Work birthday - Jackie

The theme for the cake decorating competition at the State Fair this year is fall wedding cupcakes. I am mightily uninspired by this theme. Fall wedding cake? Sure. Wedding cupcakes? I can do that. But fall wedding cupcakes? Get ready for a sea of pumpkin cake with gum paste leaves, judges. I've been kicking around some ideas, and I used Jackie's birthday cake as an excuse to try some out. 

 I have all of the supplies for Wilton Course 4, but haven't been able to take the class yet because NO ONE ELSE WILL SIGN UP FOR IT. Since I'm not an idiot, I decided to take matters into my own hands and try some of the flowers from Course 4.

 I taught myself the stargazer lily and the Gerbera daisy, yay go me. The lilies look great but man alive do they take forEVER.

 My thoughts on this design: the purple is too violet and not burgundy enough, the burgundy is too purple and not red enough, but the orange and yellow look great. Obviously I've got way too many flowers for the size of the cake, but imagine that as the top tier on a four tiered cake, with the flowers cascading down one side...lovely, no?

Bender cake!

Next in line for the work birthays was Greg, a rapper and Futurama fan. I decided to mess around with fondant and see if I could make Bender's head. Sure enough...

It turned out perfectly. Now I want to make a Planet Express Ship cake!

Work Birthday - Nesi

We had four birthdays in two weeks at work in June, and I seemed to think it was a good idea to make each person a cake. Ha! I make good choices. 

Up first was my boss. I took this as an opportunity to do a little experimenting. I made frosting with actual butter for the first time ever. The result was....well, buttery. Overwhelmingly buttery. I felt like all of the effort I had put into making a merengue and custard base was wasted when it just seemed like it came out as fluffy butter. I think I will keep trying different recipes, but this first try was pretty off putting. 

I used my leaf tip to create a ruffle effect that I had seen on Pinterest. The end result was pretty cool, especially on the side (it got a little limp on the top, as the frosting was warming up from my hands)

Girl lookit that ruffle

Carrie's Graduation

Andrew's younger sister Carrie recently graduated from college, and their lovely mother asked me to make a cake for her. My points of pride on this cake are the Minnesota M drawn freehand, the perfectly matched maroon and gold (thanks to Andrew for help) and the consistent shell border. I know it's the common boring border, but practice makes perfect and I'm getting better!

I've really got to stop taking pictures with my phone....