New York Yankees Hat Cake

I usually try to make fun cakes for my family on their birthdays but for some reason I had never made my brother one.  He finally complained and I felt bad so this year I decided to surprise him.  His favorite baseball team is the NY Yankees.  He always wears a Yankees hat so I figured that was a good place to start.  Happy Birthday Travie!

The lettering was all cut out by hand or piped with buttercream and the accents are fondant.

        

                       Not the cleanest cut I've made but still delicious!  Do you have any idea how much self control it takes not to eat the scraps?  Tons!  I don't have any so I indulged.  The cake is a moist Belgian chocolate cake layered with toasted marshmallow filling and malted Belgian chocolate buttercream.

                                           

Watermelon CAKE!

This summer has been a hot one, a nightmare for cake decorators with outside weddings!  Buttercream starts melting at about 73-75 degrees, so you can imagine the anxiety I have when leaving a cake on a 90+ degree day. Needless to say I am ready for some chilly, fall weather!

Speaking of summer....what is more enjoyable than a bowl of watermelon on a hot day?  Watermelon CAKE!  It was my dad's birthday last Sunday and if you know my dad, you know he LOVES watermelon.  I decided that would be the perfect idea for his cake this year.  I even baked the inside to look like watermelon.  The cutting board is edible as well, it's fondant!

Soccer Cake

My cousin's boy Rusty is on a competition soccer team.  He is pretty much awesome and they always win.  So of course when his birthday came around he wanted a soccer cake.  He is a goalie on the team so I decided to make a fondant mini version of him.  I wanted to step up the usual sheet cake a few notches and make it my own.  The buttercream grass was so fun to make and reminds me of spring, (if only the weather would get the memo) I love how it turned out!

 

Chevron Wedding Cake

It's wedding season!  Wedding season seems to be a year round' event now, but spring always brings out the brides.  I love going to weddings just to check out the cakes.  Jeff hates weddings.  I always drag him along and point out everything I would have done differently or blab on and on about how beautiful the cake was  and brainstorm how they did it.  I like a challenge and trying new techniques and this next cake was just that!

When my friend Jessie text me examples of cakes for her sister's upcoming wedding, I immediately fell in love with the chevron cake. The original concept is by one of my favorite cake designers  Erica O'brien Cake Design.  We changed the colors a bit and the flower arrangement but all in all it's pretty close.  The sugar flowers are all handmade, talk about time consuming!  I can't take credit for all of the flowers, I had some help from a talented lady in Michigan, Sandy.  She has been making sugar flowers for years and can make the most beautiful, realistic flowers I have ever seen.  The top and bottom tier are white almond cake with cookies and cream filling and the middle tier is chocolate fudge with cookies and cream filling.  She also ordered two coordinating sheet cakes which I decorated with the same chevron print but forgot to take pics!  This is by far one of my favorite cakes I have made, it's so modern and fun!

Pink Floyd

For my brother in law's big 30th birthday I knew I had to come up with something cool!  I was stuck between Family Guy and Pink Floyd.  He loves "grown up" cartoons but is also an awesome guitar player and huge fan of Pink Floyd, ultimately I chose to represent his talents.

Any Pink Floyd fan would understand the design for this cake.  I tried to incorporate a couple different album covers into the cake.  The white brick detailing mimics their well known album "The Wall"  and the white light into the pyramid represents the iconic album "Dark Side of the Moon".  The famous Pink Floyd pig actually has a pretty cool back story.  In 1976 they had planned to fly the forty-foot helium filled pig over a coal-fired power station in London for a photo shoot.  A strong wind broke the pig free and it disappeared.  It was seen after by airline pilots 30,000 feet in the air!  Flights were cancelled because the pig flew through the path of an aircraft over the English channel.  Later that night it finally landed near a small farm.  The incident received massive amounts of attention and ever since they have used the flying pigs during concerts, floating them above fans, displaying political rants.  The pig is my favorite part!  I sculpted it out of rice cereal treats, covered it in fondant and hand painted all the details.

I actually made cupcakes to go along with the cake, German Chocolate, Key Lime and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.  The lighting wasn't great so I didn't get very good pics.  Each cupcake was topped with a fondant guitar pick.  Turning 30 is a big milestone around here and we celebrated it right with family, friends, pizza, pool and LOTS of beer!

I am so excited to finally have a blog to show you all my latest cakes and adventures! Now that my little guy is more predictable (if that's possible) I am ready to start caking and baking again.  I have LOTS of cakes I haven't posted yet so stay tuned for more.  Every now and then I plan on posting a tutorial as well.  Follow by email to get each new post sent to your inbox.  Thank you so much for all your interest, I love to read your comments!

This cake was made for an old friend, Whitney.  We were buddies in Elementary school and lost touch when I moved to Mountain Green.  We reconnected through Facebook a few years ago and she contacted me when she was planning her mothers wedding.  We went over her budget, theme and colors and came up with a beautiful and unique design.  She chose 3 delicious cupcake flavors:  Chocolate Fudge, Vanilla Bean and Key Lime.  I loved the end result and was grateful for the opportunity to see Whitney and her family all grown up!  Thank you.