Spears Gender Reveal

I had the honor to prepare cupcakes and a cake for a friend's gender reveal party.  Her theme was Little Man or Little Lady and I thought it was so cute!!!  That's why I had such fun preparing these cupcakes.

There were chevron and solid blue backgrounds with little mustaches for the boys.  It was a vanilla cupcake with vanilla icing and decorated with blue rock candy and the toppers. 

 For the little girls we have chevron and solid pink backgrounds with little lips and little lady for the toppers.  The cake is the same except with pink rock candy.

 

Inside was the surprise...vanilla frosting tinted to match the gender of Baby Speers.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a picture of one of the cupcakes cut open, but I will update whenever I get some pictures from the party goers.

From My Family to Yours; Enjoy the Treats!!!

Boring Weekend Fun

So this past weekend while the hubby was away I decided to play with my new camera I got. It's a Nikon CoolPix L810 in red. Soooo pretty! Any whoo...I took these pics so hope you enjoy!

Oh and for those wondering...they are devil food cake with a mocha frosting! Yum! Yum!

Ms. Minnie for a brand new 5 yr old!

This past week I had the priviledge of making a Minnie Mouse cake for a very special new 5 yr old.  This little bug has held a very dear place in my heart for 5 yrs now and when her Mommy wanted to do it big cause this was the year they visit Disney World, I jumped at the chance to help. 

Mom wanted a two tier cake that was pink and white with polka dots, minnie heads and bows.  We used a "cake-spiration"  that had all those things and I set to recreating my own!  Due to time constraignts we decided leave the Minnie head with the big bow as fake...so Buggie could keep it forever and hang on her wall.  (Mommy's a big DIYer.)

This is a completely white cake.  White cake, white icing, and marshmallow fondant in white, light pink, and black. Each layer was torted once for vanilla filling, then crumb coated for the fondant to stick.  Bottom layer is pink with polka dots for Minnie's skirt.  The second layer is white with Minnie Mouse heads with bows.  Each layer is wrapped with a ribbon and off color bow to make it pop!  (Let me just say...those bows I love!  The more realistic looking bows with loops and creases give me nightmares for days and I always hate the look of them!!)  The top layer was a foam ball cut in half colored black with foam ears and a tissue paper bow that was made by the DIY Mommy herself!  It was a bit tricky figuring out how to place on the cake, but I don't think we did too badly...

All in all I really enjoyed this one and was EXTREMELY proud of the fondant work...I actually didn't want to put the ribbon down cause I wanted to show off my FABULOUS fondant work that had no imperfections or wrinkles!!!  Mommy, Buggie, and everyone at the party loved the cake and that's all that mattered! 

Let me know if there's something I can make for you...and as always:

From my Family to Yours: Enjoy the Treats!!!

Totoro Birthday Cake

At a Christmas party for my husband's work I had the opportunity to speak with one of his co-workers about a cake he had asked me about.  His wife is a huge fan of the anime by Hayao Miyazaki "My Neighbor Totoro."  Of course, being a fan of Studio Ghibli myself I jumped at the chance to make this cake.  He had a picture he found on line of a cake he liked and I found a few more...only because I was uncomfortable with the original design.  He picked his favorite and I used that as my "cake-spiration" as I've taken to calling it.  It is copied off of another designers cake, but it has different elements as well.  Colors are varied...the cover leaves are different.  It is a Cassie's Creation although not original.

This is a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.  (Three layers because I can never get a red velvet to rise correctly.)  The blue background, trees, soot sprites and hearts are completely fondant.  The leaves, Totoro, and bunny creature are fondant and gum paste mixed.  I made the creatures this way because you can seal them anyway you want and they will last for a long time.  The leaves were made this way for two reasons.  1) I thought I wanted them to be stiff.  I figured it would be easier applying them to the cake (WRONG!!)  2) I used white fondant and gum paste to stretch my green farther.  Next time I shall just be using white fondant.  I also chose to put the hearts back on the cake when I had origninally decided not to.  My main reasoning was this cake was for a wife and he loves her...as well as she loves Totoro.  I decided to go with a lighter color because I thought the original red stood out too much and the pink kinda blended well.

I had a lot of fun preparing this cake and can't wait to try my hand at another Studio Ghibli cake in future...until then...

From my Family to Yours;  Enjoy the Treats!!!

If your wondering about the cake-spiration original you can find it here.

Cherry Blossom Baby Shower Cake

This is a cherry blossom inspired baby shower cake for the Atchley family.  She asked for a white cake that went with her cherry blossom theme; the rest was up to me.  I just love and loath cakes like that!  You never know how overboard you can or should go with cakes like this.  I think I hit it right on the head.  It fit in well with all the decorations and wasn't too overboard. 

Both tiers are white cake with the bottom tier being filled with white icing.  They are covered in pink fondant with brown fondant tree branches.  The cherry blossoms themselves are white icing.  I piped them onto wax paper and froze them so I could attach them to the cake with small amounts of frosting.  I got about half way through the cake before I had to refreeze the flowers again to finish.  I also left the flowers off during travel for safety purposes.

The baby on the top is made completely out of pink and natural fondant.  Her hair and eyes are painted on and under her blanket; her diaper is painted on as well. 

The blanket was created by making a square.  Using a fondant scalloped cutter for the edges.  Then to make the diagonal lines take a ruler and make a criss-cross pattern.  Then follow those lines with an embosser from your fondant and gum paste tool kit.  The blanket edges, I used the pick tool and used both edges with quick strokes as if I was trying to create fringe but not pushing all the way through the fondant.  It also helped to work on the pink foam that comes in most fondant tool kits.

All in all I had a lot of fun working on this cake and tried new methods that I've never used before.  I got some great ideas from YouTube and the Internet.  In fact the baby blanket I made using a YouTube video.  Everyone at the party loved the cake especially the guest of honor!  Congratulations Lacey & Jake and I can't wait to make more cakes for you guys!!!

From my Family to Yours; Enjoy the Treats!!! 



An early version of the baby,
but you can see the blanket.



Baby without the blanket
to see all the detail.



Baby Shower Topper

I have to say...I think this is possibly the cutest thing I have made.  It's for a baby shower cake I am currently working on.  But it's also shown me that I possibly need to go back to fondant class.  I can create with the fondant just fine, but going on the cake...needs some work.  Which is okay cause I need to take the Gumpaste class as well and this will just give me time to get to know the girls.  Under the blanket is a almost fully formed baby...arms, legs, and little diaper tushie...still need to figure out a bow and some way to give this little girl some hair.  But I was sooooo excited about it...I just had to share!!!

From my Family to yours; Enjoy the Treats!!!

Steam Punk Halloween Cupcakes

This week I had the privilege to make Halloween cupcakes for an old professor of mine at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith.  Some time ago she won a contest I ran on my cake page and decided to use her prize for her faculty party.  The theme this year was steam punk.  My original plan involved sprockets and zeppelins on the other cupcakes, but as luck would have it, I contracted the stomach virus that was going around and only had time to finish the hats.

These hats are constructed entirely out of tootsie rolls and the goggle parts are painted using luster dust and vodka.  (Sorry guys...the alcohol evaporates!)

From my Family to Yours; Enjoy the Treats!!!