It is crazy to think that I have never made a buttercream cake like this before! It was so simple to make and turned out so cute that I hope to make more in the future.

The trick to the cake was to crumb coat it with frosting, chill, and then put a thicker second coat of frosting on. Something I rarely do and need to do more of! I used a large star tip to create the piping border and sprinkled on rainbow confetti sprinkles to finish the cake.
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It came out so cute and looked like it came from the store bakery, but only better!

I haven’t make a present cake like this in years, and I forgot how cute the come out. The colors were inspired by the UCLA colors. After I covered the cake in the iconic blue, I created ribbons out of yellow fondant and laid six long pieces in equal parts on the cake. I cut more ribbons to create the bow by making a loop before tacking it place with sugar water. Sometimes the fondant will droop if it is too soft and gum paste can be added, but from my experience, if a little rolled up paper towel is inserted into the loop and left to dry for an hour or so, it will stay up just fine. I made the tag out of white fondant and wrote the names using an edible black pen. Sorry many techniques in such a little cake!

This is such a cool and bold cake! Each tier was covered in bold red or blue fondant before adding the details. I cut out gray stars using fondant cutters then sprayed them with edible gold spray paint and set them aside to dry. To create the flame I freehand cut out orange fondant and then brushed watered down red gel food coloring. Since I don’t have an edible printer, I printed the character out on regular and put him on a piece of red fondant that could be removed before eating. I added the matching color rope fondant to finishes off each tier and to help hold everything in place. The last step was to roll out thin ropes of red fondant to create the name and age.

​I’m really proud of how awesome this cake came out!

PAW Patrol, PAW Patrol. We'll be there on the double. Whenever there's a problem 'Round Adventure Bay,
Ryder and his team of pups. Will come and save the day. Marshall, Rubble, Chase, Rocky, Zuma, Skye, Yeah! They're on the way! 

​Sorry, Andrew is really into this cartoon so I know all of the words. This cake came out so sticken cute! It was also a surprisingly simple cake to make too. Each tier was covered in fondant with a brown fondant ribbon along the bottom. I added a few little details to make it look like a dog collar. I even painted the metal with edible silver spray paint. I used different sized circle cookie cutters to make the dog prints. I then used a dog bone-shaped cookie cutters. I rolled out thin red fondant to make the name. I cheated with the Paw Patrol logo by using the cardboard logo that was on the box of the toy cards that I placed on top of the cake.

The cake came out so awesome and is already giving me ideas for Andrew’s next birthday!

Isn’t this such a cute! I love that it looks like it could have stepped right out of the cartoon. The sky blue fondant makes the other colors pop on the cakes. The grass was hills of green fondant with chocolate brown mud splashes. The tree was also made from chocolate fondant shaped into the tree with green fondant leaves, all shaped by hand. I used a think piece of cardboard to help the yellow house stay upright, and I used a skewer and cake pop stick to create the free-standing sun. I finished the family by shaping and color blocking their clothes and then their heads. I added the feet and arm details before finishing off the face with a few dots of fondants and an edible pen.

​I had a lot of fun trying to problem solve some of the details on this cake and I think it came out great and gave me a few new skills for the future!

I love all of the shades of green in this adorable baby shower cake. The cake was soft mint green with several shades of green grass. I added some simple purple and white flowers with yellow pearls as the center. I used a grass piping tip to pipe green buttercream on the top of the cake to hold the Tinkerbell toy in place. I added a few green piped swirls with a #3 tip to complete the cake.
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A fun, beautiful, and simple baby shower cake!

How cool is this cake!? I wish I could take credit for the patrol car, badge, and the walkie talk, but those were all purchased. The cake itself was pretty easy to decorate; the one challenging part was the cake had more layers than a normal cake I make. The cake needed to be taller than normal and the easiest way to do this was to add an extra layer of cake, but because of the extra layer of cake, I didn’t want the pieces to be too large. To prevent that I made two, two-layer of cakes stacked on top of each other with a piece of cake board wrapped in plastic wrap. This allowed the pieces to be smaller and serve more people.
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Next, I covered the cakes in blue fondant and made a belt out of a ribbon of black fondant. I added belt loops and a silver buckle. I added another strip of blue fondant to make the button fold and added black fondant buttons. The pockets were blue fondant rectangles with black fondant details. I curled a small thin ribbon of black fondant to make the walkie-talkie cord. The last thing I made was the name tag with a strip of black fondant and white fondant letters that I cut out using my alphabet cutters. I use a little blue or black fondant to hold the plastic pieces in place and that’s it! Such an awesome cake and I love that it’s two cake in one!

How is Andrew two already? For his second birthday cake, I made an adorable tree stump cake. The cake was marble with chocolate frosting. On top of the cake, I made lighter to make it look like the inside of the log. The bark was darker chocolate. I used a toothpick and created the rinds of log and added bark details. I even added a 2 on top and Andy in the bark. I added leftover crumbs along the bottom of the cake to make it look more like a tree stump in the dirt.
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The cake came out so cute and Andrew enjoyed destroying it and devouring it!

To be fair, I had no idea who Inky was until this cake. Also to be fair this cake was super ridiculous easy. The characters were purchased on Amazon and the rest of the cake was covered in white fondant and black hot fudge! Yes, hot fudge. I was trying to figure out a way to make the black in and have it taste good. Black food coloring has a horrible taste which is why I normally make chocolate frosting before coloring it black. I liked the idea of the hot fudge since it would give me the shiny look and the drips would stay in place once cooled. I warmed up the hot fudge in a microwave-safe glass bowl (I didn’t want to risk staining a plastic one), once warm I added the black food coloring. I then poured it in a squeeze bottle and slowly added hot fudge on the cake, adding more in areas to create the drips, and to hold the characters in place. I really liked how the cake turned out!

I don’t get to make cakes like this very often, but they are a lot of fun to make. I know they sell doll cake molds, but since I don’t make them very often I rather save my money. I started by baking the cakes in an 8” pan, and three 6” pans. After the cakes cooled I frosted and stacked each cake on top of each other. I slowly started to carve out the shape of the skirt and once satisfied crumb coated the whole cake in purple buttercream and chilled. I wrapped the bottom part of Barbie in plastic wrap before placing her in the hole I carved out of the skirt. I then piped on the purple and turquoise rosettes all over the cake. I finished the adorable cake by adding purple and blue flowers all over the cake. I love it when there is always a toy included on a cake, it’s a fun keepsake to a delicious cake!

​I am in love with the simplicity of the beautiful baptism cake. The simple white fondant layers with only a few important details made the mother gasp with excitement and was shaking when she hugged me. I love great reactions to the cakes I make!

On the bottom of each tier was a small rope wrapped around twice, with a few faux succulent stems. Lastly, on the top of the cake was a beautiful white keepsake wooden cross and another succulent stem.

​The understated beauty of this cake puts a smile on my face and reminds me how beautiful and precious baptism are.

Who didn’t cry when Rafiki smeared his hands over his drawing of baby Simba? I talked about how nostalgic I got when I made these Lion King cakes in my last post, but I rewatched the movie since that post with Andrew and Jack (who had never seen it) and both of them loved it, and I still cried during that scene. Sigh.

​To create this individual birthday boy cake, I did the same dry brush technique, but instead of creating an ombre look I was trying to make the cake look like the branch from Rafiki's tree. I kept with the tan tones and added some bark details. I found an outline image of Simba and printed out on regular paper to trace onto the cake. I used a paintbrush with food colors mixed with a little water, that I lightly dried off with a paper towel to give it the chalky appearance as in the movie. I used a small detail paintbrush to make Simba’s face and a round paintbrush with a little red food coloring that was padded dry for the mark across the forehead. Lastly, I used a leaf piping tip to create some buttercream leaves along the bottom of the cake for a little more texture and color.

​The cake came out so awesome and looks like it was taken out of the scene in the movie!

This cake brought back a lot of childhood memories for me. I was obsessed with the Lion King or was it more with Johnathon Taylor Thomas who played young Simba, either way, I loved the Lion King. I knew all of the songs and happily sung them all the time, despite not being able to carry a tune to save my life. With the new live animation moving coming to theaters a later this month it doesn’t surprise me that there is has been a flourish of nostalgia for the original Lion King, heck even Target as jumped on the bandwagon with toys and shirts in sizes from newborn to adult.
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As amazingly awesome as this cake turned out it was surprisingly easy. Each tier was covered in white fondant, then I hand brushed on the sunrise and dusk ombre using food coloring, a little water, and a dry paintbrush. The technique came out so much better than I thought it would and looked like I airbrushed the layers. I added tan and green grass using a grass piping tip to hold the plastic figurines in place. To create the vines, I used a #3 piping tip and then a leaf tip to give it a little more detail. That’s it. Not much to this amazing cake, but the special birthday boy’s cake, now that is a different story…

​This fun cake is why I love making cakes! I love trying to figure out new things and reusing some classic tricks. The rather simple cake is covered in white fondant with a red ribbon fondant on the bottom. Next, I cut out a large circle using the same red fondant and tacked it in place with sugar water.

To create the ghost I printed out the logo using regular printer paper. I cut out white fondant under the printed image using a detail knife. I then cut the center out for the cross out and glued in place with the sugar water. I completed the logo by using black food coloring and a little white writing icing to black out the background and adding the details to the face. The cake was finished by adding some of Slimmer’s green slime that I made by boiling corn syrup with a little leaf green food coloring for a few minutes. By boiling the syrup it made the slime dry harder instead of just staying syrupy and making a mess.

The cake came out so awesome and I love doing things that let my geeky side shine!

​I love making sesame street cakes with bold colors and fun characters! The bottom of the two-tiered cake features fondant cut-outs of the shows main characters along with ABC letters. The top tier had the child’s name and their age in the style of the street logo with different sizes circles. To finish the cake, I added fondant stars on dowels and red and yellow fondant ribbons along the bottom of each tier.
 
To make the adorable smash cake I started by cutting a half oval in black fondant and placing it on the top of the cake where the mouth would be. Next, I colored buttercream red and slowly piped out the fur texture using a grass piping tip. Once the cake was completely covered in the red buttercream, I completed Elmo by making eyes out of white fondant and adding small black circles on each one. Lastly, I made his nose out of orange fondant rolled into an egg shape.
 
Both cakes were so perfect and I loved how adorable they were and seeing how excited the birthday boy was when he saw his Elmo Cake!

May the Fourth be with you! I love that I got to make a Stormtrooper cake for this day! The best part was I had to make a quick stop at Party City and there was a dad in line dressed fully at a Stormtrooper buying a lightsaber for his daughter who was dressed as Ray! I loved this so much and can not wait to get Andrew into things like this!
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Anyways back to this awesome cake! To create the general shape of the Stormtrooper helmet I used a Darth Vader cake pan that I had bought years ago. I cut down the shape to make it a little more round as they are compared to Vader’s helmet. I also created the curves of the helmet by shaping the cake and adding thicker pieces of fondant. To create the lines of the helmet I used smaller pieces of fondant instead of one large piece. Once all the white pieces were in place, I began adding small pieces of the blank fondant to finish the details of the helmet.
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I am super excited how this cake turned out and I was able to adapt an old cake pan to make it come out so perfectly!

I am a Barbie Girl in a Barbie world…Anyone else grow up in the '90s and is having flashbacks singing that song, or is just me? It's been in my head since I was asked to make this cake weeks ago! I loved Barbie as a kid and this cake took me right back to all of my favorite memories of playing with them. I'm pretty sure I even had a Barbie cake one birthday, but it was no way this pretty!
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The top layer has a hand painted vintage Barbie silhouette on white fondant then sprinkled with some black pearl nonpareils. I traced out a cutout of the silhouette using a detail knife and painted with black food coloring mixed with white writing icing, the same way I did on the cakes last month. To finish the layer I just added a black and white striped ribbon to the base. For the bottom tier, I pipped on rosettes using a large cupcake star piping tip and thick buttercream. I filled in any space between the rosettes with a little more buttercream before piping on a border on the top next to the ribbon. To complete this sweet little girl's cake I added a matching black and white striped bow with a little sparkly rhinestone in the center. This cake is perfect for a Barbie Girl in a Barbie World!

A few months ago my husband saw the Godfather for the first time and has been quoting it ever since. Annoyingly I might add. So when I got asked to make this cake I laughed out loud. 

This sheet cake seems difficult but surprising was simple, just time consuming to get all of the iconic details perfect. The cake was covered all in white fondant and I added a white fondant stripe to create the area for the buttons and then two triangles to create the shirt collar. Next, I cut out two large pieces of black fondant to create the shape of the tuxedo jacket, and then two more pieces were cut into the shape of the jacket's collar. Black fondant buttons were made using a size 10 piping tip with the holes made from a fondant tool. The bow tie was also made from the same fondant. To complete the iconic tuxedo, I added a red fondant rose. The fedora was made from a jumbo marshmallow covered in fondant and placed on another oval-shaped piece to create the brim. 

The movie title was created by printing out an image of it, and then traced on the white fondant using a details knife, and then hand painted using black food coloring mixed with white writing icing. I used it also to write on the red banner on top of the cake.

In the end, the cake came out so awesome and my husband was even super impressed with it. I love the new technique I learned and can't wait to use it again! 

This baby blue and light green baby shower cake is just too cute! The cake is so simple and adorable.
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The bottom tier was covered in the light green fondant, and then I placed six 1” thick ribbons of the blue fondant. To finish the tier, I added two ½ thick ribbons between the 1” ribbons.
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The top tier was covered in the baby blue fondant, and then I placed different sized circles all over the cake. Last I added a large plaque welcoming the new baby and finished it off with another ribbon of the 1” thick green fondant.
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It is such a sweet cake to welcome a sweet new little boy!

It’s hard to believe that this was my first opportunity to make a marble cake! This cake is so beautiful, simple and elegant and the best party was the colorful surprise inside!

​The cake consisted of six thin layers of French vanilla cake; each colored a different color of the rainbow. The six layers of cake made each tier abnormally taller than no normal, so next time I think I am going to make the cake layers even thinner. The taller tiers did give the cake a really regal look.

Although the cake decoration was simple I struggled with creating the marble look. I ended up having to put two layers of fondant on the tiers! ​

This adorable cake took me right back to my childhood. I loved the My Little Pony’s growing up and it’s always fun to reminisce when working on a cake. I covered the cakeboard in green fondant, which is something I rarely do, but I wanted it to look like grass. The bottom tier was covered in baby pink fondant and I placed bushes in different colored greens along the bottom. I also placed white puffy clouds in fondant around the tier, making one big one in the center. I added the little girl's name in colorful fondant inside the large cloud.
 
The top tier was covered in sky blue fondant. I started with purple fondant and rolling it into a long rope before creating the bottom layer of the rainbow. I repeated with all of the colors of the rainbow, curling the ends off to the side. To finish the tier I added more tri-colored bushes, white puffy clouds, and little white stars.
 
The last touch was adding some keepsake My Little Pony toys on top. Seeing the little girls smile when she saw the cake just melted my heart!

In my standing tradition of fair cakes, I recreated a piece of art on a cake. This year’s masterpiece was inspired by one of Claude Monet’s water lily paintings. I had a fun time playing around with new techniques to decorate the cake, from hand painting to piping buttercream, even some fondant work. 

​Update:  I got first place!