Frozen Obsessed!

This one started out as a simple Olaf cake for my 5 year old's family party (as he already had a very elaborate pirate cake for his friend party).  Well, my 5 year old "creative director" and "character expert" kept deciding we needed more characters.  So, the end result is a not-so-simple Frozen cake.  He and I were both very happy with the result!  I may put a tutorial up on how I made this in case anyone wants to recreate it.

Details:  White Almond Sour Cream cake with vanilla buttercream.  Olaf and Sven are fondant and gumpaste, hand painted with food coloring.  Elsa and Anna are hand painted with food coloring.  The snowflakes are fondant and gumpaste.

  

Frozen! Who doesn't love Olaf?!

My almost 5 year old watched Frozen for the first time about 4 months ago and he honestly wasn't all that interested in it.  For a long time, I thought I had the only kid who wasn't Frozen-obsessed. Okay, well that changed.  I'm not sure what exactly changed, but recently he's wanted to watch Frozen every.single.day.  The kiddo doesn't get much screen time because hubby and I limit it so his brain wont turn to mush.  But, he wants to watch it now whenever I'm making dinner or when his little brother is napping.  So, I see a LOT of Olaf....and I sort of luv him!  Seriously, who doesn't love this hilarious little snowman who just can't wait to experience summer.
So, because we're sort of Olaf-obsessed in this house, here  is Olaf in sugar cookie form:

My kiddos LOVED these and their little friends were also super-excited about them.  My 2yr old is always the first one awake in the morning and when he crawled into my bed and I showed him a picture of the cookie, he clapped and said "ooooooohhh, OOooooolaf!"   When his big brother saw the cookies a bit later, his reaction was equally sweet:  "Oh mommy, those are PERFECT!!  I am SO proud of you mommy!"

These cookies got a lot of interest on my FB page and I have an order I'm making for a birthday party sometime in November.  I'll be posting the date i'm making them shortly on FB and information on how to order some if you're interested.

Happy first birthday Alex and Olive!

Alex and Olive had their big first birthday on 12-12-13.  I didn't get a lot of good photos of this one since I was trying to beat the snowstorm that is supposed to dump 8.5inches on us today.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of their individual smash cakes.  Oh well.
The cake a layer of white almond sour cream cake and a layer of chocolate fudge cake.   Animals are handmade from gumpaste, the ark is rice crispy treats covered in fondant.

Happy Birthday Finnley!

Finnley just turned 4 and loves the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  I remember these guys from when I was young, though I had to watch a few episodes to remind myself of some of the details....like that they LOVE pizza.  Here is Finn's cake - the turtles live under the city, so they're coming out of a manhole, with the cityscape on a tier and a base of pizza of course.  Fondant pizza. 
All the details and the turtles are hand crafted from fondant.

Elmo in the park party!

Charlie loves Elmo and he loves being at the park.  What better way to celebrate turning 4 than with his two favorite things - Elmo and a park.  Throw in some friends and family, a yummy Elmo cake, ice cream, and a beautiful day and the only thing that could make this party any better would be if Elmo himself showed up!  Yep - we had that covered too!  Happy 4th birthday my sweet and amazing boy!

Party hat and favor bags filled with treats and fun little goodies.  I made both to match the Elmo theme:

Elmo, Elmo, Elmo!

The Elmo is RKT covered in fondant. 

Elmo (Bryan from Spark of the Party) was absolutely fantastic and so animated!  He was so much fun for the children, climbing on the playscape, playing with the kids, looking at gifts, swinging the kiddies around.  I highly recommend Bryan for anyone looking for a character rental in CT.  This was truly one of the best days of Charlie's life so far,  in large part due to an awesome Elmo coming to his party!

 

Garden Cake

This was a surprise 60th bday cake for a guy who loves Hawaiian shirts, is a U of Miami fan (hat), loves to read, is an avid gardener, is a world traveler (book-"Europe"), studies brain mapping (book title) and just planted a Sequoia tree from seed (the little seedling and sign in the garden says Sequoia). Phew! Got all that incorporated.

12x12 carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.  YUM! 

 

Nemo Under the Sea Cake

This was such a fun cake! Nemo and all the sea things are made from fondant. Almond cake with chocolate buttercream filling, covered in fondant.

 

 

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Elmo & Sesame Street - Happy Birthday Lydia!

If you ask Lydia how old she is, she'll tell you: "I'm TWO!"   Like every two year old I know (mine included), she is a big fan of Elmo.   Her mom wanted a Sesame street birthday cake, with the focus on Elmo.  Lydia's cake is my signature white cake with cookie cream filling and vanilla buttercream frosting.  The matching cupcakes were almond flavored, decorated as Cookie Monster & Elmo. 



Gumpaste Elmo jumping out of the cake!

  

Sesame Street themed "Lydia" sign

 

Cookie Monster cupcake

Elmo cupcake

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY LYDIA!!

The Show Must Go On....The Great Pumpkin Cake

I was asked to make a fancy cake for a charity bake-off.  The bake-off was scheduled for Monday, October 31st and it was Halloween themed.  I'd heard reports over the weekend that Connecticut was going to get an early snow storm and my husband mentioned that there was a possibility of some branches breaking from the weight of snow taking power lines out.  "Some" i thought, ok so that means there is going to be one poor schmuck who loses some tree branches.  I totally didn't expect the storm to be anything big.  Still though, I'd planned to start baking early on Saturday just in case we lost power.  The morning ended up being consumed by other important things...trips to Target for diapers, trips to Starbucks for coffee, trips to the grocery store for supplies....my early baking actually didn't start until 2pm.  I was making a huge double batch and it started to snow while I was mixing everything.  Starting to worry a bit, I popped the first cake into the oven....then 15minutes later some flickering of the lights.....worry.....25minutes later the power was gone.  WORRY.  Cake in oven, power gone.  In a mad attempt to save the cake, I started searching for friends who had power.  Glastonbury, out.  Manchester, out.  In-laws house, out.  It was starting to look like much of the state was without power. Was winter storm Alfred going to cancel the bake-off?!?!

My stress and concern for the cake and bake off was short lived.  Almost immediately, we started losing branches and what continued throughout the evening and night into Sunday morning was like nothing I'd ever seen...or heard.  Cracking branches every few minutes sounded like shotguns going off.  My husband and I decided that it was too unsafe to sleep on the second floor, so the family camped out in the living room.  We didn't exactly sleep though, with the constant Craaaaackkkkk!!! Thunk!!! of trees breaking and falling all around us, who could sleep?

My cake concern was gone and my concern soon became...WHAT are we going to wake up to in the morning.  Here it is; this is what we woke up to.  Needless to say, the bake off was cancelled.  Just under 1 million customers in Connecticut were without power.

Standing in front of my house looking down the street.

Half of this tree landed on my neighbor's fence; the other half took out their porch. 

These branches used to be pointing up.  This is the remainder of our Maple Tree.

Branches cracked and hanging down.  This is the top of an oak tree.

Wires down, everywhere.  There is an entire uprooted Oak tree behind this house.

Well, the bake off was cancelled. Sadly, the committee decided that it was an impossibility to reschedule it.  I had 30-40 hours of work already into my cake and I wanted the satisfaction of seeing the final product.  That, combined with numerous requests to bring the Great Pumpkin cake into work despite the bake off being cancelled was enough to keep me going.  I'm glad I finished it because the end product...WOW.  This just might be my best cake ever.  Take a look!

 

 

 

 

   

Pumpkin cake with maple buttercream.  All figures hand crafted from fondant and gumpaste.

Downhill Ski Cake ~ Happy 60th Birthday Joe!

Joe turned 60 this year.  He is an avid skier and his daughter thought an Over the Hill Downhill Skiing cake would be the perfect thing to surprise him with for his birthday!

Now, how exactly does one make a ski mountain out of gumpaste?  After much thought, I figured that a base of Rice Kirspie Treats might just work - here is the beginning of a ski mountain:

Sort of looks like a ski mountain, right?

AND, here are the pics of the cake...ahhhh....now it looks like a ski mountain :)
 
  

Skier w/ glittery snow on his clothing

The names of the runs were:  Agony,  Geezer Gulch, Tourist Trap and Young at Heart

HAPPY 60TH BIRTHDAY JOE!! 
Joe's cake details:
Signature White Cake
Raspberry Filling
Vanilla Buttercream
The Ski Mountain is gumpaste covering rice crispy treats.  The skier, trees and run names are all gumpaste as well.