Curious George Cake

When the weather finally warms up kids of all ages want to get outside
and play in the water. In central Alabama a May birthday party is a
perfect excuse to do just that.

When Melissa emailed me to request a Curious George birthday cake for
her daughter and son's birthday party at the local splash pad she had
only one requirement. I had to include the colors, red, blue and
yellow. With so few instructions took me a while to come up with a
design idea.

I knew I didn't want the cake to be a standard two tier. I really
wanted a "wow" factor. When the design concept finally came to me I
was more than a little worried I wouldn't be able to pull it off. Not
wanting to make promises I couldn't keep I asked Melissa if she was
willing to let the cake design be a surprise. She graciously agreed.

Houndstooth Hat Cake

Strawberry Shortcake Cake

This past weekend I had the honor of making Miss Lauren's 3rd birthday cake. Lauren is a big Strawberry Shortcake fan and wanted a cake that showed off her love for this classic character. A recent trend in today's cakes is to have a small center cake and surround it with coordinating cupcakes. I kicked this concept into high gear and made a huge strawberry cake and planted a cupcake strawberry patch all around.

The center strawberry was made using the standard Barbie dress pan. I slightly shaved one side of the cake so it would lay on its side. The bottom of the pan does not come to a point so I made up the difference with red fondant. I iced the entire strawberry and and covered with red fondant. I used the rounded edge of a smallish paint brush to make the "seeds." I also formed the small strawberries out of fondant and allowed them to set up over night.

The leaves were free handed out of leaf green (Wilton gel color) fondant and placed on the large berry. I used water to make them stick. If placed just right the leaves are handy for covering any flaws in the fondant. In my experience I have found an inexpensive set of sponge rollers (never used on hair of course) is an invaluable tool for giving fondant a realistic depth and shape. The "three" was cut from fondant that had been mixed with a small amount of Wilton Gum Tex and was allowed to dry. The actual Strawberry Shortcake character was purchased from a major chain store. I made one out of gum paste and I like it, but because the cake was for a child and she is accustomed to a specific look I decided to go with the plastic character and Lauren gets a small toy to remind her of her 3rd birthday cake.

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Spring Flowers Cake

Elegant and understated. I believe that is a fitting discription for this particular cake. The truth is I don't often get requests for cakes of this style. But I love making them. This particular cake is decadent chocolate with classic buttercream frosting. Gumpaste flowers and verdant buttercream stems adorn both tiers.

The flowers should be made well in advance.

Party Hat Cake

No birthday party is complete with out a party hat. Four year old Emma's tea party birthday is no exception, however a fancy party requires a fancy party hat and a fancy cake. Emma's mom requested I combine the two. I think it turned out splendidly.




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A cake for our Princess Cinderella

I've written about my sister, Rebecca in previous posts. She is the light of our family. This past December our "joy child" (as our mom referred to her when she was little) turned sixteen. As you may recall Becca has Down Syndrome, so while she may be sixteen years old she doesn't necessarily enjoy the same things as a typical girl her age.

Specifically, she loves a good princess and Cinderella is one of her favorites. When it came time to design her cake I didn't want it to be a literal Cinderella design. I wanted it to be more age appropriate with "Cinderella-esque" undertones. To that end I borrowed the colors of the character's ball gown as well as the draping from that dress. The "bubbles" are reminiscent of the soap bubbles from the movie. And of course, no princess is complete with out her crown. I added the "R" initial to make it unique for Rebecca.

To help with the visual, here is our princess, Becca:






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SpongeBob!

I confess. On rare occasions I'm wrong. I remember watching the first ever episode of "Spongebob Squarepants" with my husband and our oldest daughter, Katie. When the credits started rolling I jumped to my feet and announced "there is no way anyone is ever going to watch such a ridiculous cartoon, I give it a month before it's off the air." Now, here I am, more than a decade later creating Spongbob out of cake.

Despite my personal feelings for the charater I actually had a great time working on this cake. I love a creative challenge. The next time I get to make one I will make him taller. I was unsure about the inner support and wanted to be sure the cake wouldn't be too top heavy. Turns out I could have doubled his height with no negative consequences.



His body is vanilla cake iced in both vanilla and chocolate buttercream.

If any reader would like tips on how to recreate this, or any of my cakes, leave me a comment and I'll be happy to help. I'm entirely self taught and would love to help someone else with their cake endeavors.

This was not my first Spongbob. Here's a peek at my first attempt:


I made this one for my son's second birthday.

Oh, Deer! Cake

For those fortunate enough to have been born and raised in the Southern States of America this cake requires no explanation.

Now, for those of you cocking your head to the side and suppressing a shudder, allow me to explain: Southern boys hunt. They will hunt turkeys, wild boars, racoons, women and even the occasional rabbit if life proves too dull. However, no day of the year (not their own wedding, nor the birth of their first born*) is more anticipated than opening day of deer season. Therefore, it only stands to reason, that few days are less looked forward to than the last day of deer hunting.**

In the great state of Alabama that day of mourning was just a week ago. So it came as no surprise to me when the call came in asking me to create a deer/hunting cake for an avid hunter's 21st birthday.

Here's the cake breakdown:

Two nine inch layers of vanilla cake frosted with almond vanilla buttercream in a camo pattern.

The deer head is carved from vanilla cake and also coated in buttercream. The antlers are buttcream also. This cake is one of my rare fondant free creations.

*It must be noted that no true Southern woman would ever plan her wedding during hunting season. Nor would she intentionally concieve a child who would be born during this time of year, although accidents do happen.

**This day is, however greatly appriciated by the hunters' wives and/or girlfriends.

Tim Burton inspired a cake

My daughter, Katie, turned 13 last week. I knew when we sat down to disscuss possible cake designs she wouldn't want a girly, fru-fru cake. That's just not my Katie. We passed ideas back and forth and finally decided on a Tim Burton-ish style.

Katie then, much to my chargin, requested the cake be topsy-turvy. Prior to this cake I had never attempted one of these gravity defying confections, and I was more than a little worried I wouldn't be able to pull it off. In the end I decided as long as the cake was only two tiers I would attempt the fête.

Here is the breakdown of the cake:

Bottom Tier: Two 9 inch layers of decadent chocolate cake frosted in vanilla buttercream icing. Vines and leaves are chocolate icing dyed black.

Top Tier: Two 6 inch layers of vanilla cake coated in chocolate buttercream, also dyed black. The spiderweb was freehanded using the vanilla buttercream.

The mountain and moon were made well in advance out of gumpaste. It is important to give gumpaste items plenty of time to dry out.


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Hannah's Puppy Cake

When I asked our niece, Hannah, what kind of cake she wanted for her fifth birthday she was quick to tell me she wanted a puppy cake. Everyone who knows her knows that Hannah is so cute that you really have no choice but to give her exactly what she asks for. So I did.

Puppy cake breakdown:

The body was made using a standard Barbie dress pan.

The head and paws were formed from cereal treats

And everything got a coat of vanilla buttercream prior to being covered in fondant. The details are also out of fonfant.

Hannah took great joy in eating the tounge. I took great joy in knowing that she loved her cake.





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Darth Vader

Darth Vader, need I say more?
Unlike many of my cake creations I was confident of my ability to bring one of sci-fi's greatest villians to life in the form of cake. And I was thrilled with how he turned out.

I confess to having a geeky side to my personality, and I actually like the "Star Wars" movies a lot. But my appreciation of the films is miniscule when compared to my husbands love of them. I knew going in that Ben would be a tough critic of this particular design. So I knew the cake was a success when he threatened not to let it leave the house.

Darth Vader breakdown:

Cake: 2 eight inch round layers with the dome layer on top.

Icing: Dirty iced with vanilla buttercream. Covered in fondant, airbrushed black.

Embellishments: the helmet flair and the "mouth" are made with rice crispy treats.


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I love the 80's

If the 80's decade played out for you anything like it happened for
me then you spent more time than you should have desparately trying to figure out the Rubic's Cube. You know, without peeling off the stickers.

When a friend of mine asked me to make a Rubic's Cube cake for her brother's rehersal dinner I wasn't really expecting it to be all that difficult. For some reason, despite my top of the line education, I completely neglected to remind myself that a cube is just that; a cube. All sides are equal. It's height is the same as it's width and depth.

I did eventually remember this troublesome mathmatical fact, but not before I had put the fondant on the cake. It wasn't until I started trying to place the colored squares on the cube (well, the cube that wasn't actually yet a cube) that I realized I was going to have to shave part of the cake off and redo the fondant. After that minor fiasco it was just a matter of painting the squares. It should also be noted that when you are making a Rubic's Cube cake even though you will never see the underside of the cake it must be taken into consideration when adding the colors. I remembered just in the nick of time to save my Rubic's Cube from a missing color.

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Maura's Birthday Castle

Maura turned five last week. And every little girl deserves a castle on her birthday. I love making castle cakes. They're actually quite simple. This one was three 9 inch layers covered in fondant "blocks" with matching buttercream piped between the fondant. The towers were made out of rice crispy treats. I made these the night before so they would have time to set up before I coated them in a thin layer of buttercream and wrapped them in fondant. The tops if the towers are the standard upside down ice cream cones that I decorated with fondant. The final touch was the flower vines, loved them on the Dragon Castle and I love them on this one too. Hope you like it!

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Lego my Legos Cake

**I have gotten several hits from a reader in the United Kingdom on this particular posting. I can only assume you are planning on recreating this cake. If you would like any help from me you are welcome to email me at cakesbyamybeth@aol.com. I'd be happy to give you some pointers. Have a great day. Amy**






My son, Wil (previously mentioned in the "Luau" post) turned six in August. I can't remember a time when Wil didn't love taking things apart and putting them back together. Puzzels, train sets, forts constructed out of kitchen chairs and blankets, and of course the childhood staple...Legos.

Give my boy a box of the tiny plastic blocks (sorry, I have a horrible habit of unintentional rhyming when I talk, it apparently translates into blogging too. I'm gonna have to watch that). Anyway, let's just say Wil can spend hours playing with Legos. So I wasn't the least bit surprised when he told me he wanted a Lego birthday cake.

The cake is pretty easy to construct. I made two half sheet cakes. And using templates I made out of card board, I cut three different sized blocks with at least two of each size. The individual blocks can be of varying lengths but it is very important to make certain they are all the same height.

Once the "blocks" are covered with fondant you might want to give them a chance to set up then stack them any way you want. I made the "dots" out of fondant using a small round cutter.

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Luau!

I love this cake. It is one of my favorites. Often when I'm trying to determine a design concept for a cake I'll take inspiration from pictures of other peoples' cakes. However, as I'm sure you can imagine, when you Google "pinapple cake" you only get picures of pinapple upside down cakes. With the exception of the occasional Spongbob cake I believe I may be the only person to ever make a pinapple shaped cake.

It all started when I began planning my kids' birthday party. Gracie (turning 7 at the time) and Wil (turning 5) were both born in August. Wil the second and Gracie the twenty-eighth. So my plan that year was to have a joint birthday luau in the middle of the month. Because I didn't want to bake two different cakes (been there, done that) I was trying to come up with a gender nutural tropical cake idea and when "pineapple" came to mind I couldn't not give it a try. The cake itself was pretty simple. Four layers carves into the general shape of a rather large pinapple. When I had the shape right I put light green buttercream on one side of a piping bag and yellow/orange on the other side. I then piped the individual "squares." Once the buttercream had set up I went back with a soft paint brush I painted between the squares with brown food coloring.

Now, on to the hard part. The leaves. It was a nightmare trying to figure out how to get them to stand up. In the end after much trial and error my sister, Thilia and I found a way to hang the leaves upside down and flair them out so they could harden. It was worth every frustrating minute. This was the second time I was completely satisfied with how the cake turned out.




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Becca Recca Crew

My little sister, Becca, is one of my favorite people in the whole world. She starts each and every day with no anger, no disappointment, no bitterness. Every day is fresh and full of possibilities.

To some in this world the only thing they see when they look at my sister is that she was born with a genetic defect. She has Down Syndrome.

Personally, I think she is what the rest of us should aspire to be. She gets mad, but she doesn't stay mad. Holding a grudge is a concept she doesn't understand. Becca has to work so much harder than the rest of us to make even small accomplishments, but it doesn't occur to her to give up. She just keeps on trying.

Last year Becca Recca Crew (my pet name for her and every time I call her that she says, "Amy, I'm Rebecca Lynn" as though I never knew her name and we haven't had the same conversation five hundred times) turned fifteen. When I asked her what kind of cake she would like she told me she wanted a mermaid cake. I can't say that I was surprised. Becca, myself and our sister, Boo, all share a love of Disney's "The Little Mermaid." If you see the three of us together chances are that we have been, or soon will be singing "look at this trough, treasures untold, how many wonders can one cavern hold?" At the end of that song Ariel is singing on a rock with waves crashing all around her.

It's an iconic scene from the movie. And one of our favorite parts of "The Little Mermaid." So I recreated it in cake. It's one of my favs. Obviously Ariel is a doll, but each of the scales were individually applied by hand. The rock and waves are iced in buttercream. The white caps were made using royal icing at a slightly runny consistancy and applied with a soft paint brush.





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Princess Dragon

Our niece, Hannah, will soon be celebrating her fifth birthday. Later this month, for the third year in a row, I will hijack (I say "hijack" because I don't really give Kerrie and Ryan a choice in the matter) the priviledge of designing and creating this precious little girl's birthday cake. As the day of her party approaches I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to improve upon last year's cake specimen.

The Princess Dragon's Castle cake had been in the back of my mind for months prior to Hannah's birthday. I couldn't wait to make it come to life, so to speak. I about drove myself and my very patient husband crazy trying to figure out how I was going to make the castle's torrents. I finally decided to line soup cans with parchment paper and bake the cake batter in them. And it worked. Mostly. Unfortunately, they didn't bake as evenly as I would have liked. Each one ended up being just cone shaped enough that they required adjusting. This ment I would have to cut each one in half and bake four more so I could stack them on top of eachother. After cutting of the corners of the cake to fit the shape of the torrents the fun part started [it's a dang shame sarcasm doesn't easily show through in the typed word]. I cut each and every one of the "bricks" by hand (except for the four or five Ben [my ever supportive spouse] turned out for me. It took me longer to apply the bricks than I would have liked. My original plan called for the roof of the castle to be covered in the fondant tiles, just like the sides. The more work I did on it the less I liked. So I turned it into a rooftop garden. I don't regret the choice.

The best part of the cake, in my opinion (and Hannah's), was the sparkling pink dragon. The picture doesn't do the sparkles justice. She, I think pink definitly says "I'm a girl dragon," was hand shaped out of fondant several days before the cake. This allowed the fondant to firm up.

At the party my husband's eighty-something year old grandmother was admiring the cake (did I mention that I love this woman). She looks over at me and asks, "So, did you bake a sheet cake and use a biscuit cutter to make the round corners? You are so smart and talented. " Oh My Stars! Are you kidding me? You could have knocked me down with a feather. I spent hours working on those stupid things, HOW DID I NOT THINK OF THAT?! Naturally, I just smiled and thanked her.





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Better Late Than Never

Obviously I have been seriously neglecting my blog. Yes, Again. I wish I could claim that my life is so busy, and interesting that I haven't had the time, but that would be misleading. Actually, that would be a flat out lie. My life has been blessedly dull, I just keep puttin' off writing. However, since I can post from my phone, maybe I will do better. Now, on to the cakes.

In case you've been living in a cave you know that football season is upon us. Apparently, at least for me, that means a lot of football themed cakes.





















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Savannah!

Our dearest friends, the Hallock family, drove all the from Kansas to spend a few days with us in central Alabama. I had been promising Savannah that I would make her a cake. Apparently, getting a "Cake by AmyBeth" was a big deal to this precocious little girl. Naturally, I had to oblige. I originally intended to cover the cake in white fondant, rather than buttercream, but due to time constraints I eighty-sixed that idea. In the end only the flowers, stems and leaves, and "dots" are made of MM fondant. The best part for me was that Savannah got to help make the decorations for her cake. Personally, I think she's a natural and I can't wait until her family moves to the Heart of Dixie so I can recruit Vannah to be my sous chef!

It's been too long

I'm so SORRY, I haven't posted sooner. I will try to do better in the future. No guarentees though. As you may have noticed, my favorite season is finally here. SUMMER!!!! I live for it. All winter I long for it to be June. This year I had a little reprieve early in the year. Gigi, one of my favorite clients, (hope you don't mind that I use your name, but it's on the cake anyway) decided that her birthday party would have a tropical theme. And what says "tropical" more than a tiki hut? Not much in my opininon. The bottom is a standard quarter sheet cake and the hut is several layers plus a roof. Lets talk about the roof. Oh my goodness, I thought my fingers were going to fall off. By the time I was finished stringing every individual piece of "straw," my hands were screaming in protest. But it was so worth it. I love the final look. This cake is all about details. Everything you see (with the single exception of the umbrella pole) was edible. The surf board was a last minute addition. I had to figure out what could fill up that space when I couldn't get a palm tree to cooporate with me. My airbrush came in handy. All in all, I was thrilled with this cake. It's my dad's all time favorite. When he saw this one, he said, "you really are good at that cake thing." Apparently, all the cakes I've made prior to this one had not convinced him that I had any real talent. He lucky I love him so much.