Wreck It Ralph

This cake was (indirectly) ordered by two sweet little girls who wanted their daddy to have a cake based off of his (and their) favorite movie, Wreck-It Ralph.  For those of you unfamiliar, it's a recent Disney movie that tells the plight of Ralph, a video game bad guy who just wants to feel good about himself.  He spends his days destroying the same building, thus all the bricks on the cake.  Since I pretty much love everything Disney, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

Vanilla cake iced in buttercream, covered in fondant.  Ralph himself is made entirely out of modeling chocolate.  It's been over two years (this cake) since I've created a modeling chocolate person, but I am very happy with how he turned out.  Isn't he cute?  Bring on the modeling chocolate!

Rubber Duck Baby Shower

It's a boy!  My sister-in-law threw an amazing baby shower for one of her coworkers.  Everything was blue and yellow and matched the rubber duck theme.  The cake was no different.

Vanilla cake filled and iced in chocolate buttercream covered in marshmallow fondant.  The duck on top is an actual bathtub toy, not edible.

Titanic

It was 1997. I was in 6th grade.  I doodled "Allison DiCaprio" on my notebooks and spent my hard-earned babysitting income to see Titanic in the movie theaters NINE times.  Even if movies weren't as outrageously expensive back then, I still cannot believe I did that.  The scary thing is that I hadn't even seen it as many times as some of my friends.  It was like some sort of weird competition.  And this was a 3+ hour movie we are talking about.  Anyway, my 11-year-old self would have flipped at the thought of a cake like this...

There is a really neat story behind this.  Several years ago, there was a boy who requested a Titanic cake (See...I wasn't the only one obsessed) for his 8th birthday.  His mother, being the super mom she was, ordered one from a bakery.  On the day she picked it up however, both she and her son were sadly disappointed by a small round cake with a sinking v-shaped ship draw in icing on the top.  17 years later, this poor mom has still not heard the end of this cake!  She thought of the awesome idea of ordering this cake and getting it delivered to his work as a surprise on his birthday.  It was a success!  She definitely redeemed herself. :)

Vanilla cake iced in buttercream, covered in marshmallow fondant.  The iceberg is also cake.  The smokestacks are the bottoms of ice cream cones.

Oak Ridge High School Graduation

Here is my most recent...and favorite...graduation cap cake.  The high school colors were burgundy and gray.  She is heading to UT in the fall!

Strawberry cake with a vanilla cream and fresh strawberry filling iced in buttercream and covered in marshmallow fondant. All of the accents are fondant as well.

Minnie Mouse

What one year old doesn't love Minnie?  This sweet cake was for a first birthday.  The top tier of the cake is all for the birthday girl, while the bottom tier and matching cupcakes were for party guests.

White cake with pink (of course) buttercream.  The cakes are covered in marshmallow fondant.  The bows are all fondant as well.  The ears are chocolate.

Monogram and Chevron

This cake was to celebrate a high school graduation.  Rather than the traditional cap and high school colors, we followed two big trends to create this one: monograms and chevron.  If you're ever on Pinterest, and I know many are, you've seen these design elements all over everything from clothing to curtains, from pillows to picture frames.  Why not cake too?

The graduate's favorite colors are currently coral and mint (also very trendy).  The cake was chocolate iced in buttercream and covered in marshmallow fondant.

Favorite Things Round 2

Some of you may remember this cake from last year.  It was a combination of everything the birthday girl loved.  I was asked to make another favorite things cake a couple of weeks ago for a very special birthday...40!  The favorite things for this cake included:

NYC

the beach

sunglasses

real estate

 Paris

her husband and her son

All wrapped up with a bow on top!  Both tiers were chocolate, iced in buttercream and covered in marshmallow fondant.  Most of the decorations are fondant as well.  The eiffel tower was piped.  The sand is a graham cracker/brown sugar mixture.

Monster 1st Birthday

These monsters were for a first birthday.  There were two cakes for guests and then a smash cake for the birthday boy.

One chocolate cake, one vanilla cake, and a chocolate smash cake.  I highly recommend chocolate smash cakes.  They turn out the best in pictures...the messier the better!

Square Wedding Cake

I made my first wedding cake last fall for a couple of my friends.  It was small and simple and turned out great.  This wedding cake was simple as well and started off small and 2-tiered like many of the other cakes I had made before.  Then the wedding plans changed and I realized I was going to be making a 3-tiered cake for 140 wedding guests.  All of a sudden I found myself in uncharted territory.  It took a lot of time and a LOT of patience, but here it is!  Once again, thanks to Dani Rose for pictures.

Each tier was a different flavor: Top: chocolate.  Middle: red velvet.  Bottom: french vanilla.

All tiers were filled and iced with vanilla buttercream, accented with green satin ribbon and fresh flowers.

Gender Reveal

I'm sure by now all of you have heard about the new trend in baby showers...the gender reveal party.  These events have become quite popular over the past couple of years.  The gender reveal party usually welcomes both men and women as is held to announce the sex of the baby to family and friends and even the parents-to-be.  Party guests make their prediction on what the baby will be and usually wear something pink or blue to represent their guess.  The reveal comes in different ways, but the most popular way has been through a cake.  The cake will either be pink or blue or have pink or blue filling to signify the sex of the baby, so that when it is cut and the first piece removed, everyone will know! This was my first time getting to do a gender reveal cake.  It was really exciting to know that I was second only to the doctor in finding out this couple was going to be having a little GIRL!

The design of the cake was based off of a baby shower cake I had done last year.  The shower cake was for twins, but this couple was only having one baby.

As you can see from the pictures, the cake was vanilla with PINK buttercream filling. The babies are also cake, but the gender reveal filling was in the main part. The polka dot accents and the babies/blankets are fondant.

Vintage Bridal Shower

This bridal shower cake was for a black and white vintage-themed wedding.  The flowers for the wedding were all different shades of purple.

Vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream.  The flowers and back accents are royal icing with pearl sprinkles.

Lightning McQueen

I absolutely love making birthday cakes for kids.  They are always bright, colorful, and just plain fun.  This was for a Cars themed birthday party. I was really excited to use my new airbrushing system that my in-laws got me for Christmas (it's awesome!) to make the sky and the canyon.  I absolutely love how it looks.

Chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream and marshmallow fondant.  All the accents on the cake are made with either fondant or modeling chocolate.  The Lightning McQueen topper is Rice Krispie treat cut and covered with fondant.

Harry Potter Book

Harry Potter is the best selling book series in history.  It hit 450 million copies sold...back in June of 2011.  It was only a matter of time until I was asked to make a cake inspired by these novels. I decided to make a book cake.  I've seen several of them on the internet and figured it would be a fairly simple shape to carve.  This is how it turned out:

The cake is french vanilla with chocolate buttercream icing covered in fondant.   I got the "worn pages" look by painting with vanilla extract.  The scarf and glasses are fondant and the wand is modeling chocolate.

UT Graduate

Celebrating graduating from the University of Tennessee is that much sweeter with a custom cake.

Chocolate cake filled and iced with buttercream and covered in marshmallow fondant.  The tassel and diploma are marshmallow fondant as well.