Cohen's 7th Birthday

 Once again this year we celebrated Cohen's birthday at our house.  When I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, he responded that he wanted a chocolate ocean cake.  While the ocean is not incredibly inspiring to me, he wasn't more specific so I had a lot of flexibility.

I ended up with an Octopus themed cake which was surprisingly basic in regards to what I do, and ended up being a very pleasant surprise in the end.

I started with a chocolate cake which I covered in multiple shades of blue frosting.  I then shaped tenticles and a head out of chocolate rice krispie treats.  I did not measure them with the cake, and in the end the were a bit larger than I expected, but this made for a great overflowing effect for the octopus.

The arms and head were covered in molding chocolate, the eyes were fondant, and the suction cups were white chocolate chips pressed into the molding chocolate.

Overall, I surprised myself with how cute this cake turned out.  The family loved it, and Cohen was very excited to eat the octopus head.  I still need to work on shaping my rice krispies to the cake while they are warm so that I don't crack the chocolate once it's hardened, but that may require more time and patience, as well as some creative measuring.  We'll see...

Eliana's 5th Birthday

I don't typically offer to make cakes for people other than my own children, but with my niece turning 5 and wanting a unicorn cake, I couldn't resist the chance to try one of the basic unicorn cakes I have seen all over the internet.

I made the inside a swirl of purple, pink and teal and then coordinated the frosting colors for the mane to match.  The eyes, ears and horn were made from fondant left over from Paige and Micah's recent cakes, so they were pretty much determined.

The major difficulty with this cake was that I was making it at the cottage in very high humidity and temperatures.  So, I kept having to return the cake to the fridge.  I even stuffed the piping bags and put them in the fridge hoping that the peaks on my mane wouldn't bend...but they did.

Overall, it ended up turning out very cute, Eliana loved it, I got to work on making my cakes flat and frosting smooth, and I used up extra fondant.  A win in all categories!

Micah's 6th Birthday

I had more fun making this cake than I have had in a while.  I think it was because of the creativity and simpleness of it.

Micah wanted a Minecraft cake, and I decided to do a Diamond Sword because that was one of the toys that he asked for.  To make it even more creative (and more minecraft-like), I decided to do each little square as a different type of cake.  I made cookie bars, rice krispie treats, brownies, and chocolate cake and cut them all up into 1 inch by 1 inch squares.  I used frosting to attach the pieces in the shape of the sword and placed the harder squares on the edges in order to help make sharp corners on the cake.

On the top I used my new Marshmallow/Wilton fondant and made shades of turquoise to match the color scheme.  Adding a black ribbon around the side gave it a very finished look.  I was also able to use extra fondant to make letters and numbers.

I'm pretty sure I was done in record time, and it really is one of the sharpest cakes I have ever made (no pun intended).

Paige's 8th Birthday

Paige asked for another princess cake this year.  I wanted to attempt something a little different than last time, not to mention the character she wanted had a dress that was much more complicated.  So, I did my internet research to find some new techniques and try my hand at another cake dress.

This cake was a recipe that was supposed to be dense and especially good for cake carving.  It turned out EXTREMELY dense and my entire family said it tasted more like scones than cake.  The cake made up the bottom half of the dress, and I used rice krispies on the top to shape it around the doll and to make it knee length.  It had good form but needed a little propping to keep it straight.

The lower layers of the dress are edible fabric.  This is rice paper covered with a gelatin which makes it plyable and sticky, and then I dusted it with color.  The concept was good and it took a couple tries with different thicknesses of rice paper, but I eventually figured it out, and it looked great!  The real struggle came in attaching it to the cake.  I could not find a good way to do it (i.e. frosting, gelitan, water, corns syrup), so I ended up cheating and using toothpicks.  The papers dried quickly once I took them out of the contain I stored them in, but I was done in time.  I would definitely do this concept again, but will need to research the best way to get it to stay how I place it on the cake.

Finally, I had attempted a new fondant which is marshmallow mixed with Wilton brand fondant.  I really liked it and will definitely use it again as it was less sticky and more moldable than marshmallow alone.

Allie's 10th Birthday

This year Allie was having a hard time deciding what type of cake she wanted.  So, with a little loving encouragement, I directed her towards a Reese's Peanut Butter themed cake as it looked delicious and she's been obsessed with these candies lately.

I looked up a peanut butter cake recipe, as well as peanut butter frosting online.  So, both of these were made from scratch.  The middle layer was chocolate cake I made from a box.  Once again I struggled to get a nice straight top with straight edges, but it was pretty close and once the toppings were on you couldn't tell where it sagged.

The new skill I tried on this cake was working with ganache.  I have never used it before despite it being quite popular.  Fortunately, it was as easy as everyone says it is, and I was able to get a very nice "drippy" look to my chocolate on the first time around.  I will definitely attempt this concept again on another cake in the future.  So easy, and looks great!

The rest was just covering it artistically in every Reese's product we could find at Walmart.  I will admit that typically when I am making my cakes, I rarely nibble.  I couldn't help it with this cake.  I even pulled out graham crackers to dig into the frosting while I decorated.  This is probably the first cake I have made that I was more excited to eat than to make.  Fortunately, I wasn't disappointed one bit when the time came to slice into it.

Paige's Un-Birthday Cake

Paige got an extra cake this year because we finally planned a friend birthday party for her.  She went with a craft theme, so this cake was a crayon box.  Once again the hardest part was mixing all of the different colors of the fondant needed to make all of the details.  Once again I attempted to use the new colors of food coloring that I found at Hobby Lobby.  I wasn't sure about the dark green at first, but once it was on the cake, it worked fine.

The cake itself was red velvet and a rectangle, so that didn't take too much work (other than it being crumbly and needed a lot of frosting to hold it in place).  The rest of was just fondant work using print outs and general creativity.

The girls got a kick out of it, and I must say that the bright colors really make the cake look great!

Cody's 12th Birthday

This year Cody asked for a Splatoon cake.  This is currently his favorite video game, and with all of the bright colors it typically contains, I got excited immediately.  I found the characters at the Game Stop and was then able to coordinate the colors teams to match the characters.  I attempted a new color dye that I found at Hobby Lobby, and it worked well.  This opens up my options when it comes to color choices.

The cake is made of both cake and rice krispie treats.  The center bump is actually an extremely large Reese's Peanut Butter Cup which was the perfect skate ramp size.  I continue to struggle to get my cakes flat and edges sharp, and that was true of this cake as well.  Fortunately the color activity detracted from the leaning and drooping.

I used a print out to help get the lettering correct on the name and number.  The "paint" spray was not working well until I realized that the small droplets were what really made it look right, so most of the finishing time was spent putting the little droplets in the right place to fill up the surface.  The fencing is orange licorice which may not have been necessary, but adds an additional color to the cake.  In the end it was a very busy cake, but it turned out more accurately than I expected it to.