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!

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!

Geek My Cake (Part Three)

The (final ?) installment of Geek My Cake: Adventures in Spaaaaa(that's enough a's)ce.
I haven't done too many "space" cakes, but of those that I have done, I'm quite fond.

First up a little Star Wars. Mini Luke and Vader toys face off. In the back ground we see the Death Star (made from Rice Krispies base-coated in frosting) and the Star Wars logo in the upper right hand corner. A very simple, cute, and fun way to celebrate a young (maybe even old) Star Wars fan's birthday.

Up next: The Doctor. There have been several regenerations of the Doctor, but this one might be the cutest. Here's a chibi and comical take on the 11th Doctor, who is a cake now. Cakes are cool. Need I say more? This cake was chocolate cake, peanut butter frosting filling, and topped with chocolate frosting. Delicious!

One day I shall make a TARDIS cake, but it is not this day, and so I must say farewell for now.

Geek My Cake! (Part Two)

Next up on Geek My Cake, Anime cakes! 

I love anime and manga. When my family asks for characters from favorite shows to be on their cakes, I'm happy to oblige.

First up, for my nephew a young Goku cake! Goku is actually a pretty easy character to draw (very simple eyes). Once you've sketched him a couple of times (and believe me, I've done my share of Dragonball/Z fan art - http://lovellschibichara.deviantart.com/), drawing him on a cake is a fairly easy task. Honestly, the hardest part is probably mixing the black frosting.

Next, here's a perennial classic: Hello Kitty! Best of all, she's a fairy riding on a unicorn. It's like three wonderful worlds combined! This was actually my first time drawing kitty and was based on a puzzle that I purchased for my niece.

This here is my cake! Yes, I decorated my very own birthday cake. As you can see, this is my favorite version of Usagi/Sailor Moon: Princess Serenity. Her portrait is accented by a bouquet of roses (my favorite two-tone).

Next in line is a (fairly) recent favorite: Gaara, from Naruto! My niece likes a lot of "bad boy" characters. I would be worried, but she's only eight and also like Raoul from Phantom (you can't get any more boring and safe than that guy). Plus, Gaara ends up OK in the end. Either way, I was more than happy to fulfill her request for the sand village Kazekage.

Finally, my latest in the anime-themed line. He can at times be annoying and a bit...well...lame, but we have much love for the legendary sword, Excalibur. If you do not love this cake, I've got one word for ya': Fool!

 

And remember, "Never talk to me when I am humming to myself."

Next time on Geek My Cake: Adventures in Spaaaaace! But seriously, don't get too excited.

Geek My Cake! (Part One)

My family is made up of geeks (or nerds or whatever else you want to call us!), so I get to do a lot of awesome cakes.  Usually, I hand draw characters onto the cakes and outline and color them with the buttercream frosting. Today, I'm going to share a few of my favorite geektastic cakes.

First up: Video Games!

Here's Crash! I sketched Crash Bandicoot several times (do you know how many versions of Crash exist?!) before finally settling on this design. Very fun and super cute. I'll be adding my sketches to my Deviantart account, so you can check it out here: http://lovellschibichara.deviantart.com/ if you want.

Next, Mortal Kombat! My nephew wanted the gray background, Mortal Kombat logo, and stick figures fighting around the edge. I, of course, had to oblige! Fun fact: the inside was filled with strawberry gel so that the cake would bleed when cut.

The cake is not a lie. These cakes were inspired by the video game Portal for my brother's birthday. I know that the one portal should be more orange, but I ran out of the color X-P. Also, I was very upset that my dark gray faded on the companion cube, but I promise you: it was dark gray. Fun fact: the portal cakes are chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting! Yum!

My most recent game cake: a zombie from Zombieville USA. I had to make the light green zombie not the dark green or the grayish! It was very fun drawing this little guy...I also enjoyed making the blood with the bone sticking out of it. Does that make me weird?

Next time on Geek Cakes, I'll share some of my anime-inspired cakes. Yeah!