Callie's Owl-stravaganza!!!

One of my very best friends in the whole wide world, Stacy, was planning a 1st birthday party for her beautiful daughter, Callie.  She asked me to do Callie's cake and gave me PLENTY of notice (which I always appreciate), and Stacy included me in her brainstorming ideas for the party (which was also super fun).  It was neat to listen to all of Stacy's fantastic ideas and her amazing vision turn into such a beautiful party.  

She decided to go with an owl theme for Callie's party.  The colors she found herself drawn to were bright pink and orange.  She researched high and low to find the "right" items for the party, which included making her own items (the masks and the owl pillows seen below) and ordering banners and signs from an artist on etsty.com.  Here's the picture she gave me for inspiration for the cake. 

Stacy wanted an two-tiered cake and we discussed ideas and exchanged thoughts back and forth.  She ultimately gave me creative freedom and I took it.  In the final hour, I decided to make the two-tiered cake a topsy-turvy cake, just for fun!  The owls and the color-schemed screamed "whimsical" to me and the topsy-turvy was then justified. 

But first came the owl topper.  Sculpted out of rice krispies and covered in gum paste and fondant. 

I wanted the owl to look as though it was sitting in a nest on top of a tree.  The nest was designed to be Callie's smash cake (but we decided on a cupcake at the party...more on that later).

The top tier of the cake was a yellow cake with buttercream and strawberry preserve filling.  The bottom tier of the cake was a chocolate cake with chocolate fudge, buttercream and Oreo filling.  (Best.Flavor.Combination.Ever!  Totally MY favorite!)

Stacy also requested soy, dairy and gluten-free cupcakes for the party due to some dietary restrictions.  She provided the cupcake mix and I baked them and decorated them with 7-minute frosting; a very marshmallow-y, light and sweet topping!

 And here's what the cake and cupcakes looked like at their destination. 

We're getting ready to sing Happy Birthday to Callie.  Here's her smash cake. 

And here's the adorable Callie!  A cute little princess, indeed!

After Callie's adventure, I carved up the cake.  A rare moment when I actually get to see the cake cut and served.  Here's what it looked like on the inside.  YUM!

Dear Callie - I hope you had a wonderful birthday celebration!  I'm so thankful I got to be a part of your special day!  I look forward to celebrating many more with you!

Part of Her World

Little Miss Clare is turning three. Her mom, Kristie, likes to pick a theme for her daughter that introduces her to a new character. Last year, you may recall, I made Clare a My Little Pony cake. This year, Kristie wanted to introduce Clare to Disney's The Little Mermaid. Ariel, being my favorite Disney princess, made this a joy to create!

I love including toys on kid's cakes. I don't know. Call me strange. But as a kid, I know that if there was something I could later play with ON the cake - that was the dream. So I went to my local toy store and scoured the princess aisle for something that I could use on the cake. I came across a miniature Ariel and two of her sisters and thought it would be PERFECT! They were the right size, but the next step was coming up with the design.

The scene of the movie that I wanted to create was Ariel overlooking Prince Eric from the rock after she rescued him from the shipwreck.

Because the rock is tilted funny, I thought this would make the perfect topsy turvy cake! And here's how the cake turned out:

The top layer of the cake is a vanilla cake with rapsberry buttercream. The bottom layer is a chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream. (Remember that if you ever create a topsy turvy cake, you absolutely have to use a denser cake. These cakes tend to be pretty fragile otherwise.)

Clare, I hope you had a fantastic birthday celebration! I also hope that you loved The Little Mermaid as much as I do!!! Thanks for letting me be part of your special day!

1 Cake, 2 Cake, White Cake, Blue Cake

My friend Beth approached me a few months ago asking for some cake advice. She was throwing a Dr. Suess party for her soon-to-be 2-year old daughter, Jillian. She wanted to create a Cat in the Hat HAT in cake form. I gave her some well-thought out advice, or at least I told her what I would do if I were making the cake.

Then the call came. Beth asked ME to make the cake for her daughter's party. She is one busy Mama with 3 kids four years and younger. Plus, she works. When on EARTH would she have time to make the cake? Yeah...so she called me and I was more than happy to help out!

The good news is that I already had the design done. But you know something? I wanted to do something different. Just the Cat's hat wasn't enough. I wanted to do more and thought that this may be the perfect opportunity for me to attempt a topsy-turvy cake. I'd always wanted to try. A big risk, mind you, having never done one before, but Beth had to approve anyway.

So I asked her if we could scrap the hat idea and if I could try the topsy turvy cake. I explained that I'd like to incorporate more of The Cat in the Hat story and bring in Thing 1 and Thing 2, the goldfish and kites. Beth was excited by this an also asked me to incorporate "Happy Birthday Jillian", the number 2, the actual Cat in the Hat(because that was Jillian's favorite Dr. Suess character), and have it match the outfit Jillian was going to wear the day of her party.

She attached a picture of Jillian's dress. Isn't it the cutest?!!!

I took a few hours and created the characters from gum paste. Here's what they looked like when I was [almost] done. (All of the marking, by the way, is done with a food marker. Edible. Very important!)

Then, it was time to bake the cakes. For the bottom tier, Beth wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling. The top tier she wanted marble cake with bavarian cream filling. Well, the bottom tier went together without a problem. It was awesome. I baked three 10-inch cakes and filled and stacked them, and then did the carving, crumb-coating and covered it in fondant. No problem whatsoever. Life was good.

Then, the marble cake disaster occured. The cake itself was too moist and crumbly and it quite literally disintegrated when I attempted to put it together. Marble cake was not going to be an option. So, I baked some yellow cakes instead. Those went together MUCH better. The topsy turvy cakes need to be firm, dense cakes, and the yellow cake worked out MUCH better than the marble. It started to collapse in the fridge, but I was able to fix it, cover it in fondant and move on with the rest of the decorating.

Because this cake had to travel a good 45 minutes, I wanted to make sure that it would travel well. So, the top tier of the cake, the Cat himself, I made out of molded Rice Krispie treats covered in buttercream and fondant. That made the cake a little lighter and I was able to sculpt it much easier. So, when you put it all together, this is what Jillian's cake looked like:

I cut out the letters in gum paste using a Dr. Suess font I printed out.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 are running in opposite directions on the cake, dragging kites behind them. The poor fish...all stressed out.

Because Jillian's dress had the infamous word "BUMP!" on it, I also wanted to include that on the cake. I found the perfect spot!

My favorite part of this cake was the drop-off. Beth is a teacher at a school a few miles away from where I live. She figured it would be easier for the two of us if I just brought the cake to her school and she would drive it home. So, as a special treat for her class, she had all of her students come out to the front of the school to see the cake. How fun!

Here's 2-year old Jillian with her cake! LOVE IT!!!

I understand that Beth was serving Green Eggs and Ham among other "Suessical" things at Jillian's party today. I sure hope they had a fantastic time! I'm so sorry I missed it! Happy 2nd Birthday Jillian!!! I'm so happy I got to be a part of your special day!