Tiffany Whitten's Cakes and Confections

Wordpress

2010-11-04T10:08:00.003-04:00

I know this might be confusing, but please- follow me to the new home for my blog...

http://gemcitytiffany.wordpress.com

If you were directed here by one of my cards, myself or someone else, please click through above to continue to my new site! You'll be glad you did!

Guinea Pig Cake!

2010-10-27T22:35:00.002-04:00

This cake was for my brother for his birthday!

He loves guinea pigs and currently has two. We constantly joke about how they eat them in some countries, so I thought this would be sort of funny.

The little guy was so darn cute... I'm glad I decided it would be in terrible taste to make him red velvet inside hahaha. This isn't an armadillo and this isn't Steel Magnolias.

Confetti cake seemed the most festive and well... the least threatening haha.

Here's my brother with his cake:

Any for no reason at all other than to show off how fabulous my hair stylist is, here's a photo of me, since I never post photos of myself on here.

Manly Cakes

2010-10-07T09:35:00.003-04:00

Decorative cakes, by nature, normal aren't so... eh... manly. I suppose you could say. Most decorative cakes boast swirls and flowers and shimmery things. Most are whimsical and cute. So when it comes time to make a cake for a guy, I always try to keep it as masculine as possible. I hold back the need to embellish things and frill things up.

The last three cakes I've done have been for guys. Two of them were delightfully nerd-themed.
A girl I met at Jess's wedding contacted me about making a cake!

Nintendo! Who doesn't get all nostalgic over that. I remember when I was a kid, my brother and I used to fiiiiight over some Nintendo. He probably has the scars to prove it. One day, during a particularly bad outburst, my brother and I were reduced to swapping punches over a game of Mario. (You know the ORIGINAL Mario...) anyway, my dad calmly walks into the room, yanks the cords out of the Nintendo, opened the living room window, tossed the console outside and left the room.
We were in shock. And quite devastated. I remember we had to duct tape it together to make it work. We couldn't live without it though!

I can only hope this cake brought David equally thrilling childhood memories! Hahaha.

The next cake was for another guy who still enjoys childhood things such as Transformers! My friend Samantha sent me a message on Facebook asking me to make this for her boyfriend.
This Decepticon cake was made of fondant and the logo was cut from layered white and purple fondant for a more 3D look.

My camera wasn't picking up the true colors of the cake for some reason, but the photo below shows it!

I was asked to make the cake "decepticon purple" lol

I hear it was totally loved!

The next cake, I'm sort of cheating by posting. I normally don't post cakes until I've given them to the person who is having me make them, but I'm cheating, because I already sent her this photo. :)
My friend Nickie, who is totally awesome, had me make this for her boyfriend's birthday!

I've never made a gum paste model before. So this was different for me! It was a challenge and lots of fun. I looked online for ideas and saw lots of airplane cakes. But most of the planes that were MADE of cake were weird and squatty looking. Jet planes are sleek and slim and there's not much "meat" on them. So I didn't want to make the plane out of cake. I decided to do a gum paste model rather than blow out the proportions of the cake. I was very pleased with the result!

So, the next time you're in need of a "dude cake," remember, there's more to cake than flowers and frills! Even sweet confections can be manly!

*Edit*Silly me! I see that I already posted this transformer cake!! But guess what, it fits the post! So it stays! lol**

Brian's 30th Birthday!

2010-09-22T10:49:00.002-04:00

My husband is a recording engineer. He loves recording gear. I love my husband.
I can't afford thousands of dollars worth of gear for him, so I did the next best thing. I made it out of sugar.

API Lunch Box filled with expensive stuff haha

He was thrilled! The knobs turned and everything.

It was strawberry/chocolate inside and everyone loved it! It was SO delicious and moist. I was even surprised by how tasty it was haha

What a great day we had!

More than meets the eye

2010-09-22T10:47:00.001-04:00

Here's a cake I did for my friend's boyfriend's birthday!

The colors didn't come out so true in the photo, but the purple is very purple and the inside of the cake is purple too!

Music and video games

2010-08-30T09:50:00.002-04:00

Last week I did two pretty cool cakes!

One was for the bassist of local band LegBone. His girlfriend asked me to do it as a surprise for him. It was chocolate cake covered in fondant. I used an exacto knife to cut the logo out of fondant and then added the white accents by hand. Shaped like Ohio :)

Also, I made a cake for a cousin. He turned 15 this weekend. Trying to decide what to make a 15 year old kid for his birthday was pretty hard. To be honest. I was sort of clueless. We brainstormed forever until we realized pretty much all 15 year old boys liked video games.

The cake itself was white and green marbled vanilla cake. The controller was made of cereal treat covered in fondant. The birthday boy ate almost the entire controller lol.

Teirs of Joy

2010-08-20T10:19:00.003-04:00

I love making tiered cakes!

This was for a bridal shower:

Not the best photo lol. All completely edible! The roses and petals were done with fondant. The inside is strawberry/vanilla zebra cake!

This was for a 21st birthday! The cake was being driven about 2 hours away! Glad I was able to make this. I hope the birthday girl loved it!

All fondant except the boarder. The 21 was candy melt. The tiara lit up!

I love everything about this cake. The colors, the fondant, the zebra.
Also, the inside is all chocolate/vanilla zebra cake!

The inside counts!

2010-08-19T11:47:00.002-04:00

So, I got to see a photo of the inside of the NY cake I made!

It turned out awesome.

Also, here's the inside of the elephant cake:

Great photo!

Here's a preview of the cake I made yesterday:

I will have finished photos of that soon. As well as photos of another cake I did last week!

Much more cake to come.

I wasn't selected to be on tv, but that's okay! I still have all of you guys! <3

TLC show

2010-08-14T16:48:00.002-04:00

Okay, somehow I haven't posted about this here.

I sent an application in to TLC for a tv show they're casting for. It's a spin off of Cake Boss. I filled out the super long application and sent it in. A week later, I got this:

Hi Tiffany,

Thanks so much for your interest in our show. Your application was great! I LOVE your story and personality!!!

The next step in the process is for you to make a home video, so that we get a chance to meet you (on camera) and see your talent and personality. The most important thing to remember is to answer the questions with a lot of energy, animation and enthusiasm. (Basically just be yourself!) Your answers in your application were great so feel free to say similar but more elaborate answers on camera!

We pitch a few candidates to the network every week, so please get the tape to us ASAP (Casting ends next week)! The instructions, questions and uploading info are attached. Once it's up, please just shoot me an email to let me know.

Do me a favor and look this over before you start making the video...in case you have questions.

We are super excited to watch it, so have lots of fun!
Tip for the video: Have fun, be creative and do something that makes you STANDOUT! NOW GO MAKE A GREAT VIDEO!! Make sure your video will grab TLC's Attention!!! Make sure to show us some of your talents, interests, or anything that makes you unique in your video (like your love of art and tattoos)!!!!

Thanks and please don't hesitate to ask me any questions.

Wow! How cool!!!

I was in a complete frenzy though. I had to make this video and I had very little time. About two days really. I was going to be out of town all weekend. I did my best. I had to show myself being competitive with friends, so I showed myself doing some biking. I had to show myself doing a hobby that showed my personality. So I got this tattoo!

A rolling pin that says "roll out" lol

I showed myself working on that cat cake as well lol.

I haven't heard back yet, but, of course, I will keep you all posted. I don't know if I'm allowed to share the video. I never got a response to that question. I'll share if I can though!

Look at these cuties

2010-08-14T16:36:00.002-04:00

I made a couple of cakes for a birthday party! The cakes were based on a blanket that had a stuffed elephant in the middle.

One for the party guests and one for the kid to wreck haha.

The inside was chocolate and strawberry zebra. I hope I get to see a photo of the inside!

Bike!

2010-08-14T16:33:00.003-04:00

We love to bike! My friend Karen has the coolest bike I've ever seen.
Last week her husband asked if I could reproduce it in cake form. Why not?

It was awesome. It was a totally epic huge cake. Her husband is the guy who I made the beard cake for.

Even though I had three other cakes to make this week, I totally said sure and went for it. It turned out great. Plus, I love when I get to eat cake I made!

Birthday City!

2010-08-12T10:39:00.004-04:00

Last week was my best friend Chelsea's birthday!
We like to joke that she's a crazy cat lady, even just with the one cat...
but either way, I wanted it to be all cute and cuddly.

I made her this little guy.

It was really cute. She mounted the head on her stove. Yeah, I know. We're odd.

I also made these truffles for my friend Kelly's mom's birthday!

I built the tower using foam board and a wrapping paper tube haha.

More cool cakes coming soon! I have a lot I'm working on this week!

The Beard!

2010-07-29T17:40:00.004-04:00

My friend Justin had a birthday! He's super cool and he has the longest beard of any one I know. To me, it was obvious what had to be done here...

I was stoked because I finally bought edible markers.

Beard caaaaake!!!

And what better than to throw in some party accessories?

I look good with a beard. Jussayin.

Beard cake... it's what's for dinner.

My Aha Moment!

2010-07-23T12:05:00.004-04:00

Well, here it is!

http://www.ahamoment.com/pg/moments/view/15459

I think I look strange without my glasses, which were taken off due to glare and chubby. I look chubby. Don't judge me. I'm talking about cake.

OH!!! And look!!! New sharing buttons!!!

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Happy Birthday Hef!

2010-07-23T11:58:00.002-04:00

My friend Hef just turned 23! Happy birthday babe!

I made her these ice cream cone cupcakes. So darn cute!

I even rode my bike to the bar with them on my basket!

What's not to love here???

There’s nothing you can’t do- Now you’re in New York- These streets will make you feel brand new- Big lights will inspire yo-u

2010-07-23T11:53:00.003-04:00

My friend Katie was going to NYC to see our friend Mike, he always goes on about my cakes and how he wants to eat one so she had me make one for him!

Fondant with buttercream and dragee accents. The inside was a zebra stripe with blue, purple, yellow and green, I think. I don't exactly remember lol.

I hope he loved it!

Happy Birthday Eddy!

2010-07-16T13:08:00.002-04:00

Some of you might find me crazy, but I think it's more like awesome.

My dog turned 3 yesterday. I want kids- I love kids- I don't have kids. So... I spoil my chihuahua. He is my baby. Well... he's getting older now- I mean come on, he's 21 in dog years!

I texted my husband and reminded him, hey it's the dog's birthday. He immediately said we HAD to do something for him. I said duh, we'll make a cake like last year. Brian even picked out the colors.

In any case, I like ANY reason for cake. Even if I can't eat it.
I made this cake out of all things nommable for dogs.
Carrots, beans, beef, eggs, flour, rice, olive oil... a little paprika, a drop of liquid smoke... good stuff.

I pureed this and baked it. Then I colored some mashed potatoes (no butter or milk) and used them as "icing" lol

He loved it of course!

Big hit. The cat didn't want any. Well, he had a few nibbles, but Eddy finished his piece.

A HA!

2010-07-16T12:58:00.002-04:00

I got this email last week

Hi Tiffany,
I work for the company that is producing Mutual of Omaha’s “proud sponsor of life’s aha moments” campaign– visit www.ahamoment.com to see what an aha moment is and the great real stories we filmed during the campaign in 2009.

Associated to that, we have a 34-foot Airstream mobile film studio that is traveling the US on a 25-city tour to capture the country’s aha moments. We are headed to Dayton next Monday, July 12th & Tuesday, July 13th, and would love to invite you to share what lead you to begin teaching yourself to decorate cakes, and how your life has changed since. I came across your blog and think that you would have a great story to share! You would just have to step into the Airstream studio for a few minutes and tell your story on film, which would be posted to www.ahamoment.com .

We would love to have you if you are interested. We will be parked at The Victoria Theatre on Monday, July 12th (11am to 7pm) and Tuesday, July 13th (11am to 7pm).

Let me know as soon as possible and I can reserve some time for you, thanks!

I was excited and when they asked me to bring a prop that represented my a-ha moment, I made a cake, of course!

The inside was purple and white zebra stripe. I can't wait to get my link to my interview to post here! (Could be up to 30 days)

Excitement!

2010-07-09T12:47:00.005-04:00

I feel like this is the highlight of my cake making so far. This week... I made my very first wedding cake!
Holy cow it was a lot of work, but so worth every second!

My friend Jess asked me to do the cake when she got engaged and with every passing month, I grew anxious about it. I was so worried I'd ruin the cake/wedding/bride's life if I messed this up! lol

Turns out, I had nothing to worry about. Honestly, I don't think it could have gone any more smoothly. Honestly.

I knew the cake was going to be big... but I suppose even after buying the huge pan set, I still wasn't prepared for just how huge...

It finally hit me when it took 4 lbs of buttercream just to fill and crumb coat the bottom tier. It was 16"x16" and about 4 1/2" tall. Uhm. Wow.

I had a mini panic attack, but stayed strong lol. If it helps, that mixing bowl is huge. So for it to look so tiny in this photo is mind blowing to me.

By the time I got all three tiers covered, I was feeling some real shock... "Wait... I'm almost done? Nothing horrible has gone wrong???"

I put EIGHT dowels in the bottom tier (paranoia much? lol), four dowels in the middle tier and though I considered a dowel down the middle, I figured the weight would hold it all in place.

I transported the tiers all separate and stacked them at the wedding. I filled my car with pillows and prayed for the best on the drive. It was SO HOT out. Some how I got the cake there with not a scratch!

Once it was all assembled, I got to stand back and see my work done. I almost cried.
I mean... it's really pretty, isn't it?

What a great moment for me. And to be able to share that with friends... fantastic.
I also made an anniversary tier. With a handmade box.

The wedding was a blast and everyone loved the cake! I did green buttercream between the top tier and orange between the middle! The bottom tier was chocolate.

So much fun! The wedding was just great and Jess was a perfect and gorgeous bride. She was about as far from a bridezilla as anyone could possibly be.
Congratulations Jess! I'm so happy for you and so thankful that you trusted me to make such an important cake for you!

Get em while they're... hot- or something.

2010-07-02T14:34:00.001-04:00

Okay, so it's REALLY been hot out here in Ohio the past few weeks! I've been forced to crank my air so that my cakes don't melt as I create them lol.

I made these little angel cakes for my friend on twitter @ginakay for her inlaws!

She requested three tiny cakes with an angel theme. I wanted pastels and flowers. The base color was a peachy off white. I thought the colors were very whimsical. I piped buttercream transfers of angels for the tops.

My faaaavorite show was put back on the air after being off for years! I was so excited that I invited my friends over and we had to have cake!

Everyone dug into the slurm cake. It was half chocolate half confetti cake!
Long live Futurama!!!

Last, but not least, my friend's mom turned 50 last week! I made a cake to show everyone that being "over the hill" isn't so bad.

Especially when your walker is made of chocolate. And the hill is made of cake.

The top was white cake, the middle was dark chocolate and the bottom was the crowd pleasing favorite lemon cake with strawberries in the middle! Yum! It was the largest tier, but it was eaten before any of the others were barely touched!
It was quite a night!

Sophia turns 3!

2010-06-14T12:07:00.000-04:00

It was my nice's 3rd birthday yesterday and she requested a Yo Gabba Gabba cake with purple involved. I didn't have as much time as I wanted, so I had to cheat jusst a little. I printed the characters at Kinkos and cut them out and stuck them in the cake with toothpicks lol.

It really did come out very cute! She loved it.
I wish I had a better photo!
Everything but the characters was edible. I did find some strawberry flavored marshmallows at the store and decided to make my fondant with them. Usually, I'd say about half the people eat the fondant, yesterday EVERYONE ate the fondant! I think I might start using them from now on for colored fondant. The marshmallows are pink, so as long as the color I need can be achieved, I'd love to use them again.

As for the inside of the cake... I had to get a little crazy!

I did a zebra style cake with three colors this time! And it came out perfectly!
Everyone loved it! It was so fun and so tasty. Everyone got excited when I cut into it.

Also... my niece got her first bike! So cute!

Graduation

2010-06-14T12:05:00.000-04:00

My friend's son graduated from pre-school and I made a cake for their class!

The board was supposed to be a giant 10x10 cookie, but ehhhh I broke it. Oops. So I had to use foam board in a pinch. It still worked out!

Cake Week!

2010-05-17T11:39:00.000-04:00

Obviously, at my house, almost every week seems like cake week, but last week was CAKE WEEK... like... whoa! I made tons of cake and it was awesome!

I made a baby bottle cake for a baby shower:

Yellow cake with fondant and fondant accents.

I made a HUGE guitar cake for Blind Bob's one year anniversary of open mic night.

Chocolate and vanilla cake covered in fondant. Some hand painted details, buttercream details, dragee details and fondant details. All 100% edible except for the 6 tooth picks holding the tuning pegs on! It was a huge hit. I had a piece the next day. SO GOOD. I was at the bar the next couple nights and received tons of compliments. It made me feel awesome about what I do!

I had a birthday cake for a little girl with a horse on it!

Pretty adorable. I love the combination of brown, blue and white. :) The birthday girl was thrilled. That makes my life every time.

And then Addison's birthday cake! It turned out really perfect!

I love making the cake so much that I can forgive him for hiding under the table while we sang happy birthday. I got him Toy Story crayons, Toy Story sand toys, a 3-d reptile book and an alligator mask. haha. When he hugged me for making him his cake he pulled me on the floor and rolled on me hahaha. I love that kid.

Justin

2010-05-08T12:15:00.000-04:00

My friend Justin... well, he's a badass. That's all there is to it.
He built my husband a really cool bike and I wanted to thank him.
He loves my fondant that I make, so I knew I wanted to make him a little fondant cake. I'm going to take it to him at the bike shop he works at.

Since he's helping us in our efforts to go green, I thought this was appropriate.

Spring Birthday Cake

2010-05-08T12:08:00.000-04:00

I keep stepping back and looking at this, trying to decide if I'd gone overboard...
then I decided, that no, it was awesome. And before I tucked it in the fridge, I actually tossed some edible shimmer glitter on it.

I have FOUR cakes to make next week.
All are pretty insane. It's gonna be wild.

Success

2010-04-27T10:57:00.000-04:00

This is why I make cake!!!!

Could he BE any cuter??

May the fondant be with you...

2010-04-24T09:25:00.000-04:00

My friend Janna's son Ender turned 5 this week and he loves Star Wars. Loves it!
Janna is an amazing mom and she would do anything for her son. So she commissioned me to make what could well be the coolest cake I've ever made.
I sat down with the little man and asked him what he wanted his cake to be. He said very matter of factly that he wanted Darth Vader. :)

Well, I set to work, trying to come up with a cool design that would be fun for him. I checked out some cakes online that other people had made, collected some ideas and came up with a plan.

This is what I made!

Now, Janna is such a freaking awesome mom, that she and another friend, Stacy, looked every place they could to find Ender a Darth Vader costume to wear to this party. They tracked one down at a store about an hour and a half away and he is going to get to be Darth Vader. How cool is that??? He said he doesn't want people to know it's him. He wants them to think it's really Darth Vader. It's so cute, I could actually explode. He might just be the cutest kid in existence.
I wish I could go to the party and help them eat this cake! I don't envy the fact that Janna has to slice this fancy thing open though lol.

21st Birthday

2010-04-22T17:24:00.000-04:00

Always a good time for cake!

For my friend Brittany in Columbus :)

Wish I had more than these cell phone photos!

Tattoo convention cake

2010-03-29T14:31:00.000-04:00

I hit the road this weekend for a Tattoo Convention in Indiana with friends from Wisconsin! Of course, we needed to have cake for this!

There was a "bad" word on the back... click here to see!

P.S. It was gooood. Hahaha.

Baby Shower Cake

2010-03-29T14:28:00.000-04:00

Here's a cake I did for my co-worker's daughter's baby shower. I matched the frosting to the yarn used to make a blanket for the baby.

Update

2010-03-18T10:06:00.000-04:00

Wow, I didn't realized I hadn't updated in a while. I never posted the cake I made for my niece's birthday! I can't believe that. So here's her fairytale castle cake:

She loved it. We all ate tons of cake and there was plenty leftover!

Yesterday, for St. Patrick's Day, I made a nice chocolate stout cake using some oatmeal stout from Trader Joe's. I poured over it with chocolate ganache.

It came out lovely and delicious! It had a smooth, rich texture. I made the ganache from 90% dark chocolate, 77% dark chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate. It was almost too rich and I couldn't even finish the piece I cut myself. It's okay though, I have more friends willing to help out! ;)

Valentine's Truffles

2010-02-10T14:56:00.001-05:00

These are hand made chocolate covered cake truffles! Those with sprinkles or white chocolate topping contain a mixed truffle of white and pink cake. Those topped with heart candies contain a mixed truffle of yellow and chocolate cake! All were made with much love and care!

FYI: Truffle insides:

Happy Birthday to Me

2010-01-26T11:41:00.000-05:00

I made myself a quicky birthday cake last week. Plans were sort of rushed, so I didn't have time for anything extravagant. I just made a simple birthday cake.
Lemon cake with strawberry filling... yum!

Delicious!

This weekend is my niece's 1st birthday! I'm making her a castle cake!

Topsy Turvy!

2010-01-18T18:46:00.001-05:00

This was my very first attempt to make a topsy turvy cake.

It's for my niece who turned 13 today! She's cute as a button and this cake matches her quirky personality.

I had to work, so I didn't get to go to the party!!! Bummmmmmmeeeerrr!!! But I am told everyone loved the cake and had a blast. The husband sent this pic from dinner at La Fiesta to my phone:

The inside of the cake is pink and white alternating layers.

It's a Butterfly... it's an airplane... no! It's a cake!

2010-01-15T22:04:00.001-05:00

This week I did two cakes! One was for my best friend Chelsea's sister's baby shower.
I was given this fabric as inspiration:

And this is what I made:

Everything is buttercream on the cake itself. The butterflies are made of chocolate and are copies of the butterflies on the fabric. The little flowers are fondant with buttercream. The inside is lemon with strawberry filling!! It's the same flavor I made for Chelsea's birthday!
I love it. It's quite possibly the cutest thing I've ever made!

I also made a cake for a friend of mine on Twitter! @GinaKay!
This is an air craft carrier I made for her husband:

Sorry for the stupid black stuff all around the photo haha. I just needed to try to hide all of the junk on the counter!!!
There's a small Jazz band playing on the deck as well. I made it sort of an abstract element. Her husband is a Navy vet who loves jazz! This was mostly buttercream. The deck was made of oreo cookies with I processed into a fine grain in my food processor and there are fondant pieces here and there. The water is all buttercream.

I am making my niece a birthday cake on Sunday! Can't wait to post it!! It's going to be VERY cute!

Banjo Cake!

2010-01-02T12:56:00.000-05:00

This cake was a very last minute cake for a special surprise! I basically had about 24 hours to design and create this cake! I made this for a co-worker's husband's birthday!

The banjo body is cake covered in fondant, the neck is foam covered in fondant and the head stock is made completely of fondant. Details were hand painted with silver luster dust and piping was done with buttercream.

You Only Turn 30 Once!

2009-12-22T11:51:00.000-05:00

My friend Micah turned 30 this month, but he was on the road on tour with his band. His wonderful wife called my husband and invited us to a little party to surprise him the day after he got home from tour. It was a total blast and everyone freaked out when they saw the cake, which my husband said I must refer to at least once as "Tasty Licks."

Everyone seemed a bit distressed about cutting it haha.

It was the most awesome and most fun cake I've ever made and we all had so much fun!
I was so thrilled that everyone loved it so much.

Happy Birthday Katie!

2009-12-15T22:38:00.001-05:00

I made this cake very last minute for one of my best friends!

From start to finish, including baking the cakes and making the fondant I spent about 5 solid hours on this baby.

It was well worth it. We took it to Century Bar downtown and demolished it.

Oh yeah!

2009-12-07T23:17:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I haven't posted these cakes!!!

Here's a 21st birthday cake. The biggest cake I've ever maaaade!

This cake I made for my mom for her birthday. She loves tigers... and The Beatles.

Here's some other things I've been up to!
Cake truffles:

Apple Pie from scratch!

Cookies from scratch!

It's a Zoo in Here!

2009-10-13T18:39:00.000-04:00

I made this lovely cake for a slumber Party I went to last weekend with some of my best friends! And no, 25 is NOT too old for a slumber party!

What a hit! Everyone loved it. I feel like I'm really learning what the heck I'm doing!

2009-10-08T10:28:00.000-04:00

This photo was sent to me by the lovely Kelsey because it pains me to try to something cool inside of a cake and then never know how it turned out!

This was my first attempt at zebra cake.

I'm told she loved the cake and look... she even wore the plastic tiara, buttercream and all haha.

21st Birthdays call for cake for sure!

2009-10-06T14:16:00.000-04:00

I really loved making this cake. I got to use fondant and who doesn't love to do a zebra print? Everyone should order zebra print cakes from me... because I love to do them! Technically, This is only the second zebra print cake I've done, but there was that one tiger print one I did and it was the same thing... just orange lol.

I was really excited about trying to do the "HAPPY" suspended above the cake. I made the letters from candy melt, hoping they'd be stronger than fondant, but not too heavy. I embellished them with buttercream and silver dragees. Lovely!

Let them eat cake!

2009-09-15T14:21:00.000-04:00

I quit my job at the bar I was working at and what better way to smooth things over than with cake? I say there is no better way. So I made this lemon and white alternating layer cake with lemon buttercream frosting. I used leftover cake batter and frosting to make cupcakes. The buttercream frosting was full of lemon zest and lemon juice and tasted amazing. Sooo good. It was basically all devoured by the employees and friends at the bar.

Happy One Year Blind Bob's!

2009-08-31T01:12:00.000-04:00

I made this cake for the bar I work at! It was their one year anniversary of being open.

One side was delicious chocolate to which I added chocolate milk, chocolate pudding, chocolate chips, chocolate shavings and chocolate sauce to the batter before baking. It was decadent! So good.

The other side was yellow cake which turned out perfectly moist and bursting with vanilla flavor. I would know, one of my co-workers and I were eating it with our hands in the walk-in fridge at 2am!

I was asked to make the frosting the color of the walls at the bar which are a burnt orange color, I also wanted to add bricks on the sides of the cake to add to it's ties to the bar as there are exposed brick walls there. I created a cut out stencil with a thick piece of parchment and laid it against the sides of the cake. I then smoothed icing over the paper, then peeled off the stencil. This was something I once saw on a Food Network challenge and it worked out really well for me. I was pretty happy with the outcome and hope to use the application again in the future.

The Blind Bob's logo and the mouse from the menu were done with buttercream transfers. I went over the logo with more icing and added the silver dragees.

Can't wait to make more cake!

Oh! The Dog Cake!

2009-08-10T00:04:00.000-04:00

How could I have forgotten the dog cake! It was for my dog's 2nd birthday! He loved it! It was made of chicken, rice and eggs mostly! Frosted with colored mashed potatoes!

It was so great. It looked so much like a real cake, it's possible that someone at my work accidently took a bite out of a piece that I brought for my friends' dog!!!

New Cakes

2009-08-09T10:46:00.000-04:00

I made this cake for the ThreadCakes.com contest.

http://www.threadcakes.com/entries/view/466

It was a lot of fun to make!

This cake was made for two of my awesome friends for their birthday! I used chocolate and candy melt to make all kinds of awesome things that had to do with their lives. One of my friends dog, a sand dollar, lilies, Ohio, Kentucky etc.

Everyone loved it! This was my first four tier cake. The top tier was lemon, the middle two were white cake and the bottom was lemon cake filled with strawberries and buttercream. It was SO GOOD. I was really excited I got to help eat it!

Lots of cakes!

2009-07-11T14:59:00.002-04:00

Wow I haven't posted in while! Here's what I've been up to!
Here's a birthday cake and cupcakes I made for my good friend Mike's birthday:

Then I did FOUR Birthday Cakes for family members in one weekend!

This was for my niece. IT was a big hit. Everyone loved the inside!

Then I did this WALL-E cake for a guy I work with at the bar's girlfriend. It turned out great!

This was an awesome sweet 16 cake with a stellar Star Wars design! It's my best yet, I think!

This I did yesterday for a little girl's luau theme 5th birthday party! The tiki- hut on top is a cup cake! There's a buttercream waterfall on the side there!

Lot

2009-07-11T14:59:00.001-04:00

New cakes!

2009-06-04T00:07:00.000-04:00

My friends came all the way from Wisconsin to hang out with me in Columbus, Ohio for the Hell City Tattoo Convention last weekend. We, of course, celebrated with cake. It was delicious.

So yeah, dark chocolate cake, carved into the shape of Ohio, covered with fondant and then accessorized with fondant and butter cream accents.

Tonight I made my first purse cake. It turned out alright. I guess I'm pretty happy with it. Everything you see here is fondant.

Next time I do one of these I'm certainly going to be a bit more creative with the shape.

Great American Bake Sale

2009-05-19T10:55:00.000-04:00

I really want to get involved in the Great American Bake Sale

http://gabs.strength.org/site/PageServer?pagename=GABS_homepage

It puts 100% of the proceeds towards helping children and their website claims the funds stay local. I really want to sign up to host a bake sale, but I need to know that there will be people behind me on this because I can't do it all by myself. If you would be willing to bake a dozen cookies, bake a cake, make some brownies or cup cakes or something to donate to this, and if you'd be willing to sit someplace with me on a Sunday or two selling this stuff for a good cause, please let me know.

If I can get the people behind it, I am more than willing to put in the leg work to advertise our bake sale and get us a spot to hold it.

If you are here in Dayton, Ohio and want to help, shoot me an email at gemcitykitty@tmail.com

Lovely

2009-05-18T00:35:00.000-04:00

This is the best cake I've ever made! I think it's completely lovely. My friend ordered it from me for her sister's bridal shower.

She gave me a lot of creative control, which I loved because this was a cake I've been wanting to make.

My original design was only two tier, but I kept staring at it this morning thinking, no, no I need one more tier! It needs three. this is the first 3 tier cake I have made. I was really excited about it.

This cake is surrounded in rolled vanilla wafers and topped with white chocolate that I spent over an hour curling to perfection.

The wedding colors were lavender and white, I really wanted lavender roses and I was way excited when I found these cloth o

nes at the store which matched the ribbon perfectly.

Beneath all this, the top tier is confetti cake, the middle tier is chocolate and

the bottom tier is confetti. Yum!

Today I also made cake pops for the first time! I've been wanting to do them for a while. It was a lot of work!

I cut small cylinders of cake out of a sheet cake, dipped the bottoms in candy melt and put s

ticks in them. I let the candy melt set up in the fridge for a bit and then iced the tops.

I ended up taking these into the bar I work at for my co-workers to munch on and give away to friends.

While I was in there I got to snag a fresh strawberry cookie that my boss's mom had made. It was delicious haha.

I made some full size cup cakes today to because I can't handle not having some kind of cake in the house at all times now haha. Didn't take any photos though! Sorry!

One of my favorites so far!

2009-05-13T19:58:00.000-04:00

This wonderful cake is hiding a delicious secret beneath all this decor...

White chocolate filled rolled wafers are pressed into the side of the cake while top is comple

tely covered in hand-shaved dark chocolate.

Inside? Devil's food cake! Coated in a buttercream with a hint of cocoa powder and a slathering of chocolate syrup in the center, between the two layers!

The Best part about making something so delicious?

Eating it! Of course! So tasty!!!

Mother's Day cakes

2009-05-10T20:43:00.000-04:00

Alright, so today is Mother's Day and I decided to make some special cakes for my mom and my mother in law. I figured it's kind of a lot to ask someone to take an entire cake home, it's a lot of cake to eat, so I made one large cake and cut it in half!

I did this before I covered in fondant, of

course. I made 3 colors of fondant and rolled out two large sheets of orange to cover the halves. My mom loves tigers and my mother in law's favorite color is orange.

This was the best I've ever done on covering cakes with fondant

. I was REALLY REALLY watching Ace of Cakes earlier and watching extra close whe

n they were covering cakes today so I could try to get the technique down. I realized there's no reason I should EVER have a seam in a fondant covered cake.

After covering both cakes, I went to work on the details.

I covered my mom's with black fondant tiger stripe

s, cut out with a pizza cutter and Brian's mom's with fondant flowers cut out with fondant cutters.

Overall, huge success. I love the way they look! The insides were alternating layers of lemon and white cake! Yum!

Rainbow cake

2009-05-06T23:06:00.001-04:00

Alright, alright, here's what I was making earlier. I know it looked like a stack of kitchen sponges, but it was really a seven layer rainbow cake!

Nom nom nom!

VERY time consuming. Each layer was colored and baked one at a time! I loved how it came out. It was a mini cake test run... I want to make a full size version some day! I was excited I got the full spectrum!

Birthday Cake!

2009-05-06T20:09:00.000-04:00

I worked on this cake all day! This is basically the first time I've sat down in hours. My feet hurt like they hurt after I work at the bar lol.

Today I made this birthday cake. It's f

or the little girl who's parents needed some help. I'm donating this cake to them free of charge. I had to make it a couple of days early, but you'd be surprised how long all that frosting and fondant keeps cake fresh lol.

The bottom tier is one big round yellow cake. The top tier is a two layer chocolate cake. I covered the top layer in purple fondant and the bottom layer is covered in buttercream. I cut zebra stripes out of fondant for the

bottom tieras, well as the polka dots for the top tier.

I went with yellow buttercream for the piping work because I thought it w

ould really make the zebra print pop. It really turned out well.

I think the coolest part was I drew a picture of what I wanted this to look like and it came out even better than my sketch.

I thought the zebra print would be hard, but it turned out to be pretty simple all in all.

I covered my cake board in a girly pink wall paper sample for some added pizzaz. I hope little Courtney loves it. It's probably the best cake I've made so far.

Today I also worked on an experiment for a crazy layer cake.

More on that later hahaha... I was trying to accomplish something but I was so damn tired after making the birthday cake that I ran out of any energy to come back to this.

2009-05-05T11:02:00.000-04:00

I made cupcakes this weekend!

They were delicious.

They weren't all the most glorious looking... I was quickly running out of frosting after making

several roses lol. It was fine though, I started kind of slopping it on with interest in time saving... didn't effect their yum-factor!

For good measure, here's a photo of my cat being freaking adorable. His name is Gibson. He really wanted some cupcakes, but I told him no. He was kind of heartbroken about it since we were all really enjoying them :)

Cakes next week

2009-04-30T11:28:00.000-04:00

I have several cakes coming up next week!
I will be working on a cake for a special little girl's birthday. I plan on making it very fun and girly. Lots of colors, shapes and all fondant. I want to make it two tier with stars and polka dots and zebra print... something like they made on the food network challenge for Miley Cyrus.

I also possibly have a cake for my old friend Charlie's sister's birthday.
She asked for speakers for her car... so he wants me to make a cake that looks like a box with two subs in it! haha... I'm totally down. We just have to work out the logistics. I think he said it was next Friday, but if it's this Friday, it's a no go... I have no time this week for cake, sadly.

I also have to make one or two cakes for mother's day. I think we'll have both of our moms over at the house for dinner and I'll just make one cake so everyone can have some.

We're having company this Sunday for dinner, but I might make cup cakes. I can bring some to the bar if they don't get eaten!

cake cake cake!!!

So far

2009-04-30T10:36:00.001-04:00

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.