Toy Box Cake

An old co-worker asked me to make her baby shower cake. I had seen this cake done in Cakes and Sugarcraft magazine and was anxious to try and replicate it. The original cake was done all in fondant, however my co-worker was having pregnancy cravings for buttercream and asked if it could be replicated in buttercream with fondant accents. I thought - why not. Let's try it an see. I think overall it turned out all right, but I see why it was orignally done in only fondant and that is how I would do this cake if I have the chance to make it again.

The cake is a basic strawberry cake, cut and layered to the approximate shape of a loaf cake. I had spent the three weeks prior to her shower making all the different toys for the cake. My favorite is the little yellow duckies. I covered my cakeboard with chocolate fondant and used an wood impression mat to make it resemble a hardwood floor. The rug is white fondant which I decorated with food markers, once it had dried and hardened.

Once I frosted the cake - I used a ruler to make the wooden plank lines in the sides of the toy box. In the original, this would be strips of dried fondant planks, like the ones on the top of the toy box. I had to use the fondant strips on the edge of the box in order to have the toys hang off of something.

From there is was a matter of placing the toys on the toy box and the lid on top of the toys. Next tip: if you do this with buttercream - let the fondant strip adhere overnight before placing the toys - it may help with the sagging of the box.

Overall - she was very excited about the cake. Her favorite toy was the white bunny and she got her buttercream craving satisfied.

Ninja's

My nephew has been taking karate lessons this year. So, of course, when it came for Auntie to make his cake he wanted a ninja cake. This cake is actually a compilation of a couple of cakes I found that reflected ninja and karate themes. Because he is in the first grade, I wanted something simple for him. He also had ideas on what he wanted for his cake as well - fortune cookies for the eyes and ninjas. As you can see - the fortune cookies didn't make it on his cake, by his vote.

You remember that I got an airbrush for Christmas. Of course this was the perfect opportunity to play with it and work on shading for a cake. I wanted to blend the colors to make it look like that time of night when dusk falls. The top layer I used as his head and the bottom layer was not only the "body" of the cake, but I also wanted to reflect some of his karate moves too.

I had my nephew show me a couple of his katas and then I sketched them and cut out stencils of them. I then cut them out of black fondant and placed them around the body of the cake. The Asian pagoda was also cut from black fondant and put in the center of the cake. The face was a piece of skin colored fondant with black fondant folded and placed around it. The eyes ended up being fondant instead of the fortune cookies. The Ninja stars were made out of snowflake cookie cutters and a round hole cut out of the center. I painted them with silver luster dust paint (luster dust and vodka).

Overall, I really liked this cake. It turned out very cute and age appropriate for my nephew. He was thrilled and all his friends wanted a cake like his.

Pot 'O Gold

For March's birthday cake - of course there had to be some kind of St. Patrick's Day theme. Also, the birthday girl requested it! She also requested a German chocolate cake with pecan frosting. Hmmm... a challenge!

The cake ended up being German chocolate cake, but instead of frosting it in the pecan frosting, I used that as the filling. The pot was made with a Wilton sports ball pan and covered with black fondant. The bottom layer was covered with buttercream and then frosted with the grass in the center. The coins themselves were foil covered chocolates, purchased at the local grocery store.

I attempted a new technique - as usual - on the bottom layer with the brush embroidery. I like the look of that, however, I think I need a different size brush. Basically you pipe an outline and then use a dry paintbrush to fan out and brush the edges. The brush that I have on hand was a small detail brush and I think perhaps a fan brush would work better.

Overall - I think this is one of my favorite cakes. Next time, maybe add a colorflow rainbow....