Simply Delightful Cakes

A couple weeks ago, my oldest celebrated his 7th birthday. In the days leading up to his birthday, he was sick on the couch with the flu so the last thing he wanted to think about was cake and what he wanted on it. As he got to feeling better, he decided on a Darth Vader cake. The two of us curled up on the couch and scrolled through Pinterest for ideas until we stumbled upon one similar to this one and he was sold. Despite my hate of black, I made his cake black and cursed the whole time I was attempting to cover it in fondant. Lately I've been doing a lot of buttercream frosting cakes, but since his party was going to be in a humid and warm waterpark, I didn't want to take the chance of it melting off the cake. He loved the little Darth Vader I put on the top of it too, especially since he's holding his birthday candle-light saber. 

This past week was a busy one in our household - between work and babysitting, there was hardly anytime left in the day. I had been planning this "Montana" themed baby shower cake for a couple months and was really excited about the vision I had for it in my head.  As always, it's a lot easier to put together in my head than it actually is to make it. I had a couple set backs while working on, and not working on the cake this week. First of all, I planned on making the fondant on Tuesday so I would be ready to start sculpting the animals on Wednesday. Both days came and went and I still had yet to start on it. After a labor-intensive Friday, I had the cake baked and frosted and 3 of the 4 animals made. Then my daughter found the animals while I was out of the kitchen...Luckily I was able to quickly repair the damage, complete the outside details of the cake, sculpt the moose, and make cupcakes with time to spare. Phew! I think it's safe to say this is one of ...

Just when I had all my cake "stuff" put away, I pulled it back out to make another superhero cake. By the end of August I will have made 5 this year. Never would have guessed that! I can't tell you how excited I am to share this one with you though!  My dear friend Sara got a hold of me last week in regards to her son's birthday party, which they planned last minute, as in 5 days prior. Seriously something I would do! I put off party planning until the last minute possible. Her son is into superheros, like most boys this age are, so of course he was wanting a superhero cake as well. Here's what they got: In retrospect, I'd probably have made the Superman logo a little bit bigger. Next time... Since there were going to be quite a few kids plus their parents, we figured some extra cupcakes might be a good option. (It's always hard to say how many people a cake will serve - it all depends on the cutter!) She volunteered to pick up some cupcakes t...

This past weekend I delivered a pretty princess cake for a young girl who loves Cinderella. Her mom sent me a handful of Cinderella cakes they both liked, and I did my best to combine all them into one cake. I especially love the bow...But I also love how the swirls came out, especially with the pearls! I didn't realize I assembled it a little catty-wompus until after the fact. It's so hard to tell how it'll sit until it's assembled! Aside from all the set-backs I had on this cake from the cake not coming out of the pan to the frosting melting to the pearls falling off in transport, I'm so glad it turned out mostly as planned! And then an hour after I delivered it, I fainted. I'd do it again in a heartbeat though!

Last week I had the pleasure of making a cake for a co-worker. Her son is a huge Marvel fanatic! Without him knowing, she had him tell her his top 5 favorite superheros. They were Iron Man, Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man, and Dead Pool. I had only heard of the first two... But low and behold, Ant-Man and Dead Pool sections turned out to be my favorites.   His favorite was the Ant-Man section.  He and his mom were also blown away with the Dead Pool section too. She had no idea who he was either.  Scarlet Witch's cape gave me some problems, but I made it work. Her section was the hardest to come up with because she doesn't have any weapons - just her "M" looking face mask as one of her signatures. I was sure to add that, but opted for adding her cape instead of her little red corset outfit.  Who knew making one superhero cake would lead me to make two more? Just can't get enough of those heros!

Why oh why do I wait until 10pm the night before to start working on decorating cakes? I need to squash this cycle! Anyways, my son turned 5 last month and had a super hero cake at his pool party. I was delighted how well it went over with everyone, especially the moms there! I shouldn't have been surprised when one of them asked me to make her son's cake, but I was surprised because he also wanted super heroes!  I don't normally make rectangular cakes, but thought this would be a good time to try one out - this way it wouldn't look exactly like my son's.   I showed the birthday boy and his mom the sketch I drew up, and he was SO EXCITED! "That's the coolest cake ever!" That's why I do this. The excitement on their faces makes it all worth it! He then proceeded to point out each of the super heroes on the sketch. "There's Superman, and the Hulk, and that one is Captain America, and there's that green guy. I don't know his...

I shouldn't choose favorites, but this is BY FAR my favorite cake that I've done yet - simply because I didn't have any problems! The cakes came out of their pans perfectly and their edges weren't crispy, the fondant didn't give me any grief, and there was no cursing what-so-ever!   Last year my little guy was in love with Ninja Turtles, and he still is (probably more so this year) but he opted to have superheros on his cake instead - and a Ninja Turtle.   Since it was his 5th birthday, I divided the cake into five sections and let him pick the superheros to be on it. He was so confused to how it was going to look so I drew it out the best I could. I need to do that more often! I referenced it over and over during the decorating process! The only thing I'm not so pleased about is the Spiderman portion - mostly because by the time I made /it to piping on the spider, the black dye was separating itself from the frosting making it turn out more gray th...