Birthday, Birthday, Birthday

My last two cakes were done almost 2 weeks ago but I never did get to post because we left that Monday for the beach, Hilton Head, SC!! We go every year with my folks but this year it rained and rained and rained and when we got home to Charlotte, it was still raining and hasn't stopped yet! But we made the best out of our trip and enjoyed what we could with the kids stuck in a town home for 4 1/2 days, we even decided to leave early because the weather was so bad.

BUT enough about me and the beach, let's move onto cakes! Yes, I did two cakes for two different birthdays. First was for a young boy who plays Chess and wanted a chess board. His mom found these neat chocolate chess molds online and I created the pieces and put them together on the cake. The board is chocolate, the cake is chocolate, and the icing is chocolate, talk about being in chocolate heaven! However when I took the picture you'll see I'm missing the White King, well just as I was popping out the last of the chocolate pieces before taking a picture the White King fell a little to quickly out of his shell and the top part broke off. No worries, just re-melt chocolate and start again. So the picture is lacking a piece, but the Birthday Boy got all 32 pieces the next day.

The next cake was an interesting adventure. This young girl wanted to have a Madeline theme birthday. Her sister had had one when she was younger and now it was her turn. I was given the birthday plate and asked to recreate it. I wanted to create the picture on the cake as close as possible.

I had heard about a using powdered sugar glaze, sounded like powdered sugar watered down with probably some corn syrup (and choice of color) to turn it into a "pourable" liquid to "fill in" the traced picture to create a smooth glass top look. Well for some reason I knew what to do, but I thinned down the buttercream icing instead! Silly me! So the decoration looks just like the plate, but not as smooth and shiny as I had hope! Well when I realized my mistake I had to keep going, no turning back. It turned out ok and my husband was impressed and I believe the Birthday girl was too! Also missing in this picture is one of Madeline's school friends hair had not been colored. No problem I melted some chocolate and filled in her brown hair. Turned out pretty good!

Next on the schedule is a baby shower cake this weekend and a BIG wedding cake for next weekend along with a grooms cake and another baby shower cake!! More to follow later...