Anyone in here decorate cakes?

[scarlett873]

Here are some pics that I had offhand. I have a Cinderella wedding cake one and a few other's as well. Including one of Andy's room from Toy Story. The Tree stump cake is a last minute creation when the Mad Hatter's hat cake didnt not work out as planned due to bad supports! And the other is a Egyptian pyramid that was used for a adventure party we had with a Lara CRoft / Indiana Jones theme . We used gram crackers for the sand and a found the pattern to cut the cake into a pyramid online . I will dig around for the other pictures. With my kids food allergies there is no such posibility as buying a bakery cake so we usually end up having to be creative. Its a lot of fun .

Those are really cute!!

Bridget...i'm impressed!! I had no idea that you had the cake bug quite like this!! That cake is very impressive!

I did birthday cakes this weekend. I really need to upload my cake pictures and post them soon!

 

[peachgirl]

OK ladies, help me out. Tuesday is my dad's birthday and I want to make him a fondant cake. It will have to be chocolate. I think I'll just make a standard box mix cake in two layers. Would the store-bought frosting be ok to put under the fondant? I usually make my own buttercream, but I've never made chocolate before and I don't know if I want to "waste" my time making frosting. And what about the chocolate marshmallow fondant. Can someone please share how to make that?

Store bought frosting will work just fine with the fondant.

Here's link to the fondant recipe. You might want to check out their recipes. There are several versions of chocolate fondant listed there.

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-2408-3-Chocolate-Marshmallow-Fondant.html

 

[rie'smom]

Your cakes are so cute. I can't wait to see more pictures!!

Here are some pics that I had offhand. I have a Cinderella wedding cake one and a few other's as well. Including one of Andy's room from Toy Story. The Tree stump cake is a last minute creation when the Mad Hatter's hat cake didnt not work out as planned due to bad supports! And the other is a Egyptian pyramid that was used for a adventure party we had with a Lara CRoft / Indiana Jones theme . We used gram crackers for the sand and a found the pattern to cut the cake into a pyramid online . I will dig around for the other pictures. With my kids food allergies there is no such posibility as buying a bakery cake so we usually end up having to be creative. Its a lot of fun .

 

[Beth76]

Store bought frosting will work just fine with the fondant.

Here's link to the fondant recipe. You might want to check out their recipes. There are several versions of chocolate fondant listed there.

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-2408-3-Chocolate-Marshmallow-Fondant.html

Thanks Peachgirl! Lucky me, the boys are in VBS this week so hopefully I can actually get this done.

 

[cryssi]

cinderella73, those are great!

 

[stargrazer]

Hey Cinderella73, you have good ideas, I'm glad you took time to post your cakes!

I wish I could help more on answering technical questions but it looks like our resident bakers have it covered I'm still learning myself!

I'll have a new pic for ya'll next week when my final cake is due. I could post pics of royal icing flowers but I think they'll be more exciting on the cake

 

[BelleBoo&AmisMum]

A cake related story -

Friday night we were in line for our Harry Potter book at the mall. We're just sitting and hanging out no big deal. Then Belle sees this guy and yells something about it being the guy that did the Capt. Hook cake! It was Mike McCarey heading towards the back of the line to pick up his book - if only I was in his section!

 

[stargrazer]

A cake related story -

Friday night we were in line for our Harry Potter book at the mall. We're just sitting and hanging out no big deal. Then Belle sees this guy and yells something about it being the guy that did the Capt. Hook cake! It was Mike McCarey heading towards the back of the line to pick up his book - if only I was in his section!

How cool! That Captain Hook cake was off the charts, I've never seen anything like that. It didn't even LOOK like a cake.

HP and cake, perfect pairing Thanks for sharing!

 

[Beth76]

Fondant disaster! I tried the chocolate marshmallow recipe and after all the time I put into it didn't work at all. I went to Michael's this morning and bought some fondant just in case it didn't work, but now I don't even want to try again. I guess I'll have to sign up for the class.

 

[cryssi]

How cool! That Captain Hook cake was off the charts, I've never seen anything like that. It didn't even LOOK like a cake.

I totally loved that cake!!!

anyway, about the chocolate MMF...I've never looked at the recipe, but when I make chocolate mmf, I just add cocoa powder to the regular MMF recipe. Since I add the powdered sugar slowly until I get the right consistency, this seems to work well. I add the cocoa first into the marshmallow...hth!

 

[Disneynutbsv]

So, I taught my dd (11) and my dniece (11) how to use tips 16, 18, 3, and 21... These are the cakes that they come up with on their own:
My daughter did a cake with fish swimming in the ocean:

My niece did a sunset over the ocean:

I don't think they did too shabby! A little bit messy, but not bad for 11 year olds!

Sorry, I did resize it on photobucket, but they are still huge!

 

[krcit]

Wow, those are so cute! Good job. I see many cakes in your family's future, lol.

 

[cinderella73]

Thanks stargrazer!

I am looking up some ideas right now for my son's birthday cake. He is wanting a Car's birthday but I didnt want to do a car cake as we have done that one before. I will post some pics up when I get it started.

There was this woman who has a amazing themed cake site. I bought her book in Ac Moore. I will have to go look up her name and post the link to her site. She has a good cake recipe for a cake that is easy to sculpt.

I guess I should try watching the Car's movie all the way through. I am always just catching bits here and there.

 

[stargrazer]

I finished Wilton's second course last night and did my final cake. It looked SO good...until I took it home...the entire front smashed against my cake carrier because I had to slam on my brakes to avoid an accident but being a good sport I'm posting the pics anyway. I'm just glad the cake was for me! If it would have been for someone, I could have salvaged it because I was able to put it back right again except the rope border; it could have been taken off and re-piped had it been for someone else.

Anyway, it's a small oval 2 layer red velvet w/class buttercream, royal icing flowers and colorflow birds. Next week I start Course 3 and I'll FINALLY get to work with fondant!

I am also posting a pic of the back so you can see a decent rope border and basketweave that DIDN'T get smashed

 

[stargrazer]

Disneynutbv, nice cakes by your DD's!

Beth76, how do you like Wilton's premade fondant? I picked up some tonight for next week's class.

Cinderella73, I know there was a really good car cake from Mos on this thread, I'm sure you can find the pan for it still.

Happy Cakeing!

 

[peachgirl]

Fondant disaster! I tried the chocolate marshmallow recipe and after all the time I put into it didn't work at all. I went to Michael's this morning and bought some fondant just in case it didn't work, but now I don't even want to try again. I guess I'll have to sign up for the class.

Sorry you had trouble with the mmf. I'm not a fan of it myself.

My first try with fondant was using mmf. I thought it worked pretty well until I used the real stuff. What a difference using a good fondant makes!

MMF is inexpensive, but brands like Satin Ice work so much better for me that I just won't use mmf anymore, and the stuff lasts forever. I found a place online to order it that has some of the best prices I've seen and their shipping is very reasonable.

For anyone that's interested, it's www.intotheoven.com

If you decide to order something from them, register in their forum first and they'll give you a 5% discount code. They also send out emails randomly to people that post there with a 15% off code. I just got one yesterday and spent it this morning.

And no, I'm not affiliated with the site in any way.

 

[Disneynutbsv]

Disneynutbv, nice cakes by your DD's!

Happy Cakeing!

Thanks...they had a great time and they of course, loved the icing

 

[MosMom]

Star, *very* pretty. Everything is just beautiful.

Cinderella73, I know there was a really good car cake from Mos on this thread, I'm sure you can find the pan for it still.

Cinderella, I carved that CARS cake and didn't have a pan but it was EASY! I just stacked two 11 X 13 cakes and carved out the tail end and hood area. If you don't want to do a car though....I don't know. The movie is pretty much the cars unless you did one of the buildings from the town. Like the Cozy Cone motel would be really cute. The Piston Cup trophy would be tough but cool especially if you painted on some gold luster dust.

 

[stargrazer]

Cinderella, I carved that CARS cake and didn't have a pan but it was EASY!

WOW...I had NO idea you carved that cake Mo. It is PERFECT!

They do sell a wilton 'car' pan but it's not 3-D, it's just a character/shaped pan. For some reason I thought you found a 3-D pan...color me (even MORE) impressed!

 

[bengalbelle]

I've lurked on this thread for awhile now and you all are very talented! I hope you will give me some advice.

My daughter's 1st birthday is in a few weeks. We're just having a dinner/party with family, and I want to make her cake. This is my inspiration:

I am thinking of only doing 2 tiers, 2 layers each. The bottom tier would be for serving and the top tier would be her smash cake. I've never worked with fondant or layerd cakes before, so I'm not quite sure I'm up to this challenge. I need to figure that out soon so I can find someone else to make it, if not.

I would like to use icing in place of the fondant for the cakes. I know it will be tough to get it really smooth but I've had some success with the Viva paper towel method. I'd like to only use fondant for the decorations. Is anyone willing to walk me through this? Please??

For reference, these are the previous cakes I've made. Nothing fancy as you can see:

I appreciate any and all advice