Cakes and Cake Wrecks

My aunt sent me a link today to what has to be one of the funniest sites I've seen in a while. Maybe it's so funny to me because I've been doing more cake decorating of late than I have been stitching. It's a blog dedicated to finding the worst of the worst in PROFESSIONAL cakes out there. This doesn't count cakes that Moms like me make for their kids, but ones that people actually PAY professional cake decorators for. OMG I can't believe what some people will try to charge people money for. it's AWFUL!

Anyway, if you want to check it out it's called Cake Wrecks and the address is http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

Speaking of cakes I realize that I haven't posted anything much since January when I put up a picture of Rickey's cake. So, I've missed putting up Rachel's 2nd birthday cake and the Bridal shower cake I did for my friend Bridget just the other day. So, here are a few pics.

First, here's Rachel's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Birthday cake the morning of her birthday party before the kids got up. On top of the cake it says Happy 2nd Birthday Rachel in my in my "Oh-So-Awesome Icing Cursive"(TM).

The cake itself is a simple slab cake for the bottom layer. It's iced with plain buttercream icing tinted green, but I forgot that I had bought some green color spray so I wouldn't have to tint the icing. I decided to be smart and spray it over top of the original green anyway- since I had already bought the color spray and didn't want to waste it. *lol* (This will come back into play later in the story. )

The red dome for the clubhouse is made using half of the Wilton's Sports Ball Cake pan and covered in red marshmallow fondant. (known as MMF from now on)

The foot is shaped using yellow MMF and the hand is shaped using plain white MMF. The fingers were stuck on using toothpicks and laid flat to dry for several days. The black arm, leg and neck are made using a length of PVC pipe (bought at the local cake store(*1)) which was inserted into the hand/leg/head and then covered with black MMF for an inch or two below that point. I left enough PVC at the bottom for the head and hand that the PVC goes all the way down to the cake board for extra support.

The Head was made of three styrofoam balls (one 6" ball and two 4" balls) found in the floral section at Walmart and painted black. Here's a tip, don't try and use spray paint on styrofoam. It WILL melt the styrofoam. I found this out first hand two days before the party with no trips planned to go to Fredericton so I could get replacement foam balls. Luckily I always plan my kids parties for Sunday afternoons so that way everyone still has their Saturdays to do their normal running around, so I got my father in law to pick up a new 6" styrofoam ball (the last one in the store!!) and a small can of glossy black paint so I could paint a new one before the party on Sunday.

The fence is yellow MMF rolled out and then cut with a curved top using my pizza roller. The gate is just white with some yellow 'snakes'(*2) on top and then a little curve cut out of the top with my apple corer. Yes, I said apple corer... I also used it to cut the MMF circles that I used on Janice's birthday cake back in January.

I then tinted a small amount of MMF blue and made some windows using the blue fondant and a few black fondant 'snakes'. I also used the black to make the door frame and a small door knob.

*1 Note: I have no idea if there is a difference between PVC pipe you'd buy at the hardware store and the stuff sold for use in food, but just to be on the safe side I'd stick with stuff that you find marketed especially for food rather than take any chances.

*2 Snakes refer to when you used to play with Play-doh as a kid (or as an adult with your own kids) and would roll out the dough in your hands and make a long squiggly snake.

Here's a picture of the same cake at the party. Notice that it only says "Happy Birthday" instead of the original "Happy 2nd Birthday Rachel"??

Well I had forgotten that we had gone to the Disney Store the last time we were in Moncton and bought the small plastic Mickey Mouse Clubhouse figureines to put on top of the cake. Anyway when it came time to put them on there wasn't enough room for the figurines and the two candles, so I had to scrape the "2nd" and "Rachel" off the cake.

Now this wouldn't have been so bad, but remember my smart idea to use the green color spray on top of the grass? (even though I didn't need it) Well, the icing from the lettering dampened the color spray underneath it and when I took the lettering off, it took the extra green off as well, leaving the original green color of the icing underneath it. lol. I had to do a lot of frigging to get it looking half decent again. You can't really see anything wrong in this picture but in real life you could still see the lighter colour where the letters had been. Or, rather, I could still see it. I don't know if anyone else noticed it or if I only saw it because I knew it was there.

Oh, stop making fun of me... you know you do the same thing too!

In case you've never seen Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, here's a picture from the Disney Website that I scammed so I could make sure it looked fairly close. The only thing I left off was the blue slide on the side of the clubhouse.

Here's a more recent cake I did. It's a wedding shower cake I did for my friend Bridget just last weekend. It's done with white MMF and sage green icing (I used Wilton's Concentrated Paste in Juniper to dye it this colour) and a sage green ribbon I found at Walmart. The topping is just three roses I got at my local flower shop and arranged into a small glass votive holder that I then sunk into the top of the cake.

The cake was a 10" cake (3" deep) for the bottom layer and then 3 regular 8" cakes for the top layer. (It was Marble Cake per the bride's request)

Anyway, Hopefully I can get back into posting again, and it won't be nearly so long until my next post as it has been since my last one. (I don't actually count the "Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" post as an actual post... It's just a "go here before it's too late and you can't see it for free anymore" kind of post.)