Brown Sugar Pound Cake

This beauty is all Southern: rich brown sugar, sweet pecans, cream cheese frosting.  A heavy crumb that is pure pound cake through and through. If Red Velvet cake is Tennessee Williams, then this Brown Sugar Pound Cake is Flannery O’Connor. Not so much a Misfit as it sat pristine upon the cake stand, but I wouldn’t have been surprised to spy a salesman drive by with a prosthetic leg in his backseat after I took the third bite. 

Recipe was another from All Cakes Considered by Melissa Gray. 

Hot Wheeled Cake

I leveled up my cake decorating with this sweet sports coupe for my sweet boy Beck's 4th Birthday Party. As usual with my 'process' I was really far behind and wished I had another half day to work out the details and maybe do some awesome gum paste (makes very hard and detailed) accents like exhaust pipes and rearview mirrors.

This cake started out as two 9 x 13" and one 9" vanilla pound cakes stacked with a sturdy buttercream filling (nothing fancy like fruit--the goal was something stable to withstand the carving).  I also froze the cake over night before the carving.

Next came the basic shape and then my wonderful husband applied his artistic skills to map out the sculpting and to make some great detailed cuts.  By the time the fondant went on it was midnight, and then I stayed up another two hours hoping that it wouldn't fall apart.

Details came the next morning, and after having experienced this one, I'm really excited to do another sculpted cake and improve on my technique. I was planning on doing some hot-rod flames, but we settled on doing a quick paint job with blue luster dust.

... and just like that, it was gone!

White Daisy Cascade

This cake shows the incredible smoothness that can be achieved with a crusting buttercream.  There is a bit of technique involved in getting that ultra-smooth finish, and after I finally got it down, it was almost a shame to cover it up with little white fondant daisies.

But what an elegant and simple design--I'm sure I'm not the first one to do something like this, but I know that I hope to do many more in this style. I just love it.

We Had a Ball

Being my youngest son, Carter LOVES, LOVES, LOVES balls of all kinds, a sports themed birthday party was a natural.  This cake was baked in Wilton's sports ball pan, that also thankfully had a template for the soccer ball pattern. The side soccer balls are the pressed sugar pre-made decorations (the kind I would normally scoff at, but now praise when time is short)

As it was, I was finishing decorating the cake when the guests arrived. I would have liked to have done a better job at the grass (especially because the color green came out so well), but needed to get it finished and pack the magic away as the house filled up.  

Dia de Los Muertos Wedding Cake

I love this cake. There are so many things I think I would have done differently on it, but I still just adore the concept.  It is pink fondant with fondant cut out flowers and buttercream brush embroidered 'calaveras' or sugar skulls.

The wedding topper is one that I really wanted for our own wedding, but was strongly urged to reconsider by my mother, who just didn't get the appeal of Dia de Los Muertos figures.

More of a top view

Wilton Class Cakes

Everyone has to start somewhere, so last summer I took my 30+ years (yes, my mom had me decorating birthday cakes for my dog when i was 8 years old) of cake decorating experience to Michael's Craft Store once a week for the Wilton Method Cake Decorating Classes.  I finished Course 1, 2, 3 and did all but the last cake on Course 4 (we were out of town and I got a bit sugared out after four months of caking).

If you've taken a Wilton Class, these cakes are probably familiar:
Course 1, Buttercream Transfer

We did drop flowers:

and then the final cake was with a border and roses on top,

Course 2 focused mostly on royal flowers of all sorts that we saved for the final cake,
a buttercream basket weave oval (I still don't know what I'm going to do with those pans).

I also practiced on a few cakes outside of class

A Grown-up Birthday Cake.

 A Grown-up Birthday Cake, that's what this is. Swiss meringue buttercream is the best to taste, but not so easy to color and frost with. No crusting. The rest of the decor were some royal daisies that were made in my Wilton class. Simple and elegant. . . . and frosting to lick fingers for.