Auctioned Away

Andrew's school did a fundraiser auction last November and I thought that, since I don't have anything else of value to give away, maybe I could donate a few cakes.  So, I made a couple of gift certificates for One Free Wedding Cake, and up to $200 worth of cake (retail).  Although the wedding cake didn't get purchased, the other did, and I met with a mother early this year to plan a couple of cakes for her kids.  

The first cake I did was for a 16th Birthday party for her son.  He was having an Airsoft themed party, and she wanted something that would be appropriate for that... whether camouflage or gun related.  I found a great design idea online and copied it...almost element for element.  I hope they don't mind!  

I was greeted with a WONDERFUL surprise when my best friend showed up, after driving 3 hours with her 3 kids in tow, to help me execute it (since I had 2 more cakes to do that same weekend!).  With her amazing talent with detail work, we were able to get this cake put together.  I hope you like it!

 Airsoft Cake

Chocolate cake, chocolate frosting, raspberry filling

What I learned:  Airbrusing is REALLY fun!  (And fast!)
I don't love detail work, but my best friend is the best friend a girl could ask for!  Thanks, Cassie!

Since that cake didn't quite fulfill the whole dollar amount of the certificate, my client asked me to make her daughter's graduation cake.  I was very excited, and the client had brought a few ideas of cakes she really liked.  We decided on one and I was left to figure out how to make it happen.  With only a few minor bumps in the road with delivery times and rush-order shipping for the butterflies, this was the result:

Butterfly Graduation Cake

Chocolate cake, chocolate frosting, raspberry filling

What I Learned:  Double check the delivery date.  Even though I had sent the e-mail with the date I thought it was supposed to be delivered, I clearly was wrong, and we had to freeze the cake for a week.

I Also Learned:  Planning ahead on a holiday weekend is important.  

Shipping is expensive when under time constraints!

Row, Row, Row, Your Boat

Here is a cake I made about a year and a half ago.  Could it have been that long?  At any rate, it was for my cook at work who is Vietnamese.  My boss is always saying that she's going to send him away and make him row himself all the way home.  We really do love him, Honest!  This was fun.  It had a coconut and almond flavor in the frosting, a raspberry filling, and the cake itself was yellow.

Row boat Cake

What I learned:  blue frosting can make a BIG mess!

I added the sharks for fun, and my manager wanted me to make sure an oar was floating away by itself!

Relief Society Birthday Celebration

This cake is long overdue, as well.  This was my first REALLY big cake without any help from my best friend.  I volunteered to do a cake to celebrate the birthday of the Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints.  The emblem alone took me about two hours, and the rest of the cake came together pretty quickly.  It actually stayed together all the way to the church to drop it off, and everyone seemed very pleased with it.  I don't think anyone knows how anxious I was about this cake.  I was SO glad it turned out well.  I hope you like what I did!

Relief Society Birthday Cake

What I Learned:  Detail work is REALLY hard!  And I really need to learn how to cut out letters of fondant without making everything into a mess.

Also learned to turn OFF the ceiling fan when working with fondant.  The air just dries it out too quickly!

Americana Quilt

Well, I realized today that I haven't posted in way too long, which means I have a full TWENTY-ONE cakes that I haven't posted yet!  I will get started today and try to have them done by the end of the week.

First up is my Mother-In-Law's 60th Birthday cake.  She wanted to have a Western Theme for her birthday and requested chocolate cake with Raspberry filling.  I slaved all day to make this (hahaha), and the raspberry filling was a DEFINITE hit when paired with the deluxe devil's food cake I made.  So yummy!  Happy 60th birthday, Mom!  And sorry it took me so long to get this one on here!

Deluxe Devil's Food Quilt Cake

What I learned:  When a filling recipe asks to strain the filling with a fine mesh sieve, it would actually be a good idea to do so.  We had a TON of seeds in the filling, but it was delicious anyway

Also Learned:  In the heat and humidity in Seattle, cakes sweat. And when given air to dry them off, air bubbles form under the fondant.  

Super Cakes

Last August was my son's 5th birthday.  I think he's in to just about EVERYTHING that has to do with being a boy. :)  This particular week he was extremely fascinated with Captain America and Spiderman, so we decided to make his whole birthday party revolve around Super Heroes.  Here are the cakes that I made to go with his party theme.

Spider Man Cake  

What I learned:  Make sure the cake case is TALL enough for the cake before you put the lid on.  I was bummed when I squashed the piping for the web.

Captain America Cake

What I learned:  Buttercream CAN be fun!  It's been a while since I made a buttercream icing ONLY cake, but it was fun to pipe it all on and see the smiles on the kids' faces

RAD(iation)

A good friend of mine was working in the Radiology department at the hospital and asked me to make this cake for her (okay, technically TWO of these, but I digress).

I have to admit this is one of the fastest and easiest cakes I've ever made... and one I love the most!  It was SO awesome and I was really pleased with how well it turned out. :)  I'm glad she liked it as much as I did!

Enjoy!

What I learned:  Black fondant is more easily achieved when it is chocolate, because it's already brown.

Cindy

Halloween Hoopla

We trudged through grass, tree roots, and mud for two days and finally found our way back to our resurfaced parking lot from the street parking we had to endure. We are okay.  We made it!

So, back to business here.  I'm going to throw a couple of Halloween-related cakes on here today.  One of them was actually a birthday cake for a friend of mine last February, but it is more closely related to Halloween, and I didn't dare put it in the "Beautiful Birthdays" post last week.  Seriously.  I don't think you'd count it as beautiful!!

Enjoy!

 Topsy Turvy cake for a church Halloween party.

This was my first attempt at a Topsy Turvy cake. 

All decorations were piped on.

What I learned:  Sometimes when working on a cake, you just get lucky!  

There had to have been Divine Intervention for it to turn out this well!!

 Halloween Party Haunted Castle

I used the Wilton Castle Kit for this cake, though I was rather unimpressed with it.

What I learned:  Royal icing breaks when it drops.  Royal icing is gross.

Zombie Birthday Cake 

See?  Not exactly something you add as a "Beautiful" cake.

The eyeball on the side had a 23 written in 'blood' (which was just decorator gel)

What I learned:  carving the cake to the right shape makes the fondant layering much easier.

and:  it's hard to achieve the right skin tone.  Coloring this fondant took me a LONG time

Thanks for looking again!

Cindy