South Pacific cast party cake

This cake was created for the cast party of a South Pacific production. It was really fun to make. Once again, lots of fondant for the characters.















The palm trees are thick pretzel sticks with paper leaves wired to the top. I would have liked to do fondant leaves, but time ran away from me and I was lucky to get done the parts I absolutely needed to have!

The blue and green icing is just tube icing that was glittery. I thought it looked nice as water. The 'sand' is crushed graham crackers. The grass 'skirt' on the hula guy is paper as well. Cutting the fondant so thin made it break apart too easily. The paper ended up looking pretty good.

Chicago Blackhawks hockey cake

This cake was created for Ian, who was turning 3 years old. I also call this cake Revenge Tastes Like Buttercream. If you get that, you know the story. If you don't get it, it's too hard to explain! LOL


Every time I do something new and different, I say "this is my favorite thing I have done yet." This cake is no exception. I have never pieced together a logo this complicated before using fondant. I have also not created as detailed a character as this hockey player. And last, I have never actually covered anything with fondant, so covering the Ding-Dong hockey puck was new, too!

I don't even know where to begin on what I did on this cake, except that I printed out several different sizes of the Blackhawks logo so that I would have a variety to choose from when assembling my cake. The big logo on the cake is about 6 inches in diameter. I cut up a printed logo and used the pieces to cut out the correct parts from different colors of fondant. I purchased all precolored fondant to save my hands all the kneading and mixing. I mixed the orange myself, and the skin color. All others were precolored.


The hockey player was made out of fondant. The hockey stick was fondant wrapped around a core that was a sucker stick. I rolled fondant super thin to create the 'tape' on the stick. The logo on the jersey was just paper (I cheated!) and the 'puck' is a fondant wrapped Ding Dong with a paper logo and icing writing. The guy was originally supposed to stand up, however, these fondant figures are HEAVY, and he had lots of pieces.



The Blackhawks logo was pieced with fondant cut out with an exacto knife. Yes, every piece! I was super proud of how this turned out. It really looked neat. It was easier than I expected, because I just kept cutting out the pieces of the logo like a puzzle, putting the paper on top of the fondant, and carving it out. Then placing on the pieces already assembled. It was fun to do. Time consuming, but fun to do.

Pretty Princess first Birthday Cake

Here's a pretty pretty princess's first birthday cake. The shaped crown cake is a Wilton pan (I think), and the smash cake is a number one. Off to deliver it now!

A flowery birthday cake

This cake was created for a surprise birthday party for the mom of the girl with the Autumn reception cake. All the flowers on the top were created using gum paste by hand. They all had individual stems and were colored with non-toxic chalks to give them depth. The rest of the cake has simple frosting drop flowers and vines to give the whole thing a flowery feel.



The gum paste flowers are roses and lilies. I also made a few leaves to stick in here and there. I think I did a half ball cake on the top that was frosted to stick the flowers into. But I can't really remember. I think this cake was done in 2005.

Star Wars - Death Star cake

This little boy had the Treasure Chest cake for his 5th birthday. He requested a Star Wars Lego cake for his 6th Birthday. I did some fast research, then asked my good buddy Matt to look at this cake link, and tell me what that weird gray thing was at the bottom, and if it was significant to the cake design. He stared at me like I had grown a second head, and he said "Tess, that's the *death star*." At my blank look, he quickly searched and pulled up Wikipedia's description of the Death Star. Uh. OK. Yeah, it's important. At that point I shamefully admitted I have seen exactly ZERO of the Star Wars movies. Yes, I am a geek that has NOT seen Star Wars. However, I can make a Star Wars cake, so THERE!

I cheated and bought lego figurines for the cake. I DO have a life outside of crafting, yanno. So, Lego Store got my business. I found these cute mini figures, that were actually made to be magnets, but take them off their base and they were perfect for this cake.

The Death Star was made with the ball pan from Wilton (gee, I am a walking talking Wilton advertisement). I sprinkled it with black edible glitter flake stuff, and tried to recreate the surface, not very successfully, I thought.

But, I do like the laser beam touch, which was made out of a battery operated fiber optic light thingy that is supposed to be used in floral arrangements. A green Sharpie turned the fiber optic strands the right color. It was hard to see in the picture, but the laser beam was actually green and lit up. Ooooh. Aaaaaah. :)

The letters are cut out of fondant with cookie cutters. And the logo was printed, cut and pieced together to try to be super accurate.



It wasn't my idea to have Obi Wan and Darth on top, but that was my son's suggestion, so I did it. I also got pictures of my son attempting to eat the entire Death Star later. He made it about 3/4 of the way through, then looked a little sick. Hey, he tried, though.

An Autumn reception - my first 'wedding' cake

This was my first really large tiered cake. I made not only the cake itself, but the flowers and cake topper, too. I was 7 months pregnant with my daughter at the time, and I really felt it by the time I finished. This was a LOT of work, but my friend and her husband seemed to love it, so it was definitely worth it. I told myself at the end that I would not do another wedding cake until my OTHER friend got married, and I stuck to that (Beachy wedding cake coming up in the next post.)

I really liked to tone on tone icing. It was very subtle with the scroll design, but I think it turned out nice. I did cheat and use the Wilton Scroll press set to save myself some time.



And a closeup of the topper... there are 2 cutesy little Autumn Scarecrows in the lighted gazebo. Yeah, cutesy isn't for everyone, but she seemed to like it. All the other flowers were just silk flowers that were arranged on the separator plates as well as on and around the topper gazebo.

Beachy wedding cake

This is the cake that brought me out of wedding cake retirement after creating the Autumn Wedding cake for another friend. Once again, I made not only the cake, but the cake topper and florals between the tiers, too.

I am probably most proud of the score that got me the sand castle topper. I was really struggling with what to have on top. The bride left it entirely up to me, which usually, I really like. I don't want to promise something to someone and then not be able to deliver. Since I am not a professional at this (and in fact, don't make any money at all on my cakes), I have been really firm that I can't really promise specifics beyond flavor and color.

This sand castle is a candle holder that I found at Kohl's on a clearance table. It was perfect, and I was able to incorporate it into the topper pretty easily. This cake was TALL! I was worried about the balance of everything as I assembled. Luckily, I usually make too much cake, so losing the top layer would have been embarrassing, but everyone would still have gotten to eat cake!

The whole cake:


And the bottom layer close up:


The top layer closeup: