RS Birthday Cake

As promised here are the pictures of the cake Jim and I did for the Relief Society Birthday. The theme was "Sisters of Light."

It was a french vanilla cake with a lemon mouse filling and a buttercream frosting. The flowers, which are sego lillies (a symbol of the Relief Society) were made out of gumpaste and painted with food coloring. There were particularly interesting since there is no set pattern I could copy so Jim and I made it up as we went along. I also had a friend of mine, who is an artist, help with the painting. Everyone said it tasted great, so I think it went over well. The only major issue I had was trying to get the buttercream smooth. I don't know if I will ever conquer that feat, which is why I like fondant so much better!

To give you an idea of what a real sego lilly looks like:

I think we did pretty good all things considered.

Michelle's Cake

Here is Michelle's birthday cake. She wanted a "fairytale" type of a cake with fairies, butterflies, and flowers. I think she was pretty happy with it.

The bottom layer is two layers of vanilla cake and the top is two layers of carrot cake. (At her request) Both had a cream cheese filling with a buttercream frosting. (I should have used more buttercream so I could have had a smoother finish. I'm learning!) Everything was edible, except the Tink figurines and the dowels to support the upper layer.

We were able to use spray paint icing, edible markers and some other new techniques, and like the others we have done, we are learning things we will do differently and things we will do the same. It's always a learning process and always fun to try new challenges. The whole thing took about 12 hours to make, and was definitely a learning process. Thank goodness Jim was able to help out!

Latest Creation

To thank our neighbor for helping me with the digital editing for our pictures, I originally was going to make a fondant camera cake but decided it was too ambitious since Jim is not available to help due to being crazy, busy at work. Instead I decided to make her a "fall" theme cake. It was a spice cake with buttercream frosting and fondant leaves and apples. I wish I would have been thinking because I could probably have done a cream cheese frosting for the basket weave, instead of the buttercream. (Cream cheese just goes much better with spice cake.) I was really pleased with how the leaves turned out since I experiemented with the colors and used a new fondont press. They apples were all done freehand, and I was pretty impressed with how those turned out as well. I think it turned out pretty good. What do you think?

Our Final Cake

Here is our final cake! We ended up giving it to our Relief Society President. I thought it fitting since she has such a lovely yard full of wonderful flowers. She even talked about it today in Relief Society and began to cry about the thoughtfulness of giving her the cake. I was just glad to not have it in my house, since we are caked out for awhile.

Believe me, this is the least I can do for her. The only way I would be RS President in this ward is if my calling and election was made sure. There is a lot of welfare, single moms, old people that die all of the time, and a nursing home in this ward. Giving her a cake is just a small thing of what she deserves. Sainthood would be more like it.

Jared's Cake

Jared's birthday was last week, so Jim and I made him a cake. He was kind of annoyed that I didn't make him homemade "oreo" cookies, but I think this sufficed. Unfortunately, he only got one piece before he left for Las Vegas.

Ta-Dah!

Our Final Cake Project!

52 Daisies all lined up in a row

We now have 52 daisies ready to go for our final cake tonight! (40 small, 6 medium, 6 large)

I'll post the final project after we get home tonight. Wish us luck!

Our Latest Creations

Last night we had our decorating class again. This time we made daisies, carnations, leaves, and fancy flowers. We decided that we have been having so much fun for our "date nights" that we are going to take another class next month! For that class we will be using royal icing to make flowers and borders. I am really excited about learning to make a basket with icing!

Stay tuned for next week's creation! It's our final cake were we put it all together.

Cake Making

Jim had a bright idea for the 2 of us to take a Fondant and Gum Paste cake decorating class at our local Michael's. I was excited because I have been wanting to take this class for awhile and it is nice to have someone I know be there. (Besides he figures if Duff on "Ace of Cakes" on the Foodnetwork channel can be cool and make cakes, so could he. LOL)

Last week when the instructor stated that we didn't need to buy fondant but could make it with marshmallows and powdered sugar, Jim enthusiastically stated that was what we were going to do. So we took back all of the pre-made fondant and I bought the supplies to make our own.

Since I had made fondant on my own (the real stuff not the marshmellow kind) and knew what it took to make it, I just laughed to myself and thought I would give him a chance to make it. As you can see from the pictures below things did not go so well. In fact after he worked on the mixture for about 30 minutes he begged me to let him go to the store to re-buy the pre-made fondant. Of course, I did the kind, sensible thing a wife should do. I took pictures and told him I would put them on the blog! LOL

Well, we went to class and Jim covered the cake, made 2 drapes, ribbons and carnation bases. To make a long story a little shorter, Jim was the best in the class! All of the other women, including the instructor, marveled at how good he was and how good his things turned out. The pictures below do not do it justice in any way and it was a practiced cake so we did all kinds of things to it that we would not do to a "real" cake, but it did turn out really well. His fondant covering for his cake was so smooth and well, just perfect.

In case anyone needs any cake decorating done, I will rent out his services. Just call me for a price quote. LOL