Lets Get Ready to Rock!

This was my first adventure in "airbrush" techniques. While I am disappointed it turned out difficult to see on top of the chocolate icing, the cake on the whole was awesome. I did learned a lot about airbrushing watching tutorials on YouTube and then adapted them to fit my need. For instance, I used spray on food coloring mist rather than an actual airbrush. ;) I was able to make a cut out template to use from some heavy paperboard and figured out how to maneuver it to get the best visual effect. I let each side dry as I worked on the next, all the way around the cake. Because of the chocolate icing, I repeated the process 3 times, letting each coating of spray dry before the next. After I finished with the base red spray, I moved the template off skewed a little to fill in between the red flame with yellow. The yellow was especially difficult to see on the brown frosting.


Of all things, a friend suggested I use SillyBandz to decorate the cake somehow, and she offered me the use of her Rock Band set. The cake honoree was involved in music and a musician and singer, himself, so I chose to use the guitar and microphone stand from the SillyBandz to add some dimension to the sides of the cake. After thoroughly washing and drying the SillyBandz, I pressed them gently into the icing and peeled them off. Then I followed the outline with icing and filled in the silhouettes. Who would have ever thought ?

In order to brighten up the sides enough for people to realize they were actually flames I had painted, I added a yellow and orange vanilla buttercream flame border with some spark/flame accents. It totally made the difference and redeemed the work I had done with the airbrushing. Albeit the airbrushed flames are difficult to see in the photos, they were a tad more visible in person.


To finish off this 50th birthday milestone cake, I decorated the top to be reflective of a magazine cover that may highlight the Birthday Boy's life achievements/aspirations. I used phrases such as "50 and Never BETTER", "Living the Dream", "Rocker hits Milestone Birthday". The title line of "Is a tour on Al's horizon?" reflected the photo theme on the cover, of a rock guitarist's silhouette jamming out in front of a setting sun.

Then came Summer...

...with More graduations, More wedded bliss, More vacation Bible school, More birthdays and More summer Fun!!




and not to be missed, my little girl's birthday cake! A few points of advice here that I learned making this (my first) doll cake: <1>the batter bowl cake I baked was not tall enough to fit the height of the doll, so I baked an additional 8 inch round cake to add to the base and trimmed it to fit. <2> Wrap the doll's legs with plastic wrap and then stick them down through the top center of the cake. Do not decorate the doll before putting her into the cake. And <3> You'll use a lot of icing! I filled in at the top of the cake around the doll's hips to make it a smooth transition into the skirt of the dress from her waist.

More cakes for special occasions...

It was a very busy Spring for me. It seemed everyone was doing something extraordinary... a bridal shower, retirement, graduation from preschool. Here are the cakes I did to honor those memorable events.

Whew! where has the time gone?

I can't believe it has been 11 months since my last post! Decided I should at least fill you in on what kind of beauties I've been working on this year. I say this to my closest friends, but it is really true when I humbly admit that with each new project, I amaze myself in what I am capable of creating. I am finding more and more that I do enjoy the more creative cake designs where I am given liberty to "let it flow", starting with a basic idea or theme and then watching it develop.

These Hawaiian themed Luau cakes were made for a memorial scholarship benefit, honoring Tim Hannon, who was killed in a plane crash 10 years ago. Tim's idea of dressing up was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, so was the inspiration for the cake and the party. I chose to use a brushed needlepoint technique for the flowers and it turned out awesome :). The buttons were done simply by
making a concentric swirled circle with brown and white icing side by side in an icing bag. They really added an extra detail that helped make the cake turn out as well as it did.

Capitol District's Championship Regatta 2009

This was made for the Capitol District's Championship Regatta 2009 which was hosted in Wrightsville, PA, by the Susquehanna Yacht Club. I can't believe how long it took to make the sail. lI was up until 4 a.m., the night before it was due, working on it and trying to figure out how I was going to get everything to hold together. I had thought enough ahead of time to allow time for the sailing cloth to dry, as it was made of fondant, but didn't consider ahead of time how I was going to attach it all to the skewer stick. The night before it was due, I struggled with using royal icing, but with no luck. It wasn't strong enough, as I didn't have a week to put it on thickly and let it airdry. I figured no one would be eating the sail anyway, and on due day, I assembled it with my hot glue gun. LOL It looked great, but that still didn't prepare me for anchoring it into the cake. The billowing front sail made it a little heavy on one side and the skewer kept turning. I couldn't hold it in place without tearing up the cake, so gave the instructions to the person picking it up to place it in at an angle, leaning toward the back of the cake and if that didn't hold it, to just stick it in 90 degrees and let the bottom of the sail rest on top of the buttercream boat. If I were to make a sail again, I would double or triple a skewer (using the glue gun again) so that there it would be better fixed into place when inserted. Weather was another concern to me while I worked, finishing up the cake, as it had been raining the past few days and Due Day was no different. If it had been me driving across York County with it in my car, I would have just held it by the stick, in my hand, until reaching my destination... but it wasn't me. I was able to figure out a way how to get it to stand up vertically for the trip, without risking it fall over in demise. It will be interesting to me to find out if it did finally make it onto the cake without getting broken en route. Chalk that up to an advantage of delivering a cake yourself...getting to see the cake in it's final environment, safe and sound and secure! Ultimately, I filled the bottom of an egg carton with my leftover buttercream to weight it down and then found the perfect-sized, sturdy cardboard box (I just happened to have on hand!) to wedge the egg carton into to secure it from tipping side to side. I was able to wrap the sail box in a plastic bag to protect it from the rain. The base cake, with the boat on top was also too tall, by an inch or so, to fit the height of my cake box. I decided to prop it open using additional shishkabob skewers so the top wouldn't get smooshed. Fortunately, the larger box was closed well enough to shelter the cake inside, keeping it dry.

Now... what to do about the 8 year old carrying the sail in the front seat ....

September 2009 - County Western "Pilgrim" Cake

September 2009 - Golden Retrievers Cake