Bert & Ernie's Great Adventures

I grew up watching Sesame Street. I can still remember most of the characters and the songs they sang! Kid's nowadays don't really know what Sesame Street is, but they do know the presently popular spin-offs like Elmo, of course, and Bert & Ernie's great Adventures.

My youngest, Solomon, loves watching Bert & Ernie's Great Adventures every weekday after lunch at Grandpa's place. Bert and Ernie are no longer Muppets, but clay animation, like Shaun the Sheep.

Since I have a special place in my heart for Sesame Street characters, I grabbed the opportunity to make a Bert & Ernie cake for Solomon's birthday. I love it when I get to decide what I am going to make! Hahaha...

So anyway, this cake was also a bit rushed because it was for the party which Solomon shared with Eva. I had to make this cake as well as the Fairy castle one for the same day.

It turned out pretty good, though I only wish I had time to cover the cake board with more black fondant and add in some stars so that their bed looks like it's galloping though the night sky!! That would've been awesome.

So the cake is a small rectangular chocolate cake and is covered in fondant. Bert and Ernie and the bed's headboard are made of gumpaste. For this design, I referred to a picture I had Googled earlier.


Bert and Ernie are adorable, and I especially love Ernie's rubber duckie!!

Fairy Castle

So for her birthday party at home, Eva wanted the Rainbow Fairy Castle cake which she say in my Debbie Brown book. It's a very elaborate design, a large castle with many towers and seven fairies plus a rainbow!

I didn't think I could pull it off, because Eva was celebrating her birthday with Solomon, which meant I had to make two cakes! So I told her I had to make it smaller  and with only one fairy and also without the rainbow! Luckily she was very understanding and not disappointed at all and was very happy to have a castle cake.

I worked on the cakes right up to the last minute before the party! I'm so glad Eva really loved her castle and the blue fairy she chose from the seven fairies!

The whole thing, especially the fairy was a pretty rushed job, but turned out quite alright. She's a little top heavy, but I love her curly hair.

Ladybug II

Eva wanted another ladybug cake for her school celebration. She had one last year, at school as well, and insisted she wanted it again. I didn't argue with her, cause ladybug cakes are the simplest to make! :) Dome shapes are so easy to cover with fondant!

So, I made another one for her and had a chance to improve a little on the design. Here are the pics then...

Everything is made from fondant. I didn't have to use any gumpaste here. The antennae are made from dry spaghetti sticks and balls of black fondant. Everything else is edible.

Usually when my designs require black and red fondant, I use the pre-tinted ones, because it is impossible to get a good shade of black or red by tinting white fondant! You'll get Carpal Tunnel Syndrome first and even then, you will only have black/greyish or dark pinkish fondant!! Then if you add more colour, it will turn all wet and gloppy!

So take my advice, you'll save a lot of time and grief by using pre-tinted fondant when it comes to red and black! :)

Strawberry Shortcake II

Oh, I seem to have missed out the Strawberry Shortcake cake! It's the second cake which I made for Elena, the first one being the tiara cake two posts before.

Anyway, this is the second Strawberry Shortcake cake I've done. The first one was for my niece Michelle, and it was the modern, grown-up version of Strawberry Shortcake. This one however, was the classic, sweet version of Strawberry Shortcake!

I think I like this one much more, cause I've improved on the gumpaste formula and also my technique a lot since then.

This Strawberry Shortcake cake was orange cake I think... with chocolate ganache, if I'm not mistaken. My blog is so back-logged and it's been too long from the time I made the cakes to the time that I write a post on it, that I can't remember the details! :)

Anyway, I like the lovely, sweet colours and I especially love the strawberries and the strawberry blossoms. I made the top layer of "drippy icing" a bit too big. By the time I realized it, it was already stuck fast, and I could no longer remove it to make adjustments. So the "drippy icing" extended down the side of the cake a little too much. Thus it unfortunately covered most of the colourful stripes.

Never the less, I think it turned out quite nice and Strawberry Shortcake is ever so cute, especially with her freckles and ringlets!

Groovy Papa

I had a last minute order the other day. A client called me two nights before her dad's 60th birthday bash and told me she needed some cupcakes for the special occasion. I told her that due to the lack of time, it would have to be a 2D design.

She told me that she wanted a 70's disco theme and her dad loved music and guitars. She specially requested for red Fender guitars. I had no idea what those were and had to Google it! :) Turns out they're those classic red and white electric guitars!

I was actually quite busy with another order that weekend, but the idea of a disco theme got me hooked!

The cupcakes are chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and the decorations are fondant, except for the guitars and dancing couple. Those are gumpaste. The dancing couple did not have enough time to harden, so I had to use a wee bit of spaghetti sticks to hold up the lady's arm.

I love the final look of the whole ensemble. My client was happy and she says everyone especially loved the guitars!

Tiara for Elena

My friend wanted two cakes for her little girl's birthday; one for school and one for home. She actually wanted the tiara one for school and a Strawberry Shortcake one for home that night, but I got it the other way round! Luckily she didn't mind at all! :)

For the tiara cake, she showed me this photo which she found on Flickr. It belongs to Alexandra Caribe and she makes very beautiful fondant cakes.

I made the tiara a few days ahead, but it was a bit problematic. I put the gumpaste tiara on a round container for it to harden, but as the container was smallish, the gumpaste kept slipping off at the sides and warping the shape of the tiara. In the end, when it had hardened, the shape was a bit off and it also broke in a few places!! I don't think I'll be making this type of tiara again soon!! :)

I did my best to fix the tiara. I used another band of gumpaste around the bottom to hide the cracks and placed lots of red curls around the base to distract from the uneven shape of the tiara!! Luckily it looked okay in the end.

This was the first time I used silver powder. This stuff, as well as gold powder is very expensive, but I found that a little goes a long way! Also the effect it produces is well worth the price.

I brushed the silver powder on with a dry brush. This method unfortunately caused the excess silver powder to drop onto the cake. It made the surface of the cake look a bit 'dirty'! Next time I shall try using a wet brush, or maybe apply the powder before mounting it on the cake.

 Overall, I think the cake looks good. I shall be playing with silver/gold power or luster dust again soon!! ;)


Update: I left a message at Alexandra's Flickr account to let her know I used her design. I know, I should have written first to ask for permission, but it slipped my mind. So I thought I had better let her know. After all it is her beautiful and original design.

Anyway, she was very kind and was happy that I used her design and thanked me for giving her credit! She was so gracious that she even shared some information with me. I had problems with the tiara because I used gumpaste which is not hard enough. She says she used pastillage. I've heard of pastillage before, it dries bone hard. I'll look into pastillage soon I hope...

Thanks again Alexandra! :)

Amelie's mermaid

Last month, we celebrated three birthdays together, my two nieces (sisters) , Amelia and Amanda, have the same birth date, and another nephew's (Ethan) was pretty close. Since I did not have the time to make 3 cakes, I just made one for them to share. Amelie, being the youngest, got to choose the theme. She initially wanted something princess-y, like Cinderella, but that would not have been very suitable for Ethan right? so we went with the Little Mermaid and an undersea theme instead.

This is made up of two 6" round chocolate cakes and covered in fondant. The cupcakes are chocolate as well, topped with a dark chocolate ganache. All the figures are made of gumpaste. Next time I should mold the torso and arms from a single piece of gumpaste, so I won't get those unsightly joins on the shoulders...

This is the first time I tried using a harder ganache to cover the cake before applying fondant. This ganache method is what I learned from Planet Cake's book. Planet Cake is located in Australia, so the climate is more similar to ours, and thus their methods are more relevant to us. I have found that using buttercream, fresh cream and light ganaches is impossible in our awfully hot and humid weather! I am so happy that I found Planet Cake's book and thus the solution to my melting/ slipping fondant problem!

A harder ganache (higher chocolate to cream ratio) is not only able to withstand higher temperatures, it also acts like a putty, filling in all the holes and dents in a cake to give it a gorgeous smooth finish! "Alleluia!" is all I can say...

Baby butterfly

My sister-in-law requested that I make some cupcakes for her best buddy's birthday. She basically gave me free reign and that's what I love best!!

When I am waiting for something or someone or just have time to kill, and only have my phone with me, I like to browse Google images for pretty pictures to download. They give me ideas and inspiration for my cakes. I love simple designs with pretty colours.

For the cupcakes I made for my SIL, I followed the design from this wallpaper:
 

Cute right? I love how the design is so simple yet extremely effective. The baby butterfly is just simply adorable. I was just waiting for the right occasion to use this design.


So anyway, the cupcakes are the usual chocolate fudge cakes with chocolate ganache topping. The decorations are all done in fondant.

 SIL approved of the final product and I heard that Birthday Girl liked it too! So, hooray!

I love everything about this design, the butterfly, the flowers, the trees, the colours!!

Happy Family!

A friend of mine did not know what to get her Hubby for his birthday. I always have that problem as well. I never know what to get for men; ties, socks and boxers are so boring! :)

So she decided to get him some custom designed cupcakes. It would be original and unique. She instructed me to do one of her family, which consisted of herself, her Hubby and a cute daughter and son; the perfect family unit! She wanted the colour theme to be purple.

Since I had another order on the same day, we decided to do simpler 2D faces, instead of whole 3D figurines. I believe that most times, simpler is better and in this case it was true, as the cuppies turned out wonderfully well.

The cupcakes are chocolate cake with a bittersweet chocolate ganache topping. All the decorations are made of fondant.

Toy Story

A client of mine wanted some Bob the Builder cuppies for her son's first birthday. She had seen them on my blog and thought they would be great for the occasion. However, after shopping around for party accessories, she realized that there were not many Bob the Builder  party accessories available, so she changed it to a Toy Story themed party instead.

So, I told her to choose a main character, i.e: Woody vs. Buzz and a few other smaller characters. She preferred Woody and left it to me to decide who else would be included. I chose the 3 Martians cause they're so cute! (read: I spent waaay too much time on Woody and these guys were easier to make!!) hehehe...

Unlike Bob the Builder, I did not have a book with step-by-step directions to follow. I just referred to a few photos which I Googled.

Woody's shirt was kind of hard to make. The red checks on his shirt was drawn on with a red edible marker pen. I had to do it twice. I chucked the first attempt cause the lines were all wrong. I'm not too happy with the neckline of the shirt though. It should be a v-shape. I think next time I'll give him a red scarf to tie around his neck. That would cover the neckline and add a splash of colour.

For this project, I used plenty of dried spaghetti sticks for structure. I hate fretting and worrying that my pieces will fall apart once I've handed them over to the customer, so I've decided I will use as many structural reinforcements as needed, for peace of mind.

The cupcakes were also a bit rushed, because, like I said, I spent too much time on the models, especially Woody! But my client was happy with the results, so all's good! :)

P/S: I forgot to write "ANDY" with black marker on the sole of Woody's boot!