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!

February Birthdays

Kaylee turned eight this year and requested an "8" cake. Simple enough. She declared this the "most beautiful cake you've ever made." Hmm... I don't know about that, but I am certainly glad that she liked it! It was very simple to make and I was happy with it and really happy that she was happy with it.

My little niece was born the day before Kaylee and she turned one this year. So we had a combined party on the weekend. Her mom loves Pooh Bear, so I figured we'd do that. Again, very simple cake, and it looked pretty good.

At the beginning of February is my sister-in-law's birthday. They came up to stay with us, so I decided to make a cake. Nothing terribly fancy (unless you're asking Kaylee), but it was fun to eat all the same. She loves periwinkle, so I tried my best to come up with something close to that color. It looked a little closer in person....

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.

Happy BERT day!

So here is the last cake for a while....

This was pretty fun. I have found that even though I generally get more stressed out when I have numerous cakes in a row, it becomes easier with each cake and takes less time, because I have extra frosting and can reuse it from cake to cake. Bert was much easier thanks to the extra black fondant from two previous cakes. Phew. He only took about two hours of decorating and one of mixing/baking. The best part was hearing the happy reaction of the birthday girl. She loves Bert. Most of the ideas I looked at included Ernie, but it was fun to have him alone. I think it turned out pretty good, though there were some glitches, like a gap in his neck and one ear being different than the other. Oh, well. The overall look was right. :)Please forgive these awful pictures. My camera was having some major issues.

So I kinda lied. THIS is the last cake...

A week after this cake, it was Donna' birthday. Since she is my greatest cake customer/friend/supporter it just wouldn't be right to not make her a birthday cake. Of course I wasn't able to do anything great or fancy, and I nearly ran out of frosting, but it's the thought that counts, right? And it tasted pretty good. :)

Again, sorry for the awful pics, I don't know what is wrong with my camera, but I hope to fix it.

We also had scrumptious Peach Dessert (recipe compliments of Jessica Rowley) and snobbish ice cream! ;)

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.