And I'm back!

So, sorry about the hiatus that I took from this blog.  I had some pretty major life changes going on, and well, sometimes life happens, right?

Anyhow, just a few short weeks ago, I got to create not only one, but TWO birthday cakes in one weekend.

The first cake was for a 1 year old's first birthday party.  The theme was Veggie Tales, and his mom really wanted a Bob the Tomato cake and the French Peas as cupcakes.  I ended up doing a 2 tiered cake - the bottom tier was chocolate and the top was vanilla funfetti cake.  The cupcakes were also vanilla funfetti.  The frosting was just regular buttercream.

BTW, Bob the Tomato was also a "piñata cake"... meaning he was hollowed out a bit and there was candy inside!  I wish I had a picture, but alas, I do not.

Bottom half of the soon to be "Bob."  You can see how it is hollowed out a bit.

Bob is now put together and frosted - with the outline of his face

Nose applied and eyes and mouth filled in.

                                                      Finished product with the cupcakes. :)

The other birthday cake was for a friend turning 34.  His wife had me create a Superman cake for him.  Seeing that it was short notice, the cake was chocolate with regular buttercream.  I actually got a piece of that cake, and it was delish!

P's Birthday cake!

So P came home after 7 weeks, and we had a late b-day celebration for him at Yummy Sushi.  He ended up arriving a day early, which was also the day I made his surprise bday cake!

I made a vanilla / funfetti cake with a lemon raspberry buttercream filling and vanilla buttercream frosting.  I also made the marshmellow fondant which I used for several decorations.

The cake turned out pretty cute, and tasted delicious!

Birthday Cake time!

My friend Megan's birthday is tomorrow.  To celebrate, she invited a bunch of awesome ladies over for dinner.  I, of course, offered to bring the cake!

Since Megan requested a non-chocolate cake, I had to try a new recipe.  I made a white cake with a lemon buttercream frosting and a lemon and raspberry filling.  I'm not sure how I feel about the frosting, as I prefer really sweet frosting, but I hope it all works well together.

Megan was a science teacher, so I decided to go with a science theme for her cake!

Cake frosted and fondant sciencey tube things place

Finished product!   In the end, I had to make the tall tube shorter so it would fit in my cake carrier, though!  :-/

Take 2 at the homemade chocolate cake!

Well, it definitely isn't my favorite cake, decor-wise, but tastewise, oh my!  It was AMAZING.  Just the right density, and it was so moist and chocolately.  I added an extra 1/4 cup of cocoa powder this time and a bit more of the secret ingredient - COFFEE! 

The mocha buttercream frosting I made using instant coffee and cocoa powder... and it was perfect.  Somehw I managed to spread it quite smoothly and evenly, and it wasn't super thick like normal.  Yum!

I took the cake to school, and have been receiving rave reviews about it.  Only problem was the border on the bottom of the cake.  The frosting was being really difficult.  I managed to get it to work for me on the top, but the bottom it wouldn't "ribbon" correctly.  Oh well - practice makes perfect!

Panamax Cake

My latest cake was for a party celebrating the end of an international naval exercise called Panamax.  I made a from scratch chocolate cake with a secret ingredient!  The filling was cherry pie filling, and just regular vanilla buttercream frosting.  I was unable to attend the gathering, but I've heard raving reviews, and I hope they save me a piece to try it myself! ;)

Chocolate cake - cooling and in one piece!

cake split and filled!

And frosted!  It had a crumb coat, too.

Decorated cake!

Inspired by the PANAMAX logo

only side decoration

Cut and served... there were 12 people eating this and still half the cake left!

Birthday cakes!

Since my last blog, I have done 3 cakes.  I will talk about two of them here - 6" rounds - homemade from scratch funfetti cakes.  One batch of batter was enough for the 2 small sized cakes.

One of the cakes was for the 1st birthday of the Argentine officer's baby, and the other was an early 60th birthday cake for my mom, since she was visiting and I won't be able to make her an actual cake on her bday.  Both were filled with a chocolate raspberry filling!

me with the cakes cooling!  The cake for the baby was a zebra cake of white and blue funfetti!

me with Maria Sol and the birthday baby!

1!

The baby loves soccer, so the cake had soccer balls going around it

Birthday mom with her cake!

Close up!

The inside

What better to go with homemade cake and frosting than...

HOMEMADE FONDANT?!?!

That's right... this uber special chica decided to attempt to make fondant from scratch AND use it.... and no, I've never used fondant before... nor do I like fondant, jaja.

I got a recipe for fondant off of pinterest.  It just needed marshmellows, water, and powdered sugar.  First of all, it was a sticky mess for quite some time, and a biatch to clean up when done, but I would say that as far as firsts go, this one was not a complete fail.

What I learned:
1. Fondant is really difficult to work with.  It likes to rip.  Huh.

2. If you do not crisco-up the counter enough, the fondant mixture will stick to the counter, making the final mess even worse... oops. 

3. To roll out fondant, you need a LOT of counter space (well at least more than the counter space I have available).  Otherwise, you not only have a mess on the counter, but also on the cabinets and floor! :-S (oops again!)

4. Even though powdered sugar and marshmellows are both white, the fondant is not white... it's more of an off white color.  Just an FYI.

Powdered sugar in melted marshmellows

It looks like dough after about 5 minutes of work!

All rolled out... this is half the fondant.  The other half is wrapped up and in the fridge.

Finally got the fondant on the cake.  Doesn't look all that smooth like it should!  Grrrr! 

Decorated top

Decorated side