Hello Kitty Cake

I absolutely love how this cake turned out! I don't do a lot of cake carving, so I'm happy I didn't screw it up. This cake was for my brother's coworkers' birthday party.   It's achocolate cake filled with chocolate buttercream frosting.  I used both marshmallow fondant (home made) and buttercream fondant (store bought) to cover/decorate the cake.  In order to get the bow to be in relief, I made it two days ahead and stuck a wad of saran wrap in the loops to make sure it dried that way.

Train and Airplane Cake (Cake4Kids.org)

I baked and delivered another Cake4Kids.org cake today.  The child requested trains and airplanes which I was happy to oblige.  I can't believe I forgot to dye the frosting blue and to make sure there was enough room for train tracks though.  Hopefully, I'll be able to revisit this theme as I have lots of different ideas!







Cake was a doctored Betty Crocker white cake mix cake with vanilla buttercream frosting and marshmallow/buttercream fondant decorations.

The Betty Crocker brand cake mix had a funny after taste in my opinion.  I think I will be sticking to Duncan Hines and Pillsbury brands from now on as I had no problems with them here and here.

Lego Cake (Cake4Kids.org)

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to make another Cake4Kids cake for a boy who likes Legos!  I had a lot of fun with this one.  I doctored a box of Funfetti cake mix from an adapted version of a Cake Central recipe.  I substituted the almond extract for vanilla extract.  Cake was iced in vanilla buttercream frosting using the Viva Towel Method.  Decorations were put together using marshmallow fondant and tylo glue.  At first, I tried making a bunch of little dots for the Lego blocks but then I realized using tip #4 and poking holes worked 10x faster!

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!

Optimus Prime Cake

I knew I wanted to make this cake for my brother for his birthday for several months now! At first, I thought I might have been too ambitious but it wasn't as difficult as I imagined. I should've made the bottom tier 3 layers and I should've allowed the antennas to dry a few days earlier but all in all, I'm quite happy with the results.

The cake was made of 2 8-inch lemon cakes with raspberry buttercream frosting and 2 6-inch red velvet cakes with cheesecake mousse filling and vanilla buttercream frosting.  I used a mix of Duff brand buttercream fondant and homemade marshmallow fondant to cover and detail the cakes.  Adding tylose powder to the store bought fondant did not speed up the drying process.  It did work wonders on the homemade fondant though.


The toothpicks actually kept the antennas from bending over and by the evening, they were finally dry enough to stand up on their own. Tylo glue was my best friend.  It held up the pieces through the entire 45 mins drive without a hitch.

I couldn't make this cake without incorporating the autobot logo somewhere, so I attached it to the back.  I used the good ole pumpkin carving technique to get an exact replica of the image.

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!)