Chocolate Jayhawk cake

I have to admit that this cake was put together fairly last-minute. Lowell asked if I would make a cake for a co-worker's birthday, so this was more laid back than most of the cakes I have been doing lately. Since the birthday was so close in proximity to the delivery of the fishing cake, I sort of forgot about it and didn't really think about what I would do for this cake until I was making it.

I had some almond bark on hand, so I melted and colored that to make a chocolate Jayhawk for the top of the cake (pretty much the only information I had about the birthday girl was that she is taking classes at KU). I piped the chocolate onto a backwards image then flipped it over to transfer to the cake after it set up. The cake is a white cake with vanilla buttercream frosting.

Fishing cake

This cake was for a(nother!) 50th birthday. The person who got this cake did everything possible to make sure it was successful--she sent me pictures of the person and his dog, told me about the dog wearing a life vest...even described what he wore when he went out on the boat. It gave me enough direction to make sure the cake really reflected that part of his life--and probably made a big difference in the final presentation.

I loved all of the little details involved with this topper...I had enough notice to start the pieces early and really take my time. I wanted to keep the dog. Badly. So did Ben.

The cake is chocolate with raspberry buttercream filling covered in vanilla buttercream frosting. The person, dog, and fish are fondant and the boat, bucket and rod are gumpaste. I used modeling chocolate for the man's hair (I will start using this more often--I liked how it worked out!) and the top of the cat tails (cat tails, cat-tails, cattails? Not sure about this). Something that most people don't see right away but I was really happy with: I covered the masonite topper board with blue fondant and then coated it with piping gel to look like water. I wouldn't have tried this if I hadn't had so much time to put this together--I ran a test piece early in the planning and got to see what it would look like after several days.

So here is the topper, followed by some of the individual elements:

Finally, more jewelry!

This is a quick post, but since I finished some more of the fold formed projects I started a while ago, I wanted to get them up!

Two things: a set of sterling silver fold formed earrings and a pendant. I added more texture by hammering the earrings before polishing them and oxidized the pendant. The earrings hang just about an inch in length from the sterling wires and the pendant is about the size of a dime. I like how they turned out!

Biking cake

This cake was for another 50th birthday celebration--a woman who likes to go biking. The cake is chocolate with vanilla buttercream frosting, and the figure is fondant. The bike, water bottle, and helmet are made from gumpaste, and the giant rock is rice krispie treats covered in fondant. Chocolate rocks and royal icing grass surround the scene.

The topper:


...and the cake:

Flower garden birthday cake

This cake was for a woman's birthday party--chocolate cake with cookies and cream buttercream filling and vanilla buttercream frosting. The topper is on a covered masonite board so it can be removed as an entire scene. The figures are fondant surrounded by royal icing "grass" and chocolate rocks. I used the Pirouette cookies to surround the cake...this has become my favorite (expensive!) go-to for outdoor scenes.

I like doing the scenes on top of cakes, but it is really time consuming and I want to do something a little bit different for the next project. That means that the people at work (or Lowell's work) will end up having cake forced on them. Sorry, I can't have it around the house all the time. I'm thinking about what I want to do, so it may be a while. Maybe it's time to work on some jewelry for a bit? I have some fold-forming projects that are 90% done that could use some attention.

Stephanie, if you are listening, you have to tell me cupcake flavors!

Back to this cake. So here is the topper:



...and the finished cake: