My Little Pony: Cake is Magic

Did you miss me? Did you? No? That's OK, I'm going to post an update anyway! I now present to you, PONIES! *yay*

My first drawn pony cake was for my sister. Because she is very much like our fashionista pony of generosity, I made her a Rarity cake. I'm quite proud of this beauty. :)

The cake!

A view of the roses and borders. The triple reverse shell is a favorite of mine, especially when pared with a straight trim underneath.

Top view of roses: purple and mauve rose

Rarity!

My next birthday pony cake was for my niece and she wanted the one and only party pony: Pinkie Pie!

Pinkie was originally going to be a frozen topper, but I didn't like the way it turned out, so I ended up re-drawing it (which is why she's risen up from the cake)

A semi side view

A close-up

And for my last(?) pony cake: Fluttershy for my sister-in-law.

Her birthday is the day after Valentine's day, so I added some pink hearts, and she loves yellow roses. 

A second view. The borders are reverse shell on top and shell on the bottom.

There you have it, my pony cakes. I would love to do more, but I'm not sure if I'll get the chance. I still have a lot of cakes to add, so stay tuned. I promise I will try to update more often. Also, feel free to ask me any technical questions. I've now been decorating cakes for over 14 years and would love to help anyone interested in giving it a try. Till next time: Love and Peace!

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

OK, so it's been a long time since I've updated. I've still got lots of cakes to share (including more first birthday cakes), but today let's cover something a little different.

So, who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E! This is the Bakery Crafts Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake kit. The cakes are cover with fondant and the mouse ears are fondant cut outs. I'm actually not a big fan of fondant - but it's useful at times.

Next up, Mickey's best girl, Minnie. I've done a few Minnie cakes, and she's always great fun to draw.

The above image is a little dark, but here's Minnie presenting a birthday cake. The top border is accented by heart sprinkles from the Disney Princess sprinkle set from Wilton. Minnie was hand drawn.

 Next is Minnie from the Wilton Mickey cake pan (available here: http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=96089CE3-1E0B-C910-EABBF4D9FCBA4E11&killnav=1 or at your local craft store). Her bow was crafted from fondant (See? I told you it was useful).

The final Minnie cake is a full body Minnie. She was hand drawn and is accentuated by lovely little buttercream daisies. And speaking of Daisy:

The final cake for today is Minnie's good friend Daisy. I was hesitant to do this cake. I was having flash backs of my childhood trying to draw the duck beak. I could never get the beaks right! But after 25 years, I guess I've managed to learn how. I watched some tutorials on YouTube and practiced, practiced, practiced. I think it turned out cute, so I'm happy with it.

That's it for today. See you real soon!

Halloween Cookies

So, today I'm offering up a special Halloween treat - Skeleton Cookies!

Cute, right? To make them, I started with a recipe that I found here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/best-ever-chocolate-cutout-cookies/ it sounded really tasty, and though I was worried working with an unknown, I gave it a try.

The batter was a really thick, rich texture and flavor. See how it looked: 

OK, so it might look like something else in the photo :^)...believe me when I tell you that even raw, the flavor was amazing!

Next, I rolled out the dough. I saw a suggestion online for using the cocoa powder instead of flour, and it worked great. Following that, I cut out my little men. I used the special cookie cutter and press from ThinkGeek.com (link here: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/e9de/).

My cocoa powder and Gingerdead Men cutout (of course, mine were chocolate!)

The little men are ready for transport

I will admit that this dough was a little brittle. I had to be very careful while transporting it to the cookie sheet. Still, I managed to complete the task with little frustration or ruin.

Ready for the oven...

The cookies did not need to bake long (about the 7-8 minutes that I use for my traditional cutout sugar cookies). I'll also note that the recipe didn't make that many cookies with the size cutout that I used (it was about 15 cookies total). It'd probably be great for smaller cookies, but for bigger cutouts, you'll need to at least double the recipe (unless you're only feeding a few).

After baking and cooling, I decorated. This isn't too difficult because of the bones being pressed in, i.e., you basically just fill them in - The cookie cutter manufacturer recommends royal icing, but I went against professionals advice and chose white chocolate. 

Using chocolate is not an easy task, you'll need to melt it slowly, being sure not to over cook it. I was also careful to melt only a little at a time since the chocolate will re-harden after a while. 

In the end, all the hard work was definitely worth it. The cookies came out spookerific. Oh, and they tasted great too!

  

Happy Halloween!

You're Only One Once, Part 5

Hello all, time for another cake-y edition of Prison City Cakes. *yay* I can hear you all now. Well, let's get down to business. Monkey business, that is. This week's first birthday theme is centered around monkeys.

Well...OK, the main cake is a giant cupcake, but everyone knows it's the little things that matter. Like the adorable Smash Me monkey cake.

Let's take a closer look at the two cakes.

 

The giant cupcake is a pan available from Wilton. The top and bottom of the cupcake are baked separately. After cooling, they are stacked like a tier cake (i.e., you put frosting on the top of the bottom layer and then stack on the top).  The cake was then base-coated in hot pink buttercream frosting on the bottom (for the cupcake wrapper) and traditional white buttercream frosting on the top. The sides of the "wrapper" are decorated with fondant polka-dots.

The surrounding cupcakes are traditional cupcakes baked in the "new" silicone baking cups. They are topped with bright yellow and hot pink buttercream frosting, and the candles are available through Wilton. 

Lastly, the Smash Me cake in the form of monkey. This little guy is not too complicated. The cake is the small standing bear pan from Wilton (it really is a very versatile pan). The ears were removed and re-located to the side of the head to create monkey ears. The cake is decorated using the star tip (to create the texture) and base of the feet and mouth are made by smoothing the light brown frosting. This is especially important for the mouth as it creates a monkey mouth rather than a bear pretending to be a monkey. The tail is simply made with frosting and the star tip (similar to the cat cake).

I still have a few first birthday cakes to go, but then we'll move on to something completely different. All right, NOT completely. It'll still be cake. Till next time!

Your're Only One Once, Part 4

This week features the Wilton's castle set. Basically, you bake and stack a two-tier cake (make sure to follow proper stacking instructions - i.e., use dowels and plates), and then you attach the towers. The castle looks pretty amazing when finished, but it can be tricky frosting and, for lack of a better term, sprinkling the sparkles onto the cake. The first cake features pink and the second purple (stay tuned for Cinderella's castle in blue). Enjoy!

 I need to look for a close up of the "Smash Me" cake. It is once again made from the small bear pan, and this time it's actually a bear! The little white bear is dressed as a princess. I cut the crown from Styrofoam (once again, be sure to remove the piece before feeding it to the child) and her dress is made out of buttercream frosting (use the rose tip to create ruffles of fabric.

Not all princesses are the same, so no two princesses can have exactly the same cake! Here we have the castle done in purple and the "Smash Me" bear is brown. Also, instead of the same princess dress, this little bear likes to be surrounded by flowers.

I still have lots more cakes to share. Till next time confectionery lovers!

You're Only One Once, Part Three

Have you enjoyed the previous two blogs? If you didn't, why are you still here? If you did, you'll like this one as well.

Here we have the kitty cakes:

The main cake was made from the bear face pan from Wilton, as well as a cut 9" x 13" pan. The kitty ears were the cut off corners of the 9" x 13" and the paws are the original bear ears. The space to the right of the Happy Birthday message was for the number 1 candle. The little kitty "Smash Me" cake was made from the little standing bear cake (next time you'll actually get to see it in bear form). The cat's tail is just frosting, and the ears were made from trimming the bear ears into points.

If you ever have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them. I'll answer as soon as I can. **I did have a question on my YouTube video about smoothing the sides - the simplest answer is to make sure that you use enough frosting. If you're using a design pan, you most likely use the star tip to "frost" the cake. However, there are times when the sides are smooth, but the top is star tipped. For those times, make sure that you frost and smooth the sides first. Also, if you're making a cake from the molded pans, be sure to follow the decorating directions that come with it. You can always play with the colors, but if you want the character to actually look like the character, then follow the directions.

Next week will be a two for one (two adorable design options in one blog post) featuring the castle cake kit and little standing bear pan.

You're Only One Once, Part 2

I know, I know, it's been like two months since I was here, and I was supposed to be updating more regularly. But, you know what? Sometimes people have other things to do. :-)

Let's get to it, shall we? Here is my second  (as in I made it or the second I made at home - it's not like I've had multiple first birthdays *sheesh*) 1st birthday cake:

Isn't it cute?

The main cake was a bunny face pan from Wilton's (http://www.wilton.com/) atop a half sheet cake. The sides of the cake are adorned with little "Candy Melts" bunnies (the white chocolate and bunny shapes were also from Wilton's).

The "Smash Me" bunny cake was the Wilton small bear standing shaped pan. I cut off the original ears, cut ears from Styrofoam and attached them to the bunny.

****Very Important Note Here****You MUST REMOVE the ears from the smash me cake prior to letting the baby eat it!!!****For the love of all that is good and holy, I don't need a million complaints that someone let their child or relative eat Styrofoam and got sick or choked or died. REMOVE the EARS!****Thank You****

More birthday cakes to come.