Horse Birthday Cake

My daughter requested that I make a birthday cake for her friend. Thinking it was later this summer I said yes. Turns out it was this month, and she wanted the cake for the party they were having last Friday. She was specific about a few details. It had to have horses, grass and a fence. And it had to have a second tier, so that she could save it for her actual birth date (it was just a few days later). I got to work and together we created a cake to surprise the birthday girl with!

The cake is frosted with my trusty recipe for buttercream frosting from Sharon Zambito of SugarED Productions. I now only use Hi Ratio shortening instead of Crisco and have amazing results. I took my time and followed Sharon's method for icing the cake. I still have a lot of trouble with the final step of using the computer paper for the final shine. I did great on the top tier, but I had a lot of trouble with the bottom tier.

Fortuntely the fondant decorations cover most of those little mistakes! The horses are made from cutting them out of chocolate marshmallow. The rest of the decorations are from marshmallow fondant. I painted the fondant with pearl dust to give it a little sparkle and shine.

Happy Birthday Sydney!

Dragonfly Cake

Here is the cake inspired by the dragonfly ribbon!

The dragonflies were made using white chocolate, much easier than royal frosting. I only had two break when I was placing them on the cake. The frosting is all buttercream.

What did I learn from this cake?

First, don't rush to make the cake, because if it's truly going to be a practice cake then one really should take the time and practice!

Square cakes are definitely harder to frost than round ones. Getting square edges seems nearly impossible, and just when you think you have it, you realize you have removed most of the frosting and now the cake is showing through the corner.

It was a great idea to color the frosting in the lightest shade first, then adjust the color for the next two layers. It was not such a great idea to keep whipping the frosting (more and more air bubbles each time) and then forget to save enough of each color to do the edges. Not easy to match up the color when it's late and your are tired of making a cake.

If you are going to off set the cake layers, make sure nothing hangs over, because frosting has a hard time clinging to the sides in midair. Fortunately only one corner fell off...but did I save frosting to fix NO! So, not only save enough frosting of each color to pipe the border...save enough for touch ups!

Yes, it was a learning experience and I am pretty sure by everyone's reaction at church they like they way it turned out!

Front Top View:Front View:
Back Views:

Totally Awesome New DVD

After months of anxiously awaiting the latest cake instructional DVD is on it's way to excited cake decorators around the world! I received my copy yesterday, "Happy Birthday To Me!" I have four of Sharon Zambito's Cake DVD's, which I think every new cake decorator needs to have in their cake library. (I only missing the Boxes and Bows, maybe a Christmas gift, hint, hint.) I cannot tell you enough about how it's helped me improve my cake decorating skill. I am by no means a professional, but Sharon's DVDs make you feel like you are right up there with the best of them!

Ok, the New DVD is....I admit I will probably not ever make a topsy turvy cake...well, at least not anytime soon. However, there is plenty of other information to keep me busy with decorating until such time. Sharon explains every step of the cake in the photo from start to finish, (details on what is included on the DVD are here.) I am already putting use some of the techniques I have seen on the DVD into the next two cakes I have planned.

Ok, you ask who is Sharon and why do I care if she has DVD's on decorating cakes? Take a look at her website, and just sit and look at her gallery of unbelievable cakes. Wouldn't you just love to be able to do that? Because of Sharon's generous spirit she embarked on a mission and started creating Instructional DVD's for the novice cake decorator (or those who are stuck in the Wilton mode of decorating!). Starting with "The Art of Perfecting Buttercream", Sharon now has 6 DVD's available for anyone wanting to learn to decorate a cake. Her methods are easy to understand, and buying expensive equipment isn't a requirment to great looking cakes. As you can tell I am definately a fan of her work!

Now it's time for me to start putting together the winning cake design from our June contest. Stay tuned and hopefully I will have pictures of the Dragonfly cake this weekend. My goal is to have it all finished by Saturday and then use it for our church fellowship on Sunday. Then it's time to work on a cake for a friend's birthday, per request of my daughter.

Ribbon Inspired Cake Voting Begins

I have had an idea for sometime to do a cake based on a ribbon design. A few weeks ago I picked out a few ribbons that I thought would be good to use, I finally narrowed it down to 4, I had way too many choices! If you think this is a little odd, it's amazing what cake decorators will find to inspire them. Here is an example of one baker using ribbon to inspired her cookies. At cakecentral there is a even a cake being designed based on a famous chandelier!

Vote for one choice, you can vote more than once, I will never know! You can click on the picture to see the ribbons better.


For the actual cake I will use the ribbon to inspire the design, so it's not going to look exactly like the ribbon. I don't have really any plans on size, shape or style for now, so until then vote for which ribbon you would like to see as a cake design.

Also, stay tuned a new cake for next week, Chocolate Marshmallow Fondant, pink, strawberries are all a part of this birthday cake!