Eloise's Woodland Wonderland

First of all, Eloise is adorable and I was absolutely excited to make her 2nd birthday cake.  (Her first one was also made by me - Eloise's Ombre cake.)  I wanted to make sure that her 2nd birthday cake was just as memorable.  

So when I received this invitation in the mail, I was immediately inspired.  I loved all of the little critters joining in the fun and knew I needed to incorporate them into the cake design.  We just had to wait for the RSVPs to come in before I'd know the size of the cake.  

In the meantime, I received an email message from a visitor to my site who wanted to know how I make those gum paste figures on the top of my cakes.  My students also ask this question, so I thought there was no better way to teach this than to show you step-by-step how this is done.  It's easy.  But time consuming.  You've been warned.  ;)

So, the first thing I did was scan in the invitation and save it as a jpeg.  I imported the picture into Word and cropped it so that I could print out the animals in the size I wanted.  Here, they're just about 4" (or so) high.  I had to crop three times to get all of the animals printed in the correct size.  I used plain old printer paper for this.

The next step is cutting each of the little animals out.

Here are the supplies I needed to make these little critters.  A scissors, a rolling pin, an exacto knife, gum paste, Crisco, food coloring in the colors you'll need and a nice work space.

I actually had some brown fondant on hand and mixed it with some gum paste.  I used about a 50/50 mix of each.  I spread some Crisco on my hands and knead the gum paste/fondant mix until it's really elastic and workable.  Think about the consistency of silly puddy.

When it gets to a workable consistency, I spread some Crisco on my work surface and roll it out, about 1/4" thick.

I place the first animal on top and literally trace it out of the gum paste/fondant using my exacto knife.

Like this.  This is my first layer and I'll build the monkey out of this.

I added more white gum paste to the brown to get this color and cut out the beaver the same way I did the monkey.

The monkey's belly also needed that lighter tan color so I cut that out of the monkey cut-out and traced it out of the lighter colored gum paste/fondant mix as well.  If I need help figuring out were to place the cut-outs onto the shape, I just use the paper cut-out as the pattern, like I did below.   Now his belly is where it's supposed to be.

With the varying shades of browns and tans, these little creatures are beginning to take shape.  I use plain old water to stick all of the pieces together.  A very light brushing of water truly acts as glue.

Now I'm working on the eyes.

More eyes...

I used a food marker (shown is a Wilton fine print food safe marker in brown) to draw in the detail work of the mouths and noses of some of the creatures.  

And here they're almost complete.  The frog is my favorite.  I used some luster dust to incorporate the yellow shading.  

Here's the finished product.  A delicious chocolate cake with buttercream filling and a light chocolately buttercream frosting.  

"What does the fox say?"

Yep!  I think it passes!  

I hope you have a wonderful party today, Eloise!!  Many blessings to you on so many wonderful years ahead!!

Rainbows and Unicorns

Angela requested a cake and cake pops for her daughter, Elliana's 7th birthday party.  I got the invitation via email and my head nearly exploded from pure glee.  Check out this invite!!!

My 7-year old self was absolutely ecstatic to start on this cake and cake pops.  Angela requested a rainbow colored cake on the inside and a unicorn on the outside.  Sha!

So the first thing I did was make the cake pops.  Rainbow, of course.

Then I made a TON of cakes.  Purple.

Blue.

Green.

Yellow.  

Orange.  

Red.

And here's the beautiful stack of colorful goodness.  Mmmmm!

Here's Elliana's cake.  I tried to incorporate as many of the design elements from the invite as I could.  OF COURSE I had the unicorn featured on the front of the cake.  All purple and happy.  With number 7 on her.  

Here's what the cake looked like at its final destination.  What cool water bottles!

Here's Elliana enjoying a slice of her rainbow cake.  What a neat unicorn head band!  I've never seen anything like it!  I want one.  

Check that out!!!   The colors turned out great!

Happy 7th birthday, Elliana!  If I was 7 years old, I know that we'd be great friends!  :)

Coral Ombre

Chelsie was a lucky winner from my Cake Mama Cakes Birthday Giveaway last Fall.  She wanted to "cash in" her prize for a birthday cake for herself.  I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate!

Chelsie wanted to try the chocolate-flecked cake that has very quickly become a client favorite.  I used a regular vanilla buttercream filling and I decorated the outside of this beautiful cake with a smooth, delicious real vanilla bean boiled buttercream.  I think the shading turned out beautifully. 

If you look closely enough, you can actually see the flecks from the vanilla bean.  Mmmmm!

Happiest of birthdays to you, Chelsie!!  

S'mores Bites

Looking for something super easy and fun to serve at your New Year's Party?  Why not try some S'mores bites?  They are so simple, fast and oh so good!!!

Here's how easy they are:

Step one:  Melt some chocolate.  I use my Wilton Candy Pro to do the job.
Step two:  Skewer a large marshmallow.  I used Jet Puffed marshmallows but have made these with homemade marshmallows before and those are awesome as well!

Step three:  Dip the marshmallow into the melted chocolate.

Step four:  Roll into some crushed graham crackers.

Step five:  Remove from skewer and place on waxed paper to cool and harden.

Step six:  Enjoy!!!

These make a great addition to any cookie/candy tray over the holidays or for any occasion!  Have fun!!

Happy Birthday, Tanner!

My godson Tanner's invite came in the mail.  Lots of gold.  Lots of class.  Then he sent over some pictures of cakes that he'd like for the occasion.  Again, gold painted fondant with a lot of sophistication and two tiers.  I was game.  

Tanner gave me freedom to do something new for the cake flavors and I took advantage of that to try something I'd been wanting to try for a while.  S'Mores cake.  I took a chocolate cake and topped the first layer with chocolate fudge filling and graham crackers, then I stacked some more cake and topped that with marshmallow fluff, and then I did another with fudge and graham crackers.  I couldn't wait to see and taste how it would turn out.  

 

The top tier of the cake was chocolate flecked cake with buttercream filling.  It's such a crowd pleaser! But Tanner's favorite cake flavor is banana, so I threw in some banana cake pops, all decorated for this fancy party.

Here's how they both turned out.  I used a gold edible food spray to spray "paint" the fondant on the cakes.  I added some edible food glitter to sparkle it up a little.

 

And here's the birthday boy!

 

 Gold candles look great on the cake!

Happy Birthday, Tanner!  And thanks so much for letting me explore a fun new flavor!  Doesn't that look delicious?!!!

 

Best wishes for another GREAT year, Tanner!  With even more exciting new things on the horizon, I can't imagine anything less!

Love,

Ann