Spots and Stripes

For the most part, I’ve been lucky.  My cakes usually go down without a hitch.

Usually.

This cake was a different story.

This week I drew the short straw and had to make pizza Friday night.  Not something I like to do when I have a cake due on Saturday morning.  Before heading to work, I finished decorating the bottom tier of this cake, a task in and of itself, given that the humidity was about 110%.  I felt good about the work, though, knowing that I only had a bit more to do in order to have the cake ready Saturday morning.

Ha ha ha.

When I got home Friday night about 10:30, I discovered that the bottom tier of the cake had settled about 1/4 inch and the fondant looked like a blanket, draped and wrinkled, on top of it.  Ugh!

So…

Plan A was to take off the fondant and recover the cake, but when I started pulling off the fondant, the cake came off with it.  Ugh!

On to Plan B.

Start from scratch!  Yep, I baked a whole other cake, made more icing, and decorated all over again, before finally crawling into bed at 1 AM.  Thankfully, my wonderful, multi-talented husband lent a much appreciated helping hand and moral support. 

One part of this cake that I was really proud of is the bow.  It’s constructed of gum paste loops that I made a couple days in advance and assembled with royal icing “glue.”  I think it turned out really cute!

Once again the Tool Man helped out by rolling all the fondant beads for the border.  He’s getting pretty good at that, don’t ya think?

This cake was made of 6” and 8” tiers, filled and iced with buttercream, and covered and decorated with fondant….twice!  It served about 30.

All’s well that ends well, right?

Linking to:

Sunday Scoop @ I Heart Naptime

Lindsey

Seeing Stars

Looks like a few cakes have gotten in under the radar, so I wanted to begin sharing some of those with y’all.  First is a sweet little birthday cake for 6 year old Gray.  This cake was designed to coordinate with the party invitation.

Gray wasn’t having a big party, so a tiered cake was out of the question.  To give his cake a little height, though, I added some colorful, gum paste ribbons and a big number 6 on top.

Around the sides of the cake I added various sized stars that I punched out of colored fondant.  My favorites are the big stars with the smaller stars punched out of the center.

I love the way this cake turned out!  Clean, simple lines, but far from boring because of the bright colors and fun stars.

This cake was a two-layer, 8” round, filled with buttercream, and covered with fondant.  It served approximately 20.

Wild Thing

Warning!

The cake I’m about to share with y’all is a little “out there.”

Don’t get me wrong.  I love, love, love this cake,  but it is very unique, and it does make quite an impact.

When Abby found a picture of this cake design online, it was love at first sight.  I was thrilled to be able to recreate the look for her 18th birthday.  I hope that she and her friends enjoyed the final product as much as I enjoyed making it for her.  What a fun cake!

One new thing I tried on this cake was making my own fondant.  Store-bought fondant it just so expensive, and quite frankly I don’t like the way it tastes.  So…. I did a little research online and found a recipe for homemade, marshmallow fondant.

It worked!  Not only is it super easy to make, but I think it tastes a lot better than the store-bought fondant.  Who knew that marshmallows, powdered sugar, water, and shortening is all you need to turn out beautifully smooth cakes?

Once I got the tiers covered in fondant, I added fondant “ribbons” and painted on the spots and stripes.

Then came the feathers.  Oh, the glorious feathers!

Ty was shocked to say the least.  He posed for this picture, but this is just about the exact face he made when he saw the completed cake for the first time.

The feathers may dwarf the cake a little bit.  This cake has 6, 8, and 10 inch tiers and serves approximately 90.

Lindsey

Wood Duck Cake

Last weekend I had the opportunity to decorate another hand-painted cake.  This year for his birthday, Spencer requested a wood duck drake similar in style to this bass cake I did for him a few years ago.

To make this cake I carved the silhouette of the duck into the top layer of the cake to give it a little dimension.  Then I covered the duck with fondant, and using icing color thinned with vanilla, I painted the details onto the duck.  Not too difficult a task for me considering my background in oil painting, but still this was a very time consuming cake.

Other details I added to the cake include these cattails made from fondant and royal icing…

The grass and borders piped with buttercream frosting…

And these adorable fondant shotgun shells.

I think the shells just make the cake.  So simple to create.  If you can roll a play-do snake, you can make these.

This cake was 9X13 and served approximately 40.

Lindsey

Half Young and Half Old

This weekend our church family celebrated our pastor’s 40th birthday.  I have to say that the closer I myself get to that number, the younger it becomes.

Bro. Eddie’s wife, Stacie did a wonderful job planning and decorating for the surprise party.  With four little monkeys of her own, I don’t know how she managed to pull it off.  You go girl!

I was given the opportunity to make the cake for the birthday boy.  The only decorating request for this cake was that it go with the color scheme of red, black, and white.

To supplement the main cake, I also baked up a few cupcakes.  For the cupcake toppers I piped chocolate 40’s and rolled some petite fondant roses.  On other cupcakes I added homemade, chocolate-covered, cookie dough bon bons. Yummy!

You know how when you bake a cake and it comes out a little rounded on top?  Well before you stack and decorate your cakes you have to level the layers.  I always feel a little sad about throwing away all that cake that I shave off the top.  (Although, the Tool Man and the monkeys usually gobble it right up.) This time I decided to use those extra cake crumbs to make some cake pops.  I know you’ve seen these.  They are all over the internet these day.  You make them by combining cake crumbs and icing, rolling that mixture into a ball, and freezing it onto lollipop sticks.  Then dunk them in melted chocolate and decorate!  The results are so adorable and down right irresistible to kids and adults alike.

Not sure the story behind this, but here’s what Bro. Eddie got for his birthday.

Ty and his two best buds, Luke and Cassie, joined the rest of the children in singing the Happy Birthday song.  Ty had an interesting take on being 40 years old.  When he saw the 40 on top of the birthday cake he said, “Wow!  Bro. Eddie’s 40?  That’s like half young and half old!”

Happy Birthday, Bro. Eddie!….and many more!

Lindsey

Bandanas and Blue Jeans

I absolutely love the cake I’m sharing with y’all today.

Little Wyatt was turning one, so his mom requested this adorable cowboy cake for him.  The large cake was for Wyatt’s guests, but he got his very own cowhide smash cake to enjoy.

Both cakes received a base of buttercream before being covered with fondant.  The decorations were sculpted out of fondant, and the bandana details were piped with royal icing.

My favorite part of this cake was probably the bandana tier.  Not only was I pleased with how it turned out, but I really enjoyed doing all the detailed piping. 

Many thanks to the Tool Man for helping me out on this cake. 

The rope around the top tier was constructed completely by him!

He also lent his skills in cutting out the belt and attaching the belt loops.

And he assembled and painted the sheriff stars for me.

And he colored and rolled out all the fondant.

And he was in charge of cutting the supports and stacking the cakes.

And he washed a lot of dishes!

(Maybe I’m taking too much credit for this cake…)

You’re the best, Tool Man! (I think it’s because you were a cowboy in your former life.)

This cake was composed of 6 and 10 inch round tiers and served approximately 35.

Angry Students

I started off this school year with a bang, posting weekly updates of our academic adventures here at Arrow Academy.  But as you are well aware, I wasn’t able to keep up that pace for long.  This week, though, I decided to drag the camera back out snap a few pictures of Lucy doing her lessons.

Lately, Lucy’s really been interested in “doing her cards” as she calls it.  She loves matching and sorting all the printouts I have for her.  It’s a great way for her to work on counting, colors, letter recognition, sorting, and sequencing.  Hey, if she’s eager to learn, then I’m happy to oblige!

I ran across some new material this week that I thought would be of particular interest to my monkeys…Angry Bird themed printables.  And boy was I right!  They loved it.  Even though these printables are totally tailored for younger kids, Ty couldn’t help but be excited at the sight of his favorite feathered friends.  It wasn’t long before he made a trip up stairs to fetch all of his stuffed birds and a couple of hats we had left from his Angry Birds birthday party.

First of all Lucy had to match each bird to the right color word.  Since she is only two, I colored over the words with the appropriate color to help her out just a bit.  Still, this activity is a good way to familiarize her with written text.

Next, Lucy had to sort birds and pigs, a task she was able to accomplish in about 2 seconds.

Since the bird/pig sorting task was so easy for her, I figured she was ready to try the next activity…

Sorting money.

Once I helped her put the first of each coin in the right box, she was able to complete the page on her own.  She even learned what a penny was before we finished the activity!

I don’t know about you, but these two don’t look too “angry” to me.  I’m hoping the kids’ response to these activities will be the motivation I need to make school more fun.  Lately we’ve just been doing our basic lessons, and I haven’t been taking the time to include creative activities that I know they would enjoy. I’ll try to do better.  Everyone is happier around here when school is fun.

Lindsey