Monday, November 16, 2009

Budweiser Can Cake

This cake is for my buddy Greg's 27th birthday, whose drink of choice is Budweiser or "Bud heavy" as he calls it.  This is definitely the hardest cake I've had to make so far.  There were a few moments where I seriously thought that I would be submitting my cake to cakewrecks.com but I actually love how it turned out.  I also love that the cake is homemade funfetti with vanilla buttercream.  Adult cake on the outside, kid cake on the inside.

I used a classic white cake recipe and added 2 to 3 tablespoons of rainbow jimmies to the batter before dividing it into pans.  The cake is made of nine 6-inch rounds.

I made a base for the cake so that it would appear to taper in by hot gluing together 3 cardboard rounds that I had cut about .25 an inch off all around.  I cut a hole through the center and glued a disposable chopstick sticking straight up.  I had also made sure I cut a hole through the center of the cake board that the bottom 6-inch cake round was sitting on so that I would be able to insert the chopstick up the center of the cake, giving it stability.  I also inserted a second chopstick going down into the center from the top too.  

The hardest part was actually getting the cake covered in fondant.  I tried about 5 different times.  I rolled out a big circle of fondant to drape over and tried to smooth out the folds but it didn't work out because there were was too many folds to smooth down.  The only way I was successful in getting it covered was to roll out a long piece of fondant on a piece of parchment paper and wrap it around the sides.  I could have really used a second pair of hands for this.  Then I rolled another smaller circle to put on top and join the seams as best as I could.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Twilight: New Moon Cake



The flower on the cover of Stephanie Meyer's book is gorgeous and is what inspired the theme for this cake.  It was for Briana, who had a Twilight: New Moon themed party for her birthday.  The inside is red velvet cake with a cream cheese frosting.

The flower is actually a flaming parrot tulip.  The petals have ruffled, feathery edges.  To achieve this effect I pressed each petal in a tulip veiner and thinned the edges with a ball tool and let it pull away some of the gum paste.


Close up of the flower.  I like how there is too much red food coloring on the petal and it looks like blood.


The birthday girls and their cake!