Micah's 5th Birthday

Once again I was gone on vacation during one of my child's birthdays.  While my kids are sad that I am not there, they get very excited about getting to make their own cake.

Before I left, Micah and I discussed what he wanted for his cake, and I made sure to have all of the supplies before I left.  He and Dad then put together his Ironman/Green Lantern cake, and he couldn't have loved it more (unless his Mom had made it)!

Paige's 7th Birthday

Paige requested a Moana cake for her birthday, and this gave me a chance to try something that would look like waves.  I researched it thoroughly and knew it would be tough, but loved the idea of this cake.

The cake was simply a round cake with a section cut out of the middle.  The real trick was covering it with fondant to actually look like the ocean.  I marbled the blue fondant to give it a little depth, and them tried to create layers of waves coming off of the top.  They weren't coming out quite right, but adding some white frosting helped to give it a little bit more of the right feel. They still seem like they need something, but I never figured it out.

The ocean floor was crumbled Nilla wafers, and molding chocolate was used for the ocean plants.  Overall, it was very cute and the idea was clear, but I discovered that making water is quite difficult.

Allie's 9th Birthday

Allie was very excited about unicorns this year, and wanted a baby unicorn cake.  I found a good tutorial on line and it ended up being easier than you'd think.

I made most of the body out of cake, but the legs were Twinkies, which made for a great round shape.  The horn was fondant wrapped around a stick and sprinkled with gold dust.  It didn't sparkle as much as I would have liked, but it was a nice gold color.  The mane was multiple colors of frosting covered in various sprinkles.  I am still getting the hang of my multi-color frosting bag as it's very messy and I can't get the colors to come out consistently.

In the end, we surrounded it with the unicorn popcorn Allie brought as her school treat (popcorn covered in candy melts and sprinkles).  She was very pleased and I was happy with the adorable result.

Emily, Brian and Tim's 40th Birthday

Not many people would offer to make their own birthday cake, but when it's a 40th birthday and the cake ideas are pouring out of your creative brain, it's what you do.

This cake was to celebrate Brian, Tim and myself, so it had to be epic.  I loved the idea of Over The Hill and decided to push myself to the limits by working with more molding chocolate, rice krispies, fondant, piping and even making figures.

I gave myself an entire day to get this done which allowed me plenty of time to get a lot of the little details in place.  The molding chocolate worked well and I was able to get my characters to look pretty good.  The cake itself was both white and chocolate which meant I had a little work to do to get it not to split down the middle.  Fortunately, my fondant road was strong enough to do the trick.

With plenty of sticks and frosting, I got it all together after having to take it on the road, and even I was impressed with how it turned out.  It may be taking me more and more time to make these cakes, but it sure is fun to try new techniques.

Cody's 11th Birthday

This cake was by far my biggest undertaking to date.  Not only was I attempting numerous new techniques, but I was also using many of my old techniques.  Fortunately I watched a lot of Youtube in preparation and gave myself plenty of time to work on it.

Cody's request was a dragon cake.  I wanted to make a dragon that wrapped around a mountain top and then we added the idea of a nest to go with it.  I was a bit nervous that it wouldn't turn out right, but fortunately I have a very confident son who knew I could pull it off.

The cake was shaped into the look of a mountain and then was covered in fondant.  I used black and white fondant to attempt a marbling technique which looked more like stone.  While it didn't turn out like the pictures from the instructions, it still looked like stone and worked wonderfully.  I added a few chocolate rocks to help with the effect.

The Dragon was made out of Rice Krispie treats and was molded to fit around the mountain.  This was a bit tricky, but it worked well and I think a few more tries and I'll have the hang of working with this material.  He was then covered with modeling chocolate that I made myself.  It is similar to fondant, but sets up harder and is a little easier to mold and make smooth.  Again, I enjoyed it but as with fondant, I think it will take a little more work with it to really get the hang of it.  The scales were made by pressing piping tips into the chocolate, and the wings were hardened candy melts shaped around a skewer.

Finally, the next was made out of some Asian noodles that I covered in chocolate and let harden.  Not very tasty, but definitely looked cool.  The eggs were some gumball Easter eggs that I smeared with food coloring gel and spray on frosting.  The plastic coating on the eggs caused the color to separate giving it a speckled look.  A mistake that worked in my favor!

In the end, this cake to an extremely long time to make due to all the new techniques and details.  I was definitely ready to be done with it by the time I finished, but am extremely pleased with how it turned out.  I may be getting carried away, but there are so many fun techniques to try that it's hard to limit myself to only one with each cake.