Nananananananana BATMAN!

It's official I want a new camera!
There is something magical about the quality of the photos taken on my friend's camera. My friend, who is a real Canon freak, came by to my chateau to stay for the weekend. He also brought his camera and a desire to break me of my stubborn belief that my camera is fine. Let me just tell you... a good camera makes ALL the difference in the world!

Take for instance this picture of my latest cake... the  BATMOBILE! Yeah, that's right, the batmobile! Pretty rocking cake eh? Or at least, I thought so! But the crisp image and sweet fade made me cringe at my old camera... Let's just say a lot of colour balance and fading goes into photoshop. SIGH!

The ability to have the image iso and resolution pick up the sharpness of detail, but fade to the back in blur was super simple! How did I ever live without it?

This particular cake, if you were wondering, was made for my friend's son's birthday. The special request was painstakingly carved, covered in Satin Ice fondant, and lovingly decorated to look as close to the old BMB as possible! My friend even got some action shots!

And of course, he let me play... which is how I came to fall in love.

This cake was super fun, and very rewarding to do! I was super happy with the final product, as was the birthday boy. Now, all I have to do is give up my fight and just go buy a new camera! It is a hard thing to part with a close friend!

Thanks for the inspiration Neil!

Zander's Story - Skylanders Cake

I have to admit, lately, the internet has bored me. Sure, I do Pintrest, and play games online, but mostly, when I go online, I check one or two pages, see that they have not been updated (because I checked them earlier that day), and decide to spend my time elsewhere. My interest in the internet, including Blogging, has dropped off. Why is that? Is this an Internet-Depression? Have I become apathetic to the internet? Have I just decided to spend my time doing other pursuits (including baking, and not posting?! A faux-pas!) Whatever the reason, my creative juices don't seem to flow as naturally as they once did. And my attention span appears to be suffering this trouble as well.

This epiphany came on the heels of posting up a new cake I created for a friend's son. His passion, and love, at this wonderful age, is Skylanders. You might recall, two years ago, I created a Pablo Backyardigans Cake for the same little guy! Well, little this guy is not, and he's growing quick!

The birthday boy insisted I use his favorite characters, and he proudly whipped out Bouncer, Spyro, Tree-Rex and Jet-Vac, each one coming with a story about why he likes the characters. I must say, his favorite, Bouncer, the one in the center who looks like Iron-Man, was the coolest for me too! His dopy smile was amazing, and the warm praise he received from Zander was endearing!

 In addition to the cake, I made a special name plate which I painted using edible food colours. I also made a cookie with each of the elements on them.

 I think the best part of this cake was the simplicity of it. It has been a long time since I got to make a simple 9-inch round cake! Lately, calls have been in for elaborate designs and sugar flowers, which I love to do! But it was so nice to make something as easy as a round platform which I placed toys upon! I think this was the first cake that I was not asked to make the figurines! In fact, Zander insisted upon his own characters! How sweet! He was super happy to see it all together, and I was super happy to deliver such smiles.

A Sugar FLower Spread

HUZZAH! Baking in my new home has been wonderful!

In my last post, I showed you some pretty sugar cherry blossoms I had been working on...

Well, those flowers went to a cake I was making... One for my grandmother's 90th birthday party. The party was held in my home town, four hours away, so I had a lot of transportation woes... but ultimately, the cake turned out okay, for not having all my tools and tricks available.

Since I had to do a four hour commute for the celebration (YAY, grandma is totally worth it), I decided to pre-bake all cakes and cupcakes (a total of 90 of them), at home, then transport them and assemble everything at the church. Luckily for me the church had a lot of items at my disposal, and the ladies were super nice in helping me find all my gear. I had so many people watching me put it all together, which was funny, but I enjoyed it :) I don't usually get people interested in my caking.. my husband certainly finds it boring.  

I did all the sugar flowers at home too... I made two large stargazer lilies, one orchid, several cherry blossoms and about 30 blue flowers (bluebells?)... which are so tiny they just act as filler. The cake was gorgeous! As I have said before, my camera is no-go until my computer is up, but luckily my aunt had hers!

So, with only a few cupcakes at a time, we decorated the table.... The whole room was filled with cupcake-style decorations... including cupcake confetti!!! I ABSOLUTELY had so much fun running around with confetti screaming SPARKLE SPARKLE!!! My husband, who is used to such outbursts, just laughed, while my family looked a little confused... SPARKLES ARE AWESOME!!

 My next thing to do on my list is to put up my Christmas tree and to make my house all sparkly! I am guessing that will wait until next week, as my tummy is a little unhappy at the moment. Still, it was a great weekend!
Cheers all!

Towwwww Mater!

I had the most amazing day yesterday. It included a four hour car ride one way, and a midnight 4 for hour car drive back... but the between.. PRICELESS! Actually, the ride back was pretty sweet too! This is the reason for the trip!

 

My nephew Aiden was celebrating his 3rd birthday.

 I have not seen my niece and nephew in four months, so I definitely needed to drive to Thunder Bay to visit. The problem is that I have another cake project due this weekend, so I didn't have a lot of time to spare. So, SURPRISE! I took a day trip down there (8 hour round trip) to go to the birthday party. What would a party be without cookies?

I made special Tow Mater cookies from Disney's Cars movies; Aiden LOVES Mater. In fact, most of his present were 'Cars' related. It was a super surprise for them. I walked in the door and Abby, my niece, JUMPED ME! We had cake which dyed our mouths blue, ate hot-dogs and played! Here's Abby with her tooth-fairy costume (her future career aspiration).

 And of course, Cookies for everyone~

Vivian and Brooklyn (Abby and Aiden's friends) munch away on their cookies!

Even my cousin Kathrine enjoys the cookies.

Okay... so like I said, big project, three cakes, major work to be done! It's time for me to stop being lazy and get some work done. For some reason, I never post as much in the Summer... guess the heat combined with the prospect of swimming! Hehee, I'm a fish in the summer.

Call of Duty Cake: Fake Blood Warning

Okay, please don't be too shocked by the photos. I hate violence, and am not much of a gamer, but when my super, uber-gamer friend asked me to do a special cake for her birthday, I could not say no, even when she told me what she wanted.... You see... my friend plays COD... and not the fish. COD, or Call of Duty, is a gaming franchise which prides itself on a HUGE base of gamers. This game is GOLD in the industry.

Anyway, my friend plays on several teams, and is a quick-scope champion... and a girl. A GAMER GIRL!
What is awesome about 'girlsarookie807' is that she is a huge gamer, knows COD in and out (again, not the fish), and yet, loves the colour pink, and paints her nails better than I could ever hope to. She's awesome!

So, her cake symbolized her perfectly. A crate filled with her two favorite weapons: Throwing Daggers and Grenades. I love the throwing daggers, they were made of Gumpaste, then painted to look like real throwing knives.Can you see? I also added in some bullets to symbolize her quick-scope team.

The cake would not have been right if I did not add a touch of pink. So, the pink bow and rose are the perfect way of symbolizing her femininity.. EXCEPT THAT THE ROSE, CRATE AND ENTIRE CAKE IS COVERED IN BLOOD!!!



Honestly, my favorite part of this cake was the grenade! It's cake, covered in fondant. I had to use MMF to make the ridges, just placing larger squares of MMF on the cake, then covering it in a smooth layer of fondant. Perfect! Gumpaste trigger and pull make it perfect! SUPER FUN!

Okay, onward. My College Caking Course (hehhee.. alliteration), starts Monday! I am super excited for that. I will take photos if I can!

Until then!

Stacked Book Cake Tutorial

Okay, this one has a lot of images!

I have been meaning to do a book cake tutorial for a while, so I am very glad that I got another chance to make one. One of my friends at our local Confederation College asked me to make the grads a cake. How could I refuse? We decided that the stacked book cake would be ideal! Let's see:

So, what do you do to make the stacked book cake?
First, start by baking your favorite flavor of cake in a rectangular pan. If you only have a square, you can simply cut one side a little to make it into a rectangle. These books had to feed a lot of mouths, so I'm using a 12x9 pan.


Cut the cake, fill it, then dirty-ice it. Place in the fridge, and let settle up.

Next, begin by rolling out white fondant. I like to use MMF.
Measure the width and height, then, using a pizza cutter, cut it out to the right size.

Next, put book page lines in it using the pizza cutter and a light touch. You don't want to go through the fondant, so make sure that you press only hard enough to make lines. Don't worry if they are perfectly straight.

Now, remove the cake from the fridge and ice again. Put the fondant on the sides of the cake first, then the front. You only need to cover three sides white, the back will be the book's spine. I like to add a little water to help the 'pages' stick to each other. Use your fondant smoother or a smooth surface to flatten the fondant.

Now, measure out the book's top and roll out enough fondant to cover the top/spine of the book. I like to use a small tape measure to be sure it will cover the whole cake.

Again, use your fondant smoother to flatten the top of the cake.

 Trim any excess fondant with a pair of sharp scissors. Once it is smooth, dust off excess powdered sugar, and you can sponge the top if you want more of a textured look.

If you wanted, prior to rolling out the fondant, you can use a pattern maker to indent the fondant with some shape.... I like it to be slightly pocked.

And that's all!
Here are some examples:

Note that in the centers of the book there are round dowels. If you plan on stacking the cakes, you will need to be sure that each cake is on a cake board of its own, and that there are dowels enough to support the weight of the cake.

When stacking the cakes, be sure to distribute the weight evenly. If you plan on moving the cakes, you may wish to consider a middle, center post to hold all the cakes together. These cakes were made to be separated.

Hope this helps, and  I hope you enjoyed the tutorial!

Pokémon: Pi - Pikachu! I choose you!

Well, here it is. I have been dieing to make a Pikachu cake for a while. Other than for my own birthday, I had no reason to make one. It is not easy when most of your friend's kids are all under 5. Luckily, one of my co-worker's children is over 7, and LOVES Pokémon! Whenever I teach them, they always ask for free time to read their Pokémon books, or to draw their favorite Pokémon, or rather, ask me and the EA to draw the complicated Pokémon for them! (づ￣ ㅁ￣)づ

This Pikachu cake was super fun and easy to make. I used one six inch round cake pan (two cakes stacked) and two nine inch cakes (cut in half and placed side-by-side) to make carve the shape. Dirty ice it, then cover in fondant. 

 
The ears are made of gumpaste, as is the tail. That was the hardest part, making sure the gumpaste was the same color as the fondant. ㅎ__ㅎ;; All the details are made from fondant and Americolor food color.

It was an interesting project, that I was super happy to do. When I first thought of a Pokémon cake, I wanted to do a Snorlax... the sleepiest character (most like me, lazy)! But since Pokémon Red and Blue are no longer as popular, and since Snorlax falls away to the super cute new characters I figured I would go with a popular one instead. I need to do a Snorlax for my birthday... MEMO TO SELF!

 So, while some small details bothered me, the mouth being one, the cake board being the other.... I rather enjoyed using the cake as a distraction, especially given our current status on building. Needs more happy Pikachus (plural) to liven up my mood! 
I have one more great cake project that I'm doing, but that's not until next week. Maybe I will go and bake some cookies! Something bright and cheerful!
 

Thomas the Tank Engine Cake

So, Thomas the Tank Engine is one of those characters that most kids would have grown up with. If not liking Thomas, most children are at least exposed to him and his friends through one method or the other. Personally, I know one very cute little boy who absolutely loves everything in Thomas's world. So, when I was asked to make a small cake that would feature Thomas, I was delighted.

If you look at this cake, you are probably thinking, THIS MAKES NO SENSE. And you're right, I kinda pulled Gordian Knot effect by putting a tunnel exit where there is no train, but in truth, I was hoping that Thomas was going to look like he was coming out of a cake, not a tunnel.

I like the overall esthetics. While the colors are muted, this cake is for a small boy who is too young to know esthetics of bold colors. So I'm happy I was able to throw this all together. I especially like the fact that I used the round to create a background as well as a platform from the cake! I cut two cakes in half and stacked them, like a diorama!

 
Okay, not much to say, I'm off to help out with the High School play. Ciao!