Superhero cake

Marvel?  DC?  Why not represent both!

 

 

In support of my son's Lacrosse club I donated a cake for our annual auction.  I ended up agreeing to two cakes (hey if more than one person is interested in a cake and willing to support Woodinville Lacrosse to get it, then I'm willing to bake!) and this is cake #1.  The family was having a joint birthday party for their kids (both into superheroes) so we came up with this compromise cake paying tribute to both Spiderman and Wonder Woman!



50th Birthday Cake!

Simple, classy look for a 50th Birthday cake:

 

I love how everything turned out.... except the "quilted look" I was trying to achieve on the top tier!  But... that's why this blog is called "Tales of an Amateur Baker"... I am still learning!  .... so, two lessons I learned on this cake:

 

 

1) DO NOT skip putting dowels in the bottom tier of the cake!  Just because you're doing a smaller cake... don't get lazy and skip this step.  It's absolutely crucial to provide support for the upper tier or your cake could sag.... mine did!!

 

2) Research the quilted look more!  There are tools out there and lots of different ways to get this effect.  My cake looked ok close up, but I would have preferred a more polished look.  I plan to try again, but will do more research before attempting it.

 

All in all, I'm pleased with the general look of the cake and it's always a plus when I learn something I can apply next time I'm decorating!

Chewbacca Cake!

Happy Birthday Ginger!

 

Ok, so this post is very late... Ginger's birthday was back in July... what can I say... I've been busy! I love the variety of interests that my daughter has.... from girly things to Star Wars!  Her newest obsession (since seeing "Star Wars: The Force Awakens") is Chewy, so when I asked her what kind of a cake she wanted for her party the answer (very loudly) was "Chewbacca!!"

 

 

I searched the Internet for ideas, but I'm not artistic enough to attempt to do Chewy's face in great detail, so I really wanted something that was very "Chewbacca" without it having to be a headshot... and I found this!  I loved that it had elements of Chewy (the fur, the belt) without me having to make a "Pinterest Fail" of his face. 

 

 

This cake wasn't super difficult, but it was VERY tedious!  All those little brown "fur" triangles took forever to make & place, but I do like the result.  I found a little Chewbacca bobblehead figurine on Ebay for under $10 and decided to use that as the cake topper... then Ginger has a cute figurine for her dresser when the party is over!

 

She was thrilled with the cake and loves her Chewy figurine, so it all worked out in the end!

 



Falcon Footbal Dessert Dash Cake

It's always exciting when I'm asked to donate a cake.  It makes me feel good to help the community and I feel honored to be able to participate!  Back in September our local High School Football team had a fundraiser going on that included a "Dessert Dash" auction and this is the cake I made to donate to that event:

 

To explain the theme a little:

It's been almost two years since one of our local kids was killed in a random act of violence.  Parker Moore, a 20 year old Woodinville High alumni attending Linfield College in Oregon was at a 7-11 store at night and happened to get stabbed.  Parker died later at the hospital and this tragedy really seemed to unite our communities (Linfield College and Woodinville).  There are shirts with the "Woodinville 44/Linfield 35" logo on them and Woodinville Football uses #44strong consistently in support of Parker.  They've even developed a new tradition of passing down the number 44 jersey to a certain selected player each year... someone the coach feels embodies the characteristics that Parker always showed (playing with intensity, generosity towards others, and leadership). 

 

As a Woodinville resident (and the Mom of a son who played Junior Football here) I think this is a great tradition and a wonderful way to honor Parker's memory.  Based on all this I decided to do a "44strong" themed cake for the dessert dash.  It was fun to create and knowing it made some money to help out our local Football team makes me feel good!!

Golf Tournament Cake

Hi everyone.... so this is a cake that I did for a local women's golf tournament. 

I knew what I wanted to do (grass, 19th hole scene, etc..) but wasn't quite sure how to accomplish it on a large scale (the cake needed to feed 70+ people).  I ended up doing a half sheet cake for the bottom tier and just covering it with buttercream to look like grass.  Then for the top layer I scoured through my old shaped cake pans for something that just looked like an interesting enough shape for the putting green area.  I ended up using my "Dora" cake pan and think it ended up working out well!

 

I covered the Dora cake in fondant and just used buttercream around the edge for some grass accents.  For the small sand traps I used a spoon to make small indentations in the buttercream grass and then sprinkled some graham cracker crumbs in the indents.  Other than HATING how my handwriting looks on cakes, I was pleased with how it turned out. 

 



Junior Football: End of an era

My son played junior football for 6 years (since he was 8 years old) and it has become a fun tradition for our family.  We loved watching him play!  Over the years his passion for Lacrosse has grown & grown so he's decided no to play football at the high school level... instead, to focus on Lacrosse moving forward.  I fully support his decision, but it will be sad not watching him play in the fall! So, knowing this last year of 'junior' football would most likely be his last year to play the sport, I decided to go a little bigger, more special for the "end of season" dessert.  No cookies or cupcakes this time... this event deserved more of a centerpiece cake... so here it is....

I ended up making two tiers of cake.  The bottom I covered in green fondant to represent the field and using white fondant I made yard lines and cut out numbers for the markers.  I covered the top tier with brown fondant and using white fondant I made the football laces.  The cake was topped off with a green "W" to represent our Woodinville Junior Falcon Football program and using blue tinted buttercream I piped on "2015 Varsity" (the last level of play for our junior league) and also piped small dots around each tier of cake to finish it off.

Vegas Baby!

 

For our friend's 50th Birthday party, we decided to do a casino theme... fun in so many ways! Fun decorations, fun games, fun casino themed food... just fun!

 

 

For my part I did the cake.  I'm not super creative on my own, so my favorite thing to do is scour the internet for ideas and either look for a cake to try & recreate or mash some ideas together for my own twist.  This 'Vegas style' cake was a lot of fun to do!

 

 

Simple two-tiered design... covered in marshmallow fondant with fondant rose accents, fondant coins and an arm for the slot machine too!  For the arm I covered a wooden dowel with fondant, capped it with a ball of fondant, and brushed an edible silver glitter powder on it for a metal looking effect.