Cakes from the Past - Part Two

A Father's Day Surprise
This is the cake I made from my wonderful husband on Father's Day 2005; his favorite meal, a double cheeseburger with fries, in cake form. Everything is cake and icing with the exception of the 'American Cheese", which I made from rolled out and chilled orange 'Starburst' candy. I was very happy with the way it looked. However, the candy made it VERY hard to actually cut through the cake. We had to end up taking the 'cheese' off of the cake to cut it up. The 'french fries and ketchup' are made of yellow cake and red frosting. Although 99% of the icing I make is buttercream, I did venture into uncharted territory and use royal icing for these decorations. This made them hang correctly off of the burger, but basically made hard candy to be picked off and eaten later. I got a request to make this same cake for the birthday of a church friend's father, but didn't get pictures of that one.
Anyway, my husband is a wonderful man and will always be "#1 Dad" in our family. Love you, hon.

Happy 4th of July!

This was an interesting adventure! I decided that I didn't really need to spend the money, nor did I have room, for yet another cake pan. So I decided to wing it and made my own 'pan' out of cardboard cake board and aluminum foil.

To my great surprise and relief, it DID NOT leak all over my oven and came out wonderful, esp. since it was a freehanded drawing as well. We have fun making either cake or cupcakes to take with us out to the fairgrounds to pass the time waiting for the fireworks show. Happy B-Day, USA!

Congrats!

This was a half-sheet cake made for one of my husband's co-workers.

Grapes anyone?!?

Got up to my mom's house for Labor Day and, well lookee here, I just happened to bring along my cake decorating supplies. I decided we needed a dessert for the dinner table. So I once again, went creative and tried something new. It's always an adventure when I step out of my comfort zone and experiment.

To a wonderful Mother in Law

Happy Birthday! to my M-I-L, or to my son - "Gran". We surprised her with a birthday cake and my son made a homemade greeting card for her. :) Very sweet!

Double Chocolatey Dessert
My son and I decided to make a chocolate cake for dessert. He decided he wanted to learn how to make roses. So this was his very first attempt at making buttercream roses. I made the middle rose and he made the other two. Awesome job, Josh! I saw gals in class that their first attempt was not as good as yours. :)

The next two cakes are probably the hardest that I have done and by far, my favorites.

Friendship in Bloom

I believe this was the very first cake someone actually paid me to make. Still needed work on the lettering and practice with my script, but she was happy with it, and so was I.
This one I made for my best friend on her birthday. It took me about a week to make. The flowers had to be made ahead of time and set to airdry, so that they didn't just melt and the petals fall or break. There are roses, rosebuds, carnations, daisies, bachelor buttons, white lilies, tiger lilies, pansies, and odds & ends flowers. The sides of the cake are decorated with cream colored basketweave and a rope border around top and bottom edges. Considering I had only finished 2 out of the 3 Wilton courses, I was fairly proud of this cake.

Fall Harvest Basket

This was another cake that took me about a week to do. The 'fall basket' is made of a double layer cake and the staves and leaves are all made of a marzipan/fondant mixture. I made 3 of these cakes within about a 3 week timespan; one for home, one for Rob's workplace, and one to take to Iowa for Thanksgiving at my parents' home.

Mom always sets a beautiful table anyway. But I wanted to give her a 'centerpiece' for Thanksgiving Dinner. Love ya, Ma!