Sunday, August 30, 2009

BIRTHDAY CAKES

This is Kenzie's cake. She loves Hibiscus flowers and for I think the 3rd year in a row that's what she wanted on her cake. The last few years I've just been drawing them out with royal icing (which hardens like candy) and just sticking them on the cake. This year I thought I'd try making them with either fondant or gum paste. I'd never made flowers before so this was a real trial and error task. I opted for the gum paste which is like working with play dough except it dries out really fast. The gum paste is white so it can be tinted any color, it's a messy process so it's best to wear rubber gloves unless your willing to live with rainbow colored hands until the color wears off. I Googled Hibiscus gum paste flowers and found there was a you tube video on how to make them. After watching the video several times I had a general idea of how to do it. So, off to Michael's I go to get a few supplies and sit down to make these flowers. I had found an orchid mold which helped to form the petals, I just had to cut down the petals after taking them out of the mold to make them the size I wanted. I still haven't figured out how to ruffle the edges but I'll keep working on it. I threw away quite a few flowers before they began to look like what I had envisioned. It takes a lot of time since each petal has to be pressed and cut individually and each flower has 4 or 5 petals. The stamen was the easiest since that was just rolling the gum paste into a long roll and sticking in those little stamen things. The real trick was letting it dry to just the right dryness before sticking in the stamen and forming the flower around it. If it was still to pliable the petals just drooped and if it was too dry the petals cracked. I got it, and I think for the first time it turned out pretty well.
Besides the Hibiscus flowers Kenzie wanted a pink cake, so I just made a strawberry cake with vanilla butter cream icing.
This is Emi's cake. This year Emi had wanted a raccoon themed cake but after a lot of discussion with her mother, her mother got her to change the theme. Emi decided on basketball. Which made things a lot easier since she wanted chocolate frosting and raccoons just wouldn't show up well on chocolate. This was a fun and easy cake to make. 1/4 sheet cake with chocolate cake and banana filling iced in chocolate and butter cream. The ball was just baked in a bowl and has butter cream frosting and the little ball in the corner is just made with a candy mold I found.

The cakes have been picked up and the girls grandmother who thought they looked great, she thought both girls would be thrilled with the results.

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