Something's fishy...

This was my first mounted fish cake and it was so much fun to create!! Based on a photo of a Northern pike, this birthday cake for a fishing enthusiast was almost 30 inches in length and sat on a fondant-covered board texturized and stained to look like wood. An edible plaque airbrushed in gold offered a birthday message. 
Inside, the edible fish was vanilla cake tinted pale pink with a milk chocolate truffle buttercream filling. The cake was carved, iced in white chocolate buttercream and then covered in white fondant, which was airbrushed and handpainted to replicate the colour and pattern in the fish. Handpainted sugarpaste fins and royal icing teeth added the final touch!

Monkeying around!

This 1st birthday cake combined bright colours and Mod Monkey-themed details in a two-tiered confection. A little chocolate fondant monkey sits on top of the cake. Flavours were chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream filling and banana cake with sweet vanilla buttercream filling.

This week's adventures!

This week, I'll be monkeying around, landing a trophy and spending some time with Ironman! (Not RDJ himself, unfortunately.) Lots of fun cakes in the works..... Stay tuned!

Capturing the moment

I was asked to do a 70th birthday cake for a woman who loves photography. When I think of photography, clean lines and sharp contrast come to mind - something that I wanted to reflect in the cake design. This two-tiered design was covered in white fondant and then an overlay of white circles in an eye-catching pattern. A few random silver circles broke up the whiteness of the design and also mimicked the lens of the camera. An edible 35mm camera sits on top of the cake with a strip of edible negative trailing down the side.

Inside are layers of chocolate cake and mocha buttercream, iced in white chocolate buttercream and then covered in fondant.

Twice the flavour for a 40th birthday

Two cakes were created for a special client's 40th birthday - one for an evening out with friends and another to mark the occasion with family.

Sugarpaste details on the first cake represented a favourite pastime (scrapbooking pages), a favourite restaurant (Thai restaurant menu and a plate of spring rolls) and her profession as a teacher (books and a chalkboard). This was also an opportunity to create a new and unique flavour combination based on Chapman's Black Jack Cherry frozen yogurt: http://www.chapmans.ca/productsNew.aspx?cat=yogurt a delicious combination of black cherries and dark chocolate.

The final result included layers of rich chocolate cake filled with a dark cherry buttercream filling, made from chopped cherries and a syrup made from a cherry reduction. The cake was iced in dark chocolate truffle buttercream - decadent!

The second cake included whimsical and edible caricatures of the entire family - mom, dad and their three children, along with a few sugarpaste daisies in fall colours. The neopolitan cake included chocolate, strawberry and vanilla cake layers filled with vanilla and strawberry buttercream and iced in milk chocolate buttercream, just like the well-known ice cream.

Celebrating an 80th birthday!

After taking a short break from "caking" over the Christmas holidays, it was time to get back into the swing of things. The 2011 cake season started with a special garden-themed 80th birthday cake. This was a version of my fall garden cake but the flavour (dark chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream filling) allowed for an opportunity to use a chocolate fondant topper over the milk chocolate buttercream frosting. Chocolate fondant is delicious and is very similar in taste to a Tootsie Roll. I also thought the darker fondant would be a fantastic contrast to the brightly coloured sugar flowers. I used white chocolate to add the birthday message, written in German.
To ensure enough servings for everyone (and for those who don't love chocolate), there was also a vanilla cake with layers of tangy lemon curd and lightly flavoured lemon buttercream, topped with a few additional sugar flowers.