Cakes! I love to bake them and I looove to eat them. I've made a ton of cakes over the years. Some cuter than others. None ever really looking like what I imagined in my mind, but oh well. It's still very fun to try. Here are a few cakes I've made that I actually have pictures of.
The first is from Eleanor's first birthday just last week. Seeing rainbow-inside cakes on a web site got me jazzed to do her whole birthday in a rainbow theme. I made rainbow cupcakes, one big cake and a mini-cake just for her. They all turned out awesome inside. The outsides? I kind of ran out of steam, thus the Skittles and M&Ms. But they are cute and everybody liked them. Especially the birthday girl.
The mini-cake.
The mini-cake.
The big cake.
The big cake cut open.
A slice cut off. Isn't it so pretty inside?
One of the cupcakes. I was glad to see that the rainbow works in them too.
Eleanor starting to eat her mini-cake. We had to scrape off the candies so she wouldn't choke. Then she went to town.
See. At least I've taught her something.
These next ones are two that I did for my neighbor's cute daughter Jasmine back in December. I did one for her photo shoot and one for her actual party. I kind of forced myself on Jasmine's mom Ann. Seriously, I really wanted to play with my little cake pans and so I "volunteered" myself to make them. Sorry Ann, I'm pushy, I know. Here is sweet Jasmine with one of the cakes. She didn't know what to do with it. That would be my fault. It had a hard-shell of molded chocolate around the outside. Are you supposed to pick that off? Break it? I think she barely took a finger-full of icing.
A close up of the cake top.
Here is a side view. It's really easy. You just lay out wax paper to the length of the circumference of your cake. Melt your chocolate chips or candy melts, pipe out your design onto the paper, I just used a spoon to make different sized polka dots. Let that dry a bit, then cover the whole thing with the other color. I was going to do this technique with Eleanor's cake and do a rainbow around the side, but decided it was unnecessary. In the end I am glad I went simple. Poor Jasmine's cake was basically an excuse for me to try this technique.
Cake number two I made for her to use in her one-year picture. Her colors were pink and white polka dots, but her room is pink, white and black. so I used that as the colors here.
Totally screwy on the circle and stuff. Note to self, if you didn't frost a perfect circle, then don't outline it to emphasize the flaws. Oh well, she's only one. I don't think she's picky.
I made this next cake well over a year ago for my niece Allie's 2nd birthday. Again, I wanted to try my hand at a doll cake using fondant, so I just made one. She liked it. She wanted to play with it more than eat it though. It's hard for me to post these as I only see all the imperfections, but it's cute enough I guess.
And this last cake is one I made for another niece, Abby. This was for her 10th birthday I think? It was fun because she didn't know I was doing it and she really loved it. I had learned how to make fondant rosettes and decided to make a cake with all flowers for her hair. This is probably my favorite cake I've made.
It got a little cramped down at the bottom for the writing. Alas. One of these days I want to take the Wilton courses and get better at all of this stuff. For now it's just fun for me to see these again. I have a bunch of pictures that are only on film, not digital. One day when I get scanning I can hopefully post some more.
