Happy Birthday Hannah!

I was recently asked by my boyfriend's mom if I would bake and a design a cake for her grand daughter's 10th birthday. Although Todd and I aren't yet married I still feel as if his nieces and nephew and second cousins are my family as well. I love buying and making for the kids so I happily accepted. Now... what to do?

I wasn't given many details, but I knew right away I wouldn't be so bold as to try a character cake since my only other experience with fondant had been a little cake mom and I designed with cookie cutters for Easter. We were just playing around and trying to get a feel for fondant making and decorating so the cake didn't have a design per say. We just made little critters and glued them on with water. Here's the result.

 

I'm aware it's not "Ace of Cakes" quality, but mom and I were proud of it and thought it was really cute. Apparently my boyfriend's mom, Darlene, had faith in me too. With funds in hand I went to Michael's Craft Shop and bought a few basic supplies. I had a design idea in mind and Michael's had the flower forms I needed, pre-colored fondant, and gum paste mix. I got a small pan for the top tier of the cake and a fondant smoother. I was ambitious and I hoped I didn't fail. However, I was well prepared to hit walmart before the party to buy a cake if need be. Afterall, I was diving head first into something I knew very little about, but I had faith... just not a lot of time.

I had originally planned to spend my entire Friday evening crafting the cake. However, my mom had an appointment with her surgeon 3 hours away in Lexington. I called to reschedule earlier in the week and it was the only day they could get her in. I decided I could work a little on the cake after we got home and get up the next morning to complete the cake before the party that evening. I had purchased the colored fondant for the decorations, but I planned to make white fondant from marshmallows and powdered sugar to cover the cakes because it tastes better than store bought. I decided to make that and the gum paste decorations the night before the party. I thought it would only take a couple hours, but a couple hours turned into five hours. The gum paste medium was a little more difficult than I originally thought, and while the gum paste decorations didn't turn out perfect, they were decent for a first try. (You'll see those shortly in the posted photograph.)

The next morning I woke early ready to get to work on the cake. I'd had only a few hours sleep, but I was determined to make the best cake I could for Hannah. She was turning 10 and loves peace signs so I immediately thought tie dye! I had seen tie dye cakes on other blogs before and although the process is time consuming, and flared up the ol' carpal tunnel, I had to do it. I mixed my batter, separated it into several bowls, and got out the neon food coloring. I think it was best to go with the neon and shortly you'll see why, but first here's a picture of the batter before baking.

Isn't it pretty? It also leaves a pretty mess behind too. All those bowls and spoons... oh my! Thank goodness my mom has a dishwasher.

 

So while the cake was baking I rolled out my colored fondant and made the large, medium, and tiny flowers that was I was going to use to decorate the cake. I set those to the side to dry slightly. After cooling and crumb coating the cake with icing I starting putting my homemade fondant on the layers. The fondant makes a nice consistency, but I kept cutting the layers too short. I didn't have time to redo the fondant so in the areas that were really bad I did patch jobs and covered those with my decorations. No one would even have noticed I had messed up in a couple spots if I hadn't pointed it out. That's the good thing about decorations. You can cleverly disguise any mistakes or problem areas! Remember this was only my second fondant cake so I was pleased with the results. Other cake maker's may view it as amateur, but that's what I am. I did my best and in the end the birthday girl was happy and that's all that matters. So now I present to you my first multi-layer fondant cake....

 

The 10 on top is made from gum paste. All the other decorations are fondant, but the outside wasn't even my favorite part of the cake. My favorite was the cake itself. It turned out perfectly and the neon food coloring really made those colors pop! 

  

Just look how lovely the cake layers baked together! This also provides a good views of the three layer flowers I made to decorate the cake with. The cake itself matched the colors of the fondant so perfectly and I was very pleased. Remember if you want similar results to buy the neon food coloring.

This is an even better view of those layers and how the color just pops! So lovely.

All in all I was very pleased with the cake and the family appeared to be pleased as well so that made me a very happy girl. I hope to practice and get better and who knows maybe you'll see a cake of mine at a birthday party near you! We'll have to see how my skills develop, but I had a lot of fun making this cake and the kids loved the rainbow cake effect. It was back breaking work, but well worth it. Hopefully I'll be posting more cakes in the future.

I've also taken to decorating my own gift bags recently. I started at Valentine's Day and posted photos of those bags on my VDay Blog post. The most recent bags have been for my uncle's wedding and yesterday for Hannah's birthday. I was a little rushed on the birthday bag, but I was very pleased with both design and I just absolutely love mom's Cricut. I can turn a 1.00 bag into a bag that would cost 5.00 or more in the store. Take a look....

 

So as you can see you don't have to spend a fortune on a cute bag. Simply fire up your favorite crafting machine, or clip images from any media publication, and make your own. They are pretty and people really seem to appreciate the effort. Some think it's unnecessary, but I enjoy making the bags. I wouldn't make them pretty if I didn't want to. I think some people tend to forget there's a difference in feeling a need to do something as opposed to doing it because you want to. If I decorate a bag, or card, for someone I did it because I wanted to, not because I felt I had to. Crafting should be fun and I personally tend to have a lot of fun creating. So happy crafting everyone and if you feel inspired to start up a craft blog ask me to follow you. I'll happily do so! I love new ideas!

Victorian Mod Podge Serving Tray

Today I made something pretty and functional. Not only does this mod podge tray reflect my love of all things Victorian, it has potential to be a functional household piece. To make this project you'll need a wooden tray, either hand made or store bought, various paper designs (I cheated a little and designed mine on one single piece of scrapbook paper), non-toxic school glue (like Elmer's), acrylic paint, and mod podge.

First I painted the entire tray brown. The fun part comes after the brown layer of paint dries. This is the step where you create the crackle effect! Forget about buying expensive crackle medium at a craft shop... we're going to create the crackle using school glue and acrylic paint! So instead of explaining the steps I'm going to include a link to the youtube video that I used to learn this method.  It's super easy!

http://youtu.be/wGmyHB83tOI

After the crackle finished dried I simply added mod podge to the bottom of the tray and smoothed my image onto the tray. It was initially smooth, but buckled some in the drying process. Eh... it happens and I think it gives the tray a little additional character. Some day this tray will look very nice on an antique vanity table, but until that time comes it's going to look nice as a decorative piece on any table. Below are a sample of the images used in my design piece.

 

The image is from fellow blogger "The Graphics Fairy."

http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/2008/10/free-graphic-gorgeous-french-soap-label.html#links

 

Monogram representing my name, Amy.

 

Victorian angel.

 

Finished product.

Front view.

Red, White, & Blue Tie-Dye Cakes in a Jar

This was my first attempt at the "tie-dye" cake method I've seen on so many facebook blog links. The concept is easy and putting the cakes in small Mason jars makes the cutest little desserts. For this particular design I used a Stars & Stripes Funfetti cake by Pillsbury. That is why you see more red and blue in the overall cake. I dyed a portion of the batter red, another portion blue, and the last I left white, but added the red and blue sprinkles included with the Funfetti cake. Had I not added the sprinkles I would have had a more uniform design of a red layer, white layer, and blue layer, but I think the sprinkles added a more tie-dye effect. For the most part I was happy with the final result of the cakes, but I think I was a little ambitious when it came to the icing...

I had an icing fail. I was attempting to do tri-color icing that I had seen on another baking blog and followed the tips exactly. I filled three smaller icing bags with three icing colors, in honor of the 4th of July, red, white, and blue. I then put the three smaller bags into a larger piping bag. All was going well until the bag burst. Oh well.... I got 4 cakes with pretty swirls and the rest with a muddled mess of icing in varying colors... basically whatever I could scrap out of the busted bag. I can laugh now at the fail, but it wasn't so funny when I was covered in 3 colors of icing. In the end it doesn't matter so much how it looks... it's more about how it tastes and you can't go wrong with Funfetti! I'm sure everyone will enjoy them all the same... icing fail and all.

A few tips if you intend to bake cakes in a jar.

Bake at 350 for 20 to 30 minutes. This is using the 8 oz. Mason jelly jars.
Make sure you spray the inside of the jar very well with baking spray such as PAM.
Use at least 20 drops of food coloring for a vibrant cake color.
When baking put jars in a shallow baking dish with 1/4" of water in the bottom of the baking dish.

Now I'm sure you're just longing to see the icing fail.... I won't disappoint. Here are photos of the finished product.

 

The four on the left were piped with the star tip. I never quite got the perfect tri-color swirl even before the bag burst and although I had to make due on the last six I don't think they look too bad. I mean they could have looked worse... right? Come on... humor me. ha.

 

Add sprinkles and no one will know the difference. Clever sprinkles!

Side view of the tie-dye effect. Remember you see more blue and red throughout because I used the Stars & Stripes Funfetti batter in the middle.