What are these things?

Back in February 2011 Jennifer, a friend of mine and coworker, asked if I'd like to create a Pokemon birthday cake for her son Spencer.  She named a couple of Spencer's favorite characters and I had no idea what these things were.....and to be honest, I still don't!  hahaha  Anyway, here you go.....

Have no idea who these guys are!

Top

Side

Another side

Ta-dah!

So this was a chocolate M&M candy cake with chocolate pudding mousse, vanilla buttercream outside and a white fondant overlay.  The character faces, Pokemon logo, lightening bolts and border were all crafted out of fondant as well.  I also painted over the faces and logo with color icing gels to sort-of dress it up a  bit :-)  At first I was very hesitant about this cake but I think overall it turned out pretty cool.  Spencer and his friends loved it and that's what mattered most to me!

Stromboli cake

So one of my coworkers can not get enough Italian food!  Johnny just so happens to be in love with these chicken Stromboli from our local pizza shop.  Back in December 2010 I thought it would be comical to surprise him with a Stromboli look-a-like cake for his birthday.  Here's what I ended up with:

My attempt at a Stromboli look-a-like :-)
If you look closely, you may be able to see the
images in the background that served as a reference
throughout the design process.

A shot of  one of the ends of the cake.  I tried to mimic all the
little chicken pieces, cheese and tomato sauce, heehee.

A closer look

To my surprise the cake was a hit and the look on everyone's faces was priceless, especially Johnny's!

It's difficult for me to remember but I believe this was an all vanilla cake, including the buttercream.  The outside is wrapped in white fondant that I "painted" with various shades or brown, orange and yellow icing gels.  I used red fondant to create the tomato sauce, and white fondant to create the cheese and little chicken pieces.  I also painted on these areas to try and create some depth.  Oh, and I covered the chicken pieces in toasted coconut to give it the look of baked breadcrumbs.  I have to admit that I think it's pretty cool to be able to paint on cake in this fashion and to be able to give it such a realistic appearance!

A cake for the Boss

We're a tight-knit bunch here in my office!  I'm frequently asked to create cakes for my coworkers for their birthdays.  Here's a cake I created for my boss's 48th birthday (April 2010).  This cake was inspired by a version crafted on Wilton.com.  The idea was to recreate each coworker right onto the cake.  So I did!

8 employees = 8 party hats!

Unfortunately I don't recall the cake flavors for this one but I can tell you that I baked with the petal shaped pan by Wilton and covered the entire cake in white fondant.  All of the "employees" were crafted out of fondant and the "party hats" are vanilla sugar cones wrapped in fondant.  I couldn't help but laugh hysterically throughout the whole process of decorating this cake as I replicated everyone, hilarious!  Needless to say the cake was a big hit!

For two of my favorite people.....

Here is a private engagement cake I created in June 2010 for my cousin Nick & his now-wife Nicole.  The best part about this cake is that it was a surprise to Nicole and contained her engagement ring!

Box with engagement ring nestled in the top layer :-)

Front view

Top of cake, in the box

This was a vanilla almond cake with a fruit jam filling and lots of almond chocolate buttercream outside.  Delish!  All of the flowers and pearl-like dots were buttercream too.  Nicole was super surprised and I am very thankful that I was given the opportunity to be a part of their special moment!

My first post

Ok, so I'm finally posting on this thing!  Let's start with an oldie.......

This was a cake I created in February 2010 for Colin, the son of two really good friends of mine - Dennis & Sara.  It was a white cake with chocolate chips, vanilla buttercream filling and vanilla buttercream frosting outside.  I used the Nordic Ware bakeware train mold to make the little trains and decorated them with various candies and icings.  The trees are artificial (plastic) and the rocks are candy.  Oh, and the letters are chocolate and were shaped using a basic alphabet candy mold.  I definitely had fun decorating this cake, it kinda made me feel like a kid again!