Montana Cake

This weekend I made a cake for the Going Away Party for one of my pastors. I decided to make the cake in the shape of Montana since that's where my pastor and his family are headed. I made a chocolate cake because everybody loves it. I made two half sheet cakes. I put them together and then had to carve the cake. Montana has a fairly jagged side so I had to simplify it for practical reasons. Once the cake was carved I finished icing it. After that I colored the fondant green and covered the cake. Unfortunately there was a couple of rips in the fondant, but I decided to cover them with the state flower, Bitterroot. Making the flowers was a bit of a challenge. I decided that I didn't have enough time to use gumpaste and I really didn't want to, so I used fondant. They didn't have the same stability that gumpaste would have had. The flowers didn't turn out as well as they could have but  they were decent enough. The cake came together well and I'm proud of how quickly I got it done.

April Cake

This weekend I made my last cake before my final 3 tiered cake. I made a red velvet Charlie and The Chocolate Factory inspired cake. I started making my cake Friday night. I had to make all the gum paste decorations so they would dry in time. This was a big problem for me. Whenever I make gum paste I make it way too runny and it ends up sticking all over my hands. Sure enough the gum paste had too much water in it. I had to spend a long time mixing the gum paste before I could even start creating the decorations. The next day I baked the cakes. I made red velvet cake and everything went smoothly. The cakes came out of their pans perfectly. I split the cakes and frosted them. After putting the cakes in the freezer for a while I began to carve the cakes. I had to taper the sides to make it smaller on the bottom. On Sunday I had to assemble the cakes. I covered the cakes with fondant and put the bigger tier on the cake board. Then I stuck my plastic dowels in the bottom tier to support the top tier. I put the top tier on and put a wooden dowel through the whole cake to secure it. Once the cakes were put together I got to decorate. I stuck lollipops in and poured the chocolate river. I added the stepping stones and candy dots. The only decoration I had trouble with was the letters. I rolled the gum paste too thin when I cut out the letters so when I tried to put the toothpicks in the letters broke. All in all the cake turned out pretty good considering that it was my first attempt at making a tiered cake.

March Cake

This weekend I made my cakes for March. I think the actual cake might be my favorite. I made a carrot cake and it was really good. The process to make the cake was easy, but preparing some of the ingredients like the carrots took a long time. The cake was baked in a half sheet pan. Then I had to cut out 12, 4 x 4 inch squares. Then I covered the cakes with fondant and the decorating was up to my imagination. I varied from the cookbook, but a lot of the same ideas were there. I did not get to do the bow cake because I was supposed to make the bow two days before I assembled the cakes. I was disappointed with that, but the cakes turned out great anyways. I made one cake with dots all over it and I liked that one. My favorite one was the cake with flowers all over it. At first I didn't like it because it seemed unfinished, but then I added the dragees and that completed it. I liked these cakes because you could do anything you wanted with them. They are a blank canvas and you are the artist.

February Cake

About two weeks ago I made my cake for February. I chose the Conversation Hearts Mini Cakes. I thought that they were appropriate for that month because it was around Valentines Day. When I baked the cakes I was supposed to use a sheet cake pan and carve the hearts out, but to make it easier I used pans. I used a heart muffin pan to cook the cakes. I ended up with about 16 mini cakes. Once I finally got the cake out the decorating process went smoothly. I died the fondant pale yellow, pale green, pale pink, and pale purple. The colors looked exactly like the ones in the box of candy. I covered the cakes with the fondant and that was easy. I didn't have any problems with the fondant cracking or ripping. Once all the cakes were covered I got to be creative. I took the white icing and put it into a bag with a #3 tip. Then I used my box of conversation hearts to pipe on messages. There were some really weird messages like, "Tweet Me" which I didn't use. I think my piping has improved greatly. Overall I was really satisfied with the cakes. They turned out exactly how I wanted and everyone loved them.

January Cake

For January I made two MP3 player mini cakes. I made a yellow cake with chocolate icing to give it some flavor. I baked the cakes in half sheet pans so I could cut out the rectangles. After the rectangles were cut out I stacked them and then carved the so they had rounded edges. Once the cake was frosted I covered them with fondant. Then I painted them. One of them was blue and the other was green. I was supposed to add the little control buttons onto each of the cakes, but I was really frustrated with the gum-paste.  I could not get the shapes to look right. I finally gave up on the controls and left the MP3s as they were. I was very disappointed with the outcome of the cakes, but they were one of the more difficult cakes.

Barbie Cake Part 1

My history teacher asked me about a month ago if I would make her daughter's birthday cake. I said yes, of course, and today I made the practice cake. Mrs. Morin, my history teacher, wanted me to make a Barbie cake for her daughter, but I had never made one before so I wanted to practice. I baked a chocolate cake with Buttercream icing. My problems surprisingly started with the cake. I had to bake the cake in a Pampered Chef measuring cup. To create a hole for the Barbie to fit in I had to put a metal cylinder inside. About 10 minutes into the baking process we noticed that the metal cylinder was rising out of the cake. To solve the problem we quickly pushed it down and put rocks in it. The cake also took a long time to bake. This was because the cook book that I used had the incorrect measurements on the liquid. I ended up putting almost twice as much liquid as needed.Once I got the baking done the decorating ran smoothly. The only problem I had was that when I put the fondant on the cake it didn't cover a section of the back. I patched it up, but it was a noticeable difference. I solved the problem by making that section a "lace inlay." The dress was inspired by southern belles. I put little roses on it and finished it with luster dust all over so it sparkled. Overall I am happy with this cake. I hope that when I make the cake for the actual party it will be even better!

December Cake

This past weekend I created my December Cake; or should I say cupcakes. They were ornament cupcakes. The cake was gingerbread and the icing was cream cheese. I had a lot of trouble while making the icing. This time I was not able to do the Buttercream icing; it didn't come together right. I ended up using the Wilton Buttercream icing that I used to use. After I frosted the cupcakes I cut out fondant circles the size of the cupcakes to go on top. Once all the fondant was on I got to do the fun part, decorating! I colored all of the cupcakes with luster dusts. Luster dusts are mixed with lemon juice to make a paint. I painted the cupcakes different colors and started doing some piping on it. I would also put small silver dragees on top for decoration. I then placed the hooks that I already made on top. When I decided on the flavor of my icing I didn't think about the time from preparation to eating. The cream cheese icing, ideally, should have been refrigerated. Overall I think the cupcakes turned out alright and I learned a lesson or two.