Goodnight, Moon! Welcome Baby Boy!

Made for a February baby shower, the new mother saw a similar cake online, one with a striped bottom tier, stars on the top tier, and a crescent moon & baby topper. I found a picture of a ceramic figurine of a moon & baby and she liked it so much that she asked me to use it as inspiration. She was very happy when she saw the results. The first image above is the actual ceramic figure and the bottom image is my completely edible creation.

To construct the topper, I molded Rice Krispie Treats into the shape of the crescent moon, stabilized it with white chocolate, and then covered it all in yellow modeling chocolate. I made the face separately and then applied it to the moon, blending the seams. For the baby, I made a mold of a small plastic figure and used just the face and chest, adding hand modeled arms, legs, and wings. I hand painted the facial features on the moon and baby.

The top tier of the cake was french vanilla with mint chocolate chip mousse filling. The bottom tier was red velvet cake with white chocolate mousse. Both are covered in vanilla buttercream with fondant and modeling chocolate accents. The 10"+8" tiers will serve 50.

The Kidney Foundation of Cleveland, OH received the donation for this cake.

The Art of The Cake 2010: In The Garden & Winter Wonderland

The theme for this year's Art of The Cake Competition & Show was "In the Garden". Wedding cakes were to be inspired by anything that you would find in a garden. The Divisional competition was entitled, "Winter Wonderland".

My wedding cake entry was a flower covered gazing ball atop a faux marble pedestal with decorative river rocks painted with the 4 main words in modern wedding vows, Love, Honor, Cherish, and Respect. No award for the wedding cake this year, but I did receive great comments and excellent scores from the judges in both decorating and artistic scoring.

My Winter Wonderland entry was a re-do of a class cake. I added some new snowflake trees and made a modeled snowman for a topper. I dusted the snowman so that it would resemble a blown glass Christmas ornament. I'm happy to report that the cake won 2nd place honors in the Professional division!

I also entered my very first tasting competition. I was required to use both coconut and pomegranate in the cake--quite a combination, huh? I've only ever made coconut cake once before and I'd never worked with pomegranate, so it was a real challenge. I wound up making a mascarpone cream cheese pomegranate icing (it was delicious--sweet, but tangy--and a lovely ivory color) on a coconut sour cream cake with fresh coconut. I torted the 2 cakes twice, so there were 5 layers of filling: 3 layers of pomegranate icing and 2 layers of coconut cream cheese icing with fresh coconut. George LOVED it--actually, so did I--and best of all, so did the judges--I took 2nd place in this category, too!

The competition & show were wonderful--tons of great classes and presenters, a variety of vendors, a LIVE cake challenge, and again, the Polaris Center--it's facility, staff, & food--were incredible.

Becky Rink & Anna Weisand put on this show on the west side of Cleveland over the 3rd weekend in January. This was the 3rd year for the show and it's going strong. They do a fantastic job--can't wait for next year!

Devan's 4th Bearthday Cake!

A frantic friend called me on Friday asking if I could make a small cake for her son's 4th birthday--on Monday. Her son had fallen in love with a cake in a local grocery store, but the store couldn't take the order. She requested yellow cake with fudge icing for the cupcakes. The center cake is marble sour cream pound cake with buttercream icing.
If you could have seen the little guy's face when he saw his cake! He wanted to touch it and asked his mom to "take the toy out" so that he could play with it. He was even happier when he found out that he could EAT IT "the toy"--after dinner, of course!
The only inedible items on the display are the cupcake wrappers, the boards, the sign supports, and the straws supporting the honey pot. The honey pot itself is made out of molded strawberry rice krispie treats. The hats and bear are hand modeled fondant.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow......

A winter bridal shower is the perfect place for a cake covered in snowflakes--and that's just what the hostess ordered.

The cakes are chocolate with raspberry mousse and white with strawberry mousse. Vanilla buttercream icing is covered with gum paste snowflakes in violet, pealized white, and pale blue. The bows are made from modeling chocolate.

The 6" and 8" round cakes will serve 32.

Cake Cruise 2009--Fun on the Mexican Riviera

George & I went on the Holland America Oosterdam to the Mexican Riviera--Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, & Cabo San Lucas--for the 2009 Cake Cruise. 138 other cake fanatics and significant others joined us for a spectacular time.

It's hard to imagine anything more relaxing than 3 days at sea filled with cake decorating demos and hands on classes, paired with 3 days in 3 gorgeous ports snorkeling and bird watching.

The cake celebrities on the cruise were Susan Carberry, Colette Peters, Norm Davis, & Zane Beg. It was great to see them all again, having so much fun.

I took a modeling class from Susan Carberry. The dalmation eyeing the oversized bone was my creation. Colette Peters taught a class on royal icing portraits and I enjoyed learning the technique. Sadly, it just didn't photograph well for me. Demos included making fantasy flowers directly on a cake (Colette), creating a detailed Mexican-themed margarita and pinata cake (Susan), and creating an easy handbag cake (Norm & Zane).

On the final day of the cruise, 30 attendees, who had been chosen by lottery, participated in a series of 2 decorating heats that ended in a 3-person Mystery Challenge.

In the first heat of 30, I was chosen as one of 9 winners for my "floral motif" design done with only a rose nail, a rose tip on a bag of pink icing, and a parchment bag of green buttercream. I chose to do a modified version of brush embroidery, using my finger and the sharp end of the rose nail.

In the second heat of 9, I had to create a sea creature using red, yellow, green, black, and white fondant. The only tools I had to use were my hands and a toothpick. 3 of us went on to the finals where we were challenged to decorate an 8-inch round cake in a Mexican Riviera theme in 90 minutes.

My assistant (Patsi Shandera) and I completed the cake on time, and although we didn't win (the hot lights and swaying ship wreaked havoc with my "water" on the top of the cake, making it drip in the last 2 minutes of the challenge..........), we had a great time working together. George was my greatest cheerleader and photographer. I never would have suspected that I could cover a cake, make waves, model an island, a person, a tropical hut, a palm tree, and El Arco in just 90 minutes. How the major cake competitors work under such pressure for 7 hours, I'll NEVER know!

I learned some new tricks and had some spectacular fun! Can't wait to go again in 2011 !

My buddy the Car!

This cake was done for a budding mechanic who will turn 2 in a few days. I've never seen a little guy so excited by tools and wheels and CARS. He seemed surprised that he would be eating this particular car, so I hope he really enjoys it.

The car is marble sour cream pound cake iced with white chocolate ganache and covered in red fondant. It would serve 10-12. The base cake will serve 30+ and is yellow cake with cookies and cream mousse. The "grass" is homemade vanilla buttercream.

All of the decorations are edible fondant/gum paste and were hand cut and hand modeled.

Fabulous Fall Leaves--Alyson's 40th Birthday

For Alyson's 40th birthday, she told her husband Dave that she wanted my white cake with buttercream icing. Dave asked me to include some colorful fall leaves as decoration.

The cake is 8" round, 5 inches high, with buttercream basketweave icing airbrushed a rich gold. It will serve 20 comfortably. The leaves are cut from fondant and are completely edible.

Dave and the kids were delighted when we delivered the cake. I hope Alyson enjoys it, too, and has a fabulous fortieth!