Friday, April 29, 2011

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!

It's Jack's Big Music Show!

My daughter had her second birthday in February and she is a HUGE Jack's Big Music Show fan (a show on Nick Jr.).  So, I thought it would be appropriate to make her a JBMS theme cake.  I usually try to incorporate at least one new technique in each cake that I make, so I decided this cake would be a topsy turvy.  It was actually a lot easier to make than I originally thought.  I was very pleased with how it turned out.  I wish I would have had more time to work on the characters, but since I work full-time and only have limited time to make my cakes I had to take some short-cuts to have the cake done before the party.  All in all, I really liked the final product.

Here are some pictures of the cake at various stages of the process and also the finished product.

Each of the three tiers stacked, carved and crumb-coated

Top tier covered in fondant

Middle tier covered in fondant

Bottom tier covered in fondant

All tiers airbrushed and stacked

First character completed - one of the Schwartzman Quartet

Side view of the almost completed cake - trying to determine letter placement

The finished product

Charater close-up - Jack, Mary, Mel and the Schwartzman Quartet!

In the beginning there was cake...

It's official - I'm a blogger!  I thought this would be a great way for me to share with friends, family and potential clients my cake creations, the development process and the triumphs (and failures) along the way.  I welcome you to join this journey with me and hope you enjoy what you will see here.

Since I don't believe one can back-date posts, I am including within this post a number of my past cake creations from before 2011.  Enjoy!
 
Close-up of the sculpted lovie on the cake
 
The "real" lovie next to the sculpted one.

 
1st birthday cake for my daughter.  Her lovie is a small cow stuffed animal, so the theme for her party was pink/orange and cow!  Three tier fondant cake with a sculpted fondant cow inspired by the lovie cow.

 
1st birthday cake made for a friend in 2009 - Elmo theme.  Elmo is made from rice cereal treats covered in fondant and piping-work.  Elmo holds the smash cake for the birthday girl designed to be Elmo's pet fish in her fishbowl.

 
6th birthday cake for my nephew - 2008.  All fondant work with airbrushed flames on the side.


Football field birthday cake for my nephew for his 5th birthday - 2007.  His birthday party happened to be on the Super Bowl that year when the Bears played the Colts.  The bleachers were made by covering stacked cardboard with fondant.



 
Birthday cake for my niece - Strawberry Shortcake Mansion.  I think this was back in 2006 too.  All fondant work.




4th birthday cake I made for my nephew in 2006.  Free-hand piping of Buzz Lightyear.  Didn't turn out too bad.






Train cake made for a friend's son's birthday in 2006.

3rd birthday cake for my nephew - Nemo theme.  Made this cake back in 2005.  I cut out the Nemo shape and then free-hand piped the frosting.



Care Bear cake I made for a friend early on when I first started cake decorating in 2005.  This was all star piping work.