10 Cow, Topsy Turvy, Present Cake

This was an end of the year Christmas cake for a church organization.  All year long the theme had been “10 Cows”, so the cake is a topsy turvy cake made with Christmas presents, but then there are 10 cows all around the cake.  One cow is lying down, one is standing with her baby. One cow is only the hind end–he’s peeking in one of the gifts. Another cow is only the top portion—as if coming out of the present, after peeking.  The bottom cow on the right is my favorite…we actually cut way some of the fondant and sprinkled cake crumbs around his muzzle and feet because he’s actually grazing on the cake! The top gift is a little lamb, because the next year’s theme was “Of one fold and one Shepherd”.  All in all, one of my very favorite cakes to date!

The Coolest Mickey/Minnie Cake

This is the cake I finished for today.  It was for a little girl who LOVES Minnie Mouse, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on TV.  It’s a little different from the Minnie Mouse cake I made a couple of months ago, but still so cute.  The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse scene above and behind the cakes was made from Rice Krispy Treats covered in fondant…fully edible!  The letters wishing Jazmyne a Happy Birthday are made from the candy chocolate molds, and are quite tasty themselves!

And one of my favorite touches of all….

I put a sheet of fondant under the Minnie Mouse cake, and ruffled it.  Too fun!

The Utah Cake

Did you know I spent 3 weeks in Utah this summer?  Just out, visiting family and seeing all of the fun sites.  Well, the Wednesday before we were to head home (Sunday morning) I went to lunch with my cousin.  Her son was getting married 2.5 weeks after I left–and somehow we got to talking about their lack of  wedding cake ordering.   So me…the maker of the cakes…pops up with this fabulous idea.  Why don’t we get together while I’m still in Utah–and make the cake?  BRILLIANT!!  Yeah, but a wedding cake sitting around for 2.5 weeks might not be the yummiest of cakes.  So I came up with Rice Krispie Treat layers on the top two tiers and then the week of the wedding the mother of the groom could make the bottom “big” tier.  I would teach her how to make and use fondant while I was there—and all she would have to do is put them together, ribbon them, and add the flowers.  She took it a step further by creating the awesome cake platform to display the cake.  So without further ado….my our wedding cake!  (Ok, mostly hers!!!)

Now, what changed after we got there…the cakes needed to sit angled on top of each other, and the pans that we had would have left the tier above hanging over the side of the tier below.  So—we ditched the middle pan and made the top tier out of the littlest pan and the middle tier out of the biggest pan, which left us needing a larger cake pan for the bottom.  So we taped off a bigger square on her counter top, and as my cousin finished a batch of krispy treats—we molded them into the square shape while they cooled.  That bottom tier alone is like 8 batches of Krispy treats!!  But doesn’t it look awesome!

I felt really bad that I had gotten the mother of the groom in charge of making the cake (as though she had nothing better to do) and then ditched her with the project as I drove back to Chicago.  But look how fast she learned!  Boy….I must really be a good teacher!