Crossword Puzzle Cake

The celebration, a man turns 90!  One of his favorite activities is to work on crossword puzzles.  So, I was asked to create a crossword puzzle cake.

The cake is 1/2 sheet of lemon poppy seed with lemon frosting.  I made the "paper" our of fondant ahead of time, so that I could simply set it on top when the cake was frosted and ready to go.  I used the header from the paper in the mans home town, and used the date of the party.  The crossword is filled with things he loves most.  Things like cribbage, birds, woodwork, family, friends, 13 children, etc.  He was also in the navy, so I put an anchor in the center of the puzzle with the blacked out spaces.  The crossword itself is actually drawn on a sheet of fondant with an edible marker.  The words "News-Herald" were cut out of black fondant and the teal line is cut out of fondant as well.  The rest of the heading was drawn.  I curled up one corner and added a few more pieces of fondant to make it look as if the corner of the paper had been rolled.  I placed black jelly beans around the exterior as this was another favorite of the birthday boy. 

Final touch was the pen.  It too is edible, made out of fondant.

In the box and ready to go.  This was not the only cake in this particular order.  I was also asked to design a birdhouse cake modeled after a birdhouse the birthday boy himself had made.  That will be my next post.

Camouflage Cupcakes

As I mentioned, my brother-in-law serves in the MN National Guard.  The logo is the red bull.  So for the cupcakes (to accompany the soldier cake) I used the logo to be placed on top.  I first printed out the logo...next time I'll print a sheet full of the logo so that I don't have to move the paper quite so often.

I melted candy melts (red first) and used filled the squeeze bottle.  A piping bag would work just fine, but using the bottle, I am able to stop flow a lot quicker. 

I placed the logo under a piece of waxed paper and piped the red chocolate.

I did this for 60 bulls. 

Then I came back and filled in the black portion of the logo with dark cocoa candy melts.  You can lay this chocolate right on top of the red, but move quickly so you aren't moving it around much once the red has remelted due to the hot chocolate on top.  Be sure to fill well to reduce the number of air bubbles.

When you peel it off the wax paper you will have your design. 

I was able to stack them with wax paper in between in a 9 x 13 cake pan with lid.  I kept it in a cool spot until I needed them (about a week), but I'm pretty sure you could do these months ahead of time.

 Two days before the event.  I made some vanilla cake batter and left 1/3 as is, added a bit of cocoa powder to another 1/3 and added even more cocoa powder to the last 1/3.  I now had 3 different shades of brown. You could use greens and browns if you wanted, but since Alex will be serving in the desert, I wanted to go with desert camouflage.  I put the three colors of batter into three piping bags (I suppose you could use a spoon, this just seemed easier).

I used the piping bags to fill a little of each color into each cup.  I didn't really follow any particular pattern, simply tried to keep like colors away from like colors. 

 This is what they looked like after baking.  Pretty subtle, but I was pleased.

 The day of the event.  I made some white icing (maybe tan would have been better) and piped a swirl on top of each with the 1M tip.  I placed my chocolate logo on top.

I lined them up like little soldiers.  I was very pleased with the overall look...and they tasted even better!

Soldier Cake

A little background on this one.  I have been either dating, engaged, or married to my husband for eleven years now.  That means that his siblings are also mine, I have watched them grow into wonderful people.  I have spent many hours with them.  My brother-in-law, Alex, is an entertainer - boy would he hate me putting that in my blog :).   But it is true, he is always making others laugh!  One of my most vivid memories with him and my husband was at a family friends pool.  The two of them were slowly coming out of the water with eyes wide open like soldiers.

Fast forward a few short years later and Alex has now become a real soldier, and is currently protecting us in Kuwait.  His mom asked if I would make a cake and cupcakes for his going away party.  My first thought was an inside joke that no one else would understand and would leave everyone with a lot of questions.  My second thought was to make a cake that looks like a soldiers head emerging out of water.  The cupcakes would be camouflage with the logo of the MN National Guard (whom he serves with) made out of chocolate placed on top.  The cupcakes are coming in a following post.  Here is how I made the cake.

I obtained a manican head and covered it in plastic wrap.  I wrapped some foil around some paper towels to make the brim of the hat.  I wanted to make the hat about a week in advance so that it would dry hard and it could simply be placed on the cake last minute. 

I covered this foil and head with wax paper so that the hat would (hopefully) pull right off when it was dry.

I rolled out some fondant and placed it over the top of the wax paper, cutting and shaping as I went.  This is what I got. 

I hated it!  I stared at it for a good while trying to decide if I could make changes so that I did like it.  I decided that this was kind of the focal point of the cake, and I better be happy with it.  So, I rolled it up and made it back into a ball.  I lowered the foil/paper towel so that the hat would be a bit larger and the brim would sit lower.  I repeated the steps above to prepare the head for a second attempt.

I colored the fondant tan so that it would be easier to add color to.  I also used a bit of paper towel around the outside to help form the brim. 

It was not as smooth as I would have liked it, and the shape was still a little off, but it would have to do.

I sprayed the hat with some green Color Mist from Wilton.  This was my first time using this product.  Would I recommend it?  It would really depend on what you were using it for.  It was perfect for this project as I wasn't looking for a consistent coat of color.  I left it to dry for several days. 

Two days prior to the event, I baked a few 8" round cakes and one half of a sphere cake and 48 cupcakes.  I will post about the cupcakes soon.  The day before the event, I hauled all of my cake tools to my Mother-in-laws house to decorate.  I started by stacking and filling the cakes and then crumb coating them.  Then I made two eye balls.  A ball of white fondant, I used the wide end of a piping tip for the iris and the small end of the number 12 piping tip for the pupil.

I carved out a little space for the two eyes.  I tried to line them up as best as possible. 

I used a little more fondant to create some facial structure.

I then colored and rolled out a strip of flesh toned fondant.  I laid it gently over the face and used my fingers to help shape it a bit more.  I cut slits for the eyes and they literally opened up so I could see the eye ball.  It was a little freaky to be quite honest.  I painted a little piping gel on the eyes to make them look wet.

I designed some ears and "glued" them to the side of the head.

Eye brows and hair - most of this won't even be seen as the hat will cover it.  But I love the detail work.

Finally, the hat was placed on top.  I made some straps to go on the hat.  I had also made some weeds ahead of time by using my extruder.  I used gumpaste to hold them into place (note, many broke - I had sprayed them with the color mist right before placing them on, I think this made the gumpaste/fondant too moist to stand).  I covered the cake board in piping gel to make it look like water.

Eventually, it was time to eat.  My brother-in-law enjoyed cutting into the soldiers head...this part was a bit morbid, I guess.

The hat held up so well that my daughter even wore it for a bit.  Never mind the frosting in her hair :).

Daisies and Bees

 This cake was made for my niece for her second birthday (she was the one who received the princess cake for her first birthday).  The idea came from Monis Torten.  This was a gluten free vanilla cake filled and covered in chocolate buttercream. 

I made 7 flowers ahead of time using a set of daisy cookie cutters.  I used 3 layers of orange gumpaste and a large daisy cutter for the outside.  I used a smaller cutter with yellow gumpaste for the center.  I cut each yellow flower into two, then cut each petal into two and folded it on itself.  I then stacked them in a circle around a brown center.  The center was simply a flattened circle that had been pushed against a a sifter for a cris-cross appearance.  I then brushed them with a bit of luster dust to make it look like a bit of pollen.  I used another small daisy cutter with green to make the sepal (leaves under the flower)  which was then wrapped around a small ball to make it look like it had a receptical.  The flowers were dried in foil cups.  Each flower took me about 15 minutes to make.

 The bees, too, were made ahead of time.  I used a ball of yellow fondant for the body and used my extruder to make thin lines of black gumpaste which I glued on - may have been easier to pipe royal icing on them.  I did use royal icing for the eyes and stingers.  The wings were made by making a tear drop of white fondant and flattening it a bit.  Some bees were made 3-dimensional and placed on the wires to dry (a little royal icing held them in place) while others were 2-dimensional for the side of the cake.  It took me about 90 minutes to make all of the bees.

 After filling and crumb coating the cake, I covered it in a very pale yellow fondant.  I used some of the leftover to create a hive in the center to stick the wires into.  While it was food safe wire, purchased in the cake section at Michaels, I didn't want any cake to pick up a metallic flavor.  So I didn't want any of the wires to stick into the cake, so the hive served as a place for the wires to be held into place.

 I used a bit of royal icing to hold the flowers and bees onto the cake.  I then rolled out some green fondant in order to cut out some stems and leaves.  I used a little white royal icing to make some bee tracks across the cake, including one in the shape of the number "2".  It was a second birthday after all.  I finished it with round balls as a border.

Gold Cupcakes come together

I made some vanilla buttercream and piped a spiral with the 1M tip.  I then sprinkled with some gold glitter gems.  I placed leaves in each cupcake.  Again, I was pretty surprised that there was very little breakage.  We loaded them into the car and off to deliver.

All items made it to there final destination safely!  I was able to rest easy once again :).

Finishing Touches on the Pinwheel Cake - Day of delivery

I realize that I have skipped a lot of steps here.  I get into a zone and forget to pick up the camera to log what I have done.  Basically, I stuck all of the pinwheels into the cake - I couldn't decide which ones to use.  I couldn't believe that I had none break.  I figured, go big or go home!  I also added the "tissue paper" made the night before along the outside of the bucket and  few extra pieces of the "ribbon."  I filled the spaces with more of the light yellow fondant rolled as thin as possible.

I piped green grass along the bottom.  This was mostly to add some contrast in color so that the rest of the cake would stand out.  I took a few extra small pieces of the "tissue paper" to make it look as if the pieces fell out of the bucket.

Time to wrap up the gold cupcakes and deliver.