Sugar Sweet Cakes and Treats

Los Angeles Lakers Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:00:00 +0000

Who loves the Lakers? We do most definitely, especially with being so near to LA. This was created for Blake who turned 10 and loved the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. It's an 8 inch round, Chocolate cake filled with Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC) - recipe linked HERE. It's covered and decorated in Marshmallow Fondant (MMF).

The logo was made using the same technique on my Boston Red Sox Cake (click HERE to see it).

The only difference is the "Los Angeles" font and the dashes around the "Lakers" was pipped (these were just too tiny to cut out of fondant). In order for the purple piping to match the other purple on the cake, I diluted the MMF with a tiny bit of hot water and mixed it up really well until it was evenly melted. I then piped it using a #1 round piping tip and a toothpick to help move each stroke into it's proper place as I tried to copy the logo as exact as I could.

Those wonderful basketball bumps...to achieve the basketball texture I used a #5 round piping tip and punched them one by one around the entire cake. It took an hour alone to get the texture done - doesn't it look neat!

For the black striping along the sides of the cake, I first impressed the pattern on the sides of the cake using one of those tear drop shaped flower shaping tools (don't know the name for it), used an clay extruder to extrude the black "rope", then smoothed them "into" the impression on the cake so that the stripes were more flushed to the surface rather than protruding way out.

This is the extruder I like using - it comes with a clear acrylic box that conveniently keeps everything together:Walnut Hollow Clay Extruder Set

As for the base board, I was trying to achieve the basketball court flooring. I cut out the individual panels, scored them with the thin tool to get the wood grain, assembled them on the board, then brushed it over with clear piping gel that I diluted way down with vodka that was mixed with a teeny drop of brown gel color. The piping gel dries glossy and helps the board resemble the shiny basketball floor quite well I think.

I hand cut the Laker's Jersey's (one purple home jersey and one yellow away jersey) and added the birthday boys age to them using the FMM Tappit Cutter Set.

Boston Red Sox Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 04:36:00 +0000

A 6 inch Boston Red Sox Cake with a wood grain board (to resemble the wood of a baseball bat). Although simple, hand cutting the logo and font were time consuming!

I used a transfer method to get the logo just right that I adapted from Jessica Harris on how she makes perfect stripes on the sides of her cakes.

I printed the logo backwards and taped up it inside a sheet protector. I then lightly rubbed the surface of the sheet protector with shortening to help the fondant stick. Using a clay extruder, I extruded the red band around the entire logo, the blue outline around the baseball and the red stitches. Using a tiny bit of water, I attached all the stitches to one another so they wouldn't move out of place (they were very tiny and thin).

For the "Boston Red Sox" font, I printed out the letters on regular paper, cut them out and used them as templates to cut out the fondant with. There were so many angles and curves in the font that it was easier to use various piping tips to cut some of the parts rather than trying to use an exacto knife. Once the letters were all cut, I lay then in place over the sheet protector template. I did this a few days ahead and just let it air dry.

After the cake was covered in fondant, I put it in the fridge for a few hours, removed it, let the cake sit on the counter for a couple minutes to get a little bit of condensation on it then flipped the logo template over the cake and carefully pressed and peeled the sheet protector off. The little bit of condensation on the cake helped stick everything in place perfectly - I didn't have to mess with brushing water to the fondant to get it to stick.

With the cake being simple, I wanted to do something creative with the board and thought of a baseball bat. I made the wood grain board by marbling fondant together then scoring lines with a thin tool and poking some holes in it. I then brushed it over with a tiny bit of white gel color that I diluted way down with vodka. It help give the board a white washed look and made the wood grain pop.

The entire cake is decorated in Marshmallow Fondant (MMF). I did add Tylose powder to the pieces that I used to make the logo with so that they would dry harder and not be too stretchy for when I was cutting them out.

Hope you like it!

Korean Hanbok Dol Cake Toppers

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0000

I love making these figurines and luckily, I had the awesome opportunity to make 4 of them last year.

Each figurine is made out of gumpaste and stand at 4-5 inches tall. All the little details on the hat and shirt are hand painted in gel colors and gold luster dust. I also add pearl dust to the clothing to give the illusion of silk cloth. To see how they're made, take a look at one of the 1st Hanbok Dol's I made HERE: My first Hanbok Dol Figurine.

Ci's Hanbok Dol Figurine (June 2012): My 2nd Hanbok Dol Figurine and custom made to match the little, birthday's girls traditional Korean dress: She stood at 5 inches tall. I also made a couple dozen flower blossoms and butterflies to decorate her own cake with.

Maddison's Hanbok Dol Figurine (Aug 2012): She's a replica of the very 1st Hanbok Dol Figurine I made a little over a year ago but instead of standing at only 3 inches tall, this one is 5 inches tall.

Jenn's Hanbok Dol Figurine's (Nov 2012): 2 Cousins celebrating their 1st birthday together. Each one was custom made to match their traditional, 1st birthday Hanbok Dress. Each is 4 inches tall.

A Painted Curious George Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 06:58:00 +0000

Where have I been? Life has been busy, very busy that I haven't had time to keep up the blog or do many cakes. This years resolution (and with it being February already), I'm going to try to post more stuff. 2012 went by in a flash and I'll post a little recap on the few 2012 cakes that were done. I've also got the painting itch back and started, on New Year's day, to paint a mural along one wall of our dining room. Although I had originally planned to take a couple days to complete it, it has turned out to be a unfinished project - where has the time gone already!

A couple weeks ago, I got the opportunity to take my painting itch and paint a little cake - at least this one was completed. The theme was Curious George and with one of my favorite scenes in the movie being the one where he paints the room walls with palm trees, giraffes, and butterflies, I knew it would perfect on the cake and cupcake toppers for a little boys 2nd Birthday.

And how exciting was I to find my cake was picked and featured on Cake Central's Friday Faves (Feb 8, 2013) - giddy as can be! Curious George is a cutie!

Here is a 360 degree view of the cake, a 6 inch Red Velvet covered in MMF and painted with AmeriColor Gel colors. I also made 4 dozen Funfetti Cupcakes with matching MMF Toppers.

The inspiration for the cake - A scene from the movie - Curious George's painted wall.

Bumble Bee Baby Shower Cake and Cupcakes

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 19:30:00 +0000

A few week ago, I got to make such an adorable cake for my Dad's friend. I was given a picture of the invitation and given free reign to do as I wished for the cake and cupcakes - LOVE IT! My favorites cakes are always the ones that I get to design and create and it's, for the most part, a total secret until delivery. Type A and OCD-me would go insanely crazy if you were to do this to me, but when it's the other way around, I thrive on the unknown and love the surprise factor. But, I do spend hours upon hours sketching and contemplating the design for days upon days too and usually, well, nearly always, change up something about it during the process.

The invitation design is so cute and one that you can find on Etsy by Note-able Chic. I fell in love with the invitation and was completely inspired.

Baby Shower Invitation by Note-able Chick (Etsy.com)

I made 2 dozen cupcakes and a 6 inch round cake to match the invite. There was so much involved with making everything for the cake and with staying up late (into the wee hours of the morning) working on it, I didn't get a chance to take photos of each step but here are the few that did make it into the camera.

Making the Marshmallow Fondant (MMF):
1) To make the Yellow MMF, I used Americolor Electric Yellow Soft Gel Paste
2) To make the Black MMF, I used Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips and AmeriColor Super Black Gel Paste. Follow my steps HERE on how to make MMF using Candy Melts (super easy to get dark colors with). You can use Black Candy Melts too but it also works with using any type of brown chocolate. If you really take notice, the Black Candy Melts is really a dark brown so don't fret if you can't find any. Any brown chocolate will work.

The Baby Carriage:
Cake Fixation has a lovely tutorial on how to create the carriage that you can follow HERE. So I basically followed her instructions and then made my own modifications. For starters, the piece of Styrofoam I used was very soft so I ended up taping it a couple times in shipping tape to keep in all together and since I couldn't "stab" the 18 gauge wire into it, I taped up all the wiring around the base of the stroller using lots of tape all over the place to make sure nothing moved and everything was secure and in place before covering in fondant.

Baby Stroller structure - all taped and secure.

I covered the entire stroller with back MMF that I attached to the stucture with piping gel. I then added the stripes separately using Jessica Harris' (JessiCakes) technique found HERE. To get the perfect shape I needed for the canopy, I lay a piece of paper over the canopy and outlined the shape and used it as a template (see the polka dot piece above, it was sort of an "eye" shape).

To get the polka dots on the canopy to look smooth, I added the yellow dots onto the black fondant, then rolled it out flat before trimming it to size and attaching it to the stroller with piping gel.

The flying bees are sitting inside coffee stirs inside the cake.

The Wheels:

I cut out the tire ring using 2 round piping tips close in size (1 to cutout the outside, another to cutout the middle). I then added the spokes so that they fit snugly inside the tire ring and punched a hole in the middle with a #1 piping tip. Brushed it all over in a thin layer of water front and back a couple times throughout the evening to make sure the MMF melted and fused to each other so they wouldn't come apart on me once dry. You could also use gum-glue or tylose glue for this but water works fine too.

The Finished Stroller:

I painted the legs and handle with black gel colors and then bent the bottom 1 inch of the stroller legs so that they pointed straight down into the cake and not at a 45 degree angle. Since the wires were not long enough to support the stroller securely, I pushed coffee stirs straight down into the cake and wrapped up the bottom part of the wire with an extra layer of floral tape to make them thicker and fit snugly into the coffee stirs - the stroller didn't budge and wasn't going anywhere: It was as snug as a bug!

I then attached the wheels to the sides of the stroller legs using black royal icing and added the little baby head and hands. Notice, I added lashes and a red bow to the baby to make it girlie vs. what the actual invitation had (all the little details really do make a difference).

Bumble Bees:

I made a couple bumble bees out of fondant (mixed the MMF with some tylose) and lay the bees with wings over various piping tips to dry so that they would have a natural curve to them. Used thin wire wrapped in floral tape for the antennas that I later painted with black gel colors.

The wings, once dried, were painted over with piping gel that I thinned out with vodka and sprinkled with Rainbow Disco Dust. I also brushed the entire body with yellow luster dust.

Damask Toppers:

This was my very first time using a stencil and I was honestly stressed out on how I was going to do black royal icing over white fondant - it's so unforgiving and unfixable if it doesn't work. So, I Googled for help and found that Lesley from Royal Bakery wrote up the most informative tutorial on how to Damask a cake. See it HERE through her Facebook Page. The stencil I used is by Designer Stencils (link below). I did practice on a couple pieces of fondant first before attempting it on white: Roll out the fondant, rub it lightly with shortening to help the stencil stick to it (and help seal the stencil tightly against the fondant) then spread black royal icing over it, scrape off excess, carefully lift stencil off, allow to dry for about 10 minutes then use a round cutter to cutout the topper with. Phew! They turned out so lovely and I love the contrast between the black and white.

Here is the link to the Damask Stencil I used:

Black Royal Icing:

To get the royal icing really black, I always make it at least 1 day ahead to give it time to mature and darken. Make your Royal Icing...

1) Add a couple drops of AmeriColor Super Black Gel Paste

2) A drop of Americolor Burgundy Gel Paste

3) And a drop of Americolor Royal Blue Gel Paste

Black alone has a slight green shade to it and the burgundy helps remove the green while blue helps deepen the black. Hope that makes sense. It took some experimenting but this works for me every time without fail.

Rather than repeat what other great Cake Decorators have done already and explained so well, below are some links to some tutorials you can check out and also a quick recap on everything I did...

Cupcakes:

1) Damask pattern made with, Designer Stencils Damask Cake Tier #2 Cake Stencil. Used Royal Bakery's Facebook tutorial to find out how to use a stencil.

2) "baby" stamped lettering made with, FMM Lower Case Block Alphabet Tappit Cutters Set

3) Handmade Bees - I need to make a tutorial on this one day for you all. I tried to use my iPhone to record a tutorial but it was bad, really bad. I need to borrow my brothers camcorder one day and make you all a real video. It'll be a first for me and we'll see how that works out.

4) Yellow/Black stripes on the bows were made by following JessiCakes Striping Tutorial. The actual folding of the bows was made by using Royal Bakery's YouTube tutorial, Satin Fondant Bow.

5) Smooth Polka Dot Toppers: I rolled out the fondant, added the polka dots to it, rolled it out again so the dots are flushed with the rest of the fondant, then cutout the circles using a Double Sided Round Biscuit Cutter.

6) Lately, I've been flat-top-icing the cupcakes (not sure on the exact term used) and I'm loving this look. I fill the cupcake liners 1/2 way with batter so they don't grow taller than the actual liner. I then fill the tops of the cupcakes with buttercream and with an offset spatula, scrape off the extra frosting straight across the top of the liner. Add a small swirl of buttercream to the middle of the cupcake about 1 inch tall and top with the toppers - I just prefer to have the toppers "floating" above the top rim of the liners. The toppers should be made a couple days prior to allow plenty of time for them to dry flat and hard.

Cake:
1) Baby Carriage Topper made by using Cake Fixation's, "How to Make A Stroller Cake Topper" tutorial.

2) The white bee wings and white scalloped circle on the cake were brushed in piping gel thinned out with vodka and sprinkled with Rainbow Disco Dust. I used a Double Sided Round Biscuit Cutter for the white, round, disk on the side of the cake.

3) The "baby" stamped lettering was made by using, FMM Lower Case Block Alphabet Tappit Cutters Set

4) Petal Ruffle along the bottom border will be a tutorial coming soon. I was trying to come up with something different rather than leaving it plain or using ribbon or piping something around it and after playing around a bit, came up with the ruffles. I think they worked perfectly on the cake - don't you think?

Well, that's it for now at least. The year's almost over and hopefully, LIFE won't have me super busy so I can do a better job keeping up my blog. I'm so sorry for being MIA for so long and thank you all for sticking by me during my absence.

Happy Holidays! Ya know, Christmas will be here before you know it.

Rice Krispie Sushi Treats

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 22:16:00 +0000

Sushi anyone? I love sushi and I'm was so glad that we got to eat real sushi after making these - got my sushi craving satisfied...at least for the moment!

It was the night before my father-in-laws birthday and my husband and I were talking about what I should make. For the past 3 years, I had created a tennis themed cake (Tennis Racket, Tennis Court, and last year, a Tennis Shoe) and although I had originally planned on making another tennis themed cake, I really didn't feel like it. We were going to a sushi restaurant the following evening to celebrate his birthday and my husband thought it would be really nice to surprise him with a sushi cake or cupcakes instead. It was late in the evening and we just had one of the hottest days of the year and baking, was not one of those things I wanted to do in the midst of the heat. And I thought (a light bulb moment), why not make them out of rice krispie treats (RKT), they're his favorite anyways.

I quickly gathered up all the stuff and stayed up late making these. Big pat on the back for creating such a neat treat at a short notice in the middle of the night with no planning, baking or prepping for - whoo hoo - SCORE! And dishes...aside from the bowl and spatula used to make the rice krispie treats, my sink was empty and not an aftermath of a mess in the kitchen to clean up (well, a tiny mess on the dinning table where I worked on these) - I LOVED it! I am one of those that really hates the clean up part of cake-ing and would rather decorate more than anything. And when each cake averages 15 hours to make plus weeks upon hours worth of design and planning, it was such a nice change to be able to make something that didn't take much thought and planning for.

RKT and Fondant: Candy Sushi Cut Rolls

(ooo, bad lighting with this one - used my cell phone)

The first thing I made were the cut rolls. I made them like your would normally make a regular roll of sushi but instead of using rice, I used rice krispie treats and stuffed the inside with red vines, marshmallow ropes and some homemade mango fruit rollups (pretty much I grabbed what I had on hand that would work). Rolled it up tightly using a sushi mat then cup them up into 1 inch circles.

Making Nori (seaweed)

To make the Nori (seaweed wrapper), I took a crumbled piece of foil and stamped it along a thinly rolled out piece of dark green fondant (the little square at the top of the photo is an actual piece of nori that I used for reference and later ate up...umm umm good).

I've made some sushi before at home and there are a couple websites that show you how. I used the same technique to make these: It works just the same as if making them with rice. Be sure to keep your hands greased up with a little bit of shortening to keep the RKT from sticking to them.

Here are the Ikura (Salmon Egg) Sushi. I rolled out little balls of orange fondant and painted them with piping gel thinned out with vodka. I layered on colors of yellow, orange, red and white to give them a shinny, almost transparent, appearance.

RKT and Fondant: Ikura Sushi (Salmon Eggs)

One naked shrimp and one dressed up with the 1st few layers of coloring

For the shrimp, I hand sculpted them out of white fondant, scored it a bit then painted it over with a mixture of piping gel thinned out with vodka in layers of yellow, white, orange, and red. I kept going over it in layers and layers of colored piping gel to build up the texture found on shrimp. They were then laid over the RKT (I used a little bit of piping gel under the pieces to help them stick a little to the RKT).

RKT and Fondant: Shrimp Sushi

I did the same thing with each of the other sushi pieces: hand molding them, scoring them, painting them over in a variation of gel colors and piping gel thinned out with vodka.

RKT and Fondant: Salmon Sushi

RKT and Fondant: Tuna Sushi

RKT and Fondant: Tamago Sushi

To make the Tamago Sushi (egg custard), I rolled out the fondant just like you would make the real thing then painted in some highlights with egg yellow and white gel colors.

Once I had everything made, I didn't know what to use to display it on. It would have been really nice to make a bento box but there was no time. As I dug around the house, I spotted a bamboo steamer basket - it worked! It also had a nice lid to hide the sweet goodies from everyone =D

And again, I'm craving for some sushi...

A Mad Hatter Tea Party (and Mad Hatter Cake #3)

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Oh dear, here is one cake that I didn't get around to share with you all from last May - A Mad Hatter Hat Cake with a modeling chocolate figurine of the birthday girl.

A chocolate cake filled with strawberry Italian Meringue Buttercream
and covered in Chocolate Ganache dusted in green, brown and gold dust

Last May we made the 6 hour drive to San Jose to spend Easter with my cousin and to also help with her daughter's 10th birthday party. It was the most amazing Mad Hatter Tea Party.

the girls huddled in front of the cake while eating some treats =)

This was the 3rd Mad Hatter Hat Cake that I've made and if you would like to see them, check out my previous blog posts here:

Mad Hatter Cake #1

Mad Hatter Cake #2

We also made a bunch of decorations to top the cupcakes with...
- Stacked teacups which I later filled with chocolate ganache
- Mad Hatter Hats with her birthdate
- Clocks with her birth time
- Eat-Me tags
- Ribbon Roses
- Clubs, Clovers, Hearts and Spades
- and butterflies

The chocolate cupcakes were frosted with a swirl of purple and pink Italian Meringue Buttercream and topped with an assortment of decorations.

We also made cake pops and skewers of fruit and placed them in tall vases stuffed with colorful tissue paper.

My cousin did an awesome job with the table setting: A couple unique tea pots and a different teacup for each setting - not one of them looked like another...it was perfect for the theme. She also found some really colorful and bold plates, cups, napkins and little trinkets to make for a super colorful and perfect tea party. I went overboard tying a bow onto anything that could hold a bow (I loved the red/black/white printed ribbon) - it's even up around the windows and wall decor too =)

She even setup a table for the little ones.

And the doily lace trimming around the cake stand is a paper border that my cousin had bought a while back. It came precut and folded up inside a little packet by Martha Stewart. I attached it to the side of the cake stand with some double sided tape. I loved how it dressed up the stand - so simple too.

We had all hands were on deck from family and friends in putting this together and it turned out quite lovely. An incredibly beautiful birthday for an incredibly beautiful girl.

Lalaloopsy Cake & Dessert Table - Toffee Cocoa Cuddles

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 01:23:00 +0000

My daughter's 5th birthday cake - she is crazy about all things Lalaloopsy with her most favorite doll being Toffee Cocoa Cuddles. I think the dolls are a little weird with their huge plastic heads and tiny bodies but they do have cute names and stories of what they're made of behind each one of them. Such as Crumbs Sugar Cookie (made from pieces of a baking apron), Spot Splatter Splash (sewn from a painter's coveralls) and Ember Flicker Flame (made from a fire fighter's uniform).

As for her favorite one, Toffee Cocoa Cuddles is "sewn" from pieces off a chocolate box and likes to give hugs and all things sweet. Plus, she has a chocolate lab that has a piece bitten off his ear - how cute is that!

If you're looking for some really cute Lalaloopsy invitations, check out Lala Heaven's store on etsy. You give her your info, she sends you the digital file and you print them on your own printer and paper - convenient, inexpensive and oh sew cute!

I wanted to create a table setting for "Caitlyn's Sweet Shop"with lots of sweet treats for the party guests to enjoy - something I had never done before and with seeing so many pretty dessert table setups over the Internet, I really wanted to give one a try. But boy! After all the prepping and getting things together, I ran out of time and didn't get all I envisioned made and on it.

A Lalaloopsy inspired dessert table

My 8 year old son helped make the banner on the wall out of foam cutouts found at a dollar store.
Button Plates were inspired by Pinterest:
Lalaloopsy Party Button Backdrop on Hostess with the Mostess

another Pinterest find: Fabric Flowers by Bete Bazzi on flickr
I bought an assortment of fabric and cutout circles using a play dough lid as a template =). Stitched up some buttons for the centers, glued a 1/2 inch felt circle to the back and sewed hair ties to them.
I then tied them up in pairs and put them in a heart shaped bowl for the girls to pick from for their goody bags. These turned out so cute.

Chocolate Cake Pops
I also made the button monogram in the background and hope to hang it up in her room soon...once I find the bag of picture hangers in the garage somewhere =)

Some candy jars...I printed out images of the dolls off the Internet, cut them out using zig zag scissors and attached them onto a glass jar wrapped in ribbon.

more candy jars.... I also had a jar with clear bags and ties for the guests to fill their own goody bags to take some sweet treats home with them.

I love the Candy Topiary inspired again, by Pinterest:
Take a foam ball, stick Dum Dum lollipops into it (it took an entire large, 180pc bag of Dum Dums) and stand it up on either a candle stick or like I did, stick a dowel wrapped in ribbon into it and stand it into a flower pot. The ball is really heavy so I stuffed a bunch of heavy stuff into the vase to support it (there are a couple bags filled with rice, a foam block to help hold it up straight and a roll of this heavy, industrial tape I found in my hubbies tool box - pretty much anything that would fit and support the heavy ball and keep it from toppling over)

a game for the kids - Guess the number of M and M's in the jar.
Winner got to take the jar home....Congrat's Ally! That's Crumbs Sugar Cookies little sister (Sprinkle Spice Cookie) on the label and she has a smudge of chocolate on here face - lol!

and some mini Chocolate Cupcakes topped with Raspberry Italian Meringue Buttercream

and one of my most favorite treats, Lalaloopsy Cake Pop Favors

I made the tags in photoshop, zig zag scissors to cut them to size and then punched holes in 2 corners to slide the popsicle stick up through.

For the cakes design, I pulled some features off the doll's outfit - such as the stripes along the side of the cake matched her sleeves and the loops below the stripes matched the loop design on one of the layers of the skirt. My daughter specifically asked for hearts along the cake so I did the top trim in hearts and they actually turned out really cute that way. I was also inspired by JessiCakes design and used her technique with the stripes as shown here on her blog: Maddie's Fashion Birthday Cake by JessiCakes.

Her head is made out of a cake pop and the body is decorated in gumpaste and MMF.
It was 4am by the time I finished her up and I had to leave the polka dots off her dress to sneak a couple hours of sleep before having to get the entire house in order and lalaloopsy cake pop favors made - yeah, talk about last minute.

before being wrapped up into favors

To see how the figurine and the Lalaloopsy Cake Pops were made, take a look at my 1st Lalaloopsy Cake post found here: Blossom Flower Pots Lalaloopsy Cake and Cake Pops

and to the best part...getting to cut and eat the cake
(no worries - I was standing right beside her keeping a close eye on her)

Cake is covered and decorated in MMF
Momofuku Milk Bar Cake filled instead with Raspberry Meringue Buttercream
8 inch round (6 inches tall)

All in all, her party turned out oh, sew sweet =)

Lalaloopsy Cake & Cake Pops

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 08:02:00 +0000

Where have I been? It's been a long while since I last posted anything but I've been so busy and have been staying away from cake stuff for the past couple of months to just get caught up with life and everything going on with it. At least for now, I'm back and I've been missing it for way too long.

Do you know a Lalaloopsy? Hah-hah, I have gotten to know these dolls really well over the past few weeks. They are everywhere and all the little girls are talking about them and collecting the dolls! Even my 4 year old has a long list of the ones she wants!

This cake was made for my 9 year old niece Kayla who had a garden themed Lalaloopsy party this past Sunday. And she has over a dozen of them in her collection. It was so cute seeing her name each of the cake pops and getting excited with each one =)

I must admit, these little gals, after all the trouble I ran into creating them, turned out super cute =)

I've never been a big fan of cake pops. They're mashed up cake that is just too sweet with the chocolate coating for my taste but the kids go crazy over them and they never last long at any party. So, determined to make a cake pop that I could enjoy eating too, I bought the Nordic Ware Cake Pops Pan. LOVE IT! I want go buy a few more of these. One pan is not enough.

And, one of my gifts from my cousin and her husband (they just got married a little over a week ago), were 2 sets of the Silicone Cake Pop Trays. They didn't work that great (sorry Steph and Sean) but I'm gonna give them another try with other recipes before I give up on them - And, I'll be sharing with you all about their wonderful wedding and the cake I made for them really soon too.

I tried using a scratch chocolate cake recipe to make the balls but the batter doesn't rise much and I ended up with ovals that we gobbled up right off the pan as they were cooling - it was too easy to just pop one of these things in your mouth...and another...and yet another...well, they didn't last long.

(I also had made some banana bread and had a little bit of batter left over from the loaf pan and made some cake balls with them and wow, those were gone fast!)

So, for the Cake Pops, I made them using a box mix, sub milk for water, and add an extra egg - read it on a couple places on the web that suggested it with using cake ball pans. The result....

Chocolate cake baked in the cake pop pans - metal pan (right) and silicone tray (left)

These were baked in the Silicone Cake Ball Tray - the middle of the cakes grew pushing the tray up in the middle which resulted in a thick ring of cake around the edges. They didn't do so well when I tried to dip them since they weren't firm and had too many air pockets on the top half of the spheres.

These were baked in the Nordic Ware Cake Ball pan. Much, much better. The metal pans are tightly clamped so there wasn't much excess around the middle - just a thin bit that I trimmed off with a pair of kitchen shears. The balls were really nice, firm, smooth and round. So much better and easier to dip into the chocolate with too.

But my troubles didn't end there. Dipping cake into chocolate was a disaster at first. I just couldn't get the Wilton Candy Melts to work right so I ended up using Vanilla Almond Bark with a little bit of Americolor Soft Gel Paste in a Copper Flesh Tone Color added to it to make them look closer to the same color as the dolls.

Then, on top of that, the cake just wouldn't stay on the stick when I tried to dip it into the chocolate. The weight of the chocolate just tore the soft cake right off the stick! The cakes were chilled cold but it didn't matter. So basically, I had to dip the cake ball into the chocolate and let it sit still while I spooned the chocolate up and around the pop and with the same spoon, I scooped the pop straight up to lightly twirl and tap off the excess on the side of the bowl. I then let them sit over a piece of parchment paper using an egg carton to hold the sticks up at an angle.

Originally I wanted the sticks to be on the bottom of the cake pop so that I could stick them into a block but the cake just wouldn't sit straight and it just wanted to break and fall apart - errrr! Frustration upon frustration but with a little improvising, they actually turned out cute laying off to the side. I am not a cake ball/pop maker and I bow down to you all that make these often. With some practice, just maybe, I'll get it down right.

And to the decorating part. I tried making the doll hair by piping chocolate but it just didn't look right. I wanted their hair to look like THEIR hair as close as possible. So I tried to pipe royal icing in layers but that was worse so, in the end, I tossed out the piping bags (I don't like piping much anyways) and pulled out the MMF and did what I was most comfortable with...decorating with fondant. I love how they turned out! Although each doll took an average of 20 minutes to decorate, it was worth it in the end.

Spot Splatter Splash Lalaloopsy

How to: Roll out the MMF into a long rope, slice it up in varying lengths, lightly score each piece a couple times then with piping gel, glue them onto the cake pop. Piping gel sticks really well to chocolate - water won't work.

Pillow Featherbed Lalaloopsy

Use a round piping tip to make the eye balls - a larger one to cut out the circle and a slightly smaller one to make the impression inside. Then with a toothpick or a thin tool, cut out the holes inside the button. I also used the round piping tip to cut out the cheeks with and painted the mouth and lashes with a really thin paint brush with black AmeriColor Gel.

Crumbs Sugar Cookie and Mittens Fluff 'n' Stuff Lalaloopsy's

The assortment: Their names from front left to right: Spot Splatter Splash, Jewel Sparkles, Pillow Featherbed, Dot Starlight, Mittens Fluff 'n' Stuff, Crumbs Sugar Cookie, and Bea Spells-a-Lot
(they were each tied up with pink ribbon later)

By the time I finished decorating and bagging the 20 cake pops, it was 4:00 a.m. and I still had the cake to cover and decorate. So, this is the only photo I remembered to take but at least it shows you the basic structure of the cake topper.

There's a Popsicle stick inserted into the cake ball then over that is a thick boba straw that ran the entire height of the cake and right up to the bottom of her head to help support and hold her up.

The head of the topper is mashed up cake and about 1-3/4 inches across. It was then covered over in a 50/50 mix of modeling chocolate and MMF. Her clothing was built in layers of ruffles with gumpaste since by the time I started making her, the sun had already come up, the birds were chirping outside and the party was about to start in a few hours - I needed it to dry fast.

And here she is all completed...

Blossom Flowerpots Lalaloopsy

Note her toes...all the dolls toes touch so I had to make her toes touch too =)

And the trees are stuffed with marshmallows to make them look puffy.

I also incorporated her name into the label - hah-hah! My daughter now wants the same theme for her 5th birthday next month (there goes the girlie pirate theme out the door). But, I'm looking forward to making these again.

And I did get some sleep that morning...all 2 hours worth =) My sister-in-law did make me one of her delicious cups of coffee that helped me get through the day. The things we go through to make cake I tell ya! But seeing the joy in the kids faces and their eyes light up is so worth it.

See another Lalaloopsy Themed Cake here:
Lalaloopsy Cake and Dessert Table (Toffee Cocoa Cuddles)

Clothing Line Baby Shower Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:34:00 +0000

An 8 inch cake made to welcome a baby girl named Gigi. I just love it when I get free reign to design a cake, they usually end up being my favorite ones and this is one that I have wanted to make for a while - a clothing line with baby clothes. I made the cake purple with the some low, green rolling hills and kept all the decorations in all shades of pink (except for the tiny splash of blue on the blankie). Everything is made out of MMF.

For the bib, I used an old cutter that came with 2 tiny eyelets. When I say "old", it used to be my mothers and I never had the chance to use it until now. I wasn't quite sure of what to do with the eyelets so I just made up a little flower-like design along the bottom of the bib then painted it over with some pink luster dust (love that stuff)

The lettering is made with the FMM Lower Case Block Alphabet Tappit Cutters Set. The cutter has the letters on a ruler-like strip and I had to cut out small little squares of the fondant to stamp out each letter one by one. Roll the fondant too thick and the letters don't come out smoothly along the edges, roll it out too thin and the letters stick up inside the cutter and you have to pick it out with a toothpick that ends up ruining the smooth edges and stretching it...it took a couple tries to get the fondant the right thickness and consistency to stamp out right. Not as easy as it seems, but then, I haven't used it very much and with some patience and trail and error, it finally worked out and came out nicely.

The clothes are hand cut and the flower blossoms are made by using an assortment of cutters (also handed down to me from my mother so I couldn't tell you exactly what type of flowers they are for).

For the posts holding up the clothing line, I marbled brown and black fondant then etched some veins down it. Topped them off with a little bow that I tied out of fondant and made some tiny wooden-looking pegs to hold up the clothes with....so cute!

A perfectly happy and cheerful cake to welcome a new baby girl...Welcome Gigi!

Mom's Knitting Basket Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:22:00 +0000

A birthday cake for my mom who can knit, crochet, or embroider practically anything....

The basket was made out of 2, 9 inch round Carrot Cakes filled with Cream Cheese Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC) that I tinted brown with some AmeriColor gel colors. I didn't want the white IMBC to peak through the basket weave but in the end, with a white "liner" hanging over the basket, it would have technically been OK if it was kept white - if you get what I mean - live and learn =) For the basket weave pattern, I cut out strips of MMF in 2 sizes (one size for the vertical pieces and a another, wider size, for the horizontal pieces). I had never done a basket weave before but once I got the pattern down, it all came together pretty easily.

(Recipe for the Cream Cheese IMBC can be found at the bottom of this post:
Korean Hanbok Dol Cake from March 2011)

Once done, I brushed the fondant over with some Chocolate Brown Petal Dust and added the white fondant trim around the top rim. I used a stitching wheel to add the stitch pattern around the top and bottom edge of the white trim.

The balls of yarn were made out of Lemon Cake that were filled and covered with IMBC. I finally got around to using a cupcake pan my husband bought for me two years ago like the one pictured on Amazon below (Wilton Multi Cavity Cupcake Pan). They were the perfect size to create the balls of yarn with for the basket.

I put together 2 of the cupcake tops to form a round ball.

Trimmed off the pointed tops of the cupcakes to help make the ball look more rounded.

Used the bottom halves of the cupcakes to make a larger, oval, yarn of ball.

I then frosted all the balls of yarn with IMBC and popped them into the fridge for about an hour to firm up while I prepped the fondant.

There's a really neat post on Vegan Yum Yum on how to make balls of yarn and clothing with marzipan. I used the same technique but with MMF that I mixed with Tylose and a Clay Extruder to help extrude the miles upon miles (as it seemed) of fondant-yarn.

After trying out a couple of the disks that the extruder came with, the 2 disks pictured below worked out the best in creating the yarn look especially once the fondant was twisted.

I used the smaller disk (pictured left) for the green and purple balls of yarn and the larger disk (pictured right) for the pink ball of yarn.

Extruding the fondant, twisting it to look more like yarn, piecing it together into sections. Trim to size and add to the ball of yarn. Repeat and repeat and repeat until the entire ball of yarn is covered.

Spirals of fondant yarn to attached to the ends of the balls.

The finished ball of yarn. I later dusted it with Pink Luster Dust.

To get the gradation of color on the purple and green balls of yarn, I stuffed the extruder with a small amount of colored fondant followed by a small bit of white, then back to color, then white until the extruder was filled up. As you extrude the fondant, it comes out with a really nice gradation of color. The idea come to me after I had made the pink one and realized that it would have looked much better with some variation in color added to it. It actually worked perfectly since my mom had always preferred using the yarn that had a variation of color versus the solid ones =)

The purple knitted piece attached to the needle was something I improvised on and made up in trying to figure out how to show the gradation in color with. Hopefully these pictures below make some sense.

Marble purple fondant with white. Cut it out into strips, fold the strip in half, twist, then roll between your hands until you get a nice, thin, piece that looks kinda like yarn.

Brush a little bit of water between each strip to help hold it together then fold over every other piece like in the photo. Make sure the pieces sticking up are long enough to curl over the needle.

Roll the long pieces of fondant over the skewer using piping gel to help it stick to the skewer. Flip it over and use a toothpick or a scoring tool to create the knitted pattern into the fondant. For the knitting needle, I used a wooden skewer and painted it in Gold Dust.

The completed piece.

For the top of the knitting needles, I rolled out a piece of fondant into a cylinder shape and poked it into the end of the skewer using piping gel to help it stick together. I also painted it over with Gold Dust then imprinted 6's on the top of each needle: shhhh, my mom turned 66 - a little discreet and very personal. I don't think the party guests caught that.

The 6's were made by pressing a #10 round piping tip into the fondant and a scoring tool to shape out the tail of the 6.

I added a little cross-stitch heart to the front with Royal Icing. A little tip to help the royal icing from not breaking on you as you pipe lettering or something thin is to mix a little bit of piping gel into it. It helps the Royal Icing stretch and not break on you.

Happy knitting...eating!

Barbie Goes to Hollywood Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 04:29:00 +0000

For a friend's daughter who turned 6. The theme of the cake was, "I can be a Movie Star" and Riley's favorite colors were pink and purple.

I made the purple, Hollywood mountains around the cake and added spots of sparkling glitter to look like the twinkling lights along the mountain side.

Everything was hand cut out of MMF (except for the alphabet cutters used on the, Happy Birthday). For the lettering, I used black MMF and dusted it over with blue pearl dust and rainbow glitter. I made her name, Riley, using a Barbie font which can be downloaded for free here.

I had such a hard time with the face and the nose...She went through 3 face transformations and quite a lot of sculpting before I settled with this one...must have spent close to 3 hours on her face alone. The easiest part was the arm and hand. For the arm, I used the tips on a video tutorial by Make Your Cakes - It shows you how to sculpt arms and legs easily. She did have a bare arm until my 4 year old daughter said that Barbie needs a bracelet and ring. These were added especially at her request =D

Cake: 9 inch White Vanilla Cake filled with Raspberry IMBC and decorated in MMF.

Chanel Classic Handbag Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:56:00 +0000

I made this cake for my mother-in-law's birthday. She loves Chanel and had requested for me to replicate one of her purses a few years ago. This year, although being in the middle of a home remodel, I HAD to make her cake....I couldn't let another year go by. She absolutely loved it and didn't let us cut it. Luckily, I had also made some cupcakes to go along with the cake that everyone enjoyed.

So, here are the photo's of the process....

2 days prior, I made the Black MMF using black candy melts. The recipe can be found under the "MMF Recipes" tab above. You can also use dark brown/chocolate candy melts. The black candy melts I had were more dark brown rather than black and I had to add a few drops of the black AmeriColor Gel to it to get it darker.

I think the black candy melts I used were either by Merckens or CK....I don't remember exactly but I do know that they were not the Wilton ones.

1 day prior, I made the blossoms, flower petals, and Chanel logos for the cupcakes with MMF (I mix the MMF with tylose to help it dry faster and harder like gumpaste). I also made the chain links to use for the purse straps with MMF too.

I made over 100 links and only joined them in two's (you'll see why later). I lay them over popsicle sticks so that they would dry with some curvature to them rather than being plain and flat.

I baked a 10" square cake (10 inch wide purse), and cut and stacked 3 tiers. Each tier was 2 1/2 inches wide by 2 inches tall (6 inch tall purse).

Carved the cake to the shape of the purse and covered it over in Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC). I also inserted 2 dowels down the middle to help hold the purse up since it was narrow and tall. Then, I put the entire cake into the fridge overnight to get nice and firm.

The following morning, I covered the cake over in MMF.

The 1st piece I did was the front. I rolled out the MMF and trimmed it to size. I also used Dark Cocoa to dust the surface with rather than Powdered Sugar or Corn Starch to help keep the MMF from sticking to the table top. It was great at giving the purse a dark, brown look that matched the color of the purse perfectly. Using a ruler and a stitching wheel (a sewing tool), I scored the quilt design over the MMF. Flipped the MMF over so the underside was now facing up, and rolled 1/8" of the edge over and all around so you wouldn't see the cut edges - I wanted to seams to look just like they were sewed together just like the seams on a real leather purse - hope that makes sense. Flipped the MMF back to the right side and lay it over the cake. With a fondant tool (a small ball tool will work too), I went over the quilt seams and lightly pressed it into the cake slightly to give it a little bit of a puffed up look.

The next piece I lay, covered the back of the purse and went up and over the front of the cake for the flap. I then added the 2 side pieces following the same technique above with scoring the quilt pattern and rolling the edges under. I then lightly rubbed the entire purse with a little bit of shortening to make it look more like leather.

Once the cake was covered, I got started on the details. I painted each link with edible gold dust mixed with vodka. Tedious but well worth it - you gotta have the gold, Chanel chain!

Update: For those that have asked, the Gold Dust I use (according to the simple label) is, 24 kt. Gold Dust, Non Toxic (2gr.) #C409. It looks to be the same as this one:

To use, add a little bit of vodka to the Gold Dust to create a thin paste and sort of dab it onto the fondant pieces or use really short brush strokes. If you use too much vodka, the gold dust will get too thinned out and difficult to get a thick coating of it on the fondant. If you fondant is greasy and the dust is not sticking, lightly brush some corn starch over the fondant first then try painting it again. HTH.

I then cut out 4 circles out off the top of the purse (2 in the front and 2 in the back) using a piping tip. The holes were then covered over with round circles made out of MMF which were also brushed over with gold dust.

Now to the fun part...laying each pair of links on the cake and threading the leather strap through it. I cheated. The leather strap is actually 1 1/2 inch wide pieces of MMF pinched in the ends and shoved into each link giving it the illusion of the strap going all the way through.

I used the same technique when adding the shoe laces on the sneaker shoe cakes I had done before...see them below:

Tennis Shoe Cake

Running Sneaker Cake

Now you can see why I only connected 2 links at a time to each other. The part of the links that are under the black strap are not seen so therefore, do not need to 'actually' be connected - cool illusion hah!

I looked over so many purse cakes trying to figure out how the straps were done on the cakes that did have edible straps and didn't like what I saw so after playing around with the links, I came up with my own technique....at least I haven't seen anyone who has done it this way or at least shown us how. Now, with this tip, I hope to see much better chain links out there by you all :-)

I used clear piping gel to help hold all the links up against the cake and onto the cake stand.

The 'minor' imperfection that really bugs me is that on the following day, since we didn't eat the cake the night of the party, I took the photo that you see above, outside in the morning light. As you can see, the cake settled and the 2 dowels used to hold the cake up appear as bumps (to me, they look like horns) along the top of the purse...err! I've been told, by a dear friend, that it's actually a bulging wallet full of cash - gotta love her! Next time, I'm cutting those things down at least 1/4 inch lower than the actual cake to avoid such an awful bump...Live and Learn!

As for the large flowers, I made them up. These were the very 1st flowers I've ever made petal by petal. There are 5 medium petals for the inside and 5 large petals for the outside all glued together with piping gel. The large, pink flowers are dusted over in pink luster dust and I added pearls of white, silver and black in an assortment of sizes to the middle of each flower and mini blossom. I just love how they turned out but I do need to take some classes and learn the REAL way to make flowers someday.

I made both regular and mini sized cupcakes frosted with IMBC and topped with the Chanel inspired decorations. The white, round disks have the quilt pattern on them too which is hard to tell from the photo. The C's for the logo were made using circle cutters.

The cake is on the pedestal while the 2 purses on the table are the non-edible, real ones.

And alas, 3 days later, we finally cut the cake....and ate it too.

1000 Fan Giveaway...THANK YOU!

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 04:03:00 +0000

In celebration of my Facebook Fan Page reaching 1000 fans (and it's 2 year Anniversary), I'm doing a giveaway! With the holiday season upon us, what a perfect time to give away a pair of my silicone molds: 1 Reindeer and 1 Sleigh valued at $60.

Use them to create a festive and edible decoration for your holiday themed baked goods or simply hang them on your tree...endless possibilities.

How to enter:

1) Comment below on what you love about the holiday season. If you're the Grinch, sorry, your entry will not be accepted.

2) For an additional entry, like my Facebook Page and enter a separate comment below that you liked my page. If you already like my page, comment you're a fan already.

Winner will be selected by Random.org

Giveaway ends Monday, December 5th at 11:59 P.M. (PST)

Shipping fees will be taken care of and the giveaway is open to International followers too.

Good Luck and Thank you for supporting my passion =)

Happy Holidays!

CONGRATULATIONS #3 - Haley! I will be contacting you soon.

Thomas the Train Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Choo choo, here comes Thomas! An 8 inch cake covered and decorated in Marshmallow Fondant (MMF). Stevie turned 3 so I used the "3" theme randomly around the cake: 3 pieces of wood for the train track, 3 yellow stripes on Thomas, 3 rocks/boulders, 3 bushy trees, and 3 tiny flowers on each bush.

Although this was the 2nd time making a 3D model of Thomas, he was still a challenge...so many parts to add on to such a little guy - he barely stood at 2 inches. The inside of his body is RKT covered over with modeling chocolate and I used dry spaghetti painted with black gel colors for the 4 rods that are in the front. Dry spaghetti and piping gel was also used to secure the puff of steam to the funnel and into the body.

Note: When making edible treats for kids, try to use dry spaghetti over toothpicks - they will bite into anything...and everything.

I kneaded and marbled 3 shades of brown together to create the mountain and rocks with then scored it all over the place with a ball tool to give it some ridges and cracks. I also made the mountain stick up over the top of the cake a bit. Finished off the cake by adding the rolling hills in 2 shades of green, white clouds and trees.

A view around the cake....

I left room on the top for Stevie to add a No. 3 candle

Silicone Molds are Now Available

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 05:15:00 +0000

Christmas Reindeer Cake made in 2011 for a Charity Auction

Alas, I have the silicone molds of both the Sleigh and the Reindeer from last years Christmas Reindeer Cake!

To place your order, click here or click on the tab at the top of the page right under my logo, "Shop Sugar Sweet"

ENJOY!!!

Mr. Fluffy's Bakery (Ni Hao Kai-Lan)

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 16:39:00 +0000

My niece turned 1 and after doing a couple Kai-Lan themed cakes and decorations, I wanted to create something unique and different but especially cute for her 1st birthday. I love the show and one of my favorite characters is Mr. Fluffy and his adorably cute bakery so I designed her cake to look just like his bakery. I think it turned out really cute!

I had scoured the Internet and watched online videos of the show trying to find a really good picture of his home to duplicate and failed. There were a lot of photos of the toy but none of the home as seen on the show. As I was telling my brother about it, my 4 year old jumps in and says she has a picture as she runs into her room and comes back out with a Kai-Lan book and there was Mr. Fluffy and his bakery right inside that book - it was perfect! My little hero!

My two kids picked out which of Mr. Fluffy's cakes I got to replicate for the decorations along the side of the cake and since we were in the midst of a heat wave and with the party being outdoors at a park, I kept everything pretty flat and two-dimensional to be safe.

The house was built and carved out of 2, 6 inch rounds and an 8 inch round for the roof. Everything is covered and decorated in MMF including the handmade, giant chocolate chips sitting on the roof. I'm so sorry for not having pictures of the step by step process - it was such a busy and stressful week that the camera and I just did not find each other but hopefully all of these "after" photos will help paint the picture....a 360 view around the cake.

Included below are the table center pieces made by my cousin - The lollipop flowers are so adorable and too cute!

And my sister-in-law decorated this large box to hold the birthday envelopes. The characters were hand cut out of construction paper and glued together! So creative and perfect - they don't look like cutouts at all!

Emily had a beautiful birthday filled with tons of family and friends, lots of delicious food and beautiful decorations made by her artsy and crafty Aunties and Mommy =) Happy 1st Birthday Emily!

Giant Cupcake Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 04:20:00 +0000

This year for my nieces birthday she requested for a giant cupcake, a blue liner with hearts and sprinkles..what fun to make and I absolutely love, love, love the way it turned out!

I wanted to create something unique and different from the typical giant cupcake and found this cake created by Las Vegas Custom Cakes (www.LasVegasCustomCakes.com). I used it as my inspiration piece and I just loved how it gave you a tiny peek at the actual cupcake like your would see on a regular cupcake.

I baked 5 cakes:
2, 8-inch rounds
2, 6-inch rounds
1, 4-inch round

Cakes stacked - imagining what the cupcake would look like

I used a 6 and 8 inch to build the bottom half of the cupcake and the remaining 8, 6, and 4 inch cakes to carve the swirl for the top of the cupcake. The swirl could have been made shorter...something to consider if I would make another so it wouldn't look so much like an ice cream swirl. We did get about 50 servings out of all these cakes.

Stacked and ready to be carved

Carved and Crumb Coated

The top half of the cupcake was filled and covered entirely with White Chocolate IMBC (IMBC with melted white chocolate added into it - yum!) I had never carved a swirl before and it was a challenge trying to get the curve to work amongst the 3 tiers of cake - I must have turned the cake a couple hundred times picturing where the swirl was going and carefully carving it out - thank goodness for a turntable =)

The bottom half of the cupcake was filled with White Chocolate IMBC but the outside was covered in Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache since I wanted something more stable to hold up such a tall cake.

I carved the cake to look like a cupcake and then covered it over with ganache.

I then piped long ropes of ganache over wax paper, put them in the freezer for 5 minutes to set a little, then peeled them off and placed them evenly spaced around the cake to help create the creases of the cupcake liner. I did try to pipe the ganache ropes directly on the cake but they turned out uneven and the angle was difficult to work with.

Once everything was set and firm, I covered the top part with chocolate brown MMF.

Boba tea straws were then inserted into the cake (they were used to support and hold up the weight of the top tier once stacked).

I then flipped the cake upside down, rolled out the blue MMF into a wide ribbon and wrapped it around the cake being sure to keep it all at the same height up off the base. I did roll the MMF thicker than normal at about 1/4 inch thick.

Both tiers covered in White Chocolate MMF

Both tiers were covered and decorated in White Chocolate MMF.

White Chocolate MMF: I used my recipe to making MMF with Candy Melts but replaced the Candy Melts with White Chocolate and added a 1/2 tsp of butter flavoring to it - delish!!!

Then to the fun part, adding the finishing touches.

The finished cake measured at 8 inches wide at the widest part and 12 inches tall. It looked like a giant plastic toy rather than an edible cake =) We all enjoyed it. Happy Birthday Ally!

Tennis Shoe Cake (Nike Max Global Court Shoe)

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 16:06:00 +0000

My 2nd sneaker....what fun! This was for my Father-in-Law and the 3rd tennis themed cake I've created for him. I already have an idea for what I want to make him next year too =)

So here are some of the photo's on how I created a replica of the Nike Max Air Global Court Shoe as seen here:

Carved cake

Crumb Coated in IMBC

The entire shoe is carved out of cake. A Banana Cake crumb coated in Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC) and decorated over with Marshmallow Fondant (MMF).

Here are step-by-step photo's of the 1st sneaker cake I did 2 months ago: Running Sneaker Shoe Cake

I basically followed the same steps as I did on the Running Sneaker Cake and worked on a well chilled cake removing it out of the fridge a couple hundred times to measure and fit each piece of the shoe together - keeping the cake cold also helps with keeping the IMBC firm and easier to work with. It's a long and tedious process assembling the shoe section by section and it felt like I was "sewing" together a real shoe =)

Photo's of the shoe with scaled measurement and cutting out the "Nike" out of black MMF

Just getting started is always a challenge...what to do 1st and where to place that very first piece so all the other pieces miraculously fall into place is challenging. I think the best part to start on is the very front toe area of the shoe and then move up to the middle with the shoes tongue. Once that gets pieced together, I assembled the sides followed by the details along the very bottom of the shoe and lastly, assembled the back heel and the ankle opening.

Right before adding the shoe laces

Close up o the shoe laces

Excited to share how I used clear piping gel to create the air pockets =)
I did a thin layer 1st, let that rest and set overnight then added another layer over that...worked perfectly!

Outer side of the shoe

Inner side of the shoe

To finish it off, I dusted some of the grey areas in pearl dust to give it some shine and look more like the same plastic-like material on the shoe.

The one thing that was out of proportion which I wished I paid more attention to was to make the top "ankle" opening wider...once I was done, I noticed that I was about an inch short and couldn't fix it. I had my scaled measurements down correctly on paper but in the midst of assembling the cake, I lost track and never went back to remeasure and double check. You just have to have tiny ankles to get into these shoes - LOL!

Shoe Size: 9.5 US
Shoe Dimensions: 10x5x3 inches

Giraffe Themed First Birthday Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 23:34:00 +0000

I love how Aiden's cake turned out. As soon as I saw the invitation for his birthday, I fell in love with the theme...I just love giraffe's!

The cake was a 9 inch White Almond Cake filled with fresh strawberries and Strawberry Italian Meringue Buttercream and the top tier was a 6 inch Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Italian Meringue Buttercream. The entire cake was covered and decorated in Marshmallow Fondant, the giraffe was made out of modeling chocolate.

Modeling Chocolate Giraffe

Ain't he cute? I made the bottom half of the giraffe's body out of rice crispy treats that was shaped into a rounded pyramid then covered it over with modeling chocolate. l made the modeling chocolate using the Merkens Yellow Candy Coatings (recipe for modeling chocolate found here) and added a little bit of Egg Yellow AmeriColor to it to get the right shade. All the little details on him is Marshmallow Fondant (MMF).

The leaves were made a few day prior out of MMF mixed with Tylose (helps it dry faster and harder) and placed over wrinkled foil to give the leaves some random and natural curves to it as they dried. I later painted the darker green leaves with white gel colors to match the ones on the invitation and trimmed the bottom of each leaf to fit flushed up against the giraffe. I attached the leaves to the cake with a little bit of clear piping gel.

The bottom tier was designed to match the border on the invitation. His name and the #1 on the front of the cake were made in black MMF then dusted over with blue pearl dust - I love the effect. The white round piece behind the #1 was dusted in edible glitter.

Photo of the invitation and some of the 3 dozen Cupcake Toppers

I also made 3 dozen assorted cupcake toppers for the mommy to add to their own cupcakes.

Photo courtesy of Saira B.

Caitlyn's Castle Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 02:07:00 +0000

My daughter Caitlyn has been begging for a castle cake for weeks. And in her exact words, "I want a purple castle cake with a princess in a poofy, blue dress and Darth Vader"...yes, Darth Vader. She's infatuated by Darth Vader and even wanted to dress like him for Halloween last year - I talked her into being a cute little Witch instead but I may not win the battle this Halloween, we'll wait and see.

She sees the cakes I make all the time and spends the entire year asking for each and every one of those cakes to be remade for her but she'll tell you exactly what you wants on each down to every little detail. Plus, she's always baking a cake in her play kitchen and making decorations with play dough. So, this year, as a surprise, on the day of her actual birthday, I completely let go and let the kids frost and decorate their very own 5 inch square cakes.

They got to do whatever they wanted to make. I gave them a bunch of MMF in different colors and my box of cutters to use and left them alone to do as they pleased. Caitlyn jumped right in and had her cake all covered with decorations in no time at all. She was so happy and definitely in hog heaven over her cake and with also having complete freedom to do as she pleased - A priceless moment.

A few weeks later, I made her actual birthday cake. With family visiting from out of town and only 2 nights to get it all done (1 night preppping and baking and another night to assemble and decorate), it was a group effort having my cousin and sister-in-law help out with some of the cake. We were up until 4am the day of her party getting the final touches done....phew!

With only a few of us celebrating her special day between the cousins, I kept the cake small (10 servings). I built the cake off a 10 inch square Chocolate Cake. The bottom tier measures around 5.5 inches x 4 inches tall while the dome is a 3 inch round. The cake is filled and covered in Italian Meringue Buttercream and decorated in MMF.

The purple MMF is grape flavored - made with grape JELL-O
(Click here for the recipe)

I didn't get a chance to take photos through out the process and this is the only one I have before assembly. The 2 tall towers are paper towel rolls that I covered in foil then over with MMF. Giant ice cream cones were inserted into the paper towel rolls and since the tops kept cracking off, I brushed them over with chocolate. The pink tower is a large sugar cone. The 1st sugar cone crumble on me when I tried to cover it with MMF and so on my 2nd attempt, I brushed the inside with a thick layer of chocolate to give it more strength. I ended up cutting it almost in half and recovering it over with another piece of MMF to fit on the cake better.

Top View: The path is rainbow sprinkles - Caitlyn's request

The entire castle is dusted in Violet Petal Dust

Cinderella

Although she wanted Cinderella in a big poofy dress, and with almost not making her due to time, she was still super happy to have her on the cake...at least looking out of the window is better than not having her at all - gotta love kids! For the tiny flowers, I used a 3 different sized blossom cutters. The largest ones are no more than a 1/4 inch wide; very tiny flowers. I piped the green vines in Royal Icing.

THE Darth Vader

And she got what she wanted...Darth Vader on her cake. He's made out of modeling chocolate and the light saber is a toothpick painted in gel colors (it had the perfect groove for the handle).

It was funny to hear the guys at the restaurant say the cake was "totally cool" - a castle cake, cool? Nah, we all know, it was Darth that was cool (LOL).

cheeeezzzz!

I asked her what happened to Darth, she points at the rest of his
body while chewing on his head (note the black teeth)

Chicago Themed Northwestern Grad Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 03:06:00 +0000

My cousin graduated Northwestern with a PhD and what better way to celebrate than with a cake with all things she loved about Chicago! So many little details on the cake, a complete 360 where I wished I had one of those really cool rotating cake pedestals to display the cake on (another addition to my wish list).

A couple dozen cupcakes with more Chicago favorites: The Chicago Flag, Deep Dish Pizza, Mustard Hot Dogs, Doctoral Graduate Cap, and the Chicago Cubs Logo

Some more cupcakes: Chicago Flag and the Chicago Bulls Logo

Once again, I had my 2 cousins help out with making some of the decorations for the cake a few days prior - they're getting pretty good at this stuff...I see some future employees - hah hah!

The 6 inch Chocolate Cake is filled and covered in Italian Meringue Buttercream then with MMF. All the decorations are made out of MMF. The cupcakes were an assortment of vanilla and chocolate cupcakes baked by one of the cousins which I topped them off with yummy Italian Meringue Buttercream too - delish!

Here is a tour around the cake....

The "L" Train, Hancock Building, Marina Building (Corn Cob) and Cloud Gate (The Bean)

Hancock Building, Marina Building (Corn Cobs) and Cloud Gate (The Bean)

Navy Pier Ferris Wheel and Lake Michigan

Willis Tower (Sears Tower), the Cubs Wrigley Field and Lake Michigan

Top: Doctorate Hat and Hood and The Chicago Theatre Sign

Congratulations Stephanie! We are so proud of you =)

Running Sneaker Shoe Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:39:00 +0000

One of my favorite cakes. I have wanted to make a shoe cake for a while and jumped at the opportunity to create this one for a friend. The shoe measures at about 11" L x 5" H x 4.5" W and is carved entirely out of cake and covered in MMF. It's modeled after the New Balance MR817 men's running shoe.

I baked the cake in a 10x10 square pan, cut it in half and stacked it to create a rectangular block to carve the shoe out of. With the shoes footprint, I used it as a template to carve out the sides of the cake and eyeballed the rest of it.

Covered it over in vanilla buttercream and let it rest overnight at room temperature to set and crust nicely.

I was so nervous with starting on the details and must have spent at least an hour trying to figure out how to piece everything together and where to start. In the meantime, I put the cake in the fridge for an hour to firm up making it easier to decorate over with the MMF.

Tip: I find it easier to decorate a cold cake. You don't have to keep it in the fridge overnight, only an hour is needed to harden the BC (I use a 50/50 mix of Hi Ratio Shortening and Butter - recipe can be found here by Edna at Design Me a Cake). I then used pieces of parchment paper lightly pressed over each individual section to sketch the shape I needed over it, put the cake back into the fridge to stay chilled, prepped the MMF to the size I sketched onto the parchment paper, removed the cake from the fridge and lay the MMF piece over it to double check the fit, removed the MMF if needed to trim it some more (as long as the BC is cold hard, no dents or smudges will be left behind), then once you have the perfectly sized piece, place and smooth the MMF into place. Repeat a couple dozen times =)

Once I got the first couple of pieces on there, the shoe took shape and everything else came together slowly and perfectly.

Total time spent on carving and decorating it...12 hours (not counting the baking, making the MMF, and covering the board) but well worth every minute of it!

For the fabric/mesh print on the shoe, I used a piece of a plastic/silicone drawer liner that had the perfect pattern on it as an impression mat - thank goodness! I spent a couple days trying to figure out how I was going to recreate the mesh pattern. I used the same mesh pattern on the name, "Bino!". The entire shoe is put together using 4 colors of MMF: White, light grey, dark grey, and orange. The light grey panels were dusted in white pearl dust to look shiny and "reflective". The stitches were made with a sewing stitching wheel. I also used the stitching wheel along the "50th". A piece of tulle was used to make the fabric print on the orange part along the inside of the shoe. For the shoe laces, I used a veining tool to score the various thread marks on it - I love bringing out all those little details =)

The cake board was covered to look like a track field floor. I used a dish cloth as an impression mat against the board to create the little bumps that you find on a track floor. I was going to dust it over with some brown petal dust to add some scuff marks but it looked a bit more like dirt and opted to not do it - although you can see my sample patch in the photo above).

I just wanted to slip my foot into it and go for a run. Can't wait to tackle another sneaker cake again - I really enjoyed creating this one!

"Justice for Girls" Monkey Themed Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 15:56:00 +0000

My little niece turned 8 and loves the monkey from the Justice for Girls clothing store and with a sleep over party, I wanted to create the perfect little cake incorporating the Monkey, the bright and funky store themed style and a bed. Her father said she was always laying on her bed listening to her iTouch so I just had to add that too =)

The cake is an 8 x 5 x 3 inch Dark Chocolate Cake covered in Chocolate IMBC - here's a picture of it in the middle of being crumb coated.

Once I covered the cake over with the IMBC, I let it sit in the fridge to firm up while I prepared the bed spread to lay over it.

I rolled the MMF out into a rectangle (11 x 11 inch - 5x8 inch top with 3 inches down 3 of the sides), I used a diamond impression mat to lightly mark the pattern over it. With a sewing tracing wheel, I marked the lines then lightly pressed in the creases at each intersection with a gumpaste veining tool.

I then lay it over the cake and smoothed it into place. The headboard was made 2 days prior to allow time to dry out of MMF mixed with Tylose and it sits flat up against the back of the cake.

I then added a small round "button" into each intersection and dusted the creases of the bed spread with pink petal dust.

The texture on the little rug was made by using the tip of the star piping tip then dusted over with lilac petal dust. I topped them with a pair of slippers =) for the little monkey.

The monkey is made out of modeling chocolate (the head is a RKT covered in modeling chocolate). I loved how she turned out - Laying on the bed, listening to her iTouch.

another view of the monkey.... I made the bow and the letters of her name out of MMF (mixed with Tylose) then dusted them with edible Glitter.

I just had to add the banana peel beside the bed =)

I also made a bunch of mini banana's to top the cupcakes with (1 to 1.5 inches). Here they're being dusted in sunflower and dogwood brown petal dust.

The 4 steps to creating a gumpaste banana (left to right):

1) Model the banana out of yellow gumpaste (here I used MMF mixed with Tylose)

2) Dust them over with a yellow or sunflower petal dust

3) Lightly and randomly, dust them with brown or dogwood petal dust

4) Steam them lightly to set the color = perfect, little, ripe bananas. It would have been nice to have added some banana extract to them but I didn't think about it until they were done.

Some of the cupcake toppers. We had 4 dozen Red Velvet cupcakes to top with decorations so I did an assortment of hearts, stars, flower blossoms, peace signs, banana's, the Monkey and #8.

My sister-in-law baked her Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting and I topped then off with the decorations and finished off the dessert table with some Chocolate Peppermint Cake Balls. It all came together perfectly and I love the theme and colors - so Kayla!

Kai-Lan and Thomas Cake Toppers

noreply@blogger.com (Angela Tran) — Sun, 22 May 2011 04:16:00 +0000

Modeling Chocolate Cake toppers ordered for a joint birthday for a little boy and a girl.

Kai-Lan is approximately 3.5 inches tall and made out of modeling chocolate. I used RKT to shape her head and help with not making it too heavy for her tiny body and she has a 6 inch popsicle stick that runs from the middle of her head and down 3 inches past her feet to stick into the cake. The birthday girl's favorite episode was the one about a trip to China so I made Kai-Lan in a red and yellow Chinese outfit dusted in red luster dust to look silky. I love the little yellow knots on the front of her shirt....she turned out so cute!

I've made Kai-Lan a few times before and you can see them here with some additional instructions: Kai-Lan

Thomas the Train was 5 inches long and about 3 inches tall. He turned out about an inch bigger than what I had originally planned and it was also the very first time I have ever made a train like this. I started his body out with a RKT rectangle and built up the modeling chocolate layer by layer by layer until I got his shape down perfectly.

He got a dusting of blue luster dust around his body and pearl luster dust around his face to give him a little more pop! I loved how he turned out....beep beep!

The mother used these to top a sheet cake with. She said that one of the kids tried to grab Kai-Lan as soon as they saw the cake and got the side of the frosting smashed - it's so nice to hear or see how the children react but what a scare to have one of them actually reach out for it!

Photo courtesy of Tania L.