Saturday, October 29, 2011

Just in time for Fall - Owl Cake Pops

My daughter's best friend loves owls. Her mother asked me if I could do some owl cake pops for her birthday. Anything for a friend!

There are plenty of ideas for these cake pops online. I think I first saw them on Bakerella. I had no idea how simple these would end up being. I thought I was in for hours of assembling. To begin, I shaped the cake pops in ovals. Then I attached chocolate chips on the "naked" pops for the ears. Next, I dipped the pops in chocolate candy coating. Some took two dips. The wings are black M&Ms, and the beak is a butterscotch chip. I made the eyes out of fondant and edible marker. That's it! Super easy and super cute!

Monday, October 24, 2011

Fall Cake

My mother-in-law is not a cake eater, but she loves seeing my cakes, so if course I wanted to make my her a pretty cake for her birthday. And the children are more than willing to eat the leftovers! Since her birthday is in October, I wanted a fall theme, but not Halloween.


I saw this cake on Pinterest, and thought it was so pretty. So it was my inspiration. I also saw these felt flowers and thought they might be interesting to try with fondant. I'm really happy with the look of the cake, though of course there are a couple things I would change (always). Perhaps the vines could be smaller (it just takes so long to make those ropes thinner!), and I would try making the flower with smaller petals and more of them. It was a fun cake to make, and wasn't terribly time-consuming. And my mother-in-law really liked it! That's all that matters.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Twilight Cake

I got an email from my friend, Kirsten, asking me if I "had time" to make a cake for a mutual friend with a Twilight theme. Kirsten is Twilight fanatic (don't they have a term for it?), so there was no way I was not doing this cake for her! Anything I can do to help her in her time of need [for more Twilight stuff ] ;)

Well, I have not read all the books, or seen the movies, so I needed some inspiration. After perusing the abundance of examples online, I decided to go with an icon theme. Each of the elements pictured are featured on one of the book covers.

So, for those of you wondering how I pulled it together, I started with the apple. It's made of marzipan, with a clove for the stem. Marzipan has a nice texture to it that makes the apple look realistic (in fact, the birthday girl asked me if it was real). I made the chess pieces a couple days ahead of time, in separate pieces, to give them time to harden up. They were made with fondant, and are reinforced with small wooden dowels so they wouldn't bend over.

When I started covering the top layer with the chessboard, I regretted my decision to do a round cake. Because of the shape, I had to tweak the squares on the sides to make it all fit. It gives it a kind of perspective, though, which I ended up liking. The flower was pretty easy - just white and red fondant pressed together and then rolled out to give it the mottled look.

All in all, I am very happy with the outcome of the cake. It wasn't as involved as some of my cakes have been, and I delivered it, so that made it a stress-free project.

I refused to send Kirsten a picture of the whole cake ahead of time, and teased her with a couple of close-up shots. It was so fun to get her excited about the cake!

Friday, October 7, 2011

Timmy Time!

So, I love to make cakes for my sister, Kim. She has to like what I make, right? She's my sister... It's in the family code.

All kidding aside, when I asked my sis what kind of cake she wanted for her son, I had never heard of Timmy Time. Needless to say, we were hooked. Such a cute show!

So, I made Timmy a few days ahead of time out of fondant so he could dry a bit. I think this was my first figure made out of fondant. His ears are held in with toothpicks so they could stick out. [Sidenote: even though I make my own fondant, I always purchase black. It's just too hard to get the coloring without the fondant crumbling. I like Duff's brand of black fondant.] I'm glad I added the teddy bear. And the green color turned out to be really pretty.  What a fun cake to make.

Monday, October 3, 2011

$7 roll of contact paper + acrylic paint = Instant, temporary, room makeover

The girls have been begging me to paint their rooms - bright pink is what they are asking for. Um....yeah. That will look awesome. So, to tide them over I thought I would decorate their walls. I didn't want to paint anything permanent on the walls though, because we really don't know what we are going to do with their rooms yet. And I wanted to do something myself, versus purchasing one of those pre-made sets.

So, I bought some contact paper, cut out a bunch of butterflies, painted them, and stuck them on the wall. Took me about 2 hours. And the girls are happy, which is the best part! I will probably add some more to the room with the green butterflies, but I ran out of paper.

Now my son wants a room full of footballs, lacrosse gear, and team logos. Butterflies are easier! We'll see what I figure out for him. Let me know if you have any ideas!