Moving into 3D

I was asked by a friend to make a Scooby Doo cake for her son's birthday. I had made a cake for him the year before (see The First Cakes) but last year he wanted something special. So she had asked me if I was able to do a 3D cake, and I thought "Why not?"

The first thing I did was make up some royal icing flowers so they would dry in time to put them on the cake. The actual cake was baked in 2 loaf pans, to minimize the cutting and shaping of the cake.

I did an initial layer of frosting and traced the design of the van into it with a toothpick, and then star tipped the design over the initial layer of frosting.

Chocolate Entenmann's chocolate donuts served as the wheels and
an oreo made a very nice spare tire!

Life's a Beach

When my friend's sister was getting married, they had decided on a destination wedding and they decided to have a wedding party bbq when they returned. I was asked to make the cake and to make a beach theme to go with the wedding theme. I was also told that the bride wanted red velvet cake.
Now, I had never worked with red velvet before, and I think it will be a while before I work with it again! Let's just say that I now know why they use thick cream cheese frosting on these cakes.

I decided to make the cake 3 layers, and went to the craft store to find beach themed items. The bride supplied the beach chairs for the top and I was able to find fencing to go along with it. I also bought some real shells and washed them up before sticking them on the cake. I also added a pearl border on each layer to tie them together.

For the sand, I crushed up some graham crackers and tried to make it look casual, like sand. However, red velvet is apparently not supposed to be paired with buttercream frosting, as the red color bleeds through. So, I added a little more sand than I had planned, but I still think it came out pretty good.

Mom and Dad turn....?

My parents were born in the same year, and last year they turned...well I'm supposed to say 29,
but I'll let you figure it out by the picture.

I had planned a surprise birthday party for them, with the help of my husband and brother, and the restaurant we booked was nice enough to let me bring my own cake to serve.

I knew I wanted to do something with chocolate covered strawberries, as mom loves those, and I had to make the cake chocolate, as dad loves that.


So I made a 12" double layer chocolate cake, and put a 10" yellow cake on top of that for size contrast and flavor contrast . I then took melted chocolate and made a drizzle design, topped off with chocolate covered strawberries. I did a simple shell border to tie the layers together, and topped it off with candles to match the cake.