First Birthday Cakes

I don't know what I was thinking. The last time I agreed to making two cakes in one weekend, I told myself to never do that again. I guess I thought I could really do it this time with very minimum stress, hah!!!




The jungle theme birthday cake actually didn't give me too many problems. It was a chocolate cake with oreo mousse filling and chocolate buttercream frosting covered and decorated with marshmallow fondant.  All the fondant animals were secured to the cake with tylo glue.  I loved how it turned out!








As for the Baby Elmo theme birthday cake, it almost broke me.  I didn't even want to take a picture of it but in the end I did a quick snap of it in the box right before delivery; hence the bad quality picture.  I went with my go to carrot cake and cream cheese frosting.  The plan was to wait for the cream cheese frosting to crust in order to use the Viva towel method and skip the fondant covering.  I'm one of those that don't fridge fondant cakes and believe anything dairy should be refrigerated.  However, I couldn't get the cake layers on the top tier to stop sliding; so, I just skipped putting it on the cake and focused on the bottom tier.  And then, the carrot cake was so moist and all these crumbs were getting pulled off and stuck in the frosting.  I did do a crumb coat but I was slowly entering the wee hours of morning (and losing my sanity) and probably didn't give it enough time to crust.  I slapped everything on and crossed my fingers that it would stay put.  The only thing I liked about the cake was the baby elmo, the number one, and the sesame street sign made of gumpaste which I made days in advance!

DDR and Pokemon Cake

I love making cakes for my family members and friends because it gives me a chance to whittle down my list of cake flavors and frostings I want to try.  Funny I say this because lately, it seems for every recipe I cross off, I'm adding two or three more, hah!

So, this week, for a friend's birthday, I combined his two favorite things - Pokemon and Dance Dance Revolution.  This was a lemon cake (adapted from Cake Central) with raspberry buttercream frosting (adapted from Cake Central) covered in marshmallow fondant which I painted with luster dust.  The pokemon figurines I made with gumpaste earlier this week, were stuck tight to the sides with the tylo glue.

 

I had a few problems with this cake.  I noticed that the top layer was a bit dry once we cut into it.  Almost like that one time with my R2D2 cake.  I torted/filled/crumbed the cake and left it overnight in the fridge in my cake carrier before covering it in fondant.  I thought having it in the cake carrier would prevent any dryness but I guess not.  I also didn't let the cake come to room temperature before covering it in fondant and I think this caused those stupid air pockets.  So, no more letting my cakes rest in the fridge (which is okay since I don't use any perishable fillings and frostings anyway).

Gumpaste

In a previous post, I mentioned looking into working with gumpaste soon as I was having a hard time with my fondant for vertical pieces.  Well, the time has come!  At first, I thought about making an entire batch of gumpaste.  But then, I learned that sprinkling a bit of tylose powder into my marshmallow fondant turns it into a quick gumpaste (from YouTube).  On top of that, a bit of tylose powder mixed with boiling water turns it into a nice tylo glue overnight (from Cake Journal).  This stuff is amazing!

Below are some figurines I made for a cake this week with my new found discovery.  Can you recognize them?  (Hint: Gotta Catch 'Em All!)