Jungle Boy’s 1st Birthday Cake: Also made for a friend’s son’s first birthday, this was the cake for the rest of the party-goers. Again it was based on the decorations. I mimicked the design on both the plates and napkins, including different stripes of color around the outside. This one was a 2-layer 9x13 marble cake.
Jungle Boy’s 1st Birthday Cake - 3-D Lion: Made for a friend’s son’s first birthday, this cake was based off the decorations she had purchased for the party. This would be his “destroy it” cake. So I made a small 3-D replica of the lion on the party decorations. Made with 10-inch and 6-inch round pans and the round edges of the lion’s mane cut with using a circle cookie cutter cut in half. The party hat is an ice cream cone coated with green chocolate with the pom-pom at the top made from a marshmallow covered with orange chocolate. (This part had to be removed for transportation but sat easily in the corner of the cake box.)
Baby Shower Cake (Girl): Two layer (one yellow, one chocolate) 9x13 cake, made for a work baby shower. All I knew was that the woman is having a girl so I used a design on a party plate I found at the store for inspiration. I actually used strawberry frosting on this one for the pink parts of the cake, mimicking Neapolitan ice cream. (Everyone loved it and I’ve already had a request for another cake with the same flavors for this weekend.) I used letter and butterfly cookie cutters to create outlines on the cake to use as guidelines for my decorating.
Pink Rock Star Cake: Made for a co-worker’s little girl’s birthday. Used 11x15 cake pan and cut out the guitar shape based on this actual Daisy Rock guitar, using the left over pieces to make the long neck. They were expecting a lot of kids for the party so we added in some cupcakes to ensure they had enough cake to feed everyone. The silver nobs are actually silver gumballs cut in half and I used Duff’s new Cake Graffiti from Michaels to add silver touches to parts of the cake and cupcakes.
Bob Marley iPod Nano Cake: Made for the 16th birthday of a co-worker’s sister-in-law’s daughter. I used my 11x15 inch cake pan, cutting the sides off and adding those pieces to the bottom of the cake to mock the dimensions of an iPod Nano. She had requested I have Bob Marley on the screen so I re-created an iPod screen in Photoshop using an image I found online and using the “Happy Birthday” message as the song title and had that printed as an edible image. (I also mocked up what the entire iPod would look like and used that as a guide.) Since she wanted it to be a red iPod, I actually made red velvet cake so that it’d still be red once they cut into it. I wasn’t completely happy with the dial but the cake itself was a big hit!
Jungle Baby Shower Cake: Made for a jungle themed baby shower for friends. Multiple parts of this one aren’t edible. The animal figures were bought at JoAnn and D&G Occasions. I had most of the trees from an earlier purchase at Sugarcraft but I got a few more at D&G as well. The rocks are actually Candy Store Milk Chocolate Rocks found at Walmart. The cake is made from two 11x15 layers, one chocolate and one yellow. I just cut it up and did a little trimming/sculpturing to create the rock formation. And because it’s for a large shower (40+ people), I used my leftover cake mix to make the extra cupcakes.
Balloon & Gift Birthday Cake: Made for a celebration of our December birthdays at the office. Design idea came from what I did with the Garden Girl cake. I didn’t have a lot of time for this one but didn’t want it to be just a two-layer yellow cake with a boring birthday design on the top. So I to cut around a design on the side to give it a little extra dimension. I did a quick Google search and found a clipart image that matched what I was thinking (balloon attached to a gift box) and blew it up in Photoshop so I could print it and use it as a guide while cutting. Once I had it cut, it all came together nicely.
Fancy Snowmen Cake: For @modernmami’s daughter’s Christmas-y birthday party and modeled after this cake they found online. It’s a 8 inch 2-layer vanilla cake with cream cheese frosting. The snowmen are made from gumpaste. The eyes are chocolate tootsie rolls and the noses are orange flavored rolls. The “boa” scarves are puffy pipe-cleaners, the one non-edible item on the cake due to some uncooperative cotton candy. The trees are all molded chocolate with light green and white chocolate accents. The trim includes medium sized pink candy pearls and the “fancy” hats are made from flavored tootsie rolls (I used hat cake toppers to mold them). Finally, I brushed the snowmen and trees with candy pearl dust over to give them a little bit of a “snow” shine.
Guitar Cake: This one was for a “Rock Star” themed birthday party. Made with a Wilton guitar-shaped pan. Since the pan called for a little more cake batter than your typical pan, I doubled the batter and used the left-over to make cupcakes. I then used the cupcakes to add a little color to the cake. Knobs, etc., on the guitar are made from silver M&Ms.
Bumblebee Cake: Made for a friend’s son’s birthday. Bumblebee is pretty popular so it was impossible to find cake appropriate toys I could use to build a scene. Instead I made the car based on the toy seen pictured here. My car carving skills need work so I’m not a huge fan of the final product. However, the kids loved it and that’s really all that matters.
This was carved from an 11x17 layer and 9x13 layer. I used the left over pieces of cake to raise the car up off the board with some extra Oreos used to support additional areas under the car. The wheels are Oreos. The lights are a combination of flavored Tootsie Rolls and fruit roll-ups. I printed out the Autobot logo and used that as a guide when drawing it on the front of the car. It’s not the best but it’s recognizable. Then I taped the printout to the top of the box for delivery.
©2010. Postage by Greg Cooper. Icons by P.J. Onori. Thanks to Jamie Cassidy & Panic.
*Unlikely to find the cake you want but you can try...
