Volcano Cake

My nephew celebrated his ninth birthday this weekend. The only request for the cake was "something boyish." I thought on it, and decided I would make him this erupting volcano cake. The cake was super easy and fast to make, and the eruption was pretty awesome (if I do say so myself.) I wish I would have taken a picture before the eruption, but this is the picture during the eruption. The cake started off just a brown volcano shaped mountain. I built it around a drinking glass, so we could use the glass for the eruption part of the cake. just before singing happy birthday, Red marshmallow cream lava, along with some smoke, spued out of the top of the cake (with the help of some dry ice.) The "explosion" was a great hit with the nine year old boys! My sister got the eruption on video. I will have to get that from her and post it here, so you could see the actual action!

Butterfly Cupcakes

Today I made these cupcakes for a 9 year old's birthday party.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

When I first saw this idea in the "Hello Cupcake" book, I thought it was SO cute. At the time I didn't know who I would make it for. But now almost a year later, I decided I would make it for my Dad's Birthday party. My Dad LOVES his garden, and when he moved to Utah he had to adjust to not being able to garden year round...so I made him his new "winter garden."
The Hello Cupcake book has some really cute ideas, but the more I use the book, the less I like their methods for decorating! The directions told me to buy all different kinds of chewy candy to mold into veggies, but I just made one batch of fondant for the veggies instead.
Happy Birthday Dad, I hope you liked your cake!

Happy Halloween

I made a double batch of these cupcakes for my Mom's class room, and Keith's work party. They were pumpkin spice cupcakes with cream cheese filling, and butter cream frosting. I got to the store to late in the week, and they didn't have enough orange sprinkles, so I had to mix in some white...I am sure they would have been cuter had I had all bright orange sprinkles. I also made some without the candy and sprinkles for the "big kids" who didn't want the crunchy sprinkle effect in their dessert!

Keep your fingers crossed...

I just applied for a position as a Wilton Cake Instructor. The job opening is here locally at a craft store...but I also said I would be willing to work a ways from home also. We will see what comes about!

Ian's Birthday Cake

I had one weeks notice and all the info I had was he liked Rhinos. So I thought on it, and I just played around and came up with this cake. It was suppose to have the number 14 on top (that is how old he was turning) between the rhino and the stars, but the 4 didn't dry firm enough, so it went without. The rhino was my first attempt to molding something with fondant...so don't look at it too close :) I wish the colors would have been bolder, but those were the colors I had. I really like the inconsistent strips on the bottom layer...and it was super fast to do!

My second cake with Fondant

This is the final cake for my Wilton course 3 class. It is the second cake I have covered with Fondant, and I think it turned out a lot better then the first one...which is good, because I must be learning. I have another cake in the works right now. It is going to be finished tomorrow night, so I will post the pictures of that tomorrow. For this cake I should have made each layer be two cakes so it would be thicker and not so much of the pillars would show, but I didn't want that much cake at my house, so there are just thin layers, but still the idea is the same.

My teacher insisted that I be in one of the pictures.
The coloring in this one is kind of yellow, but the cake is white.

Cake Pictures are Here!

So the place we take our Son for his pictures (Pretty Pictures in Lehi, Utah) does these "one year old" shots with the cake. I made the cake for the pictures, and this is the best picture we have of it! (of course they are professionally taken :)) I uploaded the pictures backwards, so you have to look at the last picture to really see what the cake looked like. The party hat cakes are so cute, we think it will be a tradition in our home to have your own party hat cake for every Birthday!

Triple Chocolate Cream Cheese

The goal with this cake was to perfect a recipe and also to practice my Corneille Lace. According to Keith it was a success. He says it was the best cake I have made to date, and I would have to agree that it was pretty delicious! We still have about 3/4 of the cake left, so if you need a chocolate fix, stop by for a taste! The cake is Devils pudding cake, the filling is chocolate cheese cake, and the frosting is chocolate butter cream...YUMMY!

ABC Cakes

I am starting this blog so I will have a journal of my progress and learning as I finish up the Wilton courses and continue to increase my cake decorating skills. I have done several cakes over the last few months, and I fell I am really getting the hang of it. I have also started make cakes for other people, and only charging them what it cost me. I figure this will be a great way to increase my abilities and also a great benefit for those who want cute cakes at a great price.
-Amber

Dragon Party

This Dragon is probably my favorite cake I have done thus far. He was so cute, easy, and really low on cost. His head, tail and legs are rice crispy treat, and his body is one whole cake mix. His spikes are orange candy melts formed into "spikes". Loved this cake!

It was for a one year old, so here was his cake to eat
I had left over cake batter, so I made a few parties hats.

Up close of Spike the Dragon

The whole cake presentation.

Happy One Year Birthday Dude!!

My son turned one and we had an Elephant cake. I had seen this cake done before and wanted so bad to do it. The cake took a lot longer then most cakes, and I don't feel it was any cuter, but at least I have done it now right? Below is my son's personal cake to eat.

Singing Happy Birthday

The Elephant Cake. The elephant is white cake. The base it is on is white cake with chocolate mousse filling.

Duck Cake

This duck cake was a trial run for my son's Birthday. I had bought the pan and was nervous about the way it worked, so I decided to bake a cake before hand to double check the pans abilities. Well the pan worked great, so I decided to make up a little frosting and "play". As you can tell I ran our of frosting and didn't feel like making more since this was just a trial run. Even though I ran out of frosting I hope you can see how cute this little guy would be finished!

Quarter Century Old

When my husband turned 25 he wanted a quarter cake to celebrate his quarter of a century age. This was not my best cake, but I have to say I learned a LOT. The cake was funfetti and the filling was the funfetti frosting.

My Little Pony

This was a My Little Pony Party. It was a Strawberry Cake with strawberry cream cheese filling.

Easter Cupcakes

For Easter I was asked to make the cake for my family egg hunt. I really wanted to make a CUTE lamb cake covered in white chocolate curls (YUMMY!) but it was too late notice and I couldn't get the pan on time, so this is what I came up with. To make up for the fact that it wasn't the white chocolate lamb, I filled these cupcakes with a cream cheese filling!!

My son sure loved them!

A Princess Party

I made this cake for my two nieces who were born within 24 hours of each other. They turned six and wanted a princess party. At the party they got their hair, make-up, and nails done.

An up close of the princess castle cake. I loved creating this castle because I knew the memories it would make for these girls! It was a vanilla cake with strawberry cream cheese filling.

Cakes while in Wilton course one

Learning the Rose. I still need some practice in this area!

I loved this cake!

This was the week of Valentine's, so we did the heart theme

ABC Cakes

I am starting this blog so I will have a journal of my progress and learning as I finish up the Wilton courses and continue to increase my cake decorating skills. I have done several cakes over the last few months, and I fell I am really getting the hang of it. I have also started make cakes for other people, and only charging them what it cost me. I figure this will be a great way to increase my abilities and also a great benefit for those who want cute cakes at a great price.
-ABC Cakes