Cars

The Pixar movie "Cars" has got to be on the Top Ten List for all children under the age of six - of course, my kids and several of their friends are no exception. In the last three months I have made TWO Lightning McQueen cakes as gifts to two very Car-lovin' boys.


I want to dedicate this first cake to my Wilton instructor, Miss Veronica. Even though I only made it to half of the classes, I gleaned a lot of helpful information that made this cake a success. So, thanks for letting an exhausted 3rd trimester pregnant student in to your class with her lopsided cakes and poorly mixed icing. Oh, and happy birthday, Owen!

The second cake was for our friend and neighbor Cameron - I used the frozen buttercream transfer method (FBCT - see this previous post for details of method):


Finding just the right picture for this cake was tough - none of the online coloring pages had just what I was looking for. I eventually ended up just printing an image of a Cars birthday invitation and used it as a stencil. Thankfully, the birthday boy enjoyed seeing both McQueen and Tow Mater on his cake, making all of the extra effort worthwhile. :)

So there are the Cars cakes... I think I've filled my vehicle cake quota for a while.

KA-CHOW!!!

Frozen Buttercream Transfers: The New Frontier

It's been a while since I've posted. It's been pretty busy around here with two kids, and with the summer quickly approaching we have a lot of celebrations, birthdays, and travel coming up. Time for blogging is scarce and often used to wash dishes and potty train, but I wanted to be sure to post about a recent cake decorating revelation that I hope will inspire a few of you to try in the meantime: frozen buttercream transfers.

A FBCT is a way to trace a design with icing and after it freezes can be transferred to a cake. This is great because it doesn't require drawing freehand on a cake (can we say anxiety attack?) and you can also make it a day or two in advance and keep in the freezer until you need it.

I was actually pretty worried that it wouldn't work or that it would be incredibly difficult. I was wrong on both accounts: It was one of the fastest cakes I've ever decorated with some pretty impressive results.



I won't hash out all of the details, but I will post a link to some great instructions that I found very helpful on Cake Central:

How to Create a Frozen Buttercream Transfer

Some tips I would want to share:

1) Definitely purchase a tube of Wilton black icing along with a #2 Wilton icing tip (very small circle) and coupler. This will probably put you back about $5-7, but it will give you a cleaner image and will be the biggest investment for the project. Plus, the tubes last a long time so you can reuse it for more projects.

2) I just used canned frosting to fill in the image instead of making my own FBCT icing. I guess the benefit of making your own is that the fat content is so high that it doesn't stick to the wax/parchment paper, but I found that the generic canned stuff worked just fine.

3) After filling in the color to the image, gently but firmly tap the image a few times on a flat surface to help remove air bubbles in the icing. I didn't do this and ended up with little air bubbles in the image - not a big deal, but it would have helped clean up the finished product.

4) When you are done tracing/filling in your FBCT image, be sure NOT TO SKIP re-covering your image with more white icing (or whatever color is going to match your cake), and be sure that the extra icing extends a good 1/4 to 1/2 inch past your image on all sides. The edges of the transfer will stick a little and this will keep you from distorting the image that you just worked so hard on.

Good luck! I would love to hear if you try your own transfers!

The happy birthday girl

A birthday cake fit for a princess

One of my long time friends, Rachel, has a daughter who just turned four years old. For her birthday, she requested a princess cake - so Rachel decided to hire me for the task. Rachel, her daughter, and I put our heads together and after some internet searching for photo inspiration (other cakes, mainly) decided on a Cinderella castle cake.

(Gulp.)
Deep breath. Hoo boy.

This was by far going to be the most challenging cake I had ever made. Of course, I wasn't going to make an exact replica (I'm not suicidal), but I wanted it to be recognizable. The kicker: due to unforeseen circumstances I was going to have less than two days to make it. YIPES. I had been counting on a week.

One immediate decision was to forego making the turrets and spires by hand using ice cream cones and cardboard tubes (yes, you can do it and someday I will... maybe). For the sake of time, I bit the bullet and decided to go ahead and buy the Wilton Castle Cake kit, which is basically just plastic turrets/spires/roof/door/windows. Thankfully I found it on sale - yes! Whew, that was going to cut down on about 2 days of work. (Keep in mind that I have to do my cakes while G-Bug is usually napping/sleeping or she tries to sneak bites of the "cookie" = anything sweet.)

Now, I had already decided that I wanted the castle covered in little pink blossoms (hel-LO, it's a princess cake!!). So, with the help of my trusty blossom plunger, fondant, white nonperiels sprinkles, and sugar glue....
Ah... God bless the man who invented flower plungers.

Okay, I didn't take many pictures of the actual cake making/icing/fondant covering because - honestly - I didn't have the time to grab the camera. Just use your imaginations. :)

BUT I did get a shot of the pre-fondant turrets - I took this after my dear friend Jen (who came over to help with G-Bug) helped me decide on the placement to maximize visual appeal.

She did a pretty good job, huh?

Okay, I had to break after that for G-Bug's sake - you can see that his part was finished while it was still light outside. Once she went down for the night, it was time to get down to business:

Several hours of grumbling, mixing, cutting, wrapping, dusting, and pasting later:
Hmm... not bad. WAIT. The door is too big!!! DOH!!!!

I used a new chocolate cake recipe and it fell significantly after it came out of the oven. To make it worse, when I inserted one of the top turrets into the cake, the side bulged out and cracked the fondant covering. I almost cried, but I decided it was too late to worry about it and maybe I could decorate it in a way that it wouldn't be noticable tomorrow.

The next morning:
Well, the flowers were definitely a nice touch, and I think it actually made the door look nice. But the castle still seems like it needs a little more UMPH. So... let's make a few more fondant windows for the turrets.

Now THAT's better. Oh, and a "flower vine" to disguise the crack... (hoping no one will notice the huge thumbprint right next to it from trying to save the cake)

And... voila! A cake fit for a princess!

Happy birthday, Hannah - Aunt Donna loves you.
And now she needs a nap.