Monogrammed Birthday Cake

 

Here's a quick tutorial on how to make an elegant yet simple monogrammed cake. I made this one for my friend Ket.  I used her favorite colors red, pink and gold to match her ultra-feminine style :-) 



After I covered the cake with rolled fondant, I measured halfway up the sides of the cake and marked it with paring knife. I mixed together some red food coloring and a little bit vodka then applied it to the bottom half of the cake. This is the same painting technique as the one I used for my birthday cake and the mini wedding cake. I added some more vodka to the red food coloring to lighten the color and applied it to the top half of the cake.

I made some fondant scrolls and attached them to the sides of the cake. Some of the scrolls were lined up straight and some were tilted just a little.  I thought it would make for an interesting design but I think it was so subtle that it wasn't even noticeable. Oh well. I still like how it turned out.

My sweet friend Maggie came over to visit while I was decorating this cake so I gave her a quick lesson on how to paint the fondant scrolls. I showed her how to mix together the gold luster dust and vodka then she painted the scrolls with a small paintbrush. She did a fantastic job!

I used the same monogramming technique I used for my cousin's wedding cake. I painted the round plaque with red food coloring before placing the monogram on top. Then I painted the monogram with gold luster dust. 



Voila! The finished cake :-)

The Twilight Cake

With The Twilight Saga: Eclipse out in theaters this week, I thought it was about time that I finally write about the cake I made last month. It was for my dearest friend, Juls. She's the biggest Twilight fan I know and so when her birthday came around this year, I just knew I had to make her this cake. 

Since I'm not too familiar with the Twilight series, I had to do a little bit of research.  I looked at the book covers and tried to figure out how to incorporate all the elements into one cake. The black background was the first thing that jumped out at me so that became the main color of the cake.  I decided to make the symbols on the book covers out of rolled fondant and place them on top of the cake. As for the flavor, there was no debate; it had to be a red velvet cake.



I thought it would be a cool idea to write popular book quotes on the side of the cake. I didn't want to ask Juls because I wanted it to be a surprise so I just searched for them online.  I used a small paintbrush and a mixture of silver luster dust and vodka to write the quotes onto the cake.

Here are some of the book quotes I decided to use:

"And So the lion fell in love with the lamb.
What a stupid lamb.
What a sick masochistic lion."

“If I could dream at all, it would be about you. And I’m not ashamed of it.”

"I promise to love you forever, every single day forever; will you marry me?"



For the scrollwork pattern, I made fondant scrolls and attached them around the base of the cake. I painted them with the same silver luster dust/vodka mixture as I did with the book quotes.



For the apple, I rolled some fondant into a ball and gently pressed around the top with my thumbs.  To create the stem, I just rolled a tiny piece of fondant and attached it to the top of the apple. I painted it red and brown using Wilton icing colors.



For the ruffled tulip, I used the tools in my Wilton Flower Making Set.  I cut out a piece of rolled fondant and pressed it inside the leaf mold. Then I ruffled the edges using the foam pad and one of the sticks. I made two more petals using the same technique.  For the falling petal, I used a small rose petal cutter. I arranged the petals so they would look just like the ruffled tulip on the New Moon book cover and used a very thin paintbrush to color it red.  For the stem, I just took a skinny piece of fondant and painted it green.



For the ribbon, I took a long piece of rolled fondant and cut it into two pieces.  To create the frayed edge, I used a paring knife and basically dragged the knife across several times.  I shaped the ribbon to look like the Eclipse book cover and then painted it with red food coloring. 



The chess pieces were basically shapes made out of rolled fondant that I stacked on top of each other.  For the pawn, I made three round discs on the bottom, an hourglass for the middle and another round disc and a ball for the top.  The queen was made pretty much the same way except for the crown. I took a strip of rolled fondant and used a rose petal cutter to shape the top of the crown. I wrapped the strip around a ball and placed a tiny ball at the very top. I used my FMM geometrical cutter set to make four white squares for the chessboard. I arranged them in the center of the cake and placed the pawn and the queen across from each other using two of the white squares.



When Juls saw the cake for the first time, she was absolutely blown away. She loved it so much that she couldn't bear the thought of cutting it.  Seriously, she really didn't want to cut her cake.  Eventually, I managed to convince her to finally cut it because I promised her I'd make her an exact replica in a fake cake.  She decided to display her fake Twilight cake on her bookshelf next to her Twilight series :-) 

Race Car Cake

I made this cake for my nephew's 5th birthday earlier this year. It was inspired by the cake I made for my son last year (see below). When my cousin asked me to make a race car cake, I was thrilled, but there was only one problem...I had to figure out how to ship the cake from California to Philadelphia. I was always reluctant about shipping cakes (even fake ones) because there's just soooo many things that could go terribly wrong. But I figured, I'll go ahead give it a try and see what happens.



I decided to make the car cake out of rice krispie treats, just like the Lego Cake I made a few months ago, so it'll be easier to ship. Again, since I've got a bun in the oven, my sweet husband helped me (what a guy!). My cousin was going to order a sheet cake from a local bakery and place the race car on top of it. I took a Wilton 3-D Cruiser Pan, lined it with plastic wrap and packed it with the rice krispie treats. When I unmolded it, I spread a thin layer of buttercream and covered it with red rolled fondant.

I cut three long strips of fondant and placed them on top of the hood, the roof and the trunk of the car. I brushed clear alcohol (lemon extract or vodka) on the strips to glue them to the car cake.



I used petit four cutters to make the headlights. I made the grill by cutting thin strips of fondant (see fondant scrolls post to learn an easy way to cut strips) and used a small round cookie cutter to make the "5" logo (see simple and easy monogram post). I painted the pieces with silver luster dust and a black food color marker.



I colored the wheels, windshield and windows with a black food color marker.



I used two different sizes of round cookie cutters to make the rims of the wheels. I painted the rims and spokes with silver luster dustand made the lug nuts by pushing the black food color marker into the fondant.



I used the same fondant scrolls and simple and easy monogram techniques to make the bumper and license plate.



The good news: the cake made it to Philly in one piece.
The bad news: the bubble wrap I used to cushion the box left bumps all over the fondant :-(
I'm not sure if I packed it too tightly or if the fondant softened while in transit, but I don't think I'll ship another cake across country until I figure out a better way to package it.

Marc Jacobs Bag Cake

My sister is truly an inspiration to me. Six years ago, she decided to forget going to law school and follow her dream. Without telling anyone, she applied to the Fashion Institute of Technology and got accepted. Soon after breaking the news to everyone, she packed up her bags and moved to New York City to study fashion design. It took a lot of guts for her to make such a risky decision, especially after investing so many years of schooling. But it was a bold move that paid off in ways she couldn't have imagined. Today, she's working as a handbag designer for Marc Jacobs , one of the top fashion designers in the world. She was the one who encouraged me to go to pastry school and I'll be forever grateful to her for that. So when she told me she was coming home to celebrate her 3oth birthday, I wanted to make her a cake that symbolized her dream fulfilled. I just had to make her a Marc Jacobs bag cake.

This wasn't an easy project for me. I love decorating cakes but making sculpted or 3D cakes is a bit intimidating. I still have so much more to learn and since I never had any formal training in art, making these cakes look true-to-life is an added challenge. I tried to make a bag cake a few years ago and it turned out okay, but I really wished I had a book to guide me.

So this time around, I read Elisa Strauss' The Confetti Cakes Cookbook: Spectacular Cookies, Cakes, and Cupcakes from New York City's Famed Bakery. It just came out last year and I'm so glad I got it. I'm sure you've seen her cakes featured in magazines and saw her compete in numerous Food Network cake challenges. Her background in art and fashion in addition to her incredible talent as a pastry chef is something to be admired. Her book is well-written and beautifully illustrated. The projects in her book range from simple polka-dot cupcakes to the more elaborate sushi cake. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn, not only about sculpted cakes, but also stylish cookies, cupcakes and mini cakes.

Now that I have a pretty good idea of how to construct a handbag cake, I went ahead and got started. I printed a photo of the pink Marc Jacobs Blake bag from the company's website. Finding the height, width and depth of the bag was easy, but now I needed to get the details of the bag accurate. So, I went back to the photo and measured the size of the pockets, the diameter of the o-rings on the handles, size of the zippers, height of the handles etc... and increased the measurements to match the real proportions of the bag. I drew each piece and cut them out so I can use them as templates.

I baked two half sheets of red velvet cake and cut them into three pieces. I assembled the cake and inserted three wooden dowels inside it to prevent the layers from shifting and to keep the cake from collapsing on itself. After crumb coating it with a thin layer of frosting, I placed it in the fridge for a couple of hours to let the frosting firm up. When it was ready, I covered it with pink rolled fondant.

I used the templates to make the pockets and used a tracing wheel for the stitch details around the edges. To make the bottom part of the push-lock hardware, I used a round cookie cutter and a petal cutter, stacked them together then cut the top part off. I used a veining tool to create the groove for the push-lock and a cel stick to write "Marc Jacobs" on the round piece. For the top part of the hardware, I cut a thin strip of fondant and placed a semi-circle fondant on top of it. I used a round piping tip to mark a circle in the middle.

I painted the push-lock with gold luster dust and attached it to the cake by brushing a little bit of vodka on it.

I made the o-rings out of gumpaste by using two different sizes of round cookie cutters. I let them dry overnight, painted them with gold luster dust and looped the fondant handle through it.

To make the zippers, I cut hexagonal pieces of fondant for the slider, rectangular pieces for the pull-tab and a tiny strip for the tab holder. For the teeth of the zipper, I cut a long strip of fondant and scored a line in the middle and made hash marks all the way from end to end. I painted the zipper and teeth with gold luster dust.

I had a lot of trouble putting on the handles. I guess I should've made them differently. The first pair of handles were made of gumpaste but I didn't make them long enough so I put fondant pieces at each end. Since the gumpaste handles were so thick , the fondant ends couldn't carry the weight so they slipped and wouldn't stay on. I wanted them to be upright like on the picture, but it just didn't work. After trying a couple more times, the handles eventually broke. I didn't have time to make another pair of gumpaste handles so I tried a different approach. I made them out of rolled fondant with stem wire inside for structural support. Made a second attempt to have them standing straight up, but they still fell down. I finally had to settle with laying them on the sides.

To make the piping around the bag, I just cut long strips of fondant and attached them around the cake.

The finished cake was not exactly the way I had envisioned it, but I was pretty happy with it nonetheless. More importantly, the birthday girl loved it and everyone enjoyed eating the cake.

Happy Birthday little sis!