Happy Birthday Mom!!

Today is my mom's birthday! Yep, our birthdays are only 5 days apart which makes for a fun week.
I bought her some goodies and I made her a cake!

She's a red velvet lover (well, who isn't right?) so I wanted to be sure to make one of her favs.
I made a 3 layer cake: red velvet / french vanilla / red velvet, covered in vanilla buttercream and marshmallow fondant.  I topped the cake with fresh hydrangeas ( I love these flowers!!)

It's so pretty, I hate to cut into it but cake it meant to be EATEN so we shall EAT IT!

NY Yankees Say Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Mr. sweet tooF!!  He's a hardcore Yankee fan so what better way to say I Love You than to make him a Yankees birthday cake!
After much research, I decided to make him a baseball hat cake.  I used a glass Pyrex bowl (thus the dome shape) and a second 6" tier and covered in marshmallow fondant.  I used fondant for the brim too.  My goal was to make the color of the hat darker (true Yankee midnight blue), but sheesh, it takes forever - and lots of icing coloring, to make it that dark (and my hands were getting tired of kneading).

He loved it! I'm pretty pleased considering it's my first "odd" shaped cake :)
The cake is a Lemon Cake with Cream Cheese frosting!

Toy Story Fun!

So when I realized my nephew's 4th birthday was coming up, I knew I wanted to make a fun cake for him.
His party theme was Toy Story! (seems to be a popular choice this summer).  I was so excited to make this and couldn't wait to get started.  I decided on my nephew's favorite flavor, chocolate! or as he calls it "choc-lick" haha (what kid doesn't want a chocolate cake right?) I used a vanilla buttercream filling and covered it in marshmallow fondant. First tier was 3 layers, second tier was 2.  All chocolate goodness.

Here's the final product!

I bought little Toy Story figurines and placed them around the cake (the little army men climbing the cake are my fav!) I found candy icings,  placed a couple on the cake,  added a Buzz Lightyear candle and tadahhhh.....all done!

We also had cupcakes for the kiddos.  I topped them with buttercream, added sprinkles and topped it with candy icing. So cute!

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July, what better way to celebrate than to make another cake! (Not that I need an excuse haha).

So I decided on a two-tiered cakes this time (what can I say, I'm a rebel) but this time I knew I didn't want to use the ready-made fondant so I opted to MAKE my own! I found a great recipe for Marshmallow fondant that turned out great! (It is a bit messy to make but it's WAY easier and yummy!). 

The recipe is:

16 oz bag regular or miniature marshmallows
1 – 2 lb bag confectioner’s sugar
2 Tablespoons water
Shortening
Cornstarch

Seriously, that's it. You melt the marshmallows, mix with powder sugar, knead and VOILA! done! It's WAY easier to use, flexible, stays moist, easy to color and taste a lot better than the boxed kind.

So back to my cake, home made buttercream frosting, 1st tier - chocolate fudge, 2nd tier - yellow cake with fresh strawberries filling.

Look how cute!!

 I piped stars made out of icing and used cookie cutters for the stars.  I will NEVER go back to the boxed fondant, the Marshmallow fondant was a million times better.  I'm still learning how to smooth out the surface, hey it's not as easy as it looks.
Anyway, I took the cake to a 4th of July party and it was a hit! Everyone couldn't believe it was my second cake. Oh and it was yummy!!!