Sunday, September 19, 2010

Cake, cake, and more cakes!


September is an extra special month because it's my birthday month, too. Unfortunately, I have to leave the crazy, fun 20's and move on to the big 30's. Yup, I turned 30 this past week. I was such in a denial why do I have to turn 30?! I know its going to get better, fun and more challenges ahead.

Want to know how I spend my birthday?

I had the honored to make this special cake for this little boy, Luke. His mom contacted me the week ago about the theme of the party and send me the birthday invitation. Luke has been in the hospital due to digestion/intestine issues. It's just break my heart, how could one little body handle all the IV's, needle, and those medicine....
You can follow more about him on his parents' blog The team of the cake is Superhero Luke, here is what I came with:

  

This two tiered cake serves 30 adults. It's a 6" and an 8" round cake. I covered the cake with buttercream and fondant decorations. I also did a mini smash cake for Luke with similar theme, black, red dots and super hero logo on the top.


The next cake was my very first 3D Lakers cap! Crystal came last week and wanted to surprise her boyfriend with his favorite basketball team. I never make a cap cake, but I thought why not! It's a 10" round base - 3 layers of them. I also added in one layer 8" round and 1 layer 6 " round on top.This was a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. I crumbed coat the cake, let it sit a few hrs and then covered with fondant. I was getting frustrated with the purple fondant. At first, I didn't get the purple color that I wanted it. I just can messed up Lakers color!
It's such an iconic  team, everyone knows the exact purple color. I am pretty happy with the result, but next time I am going to use air brush instead of painting. What do you think?


Another challenge this week was damask cake.. word.. I bought the stencil last Summer break, but I haven't get a chance to make any cake with damask design.  It was a 1/2 sheet cake, serves 50 and covered with white fondant.  One thing that worried me was the white fondant and the black icing combo. It does look classy and elegant, but... I just never did this before! In my heart, please please... this black icing better be the right consistency, other wise I will have a zebra cake instead of damask at 2 AM in the morning! Hahah 
The inspiration for the cake was the baby shower invitation. It's a marble cake inside ( vanilla and chocolate) with vanilla buttercream icing.  Welcome Peanut Lawson!

This next cake was actually from the week before. Leslie came to the shop for a cake consultation. Her friend Monica is expecting a baby boy. I asked her if she has any particular design that she had in mind. She said no. So I asked her what are the party theme? Toy, duck, dots,...? and She said no there was no any particular theme, but she brought in the images of the party platters. I asked her which one was her favorite. She said crocodile. And I said... what about a crocodile cake? She said yes! 
Here is the cute "crocodile" cake:
This cake serves 30-35 adults and it was a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. It was covered with fondant. Don't be scared! Our fondant taste good, no it doesn't taste like rubber :)

On the side note, I hate turning down custom cakes order,... but I can only do so much in one day, in my tiny 300 sq ft kitchen.  My next wishes is to have a bigger kitchen.. no matter I have more assistants, but there wasn't any room to work. Oh I would also love to have freezer, dough sheeter, walk in cooler, personal office, proper working AC, and the list goes on!

I know I always want more and more! Is that a part of getting older?