Frog and Turtle Baby Shower Cake

This is the baby shower cake that my mom's neighbor had me make for her granddaughter's shower. She told my mom what kind of cake they wanted, Almond with raspberry filling and vanilla icing. I had to work hard to get a theme out of her. She finally told us that the baby room was turtles, frogs and dragonflies so I went with that. 

The cake is a 10 inch round iced with lavender butter cream. I made all the decorations out of fondant. I am not really sure it looks specifically like a baby shower cake but I think it is cute :)

1st Diaper Cake

So my mom's neighbor Joan asked if I could make a baby shower cake for her grand daughter. Of course I would! I got an invite to the shower as well and decided I wanted to make a diaper cake as her present to kind of match the actual cake. I have been wanting to make a diaper cake for a long time so I was happy I found an opportunity.

 The theme that I was given was frogs, turtles and dragonflies. So I found some baby stuff that went with that theme and found some other things at Hobby Lobby to decorate with cake with.

Let me tell you, diaper cakes are a breeze. After making real cake this last year and a half, diaper cake are so simple. It took me maybe 2 hours to make it. It looks alright. I wanted to do more but I couldn't find anything else I liked and it was getting too expensive so I think this will be the final product :)

1st Wedding Cake

My cousin Tina has been asking me since Christmas if I would make her wedding cake for September 17th of this year. So I said yes. Her wedding was Royal blue and silver with stars so the cake ended up being Royal Blue with silver stars.

The cake was 3 tiers to feed 150 people. Oh man, was there a lot left over! I learned that if there are 150 people that doesn't mean that they will all eat cake. 

 The top and bottom tiers were white and the middle was chocolate. It was iced with vanilla butter cream and covered in blue fondant.

I made the cake stand for the cake specifically. I took 8 glass blocks and covered the unfinished side with blue and silver ribbon to match the cake. I then put Christmas lights inside to light it up nicely. I thought it looked really good and made the cake look more grand.

 I get to make my aunt's weding cake for next moth, that should be a lot of fun!

Dinosaur Groom's Cake

My very good friend Kelly asked me to make her bff a groom's cake
to surprise her soon to be hubby. She wanted to cake to be a dinosaur
wearing Bears football gear. So that is what I did.

The cake was over a foot tall. The body was all cake 

and the head/tail/knees were rice krispy treats.

 
The bride and groom loved it! Yippy!

I think he is my favorite cake so far. He is just too cute!

 The number 28 is his favorite number and Kustra is his last name.

Hunting Cake

September 9th was my step dad Karl's birthday and I was able to actually make him a cute cake!

He is big into hunting and hasn't shot a deer in a long time and we like to poke fun at him about it. Last year for Christmas I asked my mom what Karl would want for his present. She said he wanted a deer, as in getting one himself. So Joe and I went out and got him a life size target practice deer.

It was pretty funny when he opened it. He has the deer displayed in his garage/shed now :)

So this cake shows Karl getting his deer and the deer is in shock.

 The figures got dropped in the ar so Karl's gun broke and various body parts fell off so he is looking a little sad right now.

Wilton Cake Class: Lesson 3

This week in class we worked on making cupcakes pretty. We started off by learning different piping techniques. We made a few different type of flowers, I personally liked the drop flower t he best. We then learned how to make rosettes and shells. Mine came out decently well. My hand is shakey so iti is not as good as it could be but pretty nice for me.

 This is the rosette cupcake I decorated. I had oreo cream cheese frosting underneath so that is what is popping out the bottom.

Next we made fancy flowers. We started with the pom pom flowers which involved a star tip. It cake out cute! We practiced icing the cupcakes. I didn't bring a filling with since my cupcakes were barely an inch tall ( new recipe). Everyone else filled their cupcakes while we watched how to make a shaggy mum flower. The shaggy mum by far is my favorite. It is cute and super fun to make!

This guy is the shaggy mum.

This is the variety I made. They are pretty um unpolished?

Wilton Cake Class: Lesson 2

This week in my basic cake design class we learned how to do transfers. We used piping gel to trace a basic design( I chose the fish) and we laid it down on our frosted cake. My cake was a White Almond Sour Cream Cake (WASC) with vanilla butter cream and strawberry filling. We torted our cakes, I used the Wilton leveler that I had just bought. It worked pretty well for 3 bucks. We then piped a dam around the middle of the cake. I filled mine with strawberries and places the top on. We used the big piping bag with the cake icer tip and iced the sides of the cake. This part I am used to since I have been making cake for awhile so it went fairly fast. After the cakes was iced I waited for everyone else to finish. They weren't as speedy.

We let the cakes sit for awhile while we learned some new techniques. After that we traced our images with our piping gel and transferred the pictures to the cakes. It was fairly easy to do and turned out nicely. I had brought pre colored butter cream to class so I just had to trace my fish with different colors. I got done really fast and the lady that sits next to be told me I could go work in a bakery tomorrow. Haha, probably not going to happen.

I forgot the cake carrier at home so I had to transport my fishy cake home on its cake board. Everyone at work loved the cake!

Practicing at home

The Wilton Class 1 book told me to practice at home so I did. I had left over store bought cookies that I wasn't going to eat and jar of canned frosting that I wouldnt feed to anyone so I decided to spend Saturday practicing. I prepared my colors and piping bags for the big event. I watered down the frosting to make it easier to pipe. Wow, what a big difference. My hand wasn't shaking and it didnt take me 15 minutes to make 3 cookies. I think I did all these in 20 minutes.

 Just Kidding!  No J and K are for Joe and my initials.

I am now preparing for class on Wednesday. The Wilton "butter"cream is made/colored/ and ready to go. I need to make my cakes tonight and try out the new gadgets I got!!!

Wilton Cake Class: Lesson 1

Yesterday was the 1st day of my cake 1st cake decorating class. Up until now I have relied solely on YouTube and reading different cake forums. But now I will have some formal training.

I was the 1st one to class as I usually am. The teacher is a lovely lady named Jan. Slowly the rest of the class filtered in and we ended up with 8 ladies. We introduced ourselves, "Hi, I' Katie, I make cakes but I am awful at piping and need someone to teach me."

The class went on, we learned about butter cream and how to make it. I learned a few tips that I didn't already know. I'm really terrible at reading instructions so that is mostly what I learned about, the stuff I hadn't read. We oooohhhed and ahhhhed over different consistencies of icing.

Next we learned how to tort a cake. I never have been interested in buying the Wilton torter but now I think I will now that I have seen it in action. It is cheap and will work well enough for me. Currently I use a giant ( non serrated) kitchen knife, that is a no no but hey I don't care :) We watched Jan make a icing dam and fill and ice the cake. She did it more professionally than I ever have so maybe I will catch onto that.

Then we learned how to pipe stars. Oh dear, my piping is still horrid. My stars looks like little bushes. I was squeezing the bag as hard as I could but the canned icing was just so hard that my arm was shaking and the stars looked a mess. I was struggling really hard while everyone else was piping away freely. After circling around 2 times, Jan noticed my frustration and my hideous creation and she suggested I use a bigger star tip. Oh what a difference. My stars were still pretty bad but they looked like stars this time. My arms are really weak and the icing bag got the best of me. Hopefully with my nice homemade icing I will do better!

I stopped practicing on my home made practice mat and started ruining cookies. I admit I dislike making cookies so I bought mine at the grocery store, GASP! Oh well, I didn't eat them and they did the job. I iced 3 cookies, they weren't awful but left a lot to be desired.

Arent' they gorgeous???........

Class 2 we get to ice a cake which I can do pretty successfully so hopefully I will redeem myself :)

Wilton Cake Decorating Class

Tomorrow I start Course 1 of the Wilton Cake Decorating class. Up until now I have had no formal training in cake decorating. I have attempted several times to take this class but it has gone sour on their end or mine. But this month it is going to work.... unless they cancel on me last minute! I recently moved to a bigger town with more people willing to take the class with me at Michael's Craft Store. I also requested to not travel for work for this month so I won't miss a class. I am normally gone once a month so it was hard to fit in the classs.

I have all the material ( I think) that will be needed for class so I am ready to go. I am hoping my piping skills will increase since I have basically no experince with it. Fondant was easy enough(still a ton to learn) to teach myself but I think I need a teacher for piping.  

Hopefully I will have some new pictures from class of the new creations!

Bridal Shower Cake

I was asked to make a bridal shower cake for my friend Kelly's best friend. The wedding colors are yellow and brown and the flowers were hydrangeas. The wedding invite features yellow flowers on a branch so that was incorporated in the cake.

The cake itself was a moist yellow cake ( new recipe) with vanilla butter cream. The cake was covered in fondant and all the decorations were fondant or gumpate.

I delivered the cake to a beautiful venue, the Norge Ski Club in Fox River Grove.

My 25th Birthday Cake!

Today is my 25th Birthday and we are having a little pizza party at work, so I made myself a cake. It was supposed to be classy rainbow but it turned out like 2 year old rainbow. Oh well, I dont want to grow up anyways. Its a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting :)

My cubicle at work was decorated by a group of lovely ladies!! :)

Grace's Princess Castle

My little cousin Grace's birthday was this week, she turned 7. We had a big bash for her this past weekend. She LOVES princesses, I think every party she has had has been Princess themed. So she had to have a princess cake!

This is the cake finished at home. The bottom cake is chocolate and top is white. The tower were made out of rice crispy treats. The tower tops were ice cream cones. Everything is covered in Fondant. The flags were a cut up Victoria Secret bag.

The little Princess is 7!

Princess Grace with her now faded cake. It was in direct sunlight in the car for 3 hours so it faded a lot.

It is taken apart and been cut up and enjoyed!

Ashley's College Graduation Cake

My best friend Ashley graduated from College in May. She went to be a Special Education Teacher and has already found a job. I am so proud of her!! She had a big bash at her place so I asked to make the cake as her present. The bottom tier is chocolate with oreo cream cheese frosting and the top is white with white frosting. It is decorated in fondant and the figurine of her is gumpaste.

The cake design is based on a baby shower design by Pink Cake Box.