I had fun making this cake. Come to think of it, most of the cakes I’ve made thus far were a lot of fun.

I really need to work on  my figure-sculpting. Hahaha! I appreciate that lately, friends have been requesting for inedible figure toppers, so the kids can play with them after the candles have been blown.  Bless their hearts!

I especially like the mushrooms. I think they’re cute. Do you see the  swings between the mushrooms? Please say you don’t because there’s none! Gotcha!

I think I’ve got a couple more pink and purple cakes in my treasure chest. You’ll see them all soon.

Cheers!

This was a fun cake to make and decorate. I used a lot of real candies for decorations. I still made a good number of decorations out of fondant. Take for instance, Princess Lolly…

I found out just a few minutes ago that Princess Lolly, who resides in Lollypop Woods looks, just a tad different now. I guess the version we have of the Candy Land game is old.  It’s where I based this Princess Lolly topper from. Watch out, Princess Lolly! The Tooth Fairy is after you! Hee hee.

It was late September when I made this cake. No candy canes on sale yet! So I just made some, out of fondant, I mean. *wink*

Where are the cute lollipops when you need them? I probably just wasn’t looking hard enough. I like my pink and purple spiral lollipop.

Follow the signs!

And here’s the back of the cake! What a sad day for dentists! Hee hee. I hope Princess Lolly has malpractice insurance. In her defense, I say she’s just doing her job and doing it well. That’s coming from someone with sweet teeth. I have more than a sweet tooth, you know!

Cheers, y’all!

I made the mistake of thinking that this was going to be an easy cake to make. Well, for the most part, it was. It was the little details that took the most time to make. I was hoping for a more detailed grand piano. But it was not to be. Nonetheless, I am still very happy with how the cake turned out, smudges of cornstarch notwithstanding.

Go ahead and count the ivory and black keys. They are 88 all in all.

This is the closest I’ll allow you to see the cake. The black of the fondant looks a lot more pleasing at this distance.

As a young girl who played the piano, I dreamed of having my own baby grand piano. This is a baby-sized grand piano all right! How’s that for a dream come true? *wink*

I can only imagine how more challenging it would be to make a sculpted car cake complete with car title loans Wisconsin printed on edible paper for that added realism. It’s going to be interestingly fun to make. I know that for sure.

Cheers to beautiful music!

Meet Mia, the Bridesmaid Fairy from the Rainbow Fairies series of books. At least, this is my gumpaste interpretation of her.

I couldn’t get the hair to curl. Oopsie!

I like how this 6-inch cake came together. I specially like the little stars on the wire. Ooh, I like the mushrooms, too! Ok, so I like everything!

The birthday girl’s mommy requested that I make a naughty green goblin as well. The goblins are funny characters. Still, I don’t think you’ll welcome them into your mobile homes.

In addition to the pretty little cake, I also made cupcakes, one for each girl friend and one for each member of the family.

The cupcakes were topped with personalized clouds. Cuteness! Cutting the letters out took the  most time, next to sculpting the fairy topper.

I say sweet lookin’ cake, for a sweet birthday girl.

Moving along… It’s been almost two weeks since one of, if not THE grandest, glitziest and most star studded nights in Hollywood. Darn! I should have posted this entry on February 26. I made a Hollywood-themed cake for a friend’s 40th birthday last year, as in July of last year. Hee hee. Finally, the cake made it here. Talk about a dramatic entrance!

This was a super fun cake to make. My friend wanted a red, black and silver color scheme. Wish granted! My biggest challenge was getting the red and black right. I think I did!

My friend also wanted 40 cupcakes to complete the cake table ensemble. It’s just too bad that my trusty assistant (read: hubby) forgot the star toppers. Thank God for understanding friends!

There are three elements that make a cake unmistakably Hollywood: a clapper, a film reel, and lots and lots of stars. Check, check, check. Oh, a (gumpaste) plaque with a star with the celebrant’s name is a nice touch to have as well.

So far, cakes I’ve been requested to make have had very “reasonable” themes. If I had DJ friends, I probably would have already been through a Numark MixDeck cake challenge. Haha. Then again, we’ll never know. :)

Cheers!

And this is what I came up with…

It’s simple, yes, but it’s filled with luck. Good thing I know my way around Chinese symbols of blessings and luck.

Red and gold. The first two colors that naturally came to mind. Red is one of the hardest colors to achieve in fondant work, the other color is black. And because I didn’t want to knead 3-tiers worth of fondant to cover the cake, I took my chance with the Duff-brand of edible spray paint. Saved me a ton of time, a few blotches on the cake notwithstanding. I used 2 cans of red, maybe 3. And two cans of gold. I love the sparkly effect the spray paint gave the cake and the decorations.

For the cake topper, I made a gold fondant ingot.  I sent hubby (bless his heart) on a long and arduous search for gold chocolate coins. They seem to be everywhere when I don’t need them. But that one time that I did need them, they could not be found. Hubby found them at a party store.

Mystic knot, a symbol of a long and happy life filled with good fortune. I had to have this on the cake.

And finally, the golden dragon. 2012 is the year of the water dragon after all. I have to admit, I like how this came out.  Sorry, no silver bars from Golden Eagle on this cake! Haha!

My friend and the birthday celebrant loved the cake. *insert sigh of relief* What can I say? I work well under pressure. Haha!

Blessings, blessings, y’all! :)

Hubby celebrated his birthday on Thanksgiving week. He didn’t want a fondant birthday cake, bless his heart. He wanted either a cheesecake or tiramisu. I chose to make him a cheesecake. After all, almost always, we find ourselves at The Cheesecake Factory after celebratory dinners. I thought it would be nice to save ourselves some serious bucks. Ha! The big question was, what kind of cheesecake to make? I had a few options, Blueberry, Cappuccino and Fudge Truffle. I chose Fudge Truffle, that way, hubby gets his cheesecake and I get my chocolate fix. Win! Win! *wink*

I turned to my tried and tested Hershey’s recipe book for the recipe. For the chocolate cookie crust, I used Oreo cookies instead of the vanilla wafer cookies mixed with cocoa called for in the recipe book. It’s right to say then, that the cheesecake had an Oreo cookie crust.

INGREDIENTS:

OREO COOKIE CRUMB CRUST (recipe follows)

2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) HERSHEY’S SPECIAL DARK Chocolate Chips or HERSHEY’S Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (Note: By all means, please use your chocolate chips brand of choice!)
3  packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk)
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

1. Prepare Oreo Cookie Crumb Crust; set aside. Heat oven to 300°F.

2. Place chocolate chips in microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at medium (50%) for 1-1/2 minutes; stir. If necessary, microwave at medium an additional 15 seconds at a time, stirring after each heating, just until chips are melted when stirred.

3. Beat cream cheese in large bowl until fluffy. Gradually beat in sweetened condensed milk until smooth. Add melted chips, eggs and vanilla; mix well. Pour into prepared crust.

4. Bake 1 hour and 5 minutes or until center is still a little bit jiggly. Remove from oven to wire rack. With knife, loosen cake from side of pan. Cool completely; remove side of pan. Refrigerate several hours before serving. Garnish as desired.

OREO COOKIE CRUMB CRUST: Stir together 1-1/2 cups Oreo cookie crumbs (about 2/3 of a packaged tray of Oreos), 1/3 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa and 1/3 cup melted butter or margarine in medium bowl. Press firmly onto bottom of 9-inch springform pan.

You can find some very helpful tips, techniques and troubleshooting guide on the Hershey’s website.

We loved this cheesecake, specially my little girl! This is quite dense so go easy on the portions! This recipe is definitely a keeper. I haven’t made a cheesecake in a very long time. I’ve forgotten how simple (yet tricky!) it is to make. I am glad this one turned out to be a huge success. Yay!

Back to reality tomorrow. I hope y’all  had a wonderful Thanksgiving break as did we. I hope you’re all back safe and sound where you should be. :) Nobody wants to be bothered with rv repairs right smack in the middle of a vacation or a drive home (or to anywhere!).

Cheers, y’all and have a great week ahead!

Two of the landmarks are in the next photo. Please, please tell me you recognize them!

Try this next one…

This cake turned out be quite a learning experience for me, in more ways than one. Yes, it looks simple, but a lot of work went into it. In the end, it left me feeling, well, humbled.  I have to admit, this wasn’t my best work, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t give it my best effort.  *sigh*

This is a theme I’d use for a cake for my Mom, who herself was is a world traveler.  Hmm…

Cheers, y’all!

In July, a friend requested me to make her a birthday cake. She collects cuddly stuffed dolls, specifically, stuffed pigs. And for her birthday, she wanted a cake version of one of her favorite stuffed toys. She sent me photos of her cuddly toy/s in all angles.  This is what I came up with…

This was my first time to really carve a cake, small scale as it was. Sure, I’ve carved cake into mini bags, but those were regular shapes. I was a little bit nervous making this cake, but after a while, I became unusually and unbelievably calm and relaxed. I wish I could say the same for all my fun projects. Hee hee.

You have to love the suckling pigs! Yes to breastfeeding! Hee hee. :)

This is one of my favorite angles. Every pig has a curly tail, in my mind at least! :)

The pig, by the way, was carved from pound cake. It’s resting on an 8-inch chocolate cake. Yum-mee!

I love how this cake turned out. More so, I love how stress-free the cake decorating process went. So, I’ve so far made cake/fondant/gumpaste replicas of baby shoes, bags, princess dresses and just recently, a piano. What could be next?  Replica Ed Hardy? That should be interesting! Haha!

Have a great weekend, y’all! Cheers and mabuhay!

My daughter feels “cake envy” almost over each and every one of the birthday cakes for girls that I’ve created since her last birthday.  She thinks they’re better than the birthday cakes I made for her. Well, I know where she’s coming from. I had to explain that over time, I get better and better at what I do. Still, I feel guilty…always.  So I promised her an awesome birthday cake, one that is supposed to be my best cake yet. How’s that for a tall order?

For my girl’s 7th birthday birthday cake, I attempted to make my first topsy turvy cake, which also happened to be my first 3-tier cake…

I can’t even begin to tell you how hard I worked on this cake.  It isn’t perfect but I love love how everything came together!  The cake had a dance theme with a little sprinkling of glitz and glam. How fun and exciting is that?!

The top and bottom tiers were mocha chiffon, while the middle tier was chocolate.  My daughter did wish that it was the other way around – chocolate for the top and bottom tiers and mocha for the middle tier. But more people like the mocha chiffon! She could have had the middle tier all to herself! Hee hee. Oh well.

To add a little more of that dance vibe and feel, I had two blinking lights pointed at the cake.

I’m happy I was able to pull this one off. I got through the day with only an hour of sleep. I wouldn’t mind (ever!) challenging myself again for my daughter’s next birthday cake. :)

Cheers, y’all! Mabuhay!