Gem City Cakes

Thursday, April 30, 2009

So far

I started making cakes on May 11, 2009.
I've decided that cake is a pretty safe business to be in. People will always have birthdays, people will always get married and people will always have special events and need and wants cakes to celebrate them with.

I want to turn my art into something fun and exciting that will really effect people. I want to make cakes that when presented people say "wow" and want to take pictures. I want to make cakes that are different and outside the box. I want people to remember my cakes and ask "where can I get a cake like that?"

I'm working on creating a portfolio. Thankfully, I'm finally getting busy enough to really start creating. I learn SO much with every cake I make and go into each one with greater confidence.


The first cake I made was not perfect by any means.
I made gum paste roses, which I slaved over for hours. I covered it in buttercream and I tinting icing pink for the piping.
I had a hell of a time getting my icing smooth and I don't think I even realized that on my very first try, I would not end up with the most omgperfectly smooth amazing cake on earth.

I was pretty happy with it in the end.






The next time I thought I would try fondant. I didn't care much for the flavor, but I like the way it looks and it's basically an industry standard. This on had me losing my mind. It's waaaay harder than they make it look on tv. Charm City Cakes makes it look for effortless.
Well, my cake was not level, my crumb coat was far from smooth and my fondant took on the shape of every imperfection. Oops. I mad a mangled mess of the bottom, which I tried to then cover with a bow. Hmm. Something like that, eh? Not my best work for sure haha.



My friend then asked me if I could make her son a WALL-E birthday cake. I wanted to do a test run. So I made a small version of the cake I eventually wanted to do, just to get my ideas and techniques down. It turned out really well for a trial run and was the first time I carved cake.





After this, with a while before my Wall-e deadline, Easter was coming up. I made a cake to bring to my family function. I got up early easter morning and threw it together. Complete with a dyed egg. It was fun and everyone like it.
It was a strawberry cake inside. My buttercream came out really well and I made some gum paste florals.






After Easter, I wanted to try a two tier cake. I used my new spring form pans and made a Devil's food cake two tier cake. I colored my buttercream Tiffany blue and the piped with some white. It came out pretty well. I was trying to make it elegant. It might not have come out perfectly elegant lol, because I was piping it at like 3am... but considering it was the first thing I've done like that I was pretty happy with it. (I say that a lot haha...) Someday I will be able to just say YEAH! Look at my awesome cake.





Finally, it was time to make the REAL Wall-E cake. I put so much into it and it came out very well! Wall-e and Eva standing in front of Wall-e's little house. So cute. stacked several cakes. Two sheet cakes and two square cakes and then carved the top cakes into the shape of his house.

Eva is gum paste. The lunch box and other things like that are gum paste. The stars and blue panels are fondant. The bridge and wall-e were the only things not edible on the cake. Everything else the children devoured!




I then took great pride in my favorite thing I've made so far! My Fight Club cake! I am a huge fan of Fight Club and the 10 year anniversary of the movie is coming up. What better way to celebrate than with cake??

I figured it was time to give fondant another chance...
I made my own this time though! Marshmallow fondant tastes good and was much easier to work with. I loved it. It was so great.

I cut the letters out of gum paste and then laid them on my cake after the crumb coat. I laid the fondant over the letters and secured it into place. After this, I used my gum paste tools to smoth all the fondant around the letters to make them raise out of the cake. It was lovely. I love it!



This is the last cake I made. It was for my niece's baptism last weekend. I made a white cake with buttercream. Then I covered it with green home made fondant. I made the stream from fondant as well. I created the tree from rice crispy treats and covered it in fondant.

It was a very exciting cake for me because it was the most technical cake I have done and it turned out REALLY well. I was really proud of it!
Everyone loved it so much that no one wanted to cut into it! Hah! The next day Lisa said it was so good that she even ate the tree lol.

1 comment:

  1. If we ever end up in the same place at the same time, you are making me a cake, OK?

    ReplyDelete