Viva Brasil!

April 2008

I made this cake for my Portuguese class end-of-semester party. It was just for fun, so I didn't try to make it professional. Just yummy vanilla cake with an awesome design done with colored vanilla frosting. Viva Brasil!

Monkey Face

This is just a simple cake I made for a friend's birthday. They wanted a monkey face, so I just made a regular vanilla cake (and two vanilla cupcakes). Then I put it together in the shape of a monkey face and used colored vanilla frosting. Super simple, but cute!

Cake Party #2

Meghan and I made this cake as a practice for our friends' wedding cake that we would be making in December. We wanted to practice 1) using square pans and 2) making fondant ribbon. We also just wanted an excuse to make a cake. The inside was chocolate. We used white fondant to cover the cake, then decorated with red-colored fondant that we cut into strips to make the ribbon. We put the bow on top because we had leftover fondant and it looked weird without anything on top. Then we invited over the entire ward. It was a huge success!

Wedding Dress Cake

This was a cute little cake that Meghan and I made to look like a wedding dress. Just a simple 3-tier round cake with white fondant that we folded in the back to look like a train. Then we rolled up some fondant into little balls to look like buttons. The ribbon is made out of white fondant dusted with edible gold shimmer dust.

Cake Party

Meghan and I decided to make a cake and invite the entire ward over for a party. We really just wanted an excuse to make a cake and try out fondant for the first time. Oh, and of course we wanted to meet all the new people who had moved in for the school year. We literally went around to every apartment in the complex and invited everyone. Anyway, the inside was chocolate cake which we covered with green fondant. The borders were made out of white fondant rolled into balls. The vines were thinly rolled fondant, and the leaves were punched out of the green fondant as well. The flowers were made out of yellow fondant, and the centers were edible sugar pearls. All in all, I think it was a pretty successful first try with fondant decorating.

Candy Mountain

For anyone who has ever seen "Charlie the Unicorn," you will appreciate this cake. It is made to look like Candy Mountain from the cartoon. Okay, so it's not something I would ever sell, but it was fun to make, and very amusing for all my friends.

Easter Basket

Meghan and I made this really fun cake to look like an Easter basket. The inside was just plain yellow cake. We used brown buttercream to create the basket weave. We used green-tinted coconut for the grass. We rolled out some bread dough and braided it, then baked it to make the handle. Then we added peeps and Starburst jelly beans. It was a big hit, and many people thought it was an actual Easter basket!

Gab and Gab

We made this cake for our home teachers Gabriel and Gabriel. We called them both Gab. Hence the "Gabs" written on the cake. It was all made from scratch using dairy substitutes because one of them was lactose intolerant. The inside was all white cake, but half of it was colored blue so we could make it checkered.

Happy October 8th!

There's actually nothing special about October 8th, but Meghan and I wanted to make a cake and needed a reason. It was just a simple rectangle cake with vanilla frosting that we made for our friends in apartment 130. Even if it was just for fun, I do think it shows how well I can do text on cakes.

Cake Design Class (4)

Here are the last few pictures I have from my Wilton classes. The first cake was a chocolate cake decorated with chocolate buttercream (and some brown-colored vanilla buttercream). The top seems a bit extreme to me, but I was just following their design. This was the first time I did a side basket weave and I decided to do a two-tone weave. It was a lot more intense than I thought it would be, but I think it came out absolutely beautifully.

The second cake was fairly simple. I did the roses and leaves first. The coin purse was white chocolate that had been set in a mold. Then I decorated it with edible shimmer dust and put it on top of the cake.

Cake Design Class (3)

Here are some more cakes. I think I was in the level 2 Wilton class by this point, but I'm not sure.

The first cake was one that I made for my friend based off the cake I had decorated in class. I stuck pretty close to the same design, but made a few changes. I was getting pretty good at writing with frosting by this point.

The second cake was my first time decorating a large cake. My family wasn't complaining about getting a cake every week, but I didn't think I wanted such a huge cake lying around the house tempting me. So I made this cake to celebrate the 1-year mark for me and all my fellow co-workers who had been hired at the same time. I brought it into the break room at work, and everyone hugged me with joy. It was gone by the end of the day.

Cake Design Class (2)

Here are some more pictures of cakes that I made during my Wilton class. The first cake was when we learned to rose buds, leaves, and ribbon. This was also my first time writing text on a cake.

The second cake was when we learned to do full roses. We also learned to do an intricate basket weave with rosebuds, leaves, and ribbon. I couldn't think of anything clever to write on the cake though.

Cake Design Class

These are pictures of the cakes I made during my first Wilton cake class. The lion was actually the second cake of the class (I don't seem to have a picture of the first). We brought in a layered round cake and two cupcakes. The cupcake tops were used for the muzzle, and the bottoms were used for the ears. The multi-colored effect was achieved by putting different shades of orange frosting in the same piping bag.

The heart cake was for Valentine's day (big surprise, right?) We brought in the layered heart cake (the beginning of my pan collection). I smoothed on pink-colored buttercream for the base, then decorated using white buttercream. First I made the outline for the heart and filled it with strawberry jam. The cornelli lace came next and was fairly time consuming, but pretty fun, and I loved the look. Last of all was the shelled border done in white buttercream.