Guinea Pig Cake!

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

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**

More than meets the eye

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

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.

Bike!

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!

The Beard!

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.

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

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!

A HA!

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!

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!

Sophia turns 3!

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

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!

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.

May the fondant be with you...

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.

Tattoo convention cake

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.

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

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!

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!

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.