"The Amazing Spider-man Cake and Cupcakes" - 8/12

I made this cake (well, two cakes and a dozen cupcakes) for the same boy I made the "Tow Mater" cake for last year.  This year he wanted an Amazing Spider-man cake!  The main cake was a two-tier vanilla cake with chocolate fudge filling, covered in blue and red fondant.  The buildings were also made of fondant and painted with silver luster dust to add detail.  Both the spiders and webs were made from royal icing and the Spider-man figure at the bottom is an "ultra-poseable" action figure.  It took awhile to find the perfect pose, but I found it and it worked!  ;)

 

 

 

The second cake was a double-layer, 1/4 sheet cake, strawberry w/ cream cheese icing, covered in buttercream.  The Spider-man mask was cut out of fondant. 

 

 

And the finale...cupcakes!

 

"Basketball Star Cake" - 8/12

Here is a 50th birthday cake for a lady who was a big basketball star in high school.  The school colors were blue and white and I incorporated her name, high school, jersey number and mascot by writing them on the larger blue stars.  The cake flavor was raspberry with white chocolate icing, all covered in marshmallow fondant.  The bottom was an 8" square, the net portion was actually two inverted 6" ball cakes and the basket ball was the other half of a 6" ball cake. 

The basketball and base cakes were quite easy to make, gave me no problems at all, but the net portion was just one headache after another!  I had initially made black fondant to cover it in, but after rolling it out and trying to cover it from the top, it started cracking and ended up completely falling apart and in the trash.  Fortunately, I had enough white fondant left and figured I would just get some of Wilton's black food color mist to cover it.  So after I finally got it covered, this time wrapping the fondant around the sides instead of from the top, I sprayed the mist on, only to find out that it was more of a brownish color than black.  Not a big deal, but when I tried to pipe the net, I just could not wrap my head around the pattern of the strings and they kept breaking!  So I did the best I could in the time I had left and overall, I think it turned out pretty well.



"Red, White and Blue Wedding" - 7/12

Here is my first 4-tiered cake that I made for my Pastor's son and his new bride for their red, white and blue themed wedding.  They wanted a very simple, all buttercream cake with some fondant roses on the top.  The top two tiers were red velvet cake with cream cheese icing and the bottom two were chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream. 

For my first 4-tiered *buttercream* cake, I was just thrilled that it was still standing by the end of the ceremony!  After a long, sleepless night, awaken by dreams of stacking this cake, the next afternoon I was actually able to enjoy a piece! lol  At the reception, I also received many compliments of how good and moist it tasted!  One of my friends even said that the chocolate cake tasted like an Oreo:)







"Storybook Castle Cake" 6/12

    

This storybook castle cake was completely done in buttercream.  The more I do buttercream cakes, especially sculpted ones, the more I come to dread them, simply because they are so unforgiving!  Both the book portion and the castle portion were a deep dark chocolate cake, which is one of my moister recipes, filled with chocolate ganache.  With the cake being so moist it was already hard to sculpt, but I think the hardest part was getting the castle onto the book without messing up the buttercream and the brick texture I had tried to make on it.  Anyhow, the flaws were able to be covered up with more buttercream (grass and bead border) and turned out fine.  The purple looks a lot bluer in this picture, but the turrets were covered in purple cake sparkles and really "fancied" it up! 



"Peacock Wedding Cake" - 5/12

My first wedding cake!!  Especially made for my very dear friends:) The cake was Boston Creme Pie (vanilla cake with layers of vanilla pudding and chocolate ganache filling), covered in ivory fondant and the peacock feathers were handpainted using a mixture of luster dust and lemon extract. All of the other decorations are inedible.



"St. Patrick's Day Cupcakes" - 3/12

These cupcakes were made for a St. Patrick's Day themed bridal shower.  I made two different kinds: green velvet (same recipe as red velvet, just used green coloring) with cream cheese icing and vanilla cupcakes with bright green colored vanilla buttercream.  I sprinkled on some green sanding sugar and shamrock sprinkles I found at Hobby Lobby, then added some paper shamrock toppers to finish them off.  They were a hit!

"Spaghetti & Meatball Cupcakes" - 1/12

I made these for an Italian themed potluck at church. The cupcakes are chocolate with vanilla buttercream piped on with a grass tip to look like spaghetti noodles, a cake ball for the meatball, raspberry preserves mixed with a little frosting for the sauce and grated white chocolate for the parmesan!

"Tinkerbell's Teapot House Cake" - 1/12

For my daughter's 6th birthday this year, she wanted a Tinkerbell Teapot house.  I loved the idea of this since it was so whimsical and it was a lot of fun to make:)  The bottom tier is a 9" round covered in green fondant with fondant/gumpaste flowers and leaves.  The teapot is made from a 6" ball ban covered in fondant with all fondant details.  I bought the fairy figurines at Walmart.

"Happy Birthday to Me!" - 12/11

Just for fun, I decided I would make my own little birthday cake for my family to enjoy.  I pretty much just made it up as I went along, but made it in my favorite color and used a new technique I had not tried before--stenciling!  It was not perfect, but the best thing about it was that I didn't have to please anyone but myself! ;)

"Wintery Snowflake Cupcakes" - 12/11

Here are some wintery snowflake cupcakes that I saw on Pinterest and thought I would give them a try for a Christmas get-together.  The snowflakes are made of royal icing, piped on wax paper, sprinkled with clear cake sparkles and left to dry/harden.  Then I simply piped on some icy blue buttercream and added the snowflakes and sugar pearls!

"Black and White Engagement Cake" - 12/11

...So the previous cake I posted (golf course birthday cake) was actually a cover-up for an even bigger surprise!  My friend's boyfriend was totally in on his"surprise" birthday party and she had no idea no clue.  My friend's mom and I had this pillow cake I made wrapped up like it was a birthday present.  But when he was opening it, he got this confused look on his face and said, "Why would you get me a present that's not even for me?!"  When my friend went to see what it was, she looked in the box and saw this cake with the ring in the box and the words "Will You Marry Me?"  She was completely shocked and that moment made all the stress and all the hours working on these two cakes totally worth it!





Pillow Engagement Cake: Deep Dark Chocolate cake with mocha frosting, covered
white fondant with fondant flowers and swirls.  The trim is royal icing.




The ring box is completely edible (except the ring of course!) made from
RKT covered in fondant custom made to hold the ring.





"Golf Course Birthday Cake" - 12/11

A very good friend of mine asked me to make this golf course cake for a "suprise" birthday party of sorts for her boyfriend.  It was a 1/2 sheet cake (chocolate with mocha frosting), covered in buttercream.  The putting green, water hazzard, flag, ball and golf bag were all fondant.  The clubs were toothpicks with fondant clubs.  I made the trees out of upside-down sugar cones with royal icing star tips for the branches as I did for my daughter's Rapunzel cake. 

Little did my friend know that the real surprise was hers....!



Close-up of golf clubs and putting green.