Monkey Business

My baby turned one! I was having the hardest time trying to come up with a cake for him. My other two kids both had something they just loved, so it was no problem making a cake with a personal touch, but I was stumped. Originally I planned to make the safari cake, since it is one of my very favorites and it feeds a lot of people, but since I'm taking summer classes and this cake takes a LOT of time, I was worried about stressing myself out. For a while I thought monkeys would be perfect because he just loved bananas, and devoured them. Well, then he grew out of that. But he was so stinking cute in this outfit from Stephanie, and Amme had given him the cutest monkey blanket, so it just kept sticking in my mind.

On his actual birthday he opened a present from Donna and inside was this most adorable monkey outfit, and the decision was made! This was such an easy cake, and that was wonderful. He loved it!

Freight Train

My nephew, aka Squirm, is known for his love of trains. Especially the book Frieght Train by Donald Crews. So, for his birthday this year, that is just what he got. I must say, I was so worried because this cake was being difficult and it was right before Christmas and I was feeling tired and afraid it would be a huge flop after working him up to it. I shouldn't have worried. It was perfect for him! I was very sad that the black tender had to be left out of the fun due to poor health, but Squirm lovingly overlooked it. He is wonderful and I love him!
Before:

After: adding the wheels and putting it in a line made ALL the difference!

The best part about this cake was watching Squirm admire it forever! He walked along and looked so carefully at each part and recited the story:
Red Caboose at the back, Orange tank car next.

Yellow hopper car, Green cattle car,

Blue gondola car (my favorite part to hear him say), purple box car,

missing black tenderand a Black Steam Engine, complete with cow catcher. :)

He wanted the "Red Caboose at the back." Awesome.

My friend, Cassie (the one who took my amazing family pics), ordered this cake for her daughter's second birthday. She had the fun idea of doing a blue and black ladybug instead red. It was such a fun idea. Her invites to the party had a cute blue and black ladybug and her little girl wore blue and black. It was so cute. She is the party master and had the cutest decorations and party favors and such. This cake was pretty easy. I hadn't planned on shaping the body of the cake, but after I saw how the head was so nice and round, I went ahead and tried to shape the body. It went surprisingly well and not too many crumbs. We did a vanilla cake with buttercream icing and chocolate fondant for the black parts. I didn't think ahead far enough to make antennae. I did make some, and they were cute, but they were too heavy and hadn't had time to dry out and harden. She had some black candles that she used, which were perfect since her little girl was two.

Pirate Chest and Pooh Bear

This weekend I had two Saturday cakes. A pirate chest and a Winnie-the-Pooh. I was exhausted! The pirate chest was a cool cake, but I was disappointed in the appearance. I misjudged the measurments on the lid and it ended up two inches too short. Oh, well. I made the lid from cake even though I had planned on rice krispies. I am surprised it turned out this well!

The chest is made from three 8x8 square cakes. I cut the third in half and stacked it next to the other two. I would've just used a 9x13 pan, but mine is a piece of junk, so I used my good pan instead. The lid is made from one 8x3 and one 8x2 cake, cut in half and sandwiched together. I needed one more 8x2. Oops. It's all chocolate with chocolate buttercream icing and chocolate fondant accents. My fondant flopped on me so I wasn't able to cover the entire chest and could only use it for accents. I bought a can of Duff Goldman (is that his name?) silver spray from Michael's and it was junk! I am hoping to try it another time on white fondant and see if that works better, but I was sadly disappointed and had to send Louis back for a second can because I thought my first was defective. Turned out it just had much less in it than they claim. I crushed graham crackers for the sand and attached it with corn syrup.


Winnie-the-Pooh was made from my Care Bear cake pan that my mom got when I turned three. It turned out pretty good, and I had enough batter left from the pirate chest baking that I was able to make a small pooh bear for the birthday girl using my mini bear cake pan.

The large cake is a yellow mix and the small one is chocolate. I bought the Wilton tube icing in red and black, and it was expensive, but worth it to me to get the vibrant colors and not worry about mixing. It's worth my sanity.

I found out this time around that I just don't enjoy doing this like I used to. It takes me so long and costs me more than I make in time and materials. Sigh.

Airplane cake

I was able to dust off my cake decorating gear last weekend to make a birthday cake for my friend's little boy. She does the cutest stuff for birthdays, I should really look into having her do my kid's parties! This was a 3-D plane cake.... I think it turned out pretty good, though I must admit that I was wishing to change it. I wished I had a bigger freezer so that I could freeze the cake and make it easier to sculpt and frost. I always want to reshape the 3-D cakes after I've frosted them. Oh, well. Next time. But, I think it's a huge step up from the train!

Birthdays Galore!

Over the past month there have been several birthdays. I made two really pretty awesome cakes, if I do say so myself... and then a couple of really easy thrown together ones... that didn't require any baking on my part! hee hee! I couldn't resist adding those. Just to prove that sometimes, simpler is better!


The golf ball cake was for my friend's little boy. I was so excited about this cake. Three very easy colors and not a ton of baking. The grass took a while, of course, but it's so cool! The golf ball was pretty easy too, though smoothing a round ball is quite tricky. The little indentations also took a while, but again, so cool. The saddest thing about this cake: I put on all the finishing touches and was placing the ball on the grass, when it rolled off. AACK!!! Nightmare! I had to patch it up and it still looked ok, but not as amazing as before. Rats!!! So then I panicked and stuck a big dowel in the center to hold the ball on as this cake had to travel to Salt Lake City. It made the "4" sink into the center, but she just replaced it with a "4" candle and all was well. phew.

My little boy wanted a Kung Fu Panda cake. I looked everywhere and finally got the action figures at Walmart. I found this cake online and it was really quite easy, and super cool looking! I didn't get the exact same look because I have no airspray brush stuff, but it's good enough for us!

My husband isn't really crazy about cake, so we went with a family favorite... maple bars! Now THAT is a cool cake!

Easy, stress-free, inexpensive! Check out that smile!

Mom's cake is strawberries, whipped cream, and angel food cake. Very light and delicious. Though, it didn't hold up too well to all the candles.... ;)

Double Birthday

Last Saturday I had two birthday cakes to make, in between a baptism, and three birthday parties. It was a little crazy, but so fun to be making cakes again! I feel like it has been so long since I've been busy crazy making cake after cake. I have another one to make this weekend! :)

This first cake was for my son's best friend, Andrew. He was having an Indiana Jones party. His mom and I have decided to sit ourselves down and try to really recreate this scene... in downtown Shanghai. I just didn't have it in me this year. So I made a really lame, simple cake so that the really awesome part-the Lego set- would really stand out. I hope it tasted good!

The second cake is up on the list of my all time favorites! I just love using the grass tip! It is so fun. As I was putting the grass on the square cake, I decided that I would really love to try and make an Oscar the Grouch cake sometime... so anybody who wants one, let me know! This cake was for my cousin, Megan. She loves soccer and wanted a soccer ball cake. Hope you liked it Megan!

I was trying to get a close up of the grass. It really looks so cool!