Happy 5th Anniversary Bohemian Hill!!

It looks crooked, but I think it's just because the "foam" is piled up more on the other side.  It didn't look crooked in person.

Beer Cake - $50
Billiard Cupcakes - $25

I made these for my friend's mom who owns a bar in Rosenberg, Texas.  It was their 5th anniversary and they were throwing a party for all their bar guests. 

The beer cake was 6 layers of chocolate cake with buttercream frosting.  The beer flow was a plastic dowel rolled in isomalt that was dyed an amber color.

The billiard cupcakes were chocolate with fondant on top.  I wasn't too happy with the results.  The cupcakes were HUGE and the fondant didn't fit quite right on them.  They look a little sloppy.  However, everyone loved them.  Thank goodness!!

Tangled Cupcake Tower

 Tower, cupcake stand, 24 cupcakes: $65

I made this for a friend of mine's daughter.  Her theme was from the movie Tangled.  I've never seen the movie before, but I scoured the internet for some inspiration.  I saw a tower just like this and I had to recreate it.  I'm so glad I did.

The tower itself was made out of rice krispie treats and an ice cream cone for the pointy top.  I covered it in buttercream and white marshmallow fondant.  The rest of the colored pieces on the tower were made of gumpaste because I had a lot on hand. However, the flowers were made of marshmallow fondant and the vines were green buttercream.

I made the cupcake stand out of 3 different sized cake drums and I found some pink glitter tape in the scrapbooking section at Michael's that was the perfect size to go around the cake drums. In between the cake drums were 2 different sized cake dummies that I wrapped in white satin ribbon and then decorated them with some pink 3D flower stickers.

The cupcakes were simple so it wouldn't clash with the rest of the piece.  I just found some edible glitter to put on top to give them an extra sparkle.

I wish I had more time to make this because I wanted to do so much more. I wanted to do Rapunzel hair to wrap around the whole thing and then make a Pascal to go on the roof. However, I'm pleased with the result and I think Krislyn liked it too.

Ms Pac-Man Cupcakes

16 cupcakes - $35
 
Made for these for one of the sweetest gals I know.  It was her friend/coworker's birthday and she surprised her with these at work.  She gave me a picture that she found on the internet and I reproduced it, but put my own spin on it.  The picture she showed me had yellow dots and they were all big.  I decided to make them look more they do on the game.  Since this was for a female, I changed Pac-Man to Ms. Pac-Man and added a strawberry because they were strawberry cupcakes.  The picture had black fondant as the background, but I decided to dip the cupcakes in black sugar instead because black fondant doesn't taste very good.  All in all, I was very happy with the result.  It did take me much longer than I anticipated though because I didn't have a template to go off and kind of just cut everything by hand and hoped they were all consistent in size.  Thank goodness it all worked out!!

50th Birthday Cake

I made this cake for my boyfriend's Mom's 50th birthday.  There were only 6 of us celebrating so I made a small cake.  This was a 2-layer marble cake with chocolate ganache under fondant.  This was the first cake that I've made that I actually got to try.  I was so full from dinner that I only had a bite.  I thought it was too sweet, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it.  All in all, it came out great, and she loved it!! 

Painting Party

Palette Cake with edible paintbrush

Yellow Palette Cupcakes

Blue Palette Cupcakes

Red Palette Cupcakes

Half-sheet Cake: $75
Cupcakes: $25 per dozen 

I made these for a lady at work whose daughter is an aspiring little artist.  Her birthday party had a painting theme and I was asked to make a large cake with matching cupcakes.  I made some green cupcakes too but the picture wouldn't rotate for some reason.

Overall, I was fairly pleased with the outcome.  I have never made such a giant cake before and that was definitely a learning experience.  I had to do one side chocolate and one side white and then carve the shape out of both.  It took a while to get the shape that I wanted, but I think it came out pretty good.  I wanted to do a border that incorporated all of the colors on the cake, but I'm not too pleased with it.  It came out a little messy looking.  The best thing about the cake though was the paintbrush.  It came out exactly how I imagined it and it was actually easier than I thought it would be to make. When I delivered the goods, everyone was pleased, including the birthday girl which is the most important thing!!

Stitch Graduation Cake

1/4 Sheet Cake: $65

This is my first regular shaped cake.  It was half french vanilla, half chocolate with a lemon filling, a chocolate ganache topping, and fondant over that.

My favorite part about this cake is the tassel.  I got a clay extruder gun that does so many awesome things and I can't wait to do more projects with it.

This was also my first time doing ganache.  They claim that it helps the fondant to stay smooth, but I didn't see that, though that may have been due to the different cakes. I think I need to bake the cakes and freeze on one day, ganache the next, and then do fondant the day after that.  I've got another cake to do this weekend, so we'll see if that method works.

Present Cake

This was taken as soon as I finished it.

This was taken the next day after I added the "Z".

You can kind of see a crack in the top loop of the bow.

2-layer 8" Square Cake: $60

This was definitely a learning experience for me.  I've only ever done 2 other cakes before doing this one so cakes are not necessarily my forte.  I had so many issues with this that I'm going to need a list of all the issues I had:

• Marshmallow fondant for the bow was probably not a good idea. It didn't stiffen up as much as I wanted it to and when stacked, the lower bows got crushed and cracked.  I wanted to get some Tylo powder to help stiffen up the fondant, but I didn't have time.
• After pulling the cake out of the fridge after the final coat of icing, I should have waited until the cake came to room temperature and everything settled.  It ended up settling after I added the fondant which caused the filling inside to bulge out and cause ripples in the fondant.  Not the flat smooth finish that I wanted.
• I didn't measure the height of my cake after adding the bow against the height of my box.  I put it in the box, closed the lid and when I looked at it later, realized that the top bow had cracked.  It was 1 a.m. at this point, so I had to think fast.  I decided to glue it together with a little buttercream and then make a "Z" dusted with luster dust and put on top so it didn't make the patch job look glaringly obvious. 

Next time, I think I will make the cakes WAY ahead of time and freeze them.  I keep reading that they come out so much more moist this way and this is what a lot of bakeries do.  This will save me some time with the cooling process and I can start carving away and adding my filling when I'm ready.  I also need to make sure that I let everything settle and come to room temperature before I add the fondant.  Basically, I just need more practice.  I've got all the knowledge, I just need to apply it correctly.