IT'S OFFICIAL, I SOLD A CAKE

This was a fun cake to make.  This was also the first cake I sold!  I made this cake for a baby shower (little boy) for a lady over at the Coast Guard base.  It was made with 2- 9" Rounds and 2- 12" Rounds with a little baby blanket draped on the side.  The pattern on the baby blanket was made using the animals from the Fisher Price Rainforest collection, which was kind-of the theme the lady had bought for her baby. The smaller rounds were filled with strawberry and the larger rounds were filled with pineapple.  Let's just hope this actually looks like the baby when he's born!  (We judged the hair and eyes based on his older sister)

Laissez Les Bon Anniversaires Rouler! (Let the Happy Birthdays Roll)

Today was my Mother In Law Linda's birthday observance party. (number undisclosed) Since her birthday falls close to Mardi gras this year she wanted to have a Mardi gras themed cake. This was one of my favorite cakes that I've made. Everything but the feather was edible. The mask, I made out of modeling chocolate and handpainted it with luster dust. The doubloons were embossed with a real doubloon and airbushed gold. The fleur-de-lis were cast in a mold.  Few minor meltdowns were had, though supergenius factor was running high.


The fillings were mango and pineapple.

Warm and Fuzzy Holiday Feeling

                                        

The gingerbread house - I made it for my daughter's headstart class' Christmas party.  Probably the most fun cake that I've made.  Fun but exhausting.  Most importantly, ZERO meltdowns.  It took 11 hours for me to make it.  Starting at 7 P.M. till 5 A.M.!!  Starting with making the fondant till putting in the candy accents.  Everything you see was edible.  The trees, sled, gate and gingerbread people were made from pastillage and airbrushed.  The square of the yard was red velvet cake with cream cheese snow, while the house itself was indeed a gingerbread cake.  Now I have to admit that the figures in the yard were store bought, but that was it.

The Bundt - Was a birthday cake made for an older man who lives on the Island.  It was an apple-spice cake.

Mama I'm Coming Home

December started off with a new cake.  New tools came in.  Got a shiny new fondant ribbon cutter and a cake airbrush!! So I made this one for my mother-in-law's coming back home party.  This was the mother of all meltdown cakes.  Surprisingly since it wasn't a big cake.  It was 3- 8" stacked rounds.  Everything that could possibly go wrong, went wrong.  Buttercream melted, Fondant went flying and I swore that I would never make another cake again.  Needless to say, I did.

It was purple velvet.  Not red, but purple with cream cheese frosting.  It was also the first time I used the airbrush to pearlize the cake.

Floundering Around

Mid November 2009
Yeah I had a couple of weeks with no cakes

So one day, husband asks me if I think I could make a cake look like a fish.  I answered yes and said I would make a flounder.  Then husband looks at me like I'm crazy and thinks to himself "she totally can't do that".  So, I totally did.  And the gross-out factor was cool too cause it was red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.  When it was cut, it looked like it bled :)

Trick or Treat...was mostly a trick

So by now I'm kind-of expected to make a cake for something, so the first cake was a small 2 tier cake for my daughter's headstart class. Check out the Pastillage Spider and graveyard scene. It was a chocolate cake with chocolate peanut butter filling.

The second cake I made that weekend was the three tiered one. I made it to bring to a couple's house for a neighborhood trick-or-treat. The kids got their candy and everyone got a bowl of Jambalaya and some cake. The thing is that after we delivered the cake and left to bring our daughter trick-or-treat, nobody wanted to cut it! They all said it was too pretty, so I had to cut it when I came back around. It was a vanilla cake with Strawberry, Pineapple and chocolate fillings.  Meltdown factor was pretty high, and supergenius factor was nearly depleted.

Bonus cake - just leftover batter and practice with piping since I had virtually no experience there.

Big Weekend for Cakes

The weekend of October 18th was huge. That just so happened to be my birthday and also the annual family fun day at church.

The sushi cake - This was a big year. THIRTY. Another decade under the table. I often make sushi at home, so I thought that I could make a sushi themed cake for my birthday. It was vanilla cake with half strawberry and half blackberry fillings. YUM.

The church cakes - I think it took 14 hours to make this one. This was the first multi-tiered cake that I made. It was also my first attempt to make gumpaste flowers. Each stained glass window had a different theme; a wine chalice and grapes, a communion wafer, a dove and cross, a fish with loaves of bread, a cross, and the bible. The cake was all vanilla cake with the bottom tier strawberry, the middle pineapple and the top coconut. It was completely wiped out.

Cross cake - Just a bonus cake I made for church since I had leftover batter and frosting.

Dragonflies and Mushrooms

Cake # 2 - Made The second week in October
Note the marked improvement from the Arizona Cake... Made new kind of fondant. Wasn't all that difficult to make, and from what I recall, relatively no meltdowns.

The cake that started it all

The very first cake. Made October 1, 2009
I made it for my mother-in-law when she went away to work in Arizona. Note the crappy fondant. That was the first experience I had making fondant and needless to say I found a better way to make it.

Which came first? The Genius or the Madness?

It's now a running joke here; I am a certified supergenius. I'm not exactly sure which number supergenius I am though. There's talk that I'm the 3rd, some say the 4th. I don't know. How the madness got started you ask?

Well it all involved me wanting to make a cake for my mother-in-law's going away party. I never had that much interest in making cakes before, only interest in watching the popular cake tv shows. So I decided to try my hand at it.

It's only been 3 months since the first cake I made, and with no prior experience of any artistic or cake-baking sort, I don't think that the cakes I've made are half-bad. It all starts with an idea I have swirling around my brain. Usually late at night I get out a notebook and draw up all these cake designs. And that's where the Supergenius kicks in, or just plain SG as I am sometimes referred to. It's quite a learning experience. From the first, good concept/poor skill "Arizona" cake, to the latest one, I've learned a lot. Albeit usually between bouts of meltdowns and muttered cursewords, and the occasional flying fondant. So here it goes. Here's the cakes...