat him. But, I am glad my friend found the design online, because this shape really opens up a lot of doors for doe-eyed adorable critter cakes in the future.

Blue Suede Rose Petal Cake

Blue suede cake with marzipan flavored frosting. White chocolate raspberry fondant rose petals and a TON of luster dust. I put some clear sugar sprinkles over the top thinking it'd look like rain drops.. but I think it looks like salt! ha. My daughter helped me make all the petals and she did the leaves all by herself!

Mountain Bike Birthday Cake

I made this cake for a Chef. Not just a cook, not just a foodie.. a real Chef. Chef Karen Roth of Alchemy to be exact. Talk about nervous! I'm actually really proud of this cake. It is probably my favorite. I used a lot of different piping techniques and some airbrushing (my first attempt!). The pathway is graham cracker crumbs and the bike is a fully functional model I got from a toy store. The inside is a lemon butter cake with sweet tea infused frosting.

Poker chip birthday cake

Poker chips for a poker lover. I worked with a new softer fondant for this cake and had a difficult time getting my lines crisp. I've since figured out how to work with it to get a cleaner effect. I like the look of this cake, but wish I'd had cleaner fondant work. The inside of the cake is Chai Tea Spice Cake with french vanilla frosting.

Be Mine Robot Valentine's Day Cake

I didn't get to take a picture of the inside of this cake, but it is tie-dyed with multiple colored frosting between each layer.

This was the client's inspiration. He really wanted the scalloped edging, but these are cookies and I didn't feel like the edge of a cake would hold up with that small of a scallop (at least not with my level of skill).

Sparkly pink fuzzy dice cake

I was under strict instruction to make the "girliest cake ever" for the client's friend James. They play some dice game I've never heard of, so he asked me to make it have dice in it. Thus: sparkly hot-pink fuzzy dice. The cake is flavored like Samoa Girl Scout Cookies. I used a grass tip and TONS of hot pink disco dust to make this thing as obnoxious as humanly possible. The top two pictures are the finished product, but the lighting was poor. The third picture is to accurately show the color and spaaaaarkles!

The saddest little wedding cake for the happiest little couple.

Sooo.. there a thousand hilarious stories to go with this cake. First, the wedding was moved from a year in the future to a week in the future via one early morning phone call, and the guest list went from 250 to 25. So, I rush all my decorating tools to my friends house who was supposed to help me with what was meant to be my biggest most important cake to date. Needless to say, when you try to plan out what you'll need.. you'll always forget something. The biggest downfall of this cake was my failing to get my layer cutting tool. So.. we're thinking, don't make a special trip, just use a big bread knife. Simple enough... if you've ever done it before! I cut those layers SOOOOO crooked! So we did our best to even them out, but at the end of the day, I can see that top tier leaning. The first picture has a dancing couple in the cut out, but I hated it and thought it looked extremely tacky. So I'm searching around my house trying to find something that would work... polymer clay to make a giant initial..something. Then I look at my salt and pepper shakers and think... "hmm... doves..." So into the dishwasher they go and on to the cake they went! I think they stole the show, actually. The inside of the cake is blue suede, which I think is a very Memphian take on red velvet.

Angry Owl Birthday Cake

The only surviving picture of this cake was taken via Instagram (hence the antique-y look). Its a cream cheese and chocolate cake with white chocolate raspberry fondant. I tried to make the owl look like it was made out of construction paper, which I think I more or less succeeded at aside from the thickness of the fondant. My daughter has started helping me with these non-commissioned projects and she cut out most of the shapes herself.

Tie-dye Hippie Birthday Cake

For my daughter and her friend's 12th birthdays. None of the kids believed me when I told them it was going to be tie-dyed in the center, too. We got a big screaming response when we cut it open and there it was: tie-dye cake. The outside is fondant with hand painted tie-dye by way of watered down frosting and food coloring and a food grade paint brush.

Alice in Wonderland Birthday Cake

I bake these style cakes in different pyrex measuring cups. This gives you a slight topsy turvey feel to the shape of the cake without all the hand carving. The cake itself is rather small, probably about 10 servings tops. It was for my daughter's 9th birthday, so I used marshmallow fondant because she likes the taste better even though it doesn't look as nice.

Ninja Turtle Birthday Cake (Michaelangelo)

For my friend Adam's birthday (affectionately nicknamed A-dumb). I hand sculpted that ninja turtle out of much too soft fondant and am quite amazed it even managed to stay upright during transit. Despite that, it was all done in marshmallow fondant and food color pens and I'm quite proud of it.

Cinco de Mayo Pinata Cake

I have new found respect for those ladies that do the star tip piping all over their cakes! My hand cramped up 8,000 times trying to ice this cake. One lesson I learned from this cake is to always step back and look at if from afar. It looked fine up close, but from the photo's distance, you can see the white icing peeking out from under the star-points.

"little princess" baby shower cake.

I actually really liked this cake. The tiara is plastic, so I can't claim any awesome piping skills. I was still hand making my own marshmallow fondant at this time, so you can see all the pills of powdered sugar in the fondant! I've since learned there really is no substitute for real fondant. It just looks better.

Topsy-turvey 1st Birthday.

This was my first try at a topsy turvey cake. The layering wasn't as difficult as I'd expected. This was still in the phase where I didn't know to make a runnier royal icing for piping so the icing falls back down instead of sticking up in those awful spikes everywhere.

Bright eyes lyrics Birthday Cake

All Charles' favorite things. The top was made to look like his hair, since its always, always, always "done".

My very first commission cake

Far a baby shower. I was so proud of it! The client loved it, despite all the blatant imperfections, lol!

Quick Halloween Ghost Cake