Saturday, July 21, 2012

Sharon Turns 40!

This is a 40th birthday cake for a dear friend.  Unfortunately, it was one of the hottest, most humid days we have had in Texas this summer and the black fondant on the bottom layers of the cake started melting causing the fondant to sag.  The upside I guess is that it also gave it a nice shiny appearance!  Other than that, I was happy with the way it turned out and it was a big hit at the surprise party.  The M&M character,sign, and flowers were made from fondant and gum paste.  I was fortunate to find chocolate rocks at the candy shop when I was purchasing the gray M&M's that worked out perfectly for the path.  The grass was done with a thick royal icing and Wilton tip #233.  I love the way the Over the Hill arrow is pointed right at her in this photo! 

 Happy Birthday Sharon and welcome to the over 40 club!



Over the Hill Birthday Cake

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Milestone Birthday

My Grandmother turned 90 this past week.  We celebrated with a big party and lots of friends and family.  My assignment was to make the cake.  I had been given a Cricut Cake for Christmas so this was my chance to use it.  My husband spent quite a bit of time playing with the settings to get it working just right and thankfully cut out all of the designs while I worked on the rest of the cake.  We had tested it a few nights before using fondant rolled out and placed on the cutting mat, but we just couldn't get it thin enough to work right.  I bought Wilton icing sheets and they worked perfectly.  I printed some photos of my grandmother throughout her life with edible ink and icing sheets to decorate the bottom tier.  My grandmother has always loved photography so adding the photos was perfect.  This was my first 3 tiered cake so I was extremely nervous how it was all going to work out.  In the end it was a big hit and my grandmother loved it so it was worth the stress and hours of work :-)
90th Birthday Cake


Gum Paste Roses

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Cupcake Birthday Cake

We decided to celebrate our family kids' November birthdays at one party since we had several to celebrate.   I needed to make a cake for 5 kids ranging in age from 6 to 13 and for both boys and girls.  I decided to go with a generic birthday theme rather than trying to accommodate each kid so I put brightly colored cupcakes on top of the cake (white icing with edible glitter).  Since they were going on the cake, I wanted the entire cupcake to be edible so I used silicon baking cups and Wilton candy melts to create edible cups for them.  It turned out cute and the kids loved that they could eat the entire cupcake, wrapper and all!

Cupcake Birthday Cake

Here's how I made the edible cupcake cups:
I used silicon baking cups as molds and also to bake the cupcakes in to ensure the cupcakes would fit in them.  The paper wrappers seemed to be slightly larger than the silicone mold.  I particularly like this one made by Wilton because the flower petals around the sides made it easy to remove the candy cup.  I used Wilton white candy melts, but they would be cute in various colors.

I used about 10 candy melts for each one and microwaved about a minute and a half.  I then used a knife to spread the melted candy around the sides of the mold.

I put the mold in the freezer until the candy had hardened.  Then gently pulled the "petals" of the mold away from the candy to release it and peeled the mold off.


Here's the finished, totally edible, cupcake wrapper!  Just drop in a cupcake and decorate :-)


Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween!

University of Texas Longhorns birthday cake for my son with a Halloween twist...
Texas Longhorns Halloween Birthday Cake
Texas Longhorns Halloween Cake


Texas Longhorns Halloween Cake

Texas Longhorns Halloween Cake
Texas Longhorns Halloween Cake