Epic Fail Stocking Cake

For my daughters 12 birthday I was sick. Rude. I know. Seriously, though. She didn't really know what she wanted so we decided on a Stocking Cake. I had this amazing, fondant covered cake in mind. It was going to be Epic.

Wrong.

It looks like I let my 4 year old loose with the frosting. You know it's bad when she keeps saying... it's fine mom. I love it. Really, mom. I love it. Stop trying to convince me. I failed you on your 12th birthday. I suck.

It's a good thing she's cute, otherwise I wouldn't have posted this at all...... Have you ever had an epic fail cake???

Owl Cake

For my sons fourth birthday we made an owl cake. I probably should have done something a little more...manly. Like a truck or a racetrack or something awesome like that. But...we did an owl. Deal.

Here is my lovely baking assistant.

We found the darling cake in the family fun magazine. You can find the original recipe/directions here.

This was my version . It is just lines of cupcakes, coconut, mini choc chips, thin chocolate cookies and a few extras. I actually love the way it turned out. He looks pretty happy, eh?

I'm BAAAACK!!!

For this cake I used a large round pan. Probably like a 15 inch circle. I watched a few YouTube videos on making tie dye cakes and went to town. It was really very easy. Just make your cake batter, divide it into however many different colors you'd like and die each batch their own color. Next, just glob different colors all over the pan with random placement. Do not drag anything through to "swirl" the colors. You get a muddy, brownish type cake. Trust me, I learned the hard way! Just leave it be and cook. It turned out really fun!!



I just free hand cut out the insides to make the peace sign. I was going to frost the while thing and have it be a surprise when it was cut into, but my husband suggested just frosting the top and leaving the color exposed. I actually like the way it turned out. Not really fancy or difficult to do, just kind of fun!

This is the cake that I made for my daughters 11th birthday. She is a hippie at heart. It turned out really cute!! She loved the tie-dye birthday cake, I loved the peace sign birthday cake idea. I made them both work, kind of!

ONE OF A KIND

So...this is the one and only cake I will ever make for someone outside of my family. Just FYI. I have always, in the back of my mind, thought I might LOVE to open a little cake shop. Make cakes for other people. I love making cakes and seeing what I can do. Love it. Not so much for other people. All of the sudden I feel so self-conscious and very un-talented. I don't have any sort of technique. I always kind of... wing it. I call it "ghetto" style. Usually I just kind of start out with a blob of cake and make it what I want.

So...here goes.


Yep. I told you. Don't look too close. This was for my sweet cute neighbor friend who just graduated from high school. Her mom asked me to make her graduation cake. Sure...no problem . I was so excited. After a fitful night of "non sleep" and making myself sick....let's just say....fondant and I aren't friends. Nothing a little 2 inch black ribbon won't fix, right? Sorry Codi. I love you anyway!!!

So....that's all she wrote. My professional cake making career began and ended with this!!

Big Bird Cake

It's been a while eh? So sorry! Life is crazy. Here is the latest and maybe not the greatest!!

I made this for my son's 3rd birthday. I had wonderful visions in my head, it didn't quite translate but...I guess you can tell what it is, right??

I just baked the cake in a glass bowl. Covered it in frosting and then in dyed coconut. I found huge jawbreakers at Macey's in the bulk food section and covered the top half with pink fondant. Used blue piping gel for the line and black gel for the pupils. I used 2 sugar cones and kind of "sculpted" them with a really sharp serrated knife (kind of tricky...they break easily!!) so that they fit together to kind of form a beak. Covered it in fondant and then used small triangles of fondant for the inside of the beak and the tongue. There you go.....

I kind of thought this picture was funny. Huge eyeballs and crumbs... hehe!

Groundhog Day Cupcakes

Here are some cute groundhog cupcakes that my cousin, Melinda made. How come I am not this creative???

She just made chocolate cupcakes and used chocolate marshmallow fondant and just plain white fondant for the teeth. Mini chocolate chips for the eyes and a regular chocolate chip for the nose. White frosting is the snow and chocolate crumbs for the dirt peeking through the snow!! Thanks for the fun idea. I also thought chocolate dipped marshmallows would make great "groundhogs". Maybe not, I'm just not crafty enough to make my own fondant....:)

Campfire Cake Reveal!!

Looks like a pretty happy kid, eh?

Well, the cake turned out okay. I should have stuck with the "original" and just done the campfire. I had this whole "camp area" in my mind. Sleeping bag, fire, roasting shmellows. The whole bit. The shmellows and the fire turned out great but the sleeping bag ended up looking like a green lump. Oh well. It's the thought that counts, right? In case you were wondering, here's the play by play....

9x13 cake carved out to resemble a green lump and covered in fondant. Frosting smeared on the left to hold down the "ashes". (Note: First successful coloring of fondant and fondant not making me swear!! Yay me!!!)

Crumbled donut holes. The recipe called for chocolate donut holes. Do those even exist? I looked EVERYWHERE!!!! So, we went with powdered donuts for "white hot ashes".

Two loaf pans with edges and ends carved to resemble logs.....one small cupcake top frosted and added to top log to resemble a knot in the tree....

White frosting added to chocolate frosting to make a contrasting color. Piped in a circular pattern on ends of logs.

Fruit roll ups cut to resemble logs. Red and yellow gel to help with fiery glow. Turned out more like ketchup and mustard. OH well.... There's got to be a better way to do flames. They kept falling over. Ideas?

The green blob with stitching.

The end result. Okay, I guess. I'm learning from my mistakes. Simplify. Note: I intended to use mini-marshmallows for the roasters. They were too sticky and looked weird when smashed onto the bamboo skewer. So I improvised and made them out of fondant.

All in all, not a bad cake. The boy loved it. That's all that matters!!!!

Next up for me....I'm hoping to make a "camp out" cake for my son's 8th birthday!! I stole the idea from here but I am hoping to spice it up, I have big plans....We'll see. My plans usually big fat flop!!! Here's hopin'....

Red Velvet "Man" Cake

My friend Andy sent me these pictures to document her husband's first cake. It's officially called the "Man Cake". Apparently this is what happens when you watch too much "Cake Boss"!!!


I have never partaken of said "Red Velvet" cake. Have you? Is it a Southern thing? I thought it was something they made up for the movie "Steel Magnolias". That said. Apparently it is a real thing and after these pictures, I really REALLY want to try some!!!!


That's some RED cake batter if I've ever seen some!!!!






Here's the cakes all stacked and ready to frost!! Can you say YUM!!! I hear it was supposed to be four layers but it would have toppled!!!






Here's the "man" at work!! (Go Bill. You can really work an apron!!!) Yes, he's curling white chocolate!!!!!!! What a cake stud!





She never told me what kind of frosting, but by the color I'm guessing cream cheese?

Wow. I'm sold. Red Velvet cake, here I come!!!

Candyland Cake

I have quite a few cakes in the wings....ready to post. But I just couldn't hold this one off any longer!!!! It really is creative, different and so awesome!!!

My cousin Melinda made this for her son Aaron's first birthday. It's a Candy land themed cake. She covered her cake in fondant and all of the decorations were made from gum paste. Such a great cake. Thanks Melinda.









She also made a "smash" cake for him to eat!! So fun!

Holy Cutest Mickey Mouse Cake

Wow. That is all I can say...what an imagination!!!

This cake makes my brain hurt even imagining how to make this whole thing work. What an incredibly cute and amazing cake!!!

Thanks Jimi for sending me this one. Her friend made it for her son's birthday. What a fun cake!! Here's how she did it....

For the house portion, she baked a cake in her small pampered chef glass measuring bowl.

She used styrofoam balls spray painted black for the head and ears...smart!!

She cut 2 hands out of cardboard and glued them together and then covered them in fondant for the glove.

A cupcake covered in fondant made the foot and she cut a cupcake and made the leg out of it and covered that in fondant as well.

Wow, that's an ambitious cake but it was worth all of the work!! It turned out so cute!!!!!!

Pink and Purple flower Cake

This was the goal.......



....and this was our result!!!

So...here is the cake that I made for my daughter's 10th birthday!

So not what I had planned....I must learn to leave myself more time to do the actual decorating!!!!

I guess it's not that awful, it's just not what we imagined!! Fondant is not my friend. The end.

Merry Go Round Cake

This is the cake that I made for my baby's first birthday!! The idea was a lot better than it was actually executed...but he was one. He didn't care!!

There are definitely things I would have done differently. But, I think it turned out okay!

Spider Web Cupcakes

I know I'm a little late. But, better late than never!!!

My sister made these cute cupcakes for our family Halloween Party.

I'm quite certain that she found them on a very cute and creative website. I just can't remember which one that might be. :)

She found, on that cute website, a template to use to make the webs. She put the template under wax paper and piped white chocolate onto the template. Waited for it to harden and voila!!

She did the same with the pumpkins. Chocolate, harden, voila!!

She made some amazing chocolate cupcakes and frosted them with cream cheese frosting and put the webs and pumpkins on top.

They turned out so cute.

You could also do.....spiders, chocolate frosting, candy corn....etc. They turned out darling!! Thanks for the cute idea, Mer.

Elephant Birthday Cake

This cute elephant birthday cake was sent to me by my cute friend Jimi. She made it for her son's birthday! I stinkin' love this cake! I never would have thought to make an elephant head. You are so creative, Jimi!!!

Oh The Yummiest Cake I've Ever Made

Let me start off by saying this. I <3 peanut butter and chocolate. It's not something that I can control. It's something that has plagued me since childhood. I can't really explain it, it just is. It makes me weak in the knees, it makes me cry a little bit and I have zero self control.

My sister found this cake over on Picky Palate. So, what else could I do? I HAD to try it. I mean, come on. I had to.

How delish does that look? Not only did it look good, it tasted even better. How often does that happen??? It was actually BETTER than I had hoped.

Cream cheese, chocolate cake, peanut butter and chocolate. Does it get any better?

I ate myself into a peanut butter and chocolate induced coma.

It was swell.

Happy Halloween

Don't look too close, because it isn't great!!! But, this is the only Halloween cake I've ever made!!!

I made it for a mother/daughter activity last year and they had a cake walk...


I just baked two bundt cakes (so you get the ridges on the sides) and turned one upside down and frosted. Used a cupcake turned upside down for the stem. I would definitely do some things different next time....but, hey!!!! It's the thought that counts, right??

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street

These awesome cakes are from my cute friend Amanda. Once again, my Elmo cake put to shame! Seriously, how cute are these? I love the cookies in Cookie monster's mouth.


I am quite certain that she made the cute Cookie Monster and Elmo cakes for her son's 2nd birthday. What a talent. Click to enlarge to see the cute detail on them. Thanks Amanda for the pics.

For all you Baseball Lovers out there....

....this one's for you!!!


I made this one for my son's 2nd birthday! He had this cute little Gap baseball cap that he wore EVERYWHERE!!! So, I decided to make it into a cake. Not until I finished the hat portion did I realize I had about enough cake to feel him, alone. So. Quickly I made up some cupcakes and decided to use them in the cake theme. I just frosted them white and used red gel frosting and made "baseball stitching". I wasn't sure at first how it would turn out, but I was glad I did. It made the cake perfect! I really love the way this one turned out.

side note. To get that rich blue color I used about 14 cups of blue dye. Every one's mouths turned blue. It was quite amusing to watch. hehe