Perfect Frame

The most recent cake i made was for my "grandmother" Rose. She has been bowling since way before i was born so when we heard her 80th birthday was gonna be a huge bash i instantly wanted to make her cake! Initially my idea was to do a bowling lane with a ball and pins but sometimes cake is unpredictable in the oven and you have to make due with how it comes out.

In order to make this cake i used my sphere cake pan and my 12" pan. When filling the sphere cake pan i did not put enough batter in it so i adjusted my cake theme. Originally i was going to cut the 12" pan to look like a lane but since my ball idea did not come to fruition i decided to use it to cut bowling pins. To do this i used the tip of a knife to outline pins and when they looked like pins i used the knife to cut them out. The finished pieces looked like this:

Now this isnt where i expected this cake to look like but with a little creativity you can turn anything into something wonderful.

Covering the bowling balls
I was told her ball (the one shes been using for decades) was red so i did my best to dye the fondant red. When you add red food coloring to white fondant its hard to get to the right shade but i finished with a burgundy pink. The first step to covering the cake is frosting it then rolling the fondant over the cake and smoothing it out then removing the extras.

 frosted with buttercream

Rolled fondant (bad flash)

Trimmed

Covering the bowling pins

Each pin was shaped differently so they had to be covered one at a time. The process is the same as the above.

 iced as smooth as possible so they are no lumps

 rolled in oblong shapes to cover pin

All three pins covered and smoothed

Decoration

Now this is when you take a simple looking cake and jazz it up and make it look nice. Placement was pretty easily determined. The space between the pins looked just right for the bowling balls so here is what that looked like.

 Add some finger holes and pin stripes, Happy 80th Birthday, and a rose and you have your self a cake.

The last addition was a perfect frame. I know not many people have done this but i thought shes had a great life and deserves it. The cake was a huge hit! Even some of her bowling friends where there and loved it.

This Cake Cracked Me Up!

Once again this is something i should have took more picture of but oh well. To make my easter egg caked i used two types of pans and a new technique i taught myself after reading it on cakecentral.com. I bought wilton's sphere cake pans which are about 6 inches in diameter and when they cooked they are two half circles. Heres a picture of the pans

These would be the top and bottom of the egg

I filled the spheres with a yellow cake mix and for the middle i used a 6in by 2 in cake pan to make the middle. Now i only had one 6x2 pan so i used a technique called "collaring" to make the cake as thick as i needed it with one pan. I used chocolate cake for this part. I wanted the cake to be about 4 or 5 inches tall so you used parchment paper to great a "collar" for the cake to expand into as it cooks. To do this you take the paper and out line the pan onto the paper with an extra inch for siding. Once you cut out the circle you cut in one inch tabs all the way around so that it sits flat in the bottom of you pan and the tabs fit together on the side. You use butter to secure it like glue. Next you take another piece that is long enough to stand tall all the way around the pan, making it taller. When the cake cooks it fills up through the paper and stays in your round shape. I know its hard to image with out a picture to see but trust me it works.

Now as i mentioned in my last post, if you dont put good supports into the cake, it will bulge and collapse. Now this could have also been because my bottom later was round and not a dense cake but while i was stacking i doweled and used cardboard cake boards and it still managed to collapse so i went with just using a middle and one half of the sphere for the top. Instead i took the rest of the cake and make it look like dirt for the egg to sit on as if it was in a easter egg hunt.

I covered the egg part in buttercream then white fondant for the shell. Now the concept for this cake was that a little chicky was popping out of the shell and the egg was cracking. For this i colored buttercream yellow for this chickys feathers. After the fondant had set up in the fridge, i used a star tip to pipe the chickys feathers onto the shell. I did them all over so it looked like he had popped out several places. Next i took some piping gel and colored it black to look like cracks in the eggs. I also used the gel to write "Happy Easter 2011" on the back. For the chickys wings i cut fondant out with a heart shaped cookie cutter and covered it in the yellow butter cream like his other feathers. With the left over buttercream i colored it green for the grass. I used a leaf tip to string out the buttercream so it looked grass like. I cut out some fondant shaped like tulips to add more decoration. For this i used a tulip shaped cookie cutter then i used water and food coloring to hand paint them, which i did for his feet as well. Lastly for his beak i free formed it with fondant and painted it the same was as the tulips and used googley eyes for his face.

Everyone loved the cake! They definitely got the yoke i was trying to shell and it cracked everyone up.

Elmo Extravaganza!

For my old college roommate's daughter's 1st Birthday, i made her an elmo cake! The first thing i worked on is the elmo cake topper. I watched a video on youtube that i cant remember who put it up about how to make elmo (or bear shaped creatures) out of fondant.

Step one: Coloring him to the shade of elmo, which is a deeper red.
Step two: Molding his body, arms, head, and legs.
Step three: Piecing him together so he doesnt look deformed. The best thing to use to hold his head to his body since the head is heavier than the arms and legs is to use skewers. For his arms and legs toothpicks work well.
Step four: Making him look furry. The video i watched suggested using cake scissors but thats didnt work well for the look i wanted so i tried several piping tips until i found that a small star tip works best to give him a furry look.

Step five: Adding his eyes. I just took tiny amounts of fondant and dyed them to the colors i needed and shaped them till they looked like him.

How cute is he! i loved how he looked like a baby considering shes one 1!

Now i should have taken more pictures but my hands get so gooey that i often forget. The next things i worked on was trim decorations which were made of little rolled balls. I stuck with the elmo theme and kept them green, red, yellow, and blue. My other main decoration were star cut outs. Now all these were simple to make. Just section fondant and color with wilton food coloring paste till you like the colors. For the stars i used a star cookie cutter. I also used wiltons alphabet cookie cutters to cut out "Happy Birthday".

All the decorations can be attacked with a little bit of piped butterceam. Good thing i took extra because i got the E and I mixed up in her name : / oops

The hardest part about a cake this big (3 tiers, 2 layers to each) is that you have to stack them properly other wise you'll get bulging like you notice on my yellow layer (which wasnt to bad) or it could collapse, which ill discuss for my easter cake later. For stacking each later you have to put dowel supports in each cake and each layer separate by a cake cardboard round. With good spacing and strong wood, it will stay standing. I also hammered one all the way threw all layers to add extra stability.

Heres the final product.

As an added bonus i made a "smash cake" for her to play with. A smash cake is a little cake for the child to get messy with. I used the giant cupcake scilacone cupcake mold and covered it with butter cream and matching decorations.

Isnt she adorable!