It's not easy...being green

For my niece's 13th birthday we had a lot of discussion about Hello Kitty cake.

And at the last minute, somehow Kermit got thrown in the mix.

Man. I looked at tons of Kermit pics. Tough.

What did it though, was when I found a 3D Kermit cake from a British Site, and then I was finally able to conceptualize it!

I used rice crispies to make the inside of his body and head, so that everything stayed edible.

One of the best parts of this cake, though, was that it was a checkerboard cake! One of my favorites. The pans came with a tasty recipe too! Sort of tastes like a sugar cookie cake. Yum!

But, the best part, is that we can use fun colored batter together for an awesome look!

This was definitely a fun one :)

Pink Overload!

K's second birthday. 

She's barely two.

It's not like she understands or cares about a theme. 

She doesn't even have a favorite color.

But, I had a brilliant idea for how to make a crown cake. 

So I went with the princess theme.

(This may or may not have influenced a 2.5 year obsession with pink. So much so that for a while she said her name was K Pink!)

So...a princess theme...

With the invitation and door decoration....

and the pepto table!

But, I really enjoyed making this cake!

The jewels on the front were actually scrapbook decorations b/c they were easy :)

I also experimented with silver dusting powder. I mixed it with lemon extract and painted it on. For the first time, not too bad.

and of course, K absolutely loved it all!

But I doubt our next kids parties will ever have that much pink! Blech! ;)

Polkanuts

Polkanuts. :)

That's what Kylie used to call polkadots. I asked her to say it yesterday...and it was just regular ol' polkadots :(

But, polkadots is what Momo told me Danielle liked when we decided to make her a birthday cake. I took her favorite colors, the only pans I had and whipped this up:

I didn't know about putting balls/beads around the base to cover the bottoms so I found some raffia that matched and voila! Unsmoothed bottoms hidden!

Which also caused people to think that this was a hat. 

Which I now agree. 

By this time, I had figured out that an under layer of frosting was necessary and this cake is definitely smoother than the first one!

Red, White and Yum!

I don't remember if these cakes were made for a Memorial Day or July 4th BBQ. 

I do know the first two were at my mom's house.

This was her first time seeing me make the fondant. It can get.... messy :)

She is not a messy person in the slightest. Hee hee. 

The reason the fondant looks so shiny is that my water ran when I attached the stars, and I ended up painting the whole thing to keep it uniform. Some people like to buff their fondant with a little Crisco for the same effect (would have been nice to know then!)

This cake was made a year or two later, but with the same awesome Texas pan. I honestly don't remember why we made it though. Momo would know. She helped :)

Patriotic fun is always pretty... just like this cake that I will try as soon as I'm reunited with my baking equipment!

Varied assortment

These next cakes ... well ... I'm just not sure when I made them. I know the house I made them in, so I know they were all within a year and a half period...but that's not too helpful...

Anyway, this first one was made for one of my 5th grade music classes. They were a little depressed that the other 5th graders got to do a lot of special things (math comps, regional science fair, etc.) and they got nothing. So, since they were one of my better classes, I decided to have a celebration with cake of their awesomeness. 

I remember making the school's logo the morning of (procrastinate much?) and using a toothpick to dab on fluffy frosting to make the words. Seriously. I'm not too fond of the giant slab of fondant I just slapped on the fluffy frosting though.... but all in all, it was fun. I even had the inside layers in red and blue (school colors.)

Next is a cake a coworker asked me to make for her sons' birthdays. They were having a knight theme and she had seen my previous dragon cake and asked if I could do something for them. This was the first paid cake ever :) WOOHOO! 

It was fun to make but also had the same problem of differently shaped pans. But you already saw that, didn't you? ;)

Lastly was a fun cake! Our friend's birthday was coming up and we asked her about her favorite flavor of cake. She told us that her mom made her a koolaid cake once. That's right. Flavored cake! 

My friend and I decided this was a great time to bust out the checkered pan and make three different flavors: Cherry, Orange, and Grape. 

Well... we probably shouldn't have used the entire packet in only a third of the cake batter. It was tangy. Really tangy. But everyone was nice and ate it anyway :)

Will be posting more from the past in the morning!

Chinese Dragon Cake

My sister-in-law asked me if I thought I could make a dragon cake for my niece's 12th birthday. I did a little googling and found some really great ones, but thought the Chinese Dragon looked the easiest. It also turned out that the Asian Lung Dragon was her favorite from her Dragonology book. 

So, a little prepping, and a few bowls of green frosting and fondant later....

Can you tell I had two differently shaped Bundt pans?? 

Probably not 'til I mentioned, right? ;)

Mario's sidekicks...

My next attempt at cakery came when my husband announced that he *had* to bring something to a bake sale for his college's fundraiser and I found a cupcake competition online. 

I just knew this was a perfect excuse to be creative!

So I decided to hit up some Nintendo supporting characters (and candies) for help:

1 up and Super Shroom 

 Adding in some Koopa Shells

This goomba was made from microwaving a tootsie roll, stretching it over, and adding some iced details.

 Petey Piranha- chomp chomp! 

 Packaged, ready for transport

I *love* Kirby!!

Okay...so he's not on Mario Bros. but I couldn't help it - the inspiration bug hit!

 Kirby, Coins, and an Invincibility Star

So that's what I made for his bake sale. And the online contest.

Only I misread the deadline as midnight, not noon, and missed entering by 1.5 hours. 

I was a little peeved. 

But at least the cupcakes were still well received :)

The very first one

This was my very first attempt at fondant. I found a recipe for the homemade marshmallow fondant and decided to make a cake for my daughter's first birthday.

While the fondant turned out well, I hadn't bothered to learn about plain ol' icing's role...

The site I used said I could use a jam spread, and while it kept it on the cake, it certainly did nothing for it's smoothness....and you can see where the strawberries oozed a little under the butterfly and roses. 

But, we are nothing if we don't learn from the past - so, here it is :)

That poor cake...

1 year olds don't care what they look like though!

Here was K's 'smash' cake. I'm a terrible mom. I didn't want her having all that sugar from the frosting... she might be the only kid who never put her hands near the cake though!

And, while we're on topic...

Here she is looking cute at the party.

This is also the first time I used my favorite white cake recipe. I'll get around to posting that as well.