Saturday, March 27, 2010

March of the....Penguin? Happy Birthday Thomas!

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I've never done this before, but I thought, since I was taking on a big project like this, I should document it so I have record of how it all either fell apart or came together. In my case, it all came together in the end!

Here is the board and 2/3 of a large styrofoam ball that I leveled the bottom and chopped off a 1/3 of the top. I guess pretty accurately and nailed it so the top of the ball would have a diameter of 9 inches, perfect for my 9 inch cake!
Then I marbled some fondant to create the water effect for the base.
Sorry the lighting is awful at night in the kitchen.
Here is the second color ready to be mixed in for the continents.
I printed off a picture of both North and South America and Antarctica. Cut roughly around the edges and after rolling out my fondant I took a toothpick to trace around the paper to create the continents.
I forgot to take a picture before I starting carving,
but here is a 9 inch, 8 inch and a 6 inch cake that I carved to make the shape of the body.
Then I learned/read about a trick, thanks to Sharon Zambito from
This is a chocolate ganache candy coating to the cake, it is supposed to form a harder shell and be better to adhere fondant too. And great for odd shaped cakes like this one!
It's 2 parts chocolate to one part cream.
Heat the cream, pour over the chips, stir till melted and let sit overnight to a peanut butter consistency. Then spread onto cake with a hot spatula.
However, in my case, I don't think my cream was hot enough, my chocolate did not melt all the way, you can see the clumps of chocolate on the cake. But applying it with a hot spatula did seem to help with that some, but lessoned learned for the next time!
Here is the belly of the penguin covered in white Satin Ice fondant.
Here is the penguin with his head made of Rice Krispies and also covered in fondant. And the rest of his "tuxedo" is on too.
Ta Da!!!
The final product!!
Here is a view of the two continents with my best guess as to where each of his ports were.
Oh yeah, I tried to quickly make a small model of his ship with the words Celebrity on it, in port in Seattle, where he started his journey.
The penguin with his party hat.

Here I used a small silicone clay mold that I got for a dollar at A.C.Moore in their clearance section. I pushed fondant into the mold, scrapped off the excess and popped the letters out!
The penguin stood about 2 feet tall and that was including his party hat.
TLC Ultimate Cake Off, here I come!!
Couldn't forget his arms and his cute tail!!
Welcome Home Thomas!
Uncle Thomas with his favorite (and only) niece and nephew!
Oh wait...the fun part...taking it apart.
Here I am taking off his head!
Poor penguin...but the cake was delicious, especially with the chocolate ganache!

I learned a lot with making this cake.
Many, many hours went into a project like this, but I had fun!

P.S. Why did I make a penguin cake for him??
While he was on his trip he got a chance to see many different types of penguins up close and from afar. And for those of you who know him, he has this penguin puppet that he got somewhere. So to make his trip fun for him and for us back home, he would take pictures of Winston (yes that was his name) and had a blog that he would post the pictures to. So my kids and us would check out the daily adventures of Winston. Hence the idea for the penguin cake!

Mickey Mouse!

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For all those parents out there with little ones who love the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show on the Disney Channel, this is the cake for you. I use to babysit this young mom when she was a little girl and now she is grown up with a little boy of her own, who turned one today!


And a I did another dozen of these but with Jellybeans for Easter this time!

Monday, March 22, 2010

Baby Bootie....and more....

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Hello all, I did two baby shower cakes this past weekend and both turned out really cute. The first was for a friend who was throwing a shower for a college friend. Can you guess what college they went to? All the firetrucks in this town are Carolina Blue! Who knew!

The shower was a couples shower with a firetruck theme, with 5 alarm chili and other goodies too! Of course they made regular chili for the pregnant momma to be and for the other ladies in the group.

I got to use the frozen buttercream transfer technique again.

Then I did a baby bootie cake for another friend.
This time I got to use my new baby bootie cutters that I got for Christmas.


Learned a few tricks for the next time I use these cutters,
but I have to admit, they look darn cute!

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Birthday Surprise

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For some of you who follow my blog regularly you may remember my cake flop that happened back in the fall . Well I felt just absolutely awful for what happened to that cake and have been a nervous wreck ever since transporting stacked cakes. But I really wanted to make it up to her and create something special for either her anniversary, or birthday or special occasion. So with the help of her daughter we decided to do something special for her birthday.

I went with a new idea, fresh flowers.
With the help of some new fondant tools that Santa got me.

Here you can see the fondant pearl border that I made using some luster and pearl dust and my new bead maker. Fun!
And you can't go wrong with fresh flowers on a cake, they looked beautiful!

Hope the birthday girl was surprised and enjoyed her sweet treat!

Birthday Wishes

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Another Birthday filled weekend of cakes and cupcakes.

Here is a birthday cake for a friend's husband who was having a surprise birthday this afternoon. Her son goes to school my little guy, so they happen to live right here in the neighborhood!
And yet again another weekend for my ice cream cone cupcakes!
These were for a little boys birthday who also lives in our neighborhood and who goes to school with my little girl.
Happy Birthday!

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Sleepover Cake

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Here is a different kind of cake that I created for a young girls birthday. She was having a sleepover party with a few of her friends and instead of presents for her, she wanted her guests to help with giving to a charity. This family does this all the time and this time they were donating gifts to Birthday Blessing with Amy and John Cervantes as founders.

Here the cake is made with chocolate swiss rolls as the "bodies", rice krispies with fondant for their heads and my favorite part is the hair! How cute is that!! I use my awesome clay/fondant gun that I got for Christmas to create the spaghetti type strings as hair. And marshmallows for the pillows.

Strawberries...

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Oh, how I LOVE strawberries, and they are almost in their peak soon. If you love strawberries, and have never gone strawberry picking, make it a point to do so.

But back to the strawberry cake at hand. Here is a beautiful and delicious strawberry cake for a surprise party.
The birthday girl was really 40, it's an inside joke with her family but I was asked to write Happy 27th Birthday instead!
Yummy!

More ice cream....

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More of these went out this week too.
Here is the cupcake with the lid on the cup.

Choo Choo....Thomas coming through!

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My first Thomas the Train cake.
Here I used a technique called Frozen Buttercream Transfer with Thomas.
Fun and easy to do!



Here come the Bride

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I was able to make one of my favorite bridal shower cakes for a friend this weekend. A beautiful bridal cake for any bride to be!





Birthday Wishes

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A friend of the family asked me to make a sweet cake for their daughter who was turning 19 and was coming home for the weekend from college.
Happy Birthday Melissa!

You Rock!

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Happy Birthday Miia!
Hope your rock 'n roll birthday was a blast!
 

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