My NEW Favorite Cake 'So Far'

Any of my cake making friends interested in making a Phineas and Ferb birthday cake???!!

That is the FaceBook post that spawned this cake. Having never seen an episode of Phineas and Ferb, I was a little apprehensive about this one, but when Kimmy responded with 'Trace is your girl for this,' I couldn't say no. After all, I do love a challenge. Besides, this cake was for my future son-in-law, the son of our friends David and Dana, and we had decided before his birth that he would marry my Emery when they grow up.

I had to google some images to see what Phineas and Ferb even looked like, and I found the coolest picture of a scene from and episode when they were surfing with that weird little platypus character. I knew when I saw it that I wanted to re-create it in cake. I showed it to Ricky and told him I was going to make a cake that looked like that and his response was, 'I don't think that's possible.' My intention was to show him that it was.

This was a chocolate half-sheet cake with plain buttercream frosting. I colored it a light blue, and made the water by tinting some piping gel. The characters were hand cut and painted gumpaste. Not being an artist, or really having an artistic bone in my body, I was immensely proud of how they turned out. I made the beach balls with a round cookie cutter and, again, hand painted them. The umbrellas and words were cut with my Cricut (this is when I knew that I really would love that I had made that investment) and also hand painted.

I couldn't believe how easily this cake came together. Aside from the hours of cutting and painting gumpaste, it didn't take much time to actually put the concept on the cake. I used brown sugar around the sides of the cake for sand, and purchased some chocolate rocks from a local candy shop. Before I even knew what had happened, this cake was finished and, to brag just a little, I was amazed by it. The real test, though, would be what Ricky thought of it. He wasn't home when I finished it, so I text him a picture of it. His response? 'Wow that's good.' That's all I needed to hear. I thought nothing could make me happier than his saying that but I was wrong. The excitement on Cason's face when he saw his cake made my day, and it made every paint-brush stroke worth it. Dana posted a comment about it on my FaceBook after the party, and a day or two later, order another cake for their t-ball party. Later, his dad told me, 'That cake you made for Cason's birthday was the most amazing cake I've ever seen, and all of the kids and parents loved it too.' This, my friends, is what I live for. Or, more appropriately, what I BAKE for.

(Oh, and for the record, I've STILL never seen an episode of that show.)

Baby Shower Cakes

I actually typed this up last June - and it's been in my drafts since then - I have no ideah how that happened - but here it is, for your reading enjoyment! Better late than never, right?
Who doesn't love a pink and brown baby shower cake?
Personally, I think my favorite of the two is the onesie cake - but that's probably because I managed to carve and decorate it without any technical difficulties. This was for a surprise baby shower for the birth of a co-worker's first grand-baby. The shower was on a Friday and, not wanting to run into a problem Thursday night, I started it on Wednesday. By the time I was ready for bed, I had it baked, cooled, carved, and crumb coated, and had the outlines and the pink and violet stars piped onto it. I was really excited about how it was going and had intended to stay up all night if I had to, just because I couldn't wait to see the finished product. I was pretty glad when the alarm went off on Thursday that I had opted to go to bed at 11:00 instead of staying up later. It was a big hit at work - and the guest of honor didn't even want to cut into it. That always makes my day.

The two-tiered cake, however, was a different story. One of my FaceBook friends, a girl that I grew up with named Misty, messaged me one day asking if I could do a mad hatter baby shower cake that was two different colors of pink with a diva cowgirl theme. If you know me, you know that 'diva' and 'cowgirl' are definitely traits that I DON'T have so I was really at a loss on this one. She also asked if she could come over while I worked on it to 'learn' from me. While I was very excited about that and thrilled that someone thought I could teach them something, I was really nervous about it. I borrowed some Cricut cartridges from my former supervisor at work, and let Misty look through the books for designs that might work while I worked on frosting and stacking the cake. Diva Cowgirl is a harder theme to match than we had thought, because in 8 Cricut cartridge books we couldn't find anything that might work, so we settled for the princess crowns and polka dots. Easy, right? Yeah, in theory.

The problems started early in the day when I, for the life of me, could not manage to get the icing smooth on either tier. I stacked them anyway knowing that there was no wrinkle in the icing that a Viva paper towel wouldn't fix. Roadblock number 1? I was completely out of Viva paper towels - and so was the closest store. So I moved on to cutting the crowns and circles out of the 'chocolate frosting sheets for the Cricut. Roadblock number 2? The frosting sheets tasted terrible, and as soon as I opened them they started drying out - despite my following the directions to prevent that to a tee. You would think, for $15 for 3 sheets they would actually have some flavor other than cornstarch and wouldn't dry up the second they were exposed to air. I'm pretty sure I will never buy them again.

While I was cutting shapes, I noticed roadblock number 3: The buttercream on the top tier of my cake seemed to have come alive. It was actually breathing - yes, you read that right - BREATHING. Giant bubbles were forming on it in various places. As soon as one would go away, another would pop up. I know what you're thinking and you're wrong. The cakes were cooled. Completely cooled. I had baked them the previous two nights so there was no way there was any residual heat hiding in them anywhere that would cause the frosting to bubble and look gross. Once again, I found myself in over my head - and this time with someone watching the train wreck that was happening in my kitchen.

When Misty left for work, the crooked (and not the kind of crooked it was supposed to be,) ugly, wrinkled and breathing cake was sitting in the fridge, and I was on the verge of tears...or tiers? Who knows now. Ricky came home from work, took one look at it and said 'Rebake those. By the time they're done baking Matt and I will be done playing golf and we'll stay up and finish it tonight when I get home. It's going to be ok. We'll just start over.' I love that man for wanting to help me. So I did just that. The kids and I made an emergency trip to Michael's and then to Walmart and came home to clean up the awful mess I had left and re-bake cakes. By the time they got home from golf, my first 12" and 8" cakes were finishing up in the oven. We pulled the original cake out of the fridge and Ricky, the DirecTV installer, and Matt, the railroad engineer, and I spent several minutes just looking at it, trying to figure out why the frosting was still breathing and why the top tier was now falling off. We made the executive decision to pull the top tier off of the cake and only re-do that one. They made steaks to go through both tiers for support and I made more frosting. It was about 3:00 AM before I was ready to put the now perfectly frosted top tier back on. Ricky had stayed awake as long as he could and was dozing on the couch by that time so I woke him up, we popped the top tier on and went to bed. Finally.

The next morning was Father's Day, and instead of making my near-perfect husband breakfast in bed, I was at Walmart, again, buying the last few things I needed. I had to miss church - and the kids and I were all unhappy about that - but I finally got the cake finished about 11:00 AM. Complete with princess crowns, polka dots, Whopper candies around the bottom of the tiers, chocolate frosting swirls, and some pale pink sugar pearls for good measure. Honestly, I'd be lying if I said I'd be sad if no one else wants a topsy turvey cake for a while.

I guess the only real lessons I learned here, though, are not to buy the Cricut frosting sheets, and not to be so over-confident that I think having someone watch me won't throw me off of my game. The lesson I WISH I would have learned is why my buttercream had taken on a life of it's own, but I guess I'll have to do some more research on that one.

Butterflies and Chocolate Buttercream

It seems like every cake I make is my 'favorite cake so far.' When I finished this one, that was definitely the case. This was for my supervisor's daughter's birthday and I was a little apprehensive about making it. Mainly just because I had no clue how to put brightly colored butterflies on a cake. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with this one, and my original plan was to make butterflies that would lay flat on the cake. The more I thought about that the less I liked the idea.

About two days before the cake was due, I had the idea to make 3D butterflies out of fondant, and I bought a butterfly shaped cookie cutter, 'just in case.' It turned out that the cookie cutter I bought was a great investment - I did end up using it for this cake, to make the wings of the butterflies.

I bought some Wilton brand fondant at the store and was a little worried about it after reading so many discussion threads about how bad it tastes. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe Wilton re-formulated their recipe - I have no idea. What I do know, though, is that it didn't taste anything at all like I was expecting and I actually thought it was pretty good. And it was so much easier to work with than the Marshmallow Fondant I had played around with before. Oh, and did I mention that it was 1000% easier to work with and didn't leave a gooey and sticky mess in my mixer bowl or on my table? That, in itself, has made me a fan of store-bought fondant. Yes, I'm lazy in the kitchen. This should come as no surprise, people. :)

The order was for a yellow cake with chocolate frosting with brightly colored butterflies on top. Simple enough. I made Chocolate Swiss Buttercream and sculpted the butterflies from fondant. I threw in a couple of flowers that I cut with a daisy cookie cutter and set in a muffin tin to dry so they, too, would be three dimensional. I used royal icing to attache the butterfly cut-outs to the bodies that I had made, and then colored some of it green to use for the grass on the cake and around the border. So far, so good.

While in the baking aisle of the grocery store one day I found the edible neon colored glitter gel and grabbed a box of it thinking it may come in handy, sometime. This was the perfect time to test that theory. I decorated the butterfly wings and bodies with the edible gel and let everything dry overnight. I needed to have the cake delivered at noon on a Saturday, and managed to have everything finished before going to bed on Friday night, aside from placing the standing butterflies on the cake. Saturday morning, before heading out to deliver the cake, I put the butterflies in place, and filled in some more 'grass' around them to give them some extra support. When I delivered the cake, the birthday girl came outside to see it and jumped around squealing, "My cake! My cake!" Yes!! Another satisfied customer....maybe there's a chance I'll be successful at this one of the days, after all.

I really didn't run into any roadblocks making this cake - everything went so smoothly I was actually afraid that I had forgotten some crucial step or ingredient, or something. But no, aside from one of the butterflies just getting a little lazy and leaning into his neighbor on the trip over to the party, everything went great. You cannot imagine how pumped I was about that. I did learn a lesson from this cake though - as I do with every cake I make. The lesson here was that 3D fondant butterfly bodies, before having the wings attached to them, will be the brunt of alot of jokes if there are men around. Apparently they're not exactly worth of a PG rating before the wings are attached. Who knew? At any rate, it was a really fun cake to make, and seeing the expression on the birthday girl's cake totally made my day - and boosted my confidence for the next cake.

New Mistakes, New Lessons

Every little princess needs an amazing cake for her birthday, right? After making a Texas Longhorns cake for Landon's birthday in February, his mom asked if I would make the cake for his sister's birthday in April. She didn't have anything specific in mind and didn't care what I came up with - I love and hate those opportunities. If I have a clear picture in mind of what I want to do, I love the freedom of expression I have in making a cake for someone. But when I'm stumped, I hate it. I always worry that what I come up with won't be what someone had hoped for, or that I'll try to do more than I know how to do and make a mess of it.

It took me several days to decide on this, and I only started to develop that 'clear picture of what I wanted' after Kim did some googling for me and found some cute pictures for me to work from. One of the pics she found was cupcakes with cute little princess crown wrappers, and I was able to build from there. The first step was to find the wrappers. This led to my first mistake and then the first lesson I learned with this experience. I called every store in town to see if anyone had the wrappers - I'd seen Wilton kits before with the wrappers and cute little decorations for the cupcakes so I didn't figure they'd be hard to find. After spending a couple of hours on the phone, however, I found myself, once again, relying on my dear friend Google and trying to find a template to use. And, thankfully, I did. So I bought some cardstock and printed, cut and decorated 23 princess crown cupcake wrappers. The mistake here? Calling around instead of driving around. The day before the party - after all of the wrappers had been made - I found exactly what I had been looking for in a local craft store. I wasn't happy. So the lesson learned is to never ask someone to check on something for you if you want a definite answer.

The round cake was mistake #2, which turned out to be one of the best mistakes I've made to date. My original plan was to make a 2 layer dark chocolate fudge cake filled with fresh strawberries and chocolate ganache. HOWEVER, poor planning on my part led me to realize that I did not have the 8+ hours for the ganache to sit in the fridge and firm up. So plan B was to make some devil's food pudding to put in between the layers. The mistake here? No milk. Again, poor planning on my part. So I had to develop a Plan C. I tried out a recipe for meringue frosting and it tasted great - but it wasn't stiff enough to frost the entire cake with. Not wanting to waste it, I used it to fill the cake, and then added the sliced strawberries. I frosted the cake with American buttercream (aka - Crisco and butter buttercream) and used Swiss buttercream for the rosettes on the top of the cake and for the stars on the bottom. I added some crystal garland that I picked up in the wedding department at the store around the bottom of the cake, and carefully placed pale pink sugar pearls in the center of each star around the bottom and in the ivory rosettes on the top of the cake. I was pretty happy with the finished product and probably could have left it at that, but decided to add the princess wands and the tiara when we got to the party. Turned out to be a good decision because it really gave the cake a more finished look.

I was so excited about how the cake and cupcakes looked, but I was worried about the taste. What good will it do for me to make cakes people like to look at, if no one wants to eat them? Turns out that the mistake I'd made with the meringue frosting causing me to use it as the filling for the cake was a good move. I think, at the end of the party, there were 2 cupcakes left and one slice of cake that Landon's mom had managed to save. Everyone loved it - and raved about the taste. One woman even said to me, 'I usually order my cakes from but I don't think I'm going to go back to them after tasting yours. This is soooo much better.' What a great personal victory for me - I was really excited, and so proud of myself for turning what could have been a disaster into a big success.

So what's the lesson you should take away from this? First I would have to say it's 'Don't put too much pressure on yourself.' Secondly, I think think biggest lesson would be to remember that what you consider a mistake or a colossal disaster probably aren't as bad as you think. You're always going to be more critical of your own work than anyone else will be. So don't make excuses or apologize. Show off your finished product just like you would your child's artwork. Oh - and don't forget that people don't know what picture you have in your head - so they'll never know if you 'screw it up' or not. Don't let your self criticism take away from someone else's praise.

The Mad Hatter Strikes Again!

This is the second 'mad-hatter' cake I was asked to make. This time for the 10th birthday of a coworker's daughter. This is where I started getting really nervous. Up to this point, the cakes I'd been asked to make were for people who didn't really care what I came up with. This cake, however, would be seen by the birthday girl's entire class and sports teams, and the parents of all of those kids - so, basically, potential clients. Yikes!

The original cake order was for a small topsy-turvy cake for about 10 kids. By the time I needed to start working on it, the birthday girl had decided on a much larger guest-list and I now needed to feed close to 40. To keep the cost close to the original budget, we decided on the two-tiered mad-hatter cake and 2 dozen cupcakes to go with it.

I have no idea how many hours went into this cake - all I can remember now is working all day at work, coming home to feed the kids, make sure they had baths and get them in to bed on time, and then staying up LATE working several nights in a row. One night during the process there was an impromptu block party, of sorts, and I ended up accidentally turning the oven off once with the big tier still baking, and then forgetting to turn it back on for the cupcakes. Good grief. You'd think I'd never done this before. The lesson learned here was that you cannot multi-task in the kitchen AND watch your husband and all of his friends play pool. Oh - and it's a good idea to wait until AFTER everything is baked and all of the gumpaste is colored before you crack open a beer and relax.

Wanting to save a little time - and a lot of pain in my right hand - I opted for fondant zebra stripes instead of the hand piped ones. I used chocolate marshmallow fondant and colored it black. It is SO much easier to: A) Get a true black fondant if you start with a dark chocolate base; B) Color/flavor the fondant while it's still in the melted marshmallow stage; and C)Get the stripes to stick to the buttercream when it hasn't been sitting in the fridge.

I hate piping borders. Almost as much as I hate going to the dentist or doing laundry. I just don't like it at all - maybe it's because I'm not very good at it.....or maybe I'm not good at it because I hate it so much. Who knows. So to avoid having to pipe the border on this cake, I made a $16 investment in some gumballs at a local candy store. Sure it added some additional cost that I hadn't budgeted for but it saved me loads of time and resulted in the kids getting a little added bonus with their pieces of cake. Win-win. Another short-cut (or as I like to call them, innovative ideas) on this cake were the decorative buttons that I added to it to go with the 'peace' theme. Another $2 I hadn't budgeted but, come on, what's $2? The added extra investments were worth it to deliver a cake that had people 'ooohing' and 'aahhhing' over it.


The giant number 10, the stars and the piece signs sticking out of the cake were made from colored gumpaste. I hadn't really used it much before this cake but I was curious about it and gave it a shot. I did learn, though, that even the heaviest gauge jewelry wire is not sturdy enough to hold up gumpaste cut-outs. Good to know for next time.

Oh - and one more lesson I learned with this cake? I definitely need a Tahoe - or something similar - to deliver cakes in. Riding across town in the front seat of Ricky's Chevy truck with this cake in my lap threatening to slide around and fall to it's death was not fun. So I'm adding an SUV to my list of cake-decorating supplies that I need.

In the end, the birthday girl and her mom were both thrilled with the cake, and working on it with Ricky's son, Landon, in the house gave us some time to bond and talk fondant, gumpaste, buttercream and more. I had no idea he was such a savvy little cake boss, but I'm pretty sure he's getting a piping bag and a practice board for Christmas this year!

It's a Jungle Out There!

Wow - it's been a while since I've been on here...has anyone missed me? :)
It seems like the half-sheet zebra cake is fast becoming my 'signature' cake. I get a lot of orders for this one - which is great for me because I can usually knock them out in about four hours - baking and cooling time not included, of course. I can't help but wonder though - what is the next 'big' thing going to be? And, most importantly, will I be able to pull it off? I think so - I'm up for the challenge at least.

The cakes here are from my daughter, Elaina's, 12th birthday - which had to be re-made a week later because her party was cancelled because of snow. That's a birthday she'll never forget since we live in northern Texas where it NEVER seems to snow. One was for a 16th birthday party for the daughter of a friend from work. The purple one was to celebrate the end of Elaina's volleyball season. Definitely a reason to celebrate because they made it to the play-offs this spring. Whoop! Whoop! The zebra theme matched the girls' socks that go with their uniforms, so they were all pretty excited to see it at the end of season party.

For some reason, this is all I've got tonight. It's been a busy couple of weeks for me and I guess it's taking it's toll on my creative writing abilities. Tune in later though, I'll be back with pics of more cakes, and the funny back-stories that go with them. Until then, happy baking!