Adventures in Cake Making

The weekend before last was Cody and Darci's wedding. It was beautiful, even in the downpour rain. They're so cute and happy together--congrats you two!

It was also D-day for my first official fondant wedding cake. And I have to admit, it turned out perfect! I was so happy with it and I'm so excited to know how to do fondant now. I've been having a blast 'playing' with fondant and finding excuses to make cakes--and give them away to people so I don't eat all the calories :) So, here are some pictures of the wedding cake assemblage. However, first off, I have to start with the last pictures, The Mess. Also, notice The Mess is continued in almost every other picture here, as well.The never ending dirty dishes. This is typical random stuff Miranda drug out to entertain herself and for me to trip over. Really, though, Miranda and Brad were good sports through the whole baking process, and I made two full wedding cakes because I was so paranoid something would go wrong with the fondant on the final step, so it was way more work than it had to be. Thankfully, Jeremy took both kids on errands Saturday morning for a couple of hours so I could do the creative part. These are some of the cakes with their butter cream coating. The butter cream frosting is necessary so the fondant has something to stick to. Triumph! This is THE hardest part, getting a smooth, non-torn, non-folded, non-bubbled covering of the cake! Here is it is in all it's ribbon and dot covered glory. I loved the green ribbon on the white--so striking. And finally, all set-up safely at the reception. Jeremy came up with a great fool proof transportation method involving Duct Tape and Glad "Press N Seal" wrap.

Okay, so now I'm breathing a sigh of relief over a successful wedding cake. Ready for pictures of more less-stress cakes? This is a cake I made for my niece, Kylie, who turned one this month! I did the majority of the frosting with butter cream because fondant would not cause the classic gooey mess all over baby hands and cheeks (and hair and nose and arms and tummy and elbows, etc.) Happy b-day Kylie! How about some cupcakes now? I made some regular sized and some small for our ward Mom & Me playgroup last week. These are the small ones. The red color takes forever and uses tons of food coloring, and I was getting anxious to start creating, so I stopped before the fondant was truly red. It actually looks more like bubble gum color, but what the heck? It's still patriotic, right? Here are the regular-sized cupcakes. I had fun creating a different design for each of these, but it did take a little while. I figured from start--warming up the oven--to finish--putting the last clean dish back in the cupboard--I spent about 3 hours on these babies. But hey, I had fun, and all the moms/kids loved it. I decided to stay with the patriotic theme for a cake I made for a BBQ with our friends. I'll have to find some new creative inspiration for August since there's no good holiday idea and I still have one big frozen cake in the freezer! Miranda had a lot of fun with the fondant, too. It's like edible play-dough. Actually, it is pretty tasty. When I first was learning how to use fondant, I bought the Wilton brand at the store, thinking it would be the best quality. WRONG. It tasted gross and was so stiff. I couldn't even roll it out big enough to cover a cake half the size it was supposed to cover. (I had to have Jeremy pull out his 'big guns' to help me roll it out.) So, Jeremy and I experimented with recipes to make our own, and I think we found a pretty good one. It's actually surprisingly easy, too. Oh, yeah. And the cakes themselves tasted delicious, also. They had a cream cheese filling in a white cake mix, plus the butter cream frosting under the fondant. Mmmm. Who can think of a reason to eat cake?! Let's make more! Side Notes: Check out Miranda's cute French braids. She finally held still long enough for me to give her two braids one morning! AND, check out her cute apron. Mima made her a new one to coordinate with mine for Mother's Day. I'll have to post of pic of both of us in our aprons when I get some laundry done...