Cakes still ongoing!

It's been years since I posted, but I continue to do cakes.  Here's an overview of some that have been created...

A replica of the jury table for a production of "Twelve Angry Men"

an airplane cake - obviously!

for a production of "Annie"

yes, the Coke bottle is a cake!

cake for a production of "Fantastic Mr. Fox"

edible Macbook laptop and headphones

for a production of "Midsummer Night's Dream," with Bottom the Weaver (turned donkey)

graduation cake

tuxedo birthday cake

And many, many more!

Wedding Cake with Edible Photos, Blossoms and Butterflies

My first wedding cake!  Blossoms, butterflies, edible photo and bling.

This past weekend I completed my first ever wedding cake!  Talk about stress!  It was for a friend who was a part of the drama cast for whom I prepared the "Rohio and Juliet" cake.  The couple wanted edible photos, the red-white-black color scheme, and eventually arrived at the preference for blossoms on the cake.

Back of the cake - on display to everyone but facing away from the wedding party

The custom in Kenya is to have some smaller cakes that are given to the parents and close family to take home; so I made a 4-tier (20 kg of cake!) for everyone, and then surrounded it with 3 family cakes, each carrying 2 plaques of the couple's photo.

Decoration was easy and fun - fondant butterflies and blossoms of various sizes, hand-painted to get a nice effect.  For fun, I got some edible diamonds and added those for decor emphasis.  Note to self- don't use them again unless I have proper edible glue.  They are made of isomalt and have a tendency to melt when stuck on with corn syrup or royal icing.  I had to replace all of them while setting up the cake at the wedding.  (They are also really difficult to get out of the packaging.  I finally discovered that they are like jelly, and was able to pry them out with a toothpick.)

I used a Wilton imprint mat to print a pattern of vines on the fondant covering the cakes.  

My biggest stress point was getting the fondant large enough to cover 14" and 12" cakes that were 5" high without breaking or stretching the fondant!  Then there were a lot of mistakes to hide - some small cracks, some creased fondant (I've really got to work on my covering and piping techniques!) - but flowers and photos cover a multitude of sins!

The main blossoms and butterflies wedding cake with edible diamonds

Rohio and Juliet Cake (balcony and stage)

I recently took a 2-week course in Sugarcraft - making and working with fondant, decorating techniques, etc.  It really helped take the fear out of fondant for me!  As a result, when it came time to make a special cake for for 90 people for our cast party, I was set!  The play, "Rohio and Juliet," was a Kenyan musical — kind of a "Romeo and Juliet" meets "West Side Story" in Kenya.  It was fabulous, and so I wanted to have a special cake for all those who worked so hard on it.  Here's the end result.

Rohio and Juliet cake:  with elements of the stage design

Top of cake with gun and rose, based on the program design

The entire cake weighed 11 kg - a total of 7 cakes!  That was enough to feed 90 people happily, and provide plenty of fun as the fondant decorative items were divided out.  One fun aspect of this cake was the edible photos.  Using a printer, the decorator shop I took the sugarcraft class from (Sweet Inspirations - check out their wonderful cakes!) printed out several photos of the cast taken during the run of the play.  I had presized them to the cake and used them as decorative elements on the top two layers.

edible photos placed all around the cake

People had fun asking for pieces of themselves to eat!  One of the first things I learned in the class was how to make fondant roses, so of course I had to have those on the cake.  Also, one of the main design elements on the play publicity was the image of a gun and rose, wrapped in vines and leaves, so of course I had to put that on the top of the cake!  

the fondant gun

Making a Fondant Gun:

Step 1:  print out a template of your chosen gun design.  Just do an internet search to find the drawing and size you want (you can also resize on your computer before printing).

Step 2:  color fondant grey.  Pat out, smooth, a thick slab of the fondant and lay the template on top.

Step 3:  Using a sharp knife, cut out the gun following the outline of the template.

Step 4:  Using fondant tools (or whatever instruments you have for marking fondant), add the design elements (the cross-hatching, lines, etc.).

Step 5:  Paint the gun black, if desired, using black food coloring mixed with a little water.  Let dry.

Gun with vines

Once the gun was dry, I added the vines, leaves and roses.  For the vines, just roll out some green fondant in a thin rope and cut to desired lengths.  For this design, I used three ropes and draped according to the picture.  I did not put the vines under the gun, just tucked the ends into the bottom.  Then I used a tiny amount of royal icing to attach the leaves and the rose.

fondant gun and roses

The other fun design elements were the theatre stage curtains, the balcony (got to have a balcony for a Romeo-and-Juliet-type play!), and the corrugated iron (or mabati) sheets. 

How to Make Corrugated Iron Sheets (or Mabati)

Metal scaffolding and corrugated iron sheet backdrop

The corrugated iron sheets were a part of our background set, along with a metal scaffolding structure.  I wanted to use that element to frame the edible pictures on the cake.  I could probably also have made the metal barrels out of fondant, but thought that might have cluttered the overall design too much.  

mold for corrugated iron sheet

I found a great suggestion online about how to make corrugated iron sheets.  The person suggested making a mold out of dowels, so I looked around to see what I had that could be improvised into the right size corrugation.  I had lots of wooden skewers of different sizes and chopsticks.  The chopsticks were too thick, so I settled on the skewers.  These I glued onto a small square cake board. Then I colored some fondant grey, added some pastillage (great for stiffening fondant designs that need to stand firmly), and rolled out a rectangular piece.  This was then laid over the mold and pressed in firmly.  With another skewer (and also a fondant tool that was smooth) I pressed the fondant into the valleys made between the skewers.  Then I used a knife to trim the fondant to the appropriate size (in my case, 3" by 4" sheets).  These were then removed from the mold and placed on a rack to dry.  Once dry, I used black and brown food coloring to add texture and interest (and rust) to the sheets.

The finished corrugated iron sheets!

When drying, I draped the sheet ends over the rack bars to help give it a slightly rounded shape to fit around the cake.  I could have used plastic-wrapped fondant in the exact form of the cake to get a better final fit.

I attached the mabati pieces with royal icing on either side of the edible photos, and also evenly around the top layer of the cake (with the balcony).  To frame the edible photos, I used grey royal icing to pipe "metal scaffolding" pipes in each picture section.

The Romeo-and-Juliet Inspired Balcony

Romeo-and-Juliet type balcony

This balcony was quite easy.  

Step 1:  Taking grey fondant again and rolled out a thick rope for the bottom part, and shaped it into a slight mound, curving it to the shape of the top cake.

Step 2:  I rolled out another thick rope and cut it into 7 pieces for balustrades.  I ran a moistened toothpick through the middle of each and stuck them at even spaces into the bottom mold.

Step 3:  Rolled out another rope, then flattened both sides on the counter (turn the rope over once the bottom is flattened and flatten the remaining side).  This was then placed over the balustrades and draped down the side.  There was a small amount of toothpick still exposed on the balustrades that served to attach the top railing.  Attach the bottom of the railing with a little bit of water to the bottom side of the bottom mold.  Let dry!

How to Make Theatre Stage Curtains and Ropes

Stage curtains before rope and tassel

Again, these were quite simple.  

Step 1:  Take red fondant and roll it out fairly thin.  Cut into 2 equal rectangles (sized according to your cake).

Step 2:  Take each piece separately and fold into a drape.  Attach to the cake using water or royal icing (I felt royal icing would keep it more secure).  

Step 3:  Cut another rectangle, cut to fit the width of both curtains and the framing picture.  Gather the ends so that it drapes.  Attach to the top of the drapes.

Step 4:  Pinch in the sides of the curtains so that they look "drawn back."  You will then attach rope and tassels.

The finished curtains with ropes and tassels

Making the tie-back ropes and tassel   

To give the stage curtains a finished feel, and to finish off the top layer, I made fondant rope.  

Step 1:  Using brown fondant (color mix - yellow, blue and red!) roll out two thin ropes.  Twist the ropes together (around each other), then pinch off the ends.  

Step 2:  Size and attach over the curtains.

Step 3:  Roll a small ball of brown fondant and attach at the end of the rope. 

Step 4:  Making tassels -   roll out a very small square or rectangle of brown fondant.  Using a fondant knife or scissors, cut it into strips, almost to the edge, but make sure that you have an uncut strip holding it all together.

Step 5:  Moisten the top strip with a bit of water and roll the square up.  Pinch the top and attach to the ball.  This will give you the tassels hanging down.  Easy!

I rolled a thicker rope to wrap around the bottom of the cake to give it a more finished look.

For the cake itself, I made 7 cakes for the 3 different layers:  yellow, chocolate and orange, filled with orange buttercream, lemon buttercream and strawberry jam.  For crumb coating I used the lemon and orange buttercreams.  

Wooden dowels were very necessary to stack the cakes!  Then I placed the fondant roses and leaves around the cake, added the edible congratulations message, and used a grass fondant tool to finish off the fondant around the bottom layer. 

It was almost a crime to cut into the cake after all the work, but it was so much fun!  It was a great way to continue remembering the play that we all worked so hard on!

   

Army Tank Cake

Army Tank Cake

I made this cake some years ago for my son, who was really into army tanks and airplanes.

I didn't document at the time how I made it, so this is just going off of a distant memory...

The body of the tank cake is made from a square cake.  It is in 2 layers, with the bottom layer slightly bigger all around than the top layer.  The front and back of the top layer are shaved diagonally down to create the sloped sides.

2 small round cakes (cupcakes) were also made.  One, with proper trimming, became the turret on top, while the other was cut in half and used as the front of the rolling tread tires.  They are shaved on the top at a diagonal.

Decoration was also simple.  Frost with a buttercream frosting, lightly colored with cocoa powder for the tan color.  Keep some frosting separate and color a darker brown with more cocoa powder.  After frosting the tank all over with the tan color, swirl in the darker brown for the desert camouflage effect.

For wheels I used 5 chocolate sandwich cookies (like Oreos) on each side, and one on top of the turret. (The top of the cookie is pushed into the cake so that it stands on its own).

Treads were made from licorice pieces (I couldn't find licorice ropes, but could get smaller pieces which I just lay next to each other.  The gun is a Pirouette cookie, stuck into the cake.  Tinted coconut flakes served as the sand.  Voila!

Front view of Army Tank Cake

Volcano Cake

Volcano cake

Just a quick post with this volcano cake that I made some years ago at the request of my eldest son.  The cake itself was easy -  a chocolate bundt cake, with a smaller amount of cake baked in a small pyrex bowl or cup, then stacked on the larger cake.  I did a little bit of shaping of the mountain, but could have done more.

Frosted it with chocolate frosting, roughly applied.

As you can see, I experimented with two types of lava.  I should have left out the lighter one; it was orange buttercream frosting that I made runnier, then pooled it in the crater at the top of the cake, letting it run down the side.

The explosive lava is orange hard candy, melted, then poured onto wax paper in lava flow shapes, and left to dry.  Then I stuck it over the cake.

A Director's Chair Cake

For the theatrically-minded, here's a quick cake for your favorite director!

Any self-respecting theatre or film director dreams of sitting in their own director's chair.  I couldn't figure out how to make a 3D chair, so I went with decorating the top of a regular 9x13" pan cake.

I have easy access to blocks of marzipan, so that's what I used.  First, I colored a small amount of marzipan black, and a small amount red.  Then I downloaded a template of a director's chair, cut it out, then used it on top of the marzipan to cut our the chair, megaphone and clapper board, in the appropriate colors (the legs are the natural marzipan beige).  The director's beret I free-formed from the red marzipan.

Next, I took some white writing gel and wrote the director's name on the back of the seat, his initial on the megaphone and filled in the clapper board.  The numbers represent the month and day of his birthday and the age he was turning.

It seemed slightly unfinished, so I decided to outline everything but the clapper board in grey.

Simple, but it worked!

Chocolate Pistachio Tarts for New Year's!

I saw these fabulous looking chocolate pistachio tartlets on the internet, and have been dying to make them!  Just got tartlet pans for Christmas, so I tried them out.  Delicious!  The recipe is here, at LindenTea.

I decorated them with red currants, whose tartness makes a wonderful balance to the rich chocolate ganache.

Christmas Star Cake Design

I wanted a dramatic Christmas star cake for a cast party (of a play where the Christmas star played a key role).  I looked for something along the lines of the Daystar -- an 8 point star with a longer tail.  CakeCentral has a template posted that showed how to do that with a sheet cake.  It uses a 12x18 inch sheet cake, which ends up being absolutely huge (about the size of a desk!).  I didn't have that much space so I decided to scale it down.  This is the result...

STEPS TO MAKE A CHRISTMAS STAR CAKE:

1.  Bake 2 cakes (I used a yellow cake recipe and increased it by half).  Bake part of the batter in an 8-inch springform round pan, and the rest in a 13x9 inch pan.

2.  Turn out of the pans and cool.  Cut edges on the round cake as seen in the photo, so that you end up with an octagon.

3.  Cut the rectangular cake into the points of the star, as shown below.

You will have leftover pieces.  Basically, cut the long tail of the star along the 13" edge, angling the top down slightly (see the piece at the bottom of the cake).  Cut three large triangles, and four smaller triangles.  These will be the star points.  

4.  Assemble into the Christmas star as shown:

5.  Frost to your preference.  I chose a fluffy white frosting (boiled icing), which gave a nice white meringue finish to the star.  Then I strewed silver balls all over for added effect.

Eat and enjoy!

How To Make a Dragon Cake

Dragon Cake

How to tame a dragon cake, in several easy steps.

When my son requested a dragon cake for his birthday, I did my favorite thing—surfing the web for pictures or instructions.  There are some amazing cakes out there!  But, as always, it comes down to what I am able to actually make myself, and what ingredients and decorating tools I can find.  So, after looking at several examples, here's how I did it:

1.  Bake a 2-layer round cake, and 4 cupcakes.

2.  Cut one of the layers in half, layer with jam or frosting and stack.  This will stand upright on the flat edge to form the dragon's body.

building a dragon cake

 3.  Cut the other layer into the needed dragon parts:  snout, tail, neck, legs.  You can see from the picture that I cut a thin crescent shape for the tail, 2 triangle wedges for the snout and a roughly rectangular curved piece for the neck.  The remaining bits and pieces were used for angles and height and smaller body parts.

how to make a dragon neck and head

4.  The Snout:  Stack the two triangular wedges together, with jam or frosting in between, to form the snout.  

Place the tail behind the body of the dragon.

Put a small wedge of cake at the front of the body and prop the neck of the dragon on it.

Adding the dragon's head

5.  The Head:  Cut the tops off of two cupcakes so that they are level.  Stack two or three cupcakes on each other to form the dragon's head.  I ended up using three, with the top cupcake still rounded on top.  

I also experimented with where to place the head.  Originally, I thought that I would use two cupcakes and place them on the neck, behind the snout, but that seemed too high to me.  I ended up moving the snout forward and putting the cupcake head between the snout and the neck.  I also used a piece of the leftover cupcake to raise the neck in front a bit.  

If you want extra stability, stick a bamboo skewer vertically through the cupcakes to keep them from tipping over.  You could use another skewer horizontally through the whole head area to further the stability of the pieces.

  

finish building the dragon's body

6.  The Legs:   Cut the remaining two cupcakes in half, horizontally.  

Use the rounded halves as the rear legs of the dragon (see picture).  Stick them on with frosting or jam, and use a small piece of skewer to further secure them to the side of the dragon's body.

Out of the remaining cake pieces, cut two small triangle wedges.  These will be the front legs.  Adhere them with jam or frosting and skewers to the body of the dragon.  (It will really help if these pieces of cake are frozen as they tend to crumble into bits when frosting otherwise.)

7.  Crumb coat the entire cake with a light layer of frosting, the color of your choice.  I had originally wanted to do a khaki green dragon but didn't have the right colors, so I ended up with more of a Chinese dragon look— going for orange.  It took a lot of fiddling with red, yellow and orange to get a strong enough color (that didn't look pink).  In the picture below, you see that it started off a bit pink, but by the afternoon, it had darkened nicely.

8.  Once the crumb coating is on, go ahead and frost the entire cake again, with buttercream frosting.  Lay it on thick and swirl the knife a bit to give the dragon a rough, somewhat scaly look. Thick globs of frosting also help cover any joints where cake pieces are.  

9.  Use a frosting bag or your fingers to make feet for the dragon.  This was just a blob of frosting, shaped into a roll, starting from the end of each cake leg, with the frosting smoothly joining the two.

10.  The Decorating Finish!  This is always the fun part!  For this dragon, I was able to find triangular orange gummies (also one of reasons I went with an orange dragon), and a Toblerone bar.  

As you can see, I placed the gummies in parallel up and down the spine of the dragon (with the remaining ones around the back of the head, like a collar), and the Toblerone pieces down the middle. I cut one gummi into little strips and stuck them on top of the dragon's head as hair (or something), and another to make toenails.

Next, I pushed the frosting on the snout into two indentations, and placed two oblong, indented pieces of orange-colored marzipan into them as nostrils. 

Eyes were jelly-filled mini marshmallows.  

The teeth were cut up strips of marshmallows.  

A strip of sour fruit leather was cut into strips and placed on the snout, with one end coming out of the nostrils, and flaring over the mouth onto the front of the tray.

Dragon wings for cake

11.  The Wings:  I had originally thought that I would just buy Fruit Rollups and cut them into wings;  however, when I needed them they were nowhere to be found!  Back to the drawing board.  I ended up taking marzipan, mixing it with orange food coloring (which gave it a nice mottled look), and rolling to out as thinly as possible to be the skin of the wings.

Next, I cut bamboo skewers into pieces.  I taped two long pieces together at right angles for the wing frame, then added on two shorter pieces in between for the veins or structural wing support. 

I placed the frame on the marzipan, folded the marzipan in half over the frame, then pressed and trimmed until I had the final shape.  Voila!

When the cake was ready to be presented, I added the wings to the cake (otherwise their weight would probably have caused them to fall out) by pushed the exposed skewer into the body of the dragon between the front and rear legs.  

The finished dragon cake

Make sure you take pictures before sending it out — the boys had the cake stripped of all its candy decorations in about 2 minutes!  And then they devoured the cake itself.  

I really had fun with this cake and the end result!  And my kids and their friends think I'm a pretty cool baking mom!

How to make a Cow Cake

There are lots of good sites on the web showing various cow cake patterns.  After looking at them, I adapted to make the cake below.  I was in a hurry, as it was for a cast party (we were doing a play called "8 Cow Saint" so a cow themed cake was appropriate!).
I didn't have time to make the base cakes, so just bought 2 round madeira cakes - always good for carving and shaping.

Steps:

1.  Cut the dome off one round cake to level it.

2.  Carve the head of the cow out of the second piece (as shown), and make ears and feet.  The feet are easy - just two triangles, with the tips cut off to abut the body of the cow.  Ears are roughly diamond-shaped.

3.  Use a skewer to attach the ears to the head.

4.  Use frosting to help secure legs, ears and head to the body.  Crumb coat, then frost all over.

I used chocolate frosting for a brown cow, but reserved some white for a white muzzle and blaze on its head, as well as hooves.  Eyes were Rockets (like M&Ms).  For the nostrils, I just pushed the frosting into the right shape.  

Enjoy!

Change of Pace: Triple layer chocolate mousse cake

Sometimes a change of pace is indicated - as when it's time to make a birthday cake for my husband!  Much as he enjoys novelty cakes, he also likes elegant, gourmet taste, and so this year he specifically requested this triple layer chocolate mousse cake.  (It really is a triple layer -- it's just that the bottom layer shrunk away from the pan edge and so the middle layer spilled over and hid it!)  






This is an incredibly rich, bittersweet chocolate and white chocolate mousse, taken from the recipes of the fabulous Cook's Illustrated magazine.  So I can't share the recipe -- you'll have to get it from them!

Incidentally, Cook's Illustrated has a regular magazine, as well as online subscriptions, that is full of marvelous recipes that really work!  My husband has a standing subscription and we love trying out new things, or old things retooled.

How to Make a Birthday 3D Train Cake

Honestly, train cakes are really easy to make, and incredibly fun!  What kid doesn't enjoy bright colored sweet things to eat, and a cake loaded with candy or sweets?!  

For this train cake, I bought 6 mini loaf cakes (queen cake, but pound cake would also work).  If you want to take the time to bake, you can also make the mini loaf cakes.  If the cake has a tendency to be crumbly, freeze it before working with it.  I sliced off the top mounds of 5 of the cakes so that I had flat train cars to work with.  I cut the sixth cake into three, and stacked one piece on a whole cake to make the engine, one on end on another to make the caboose, and sliced the third piece in half horizontally and placed it on another cake to make a slightly raised goods car.  [Alternatively, you can buy 3D cake pans from Wilton or Nordicware.  There are some cool things available!]

Now the fun part -- decorating!

I made buttercream frosting and divided it into 5 bowls, then colored each bowl a different color (I chose blue, yellow, green, brown and red).  Whatever colors you choose, just make sure they are bright and strong!  Each train car was then frosted a different color  (don't forget to crumb coat first!).  Place them in desired order and arrangement on a large platter as you frost.

With white icing, I piped the outline of doors, windows and bumpers on the different cars.  With a larger tip I piped yellow icing in lines between the wheels.

The wheels were chocolate sandwich cookies (Oreos or something similar), stuck directly onto the icing.  

With a dab of icing, stick M&Ms (or Smarties or Rockets or Skittles) onto the center of the wheels.  Yellow and red ones can be used for the train headlights and rearlights.  Remaining candies can be pressed into the icing in whatever pattern you like.

To connect the train cars I used chocolate Pirouettes.  Any kind of chocolate or dark round or long rectangular sweet you can find will work well as the connecting tongues (licorice, for example).

Now for the train cake toppers!  

The engine needed a smoke stack, of course!  For that, I used three marshmallows, mounted on a bamboo skewer, and rolled in decorating confetti balls (you may need to moisten the marshmallows slightly).

Being a steam engine, it needed a coal car.  Chocolate puff cereal made excellent lumps of coal, piled on within a piped rectangular "coal holder."

An animal cage car seemed in order as well.  (I guess this was really a circus train cake!)  Animal crackers were stuck in the middle of the car and candy sticks were used for the cage bars.  The roof was a bar of chocolate (it got a bit heavy, to it might be wise to bolster the cage with long skewers at the four corners).

The next car was just a great place to carry "balloons" or wrapped lollipops, and the final car, the caboose, just had a lot of candies stuck all over it, with another chocolate Pirouette on the back as a rear bumper.

This was my little one's first 3D birthday cake, and he was enthralled!  He spent the morning leaning on the table gazing at his cake.  I call that a success!