The Nightmare Before Christmas Cake

Another one of my niece's recently celebrated her 12th birthday this past weekend.  With it being close to Halloween and one of her favorite movies being The Nightmare Before Christmas, I thought it would be fun to surprise her with a cake of that theme.  All three tiers were cake covered with fondant.  The curve mountain was made from rice cereal covered in fondant and the remaining decorations were all made from fondant.  She loved the end result and everyone celebrating thought it was goolishly cool!

A Birthday Cake Fit for a New Teenager

My beautiful niece recently turned 13 years old and is now officially a teenager.  It boggles my mind, seeing that I held her minutes after she was born and have watched her grow into a beautiful, strong and smart young woman.  I felt is was only appropriate to make her a girly, fun, 13th birthday cake.  I once again attempted the topsy turvy style, but decided upon a giant cupcake for the top tier.  The cupcake liner is made of candy melts with cake inside and on top.  The rest of the cake is covered in fondant with fondant decorations.  Cake is topped with a faux fondant birthday candle.  I was VERY happy with how this one turned out!

Pomp and Circumstance

My brother-in-law asked me to make him a cake for his graduation party from graduate school.  He put in 2.5 years of hard work, but it all paid off in the end!  I had a general idea of what I wanted the cake to be - something that would go with the graduation theme.  I've always wanted to try to make sculpted books out of cake and a gumpaste figure of a person, so those fit the theme like a glove.  Since he is a police officer, I decided to add a sculpted cake to be like his police SUV.  It would tie everything together perfectly!

My bro-in-law's party was on a Sunday evening, so I had the best of intentions to start his cake Saturday morning.  That would give me plenty of time to finish all the meticulous details that I aspire to put into my cakes, but most often end up not having time to finish.  Saturday morning came and I awoke with a terrible migraine.  I was down for the count for the majority of the day.  Didn't even get to baking the cakes until later Saturday evening.  I was freaked out!  Somehow, miraculously I managed to get the cake done just in time for the party.  I would have like to have stamped out the letters for the book titles (I literally wrote the names on the books five minutes before we walked out the door) and put more detail on the police SUV, but all in all it turned out well and I was very happy with my gumpaste graduate.  Congrats to my bro-in-law who has always been like a big brother to me. :-)

I need a kettlebell, a tractor tire and a rope...

...was the request from a cliet for a 40th birthday cake.  Sounds a little odd, right?  I think this cake turned out awesome.  This opportunity was passed on to me from a friend and I gratefully accepted the challenge.  The birthday girl is a personal trainer and they utilize kettlebells, large tractor tires and various ropes in their training.  It was decided to add on 24 carrot-ginger cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, which I topped with gumpaste carrots.  The client seemed very pleased with the end result and I was so happy to have been able to create this cake for her birthday.

Cake board covered in fondant to look like the client's wood gym floor

Tractor tire cake

Different view of tractor tire cake showing treads

Fondant rope draped over tractor tire cake

The start to the kettlebell cake

Kettlebell cake with weight, I mean age marking ;-)

Kettlebell cake on top of tractor tire cake

With piped happy birthday message...only need the kettlebell handle

Finished cake with handle

24 carrot-ginger cupcakes

Close-up of the gumpaste carrots

Finished table presentation

A 60th Birthday Canvased in Pink and Orange

This year was a milestone birthday for my mother - she turned 60 in April.  My father is a year older than her and historically he was the one to get the 40th birthday bash and the 50th birthday extravaganza.  We thought we would change things up a bit for the big 6-0.  We decided to throw our mom a surprise 60th birthday party and I was tasked with making her a special cake.  I used her invitation as inspiration for the cake.  It is the tallest cake that I've created this far.  As I mentioned in previous posts, I like to try at least one new technique with each cake, so for this cake I made gumpaste flowers and used a stencil on the cake instead of piping.  I'm very happy with how the gumpaste calla lilies turned out and can't wait to try different flowers.  The cake received rave reviews at the party and best of all, my mom loved it.

The beautiful invitation that my sister picked out.  This became the inspiration for the cake.

Calla lilies in process

Finished calla lilies

Bottom tier covered with fondant

Top tier covered in fondant

The beginning of giraffe print layer

Completed giraffe print tier

Top tier made to look like a quilted gift box with pearl bordered top

Another view

Middle pink tier with stenciled paisly design

Finished product

A LEGO Batman cake fit for a nine year old...

My nephew had his 9th birthday party in February a couple weeks after my daughter's 2nd birthday.  I had previously taken a short hiatus from making family cakes while I was pregnant with my daughter and during her first year of life, so my nephew was itching to have me make his cake.  His design choice?  LEGO Batman.  I quickly did a google search to get some inspiration for a design.  I decided to up the ante on this cake and make it an "extreme" version.  Watching all those Food Network cake challenges, obviously had gotten to me.  Below is a video of the "extreme" portion.  Needless to say, the cake was a hit and my nephew had a wonderful 9th birthday.

Top tier covered in Batman yellow

Bottom tier covered in Batman black. The four holes are the shot glasses I inserted into the cake.  They will be part of the "extreme" feature later.

Stacked cakes with airbrush flames

LEGO Batman cake topper starting to come together

The city skyline on top tier

Manhole covers to hide the shot glasses

"Happy Birthday Colton" in the LEGO Batman font

The finished product

Thought this "extreme" feature of fog using dry ice would fit with LEGO Batman being a mysterious character in dark Gotham city.  The kids loved it!