On to other flavors...

Since I got into baking, I've only made chocolate cakes with chocolate buttercream.  This is because of the following reasons: (1) I LOVE chocolate, (2) it's what's mostly requested, and (3) when there's no specific request, I figure, who doesn't love chocolate?

I felt safe with chocolate and wanted to concentrate more on making my cakes look pretty.  Now that I feel comfortable working with fondant, I feel that I want to go beyond just chocolate cake and icing recipes.  So starting today, I am in search of cake and icing recipes and excuses, i mean occasions, to try them out.

What's your favorite cake/icing recipe?

Cupcake Cake

A cupcake cake for a cupcake themed baby shower.  Well, at least a friend and I both brought cupcake themed presents for the party.

The base cake is made from 2 layers of 9-inch round chocolate cake and the cupcake is made from 2 layers of 6-inch round cake both covered and decorated with fondant.  Letters and cherry made out of fondant.  Cupcake is surrounded with edible pearls and the cake was brushed with pearl dust.

Congratulations Sheryll & Jose!

The Gift

 

 A gift for the birthday celebrant!  

This gift was made with 4 layers of 4x4 chocolate cake covered and decorated with fondant.  Brushed with pearl dust for shimmer and surrounded with edible pearls on the bottom.  All edible except for the cake board :)

Happy Birthday Greg!

Spongebob!

When I made the Hello Kitty cake for a dear friend last month, her nephew exclaimed "wow! I want a Spongebob cake!"  So for his birthday, I surprised him with this cake :)

A new discovery for me... for brown and black fondant, use chocolate fondant.  I use marshmallow fondant (MMF) in all my cakes so it's really hard to get a really dark color without messing up the mmf.  It turns out, all I need to do is add some cocoa powder to my mmf and viola! Dark brown fondant!

Because I loved the chocolate flavor on my mmf, I will be trying to make the mmf recipe with white chocolate and see how that works.  I just love love love chocolate!

Happy Birthday Jeremiah!

Speed Skate

 

The speed skate was made from a 9x13 chocolate cake, cut, stacked and carved.  All the decorations are made from fondant.  The block is also made of chocolate cake, covered and decorated with fondant.  The base cake is a two layer 9x13 chocolate cake.

Although I have made a shoe cake before, this one presented an extra challenge.  I was determined to have the skate stand on its blade.  At first, it seemed impossible.  Then after searching online on forums and blogs, one suggestion that stuck out was to use dowels.  One thing with that suggestion, I didn't think it would completely support the shoe.  I was afraid that the shoe will tilt to the side and fall over.  While chatting with a friend, we came up with a solution.  A block to put under the shoe to support its side! Genius! It totally worked.

I hope the birthday boy enjoyed this cake as much as I enjoyed making it :)

Happy Birthday William!