Someone call the Fire Department??

My nephew's birthday is this month. He's turning 5 ( holy crap, time flies!). He's into fire trucks and wears his fire fighters outfit ALL the TIME. So serious. I was supposed to make him a fire fighter hat cake last year for his birthday but I got so slammed with cake orders that I didn't have time. I was determined to make him an awesome cake this year!!

I was kinda torn though. I didn't want to over-do it and get too fancy shmancy, ( mainly because I would drain myself of what little life I had left in me) but I want to make sure he said "you ROCK autie!!" ....or something along those lines!

The Google is my best friend at this point. I usually just google what kind of cake I want to make and look at all the images, manipulating them in my head to make them uniquely mine. I print a picture or two as a guideline ( I'm a terrible artist, funny how that works!) and start to make my billion lists.

I'm gonna carve myself a fire engine outta cake!

This is one of the Fire Engine cakes that I liked & printed.

...and my red fondant.




I baked a half sheet of vanilla cake and make a couple batches of vanilla buttercream frosting. Nothing complicated. Vanilla works just fine! I'm going to cut the half sheet in 4ths and carve from that. It really didn't need much carving though, the truck is pretty much a rectangle. Actually, all I really did was cut a chunk out of the top layer for the indent where the gray strip is and make some indents where the tires go.

I was supposed to put a couple of layers of foam board in between the cake and the board so that the wheels would look like they were actually holding the fire engine up, but....well, I have girls who also need me to do their hair. Girls hair takes forever. Needless to say, it took me eons to actually finish this cake. Not because it was hard, but simply because my mommy duties supersede by auntie and cake duties. And they obviously supersede my sleep duties too because I never sleep when I work on cakes! Ask my husband.

Alright, the cake is baked, cut and layered. I let it settle for a while and then threw a coat of frosting all over.

You'll see a lot of this table. This is my favorite corner to make cakes on! Not sure why.

It took me a couple tries to cover this cake in fondant. I have to admit that I was got a little frustrated when I tried to cover it the first time. The fondant was too thin on the corners and I stretched it too much while smoothing. That and it was really flipping hot inside my house! I ripped a stupid hole in all four corners. Grrrrrr. Let's try this again!

Geeze! Why did that have to be so hard!?

So this guy is covered and I get to start cutting the details. I've got to make the ramp thingy, and the gray middle thingy and then the control area thingies. Yeah, I know nothing about fire engines! Lol. I had to call in the knowledgeable hubby! He's a truck driver and he knows all things vehicle. He gave me some guidance on the fabrication of this here truck.

When I put the gray thingy ( he didn't share any of the terminology with me!) in the indent, I realized that I'd carved the wheel wells too far back. They should be in front of the gray strip. oops. It's all good. Hey, hand me that knife over there! I lifted the fondant, plugged the hole with more fondant and cut out the wheel well closer to the front of the truck. All better.

Once I fixed the wheel well issue, it was smooth sailing. Although I did have about and hour and a half before we had to leave for Family Dinner and my nephew's bday celebration. Guess I'd better get a move on.

Finally...

I suck because I didn't get a picture of him blowing his #5 candle out or eating any cake. Oh well, there's always next year!

Thanks for reading! Not sure what's next so be sure to come back :)

My Return! With a wedding cake!

I've been gone for sooooo long! I missed you all so much that I had to come back :)
I have such a love for baking and love for writing that blogging is my only option, I guess!

Getting right down to business! Cakes!!

A good friend of mine asked me to do her wedding cake a loooong time ago and of course I agreed so I put it on the calendar!

I had the tasting in July. Usually, indecisive people drive me crazy! Do you know how many consultations I have when the person(s) ordering the cake says, "well, just do what you think is best"?? Are you kidding me?! All due respect but this makes me want to high five your face. I love flexibility, but I'm going to need some guidelines here! Heaven forbid I decide that Dragonflies are an awesome addition to your cake and you happen to be deathly afraid of Dragonflies! You're not smashing MY masterpiece with a flyswatter!!

Anywho, she happened to like a very simple design (lucky me) and very simple flavors ( lucky me again). She did the one thing that I love when my customers do. She showed me a picture of the cake she liked. I googled it, printed it and sketched my own version.

This was my first stacked, fondant covered cake so I had to be well prepared so I didn't work myself to death. That was my theory anyway. Prepare for everything. I was still stressed out and ended up being so drained that I couldn't make myself attend the actual wedding. :( Sorry Brandy): , but I think that I just need to manage my stress better. Oh, and not make myself do so many other things in the same time frame. That might help too. Did I mention that my younger daughter was playing in a soccer tournament that weekend and happened to have a double- header the day the cake was due?! So that happened.

All in all, I felt pretty good about how this cake was going to turn out. I had sketched everything about 5 times, written out and checked off  20 or so lists of ingredients I would need, fondant, cake pans, cake plates and any miscellaneous products I might need. I buffed up on YouTube videos on the best way to do what I was doing and how to fix whatever problems I might face. I was finally ready. Bring it on, baby!

Everything's baked, filled and taking over my dining room table. I needed to let the cakes settle so I didn't get air bubbles under my fondant. So here they sat, weighted, for at least 1/2 hour.

Snacks!

No need to check the knife for sharpness at all. Already did that. I wouldn't recommend that method either! OUCH!

 After I covered each tier, I had to stack them so I knew how everything would fit together. I wasn't going to put a stacked 4 tier cake in my husband's truck to transport. He would never forgive me if I got chocolate cake all over his cream colored interior! Although he'd probably end up giving me the truck and buying himself a new car!

 

This is about the point that I realized that the (sheer) purple ribbon she gave me to put at the base of each tier, was NOT going to hide the cake plates and boards that you can see in this picture. Just to be clear, at this point it's about 10pm the night before the wedding. I have a soccer game in the morning before I deliver this cake. I ultimately decided that I would make fondant strips the size of the ribbon to cover the base of each tier first, then lay the purple ribbon on top of it.

 I also remembered that I had this white cake base in my garage from the first wedding I ever did and it would be perfect for this wedding. Especially since the one that she'd chosen had been about 4 inches too small. Poor Brandy, She wanted to throw stuff when I told her. I told her to just let me deal with the rest of the cake stuff. Base, decorations, all that. Hope that took a little stress off!

I stacked to first two tiers and decorated. That was as high as I was willing to travel with. I would stack and decorate the other two at the venue.

I found some ivory organza (left over from my wedding) that matched perfect with the cake!

Finally, the finished product!

In the end, Brandy Love, Love, Loved her cake as I did I! I was so proud of myself because it turned out better than I imagined it would!

Thanks so much to Brandy Patton for letting me create her wedding cake and thanks to everyone for reading!

Next will be my Nephew's Fire Engine birthday cake!! Yay me!