I am not a professional baker, but I sure love to make themed cakes, aka crazy cake art. Each year I’ve made my kid’s birthday cake. What I lack in precision skills I make up for by trying to get real creative.
Barn Owl Cake
I made this for my mother’s 80th birthday as she loves owls and I wanted to do something more realistic. I found a great example and guide from Gloverly Cupcakes.
It is all chocolate cake and a lot of fondant/modeling chocolate. Got a tree texture mold which worked quickly to get that effect on the stump. I did do a lot of painting to get strong accents. Leaves are fondant/modeling chocolate. Overall, my best sculpture cake to date.
Halloween Cake Pops / Truffles
Made from left over cake I keep in my freezer (see Red Pyramid cake below). Pumpkins are spice cake with maple buttercream frosting. Poison apples are chocolate cake with a chocolate swiss meringue frosting and a bit of raspberry. I separate out the cake parts from the frosting parts first, to make sure I mix the right ratios.
Unicorn Mermaid Sitting on a Turtle
Upping my sculpted cake game based on a rather random request for a birthday themed cake. We starting with the idea of a unicorn cake, but that was so done a million times over. She threw in the “sitting on the turtle” for me, because I love sea turtles.
The unicorn head I sculpted rice cereal treat mix and modeling chocolate. I ended up have to keep it frozen (horse head in my freezer) otherwise it started to pull apart from the weight. But, it made it through the party which is what counts.
I bought a unicorn cake set of horn, ears, eyelashes. Also got some silicon flower molds and fancy sprinkles help jazz it up. I made the tail from a mermaid mold set, but added to it to make it larger.
Star Wars Darth Vader Cake 1
We are big Star Wars fans in my family, so this was super fun themed cake to make. I did a lot of “hacks” to make this come together – as in I purchased certain items. I’m not a “everything from scratch” kind of decorator. Take the help where you can get it.
Both the Darth Vader head – it is hard plastic and “breathes”. Also bought the little light sabers – they are basically cupcake toppers. I bought some Star Wars cookie cutters (originally from William Sonoma, but they don’t have the exact ones I used anymore). These had a plunger with the details that press in – and used that on fondant. Then hand painted the colors. The little storm troopers along the bottom I purchased (shipped from UK). They are sugar prints.
Star Wars Darth Vader Cake 2
Since I had all this Star Wars stuff and we are such big fans, I decided to use it all again to make a themed cake for my husbands 50th. I did some different things . I use a mirror glaze galaxy coating for the cake. That stuff is sticky though and really hard to put fondant cut outs on. They slide off, so you have to only put them long the bottom. Gravity is not your friend. Also got some dark metallic sprinkles to bedazzle Darth.
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
This was my first sculpted cake – so please be kind. Initially the Mickey head was perfectly round, but I had to transport it and it was heavy, so it flattened where I had put it on a paper plate. Oh well. It’s still cute. And I thought the big shoe turned out well.
Minnie Mouse and Jake/Octonaut Mashup Cakes
Just a couple of the first themed cakes for kiddo in the early years. I did make them myself with some purchases. It’s pretty easy to get sugar sheet print outs of just about anything these days.
Various
Sometimes dear friends or family ask me the favor of a party cake. And if they do, they know I will likely be trying something creative out. The Big Coconut Cake was for a charity dinner about a half sheet. I wanted to try doing those meringue cookies – I tried to flavor it with jello -but it didn’t really work. Pretty though.
I got a bunch of new petal molds, so the Flower Birthday cake is all hand made edible flowers from modeling chocolate.
The Tsum Tsum cup cakes were just for fun. Just fondant cutouts really.
