Let Them Eat Cake

I've been very busy at work designing new cakes, especially since I started experimenting with marshmallow fondant. 

It's a simple recipe - mini marshmallows and a tiny bit of water, melted in the microwave, then mixed with powdered sugar. Mix, mix, mix, knead, knead, knead until you have a silky, not sticky, dough. Oh, and don't forget the Crisco - that's a great trick to keep it nice, although the first couple cake were done without it. 

[I should warn you - most of these photos were taken with my iPhone at work, so the quality is not the best, but you get the idea!]

My first fondant attempt: a Paul Frank Julius cake for Shelby's half-birthday party. 

The cake is frosted with sky blue bettercreme and red frosting accents on the top and bottom, as well as the writing. 

The trick here was getting the right flesh color for Julius - which ended up looking like I'd skinned a human, but it turned out great. And I should add - the inside of this cake was blue cotton candy ice cream with red velvet cake, so it even matched the inside! 

The same day, I made a Superman cake. 

Blue bettercreme, white frosting writing, red frosting on the bottom, and the logo is fondant. 

Next up - Thomas for a second birthday. 

I frosted the whole cake white, then smeared blue and green coloring on the top to fill in the grass and sky. The middle part is a little track the Thomas train moves around. The accents are all frosting.

The next cake was a big deal around the store, everyone really loved the ice skate cake! 

The birthday girl was having an ice skating party, her favorite colors are light blue, pink, green and yellow. And she likes flowers. And that's all I had to work with - her very trusting father left the design up to me.

I made the skates out of fondant, the laces are icing. The flowers on the side are also fondant. The birthday girl was in love with this cake, they even stopped in recently to tell me they are still (months later) talking about the skate cake! 

Now a very cool cake for Kailey - who happens to be Shelby's little sister (the Paul Frank cake at the top).

Kailey's mom brought me the party stationary (below) and left me free to design whatever I wanted.

I used pink and purple coloring to tie-dye the frosting all around the cake. The hear motif is made of fondant, the writing is icing. The spots are black fondant that I tore willy-nilly to get nice random, jagged spots. This is probably the coolest cake I've made yet! 

What happens when you call and order a dirt bike cake you need to pick up the following morning? 

This dirty looking cake! Frosted with oreo-tinted bettercreme, crumbed with a combo of oreos and graham cracker pie crust crumbs, fudge mud puddles, and green grass frosting. Pop a dirt bike toy from Target on top and - voila! - dirt bike cake. 

Here is a sweet cake for Alicia, who just so happens to be Shelby & Kailey's mom. (Can you tell the family loves our cakes?!) Alicia's husband ordered the cake for her, requesting just "flowers on top." 

So here you go Alicia, a simple, yet sophisticated cake with red icing flowers (a new trait I figured out), light blue frosting, and darker blue accents.

Finally, my most recent pride and joy: my dad's birthday cake.

Mom & Dad came to visit a few days after his birthday, so I wanted to make him a really special cake to celebrate. He loves his garden and had a successful harvest this summer, so why not recreate it on a cake?! 

All the veggies are fondant, rolled and molded into their respective shapes. The cake is frosted in green bettercreme, as well as the foliage. The dirt is, again, oreo and graham crumbs in a neat plot on top. I lined the square plot with chocolate ganache logs on all sides. 

I wanted a good mix of veggies and colors so I included: tomatoes, carrots, pumpkins, peppers, squash, beans, purple cabbage, radishes, lettuce, and cucumbers! 

I built a bunch of sugary vegetables and then set them into the plot like any organized gardener would.

The cake turned out better than I could have imagined, my dad loved it, and it was delicious to eat (even thought it was terribly difficult [on my emotions] to cut into!) 

I'll be posting pictures of my parents' visit soon :-) 

What's your favorite cake? Have you tried marshmallow fondant yet? If not, you really should, it's easy (and cheap!) to make, and gives you the ability to make any cake you can imagine!