I Am Iron Man. (Not Really, I'm Just Cake.) (Click photo to enlarge.)

This was the first time I tried to carve something from cake.  Bottom cake is white almond sour cream with vanilla bean filling and icing.  Iron man is carved from chocolate cake and covered with fondant.  I was told by my niece, mother of two beautiful boys and Iron Man expert extraordinaire, that my Iron Man kinda sucked.  I already knew that.  Trust me, when we don't "nail" something, if we're worth our salt as artists, we know it before anyone has to tell us.  Beneath this post is the sample photo I found to go by.  I could tell as I was slicing away the sides of his face that he was too long and thin, but I now get the luxury of being able to say later that "I learned the hard way" and that "you can always take more cake off, but you can't ever put it back on once it's carved off" - you know, stuff like that.  The stuff excuses are made of.  Actually, you CAN put it back on, but it's a lot of trouble and a lot of crumbcoating so I just couldn't be bothered.  Anyways, lucky for me, this cake was for the son of a girl who's super easy going and laid back.  Phew.  She wasn't nearly the critic, or if she was, she put on an Academy Award winning show for me.  Happy birthday to her little son, Gavin, who, at the ripe old age of 5, wasn't nearly as tough a critic either, and who (like most 5 year olds) apparently loved his cake, even if Iron Man did kinda suck.

T-Rex Cake. Rawr!!! (Click photos to enlarge.)

I honestly didn't really have a clue how to do this t-rex the way I wanted to, and I couldn't find a fondant tutorial - so I just grabbed a photo that I liked from a random non-cake site and combined that with the party plate for my inspiration.  I had the most fun making t-rex's tongue and the least fun glueing in all those fondant teeth.  I wanted to include Gavin's name and didn't know where to put it - and then realized I need some visual height behind t-rex, so I decided on a hot orange banner (for color) with a bite out of it.  Only later did my little girl suggest that the missing bite should be hanging out of his mouth.  She and I make a great team.  Cake was all WASC with Madagascar vanilla filling and icing.  Everything is edible except the legs of the "Gavin" sign.  The volcano was actually 5 layers of stacked cake.  This thing was unbelievably heavy!  Happy birthday Gavin!

Talon's Mario Brothers Cake (click any photo to enlarge).

I was happy to finally get to make my precious nephew, Talon, a birthday cake.  He's been asking for months for me to show him a picture of what I made for his 4th birthday last year, but I wasn't making cakes in January of last year, so I've had nothing to show him... and he just didn't understand why every other kid in the family had one but him.  Finally his turn has come!  Big mushroom was chocolate cake, sheet cake was WASC torted and filled with french vanilla butter cream.  All characters were hand shaped fondant.  Everything is 100% edible.  Happy birthday, Tal.  Aunt Peggy loves you bigger than the sun!

Snowfall in the City

Covered in creamy

birthday-cake frosting,

the parked cars

huddle beneath

their streetlamp candles,

waiting for the North Wind

to come make its wish

for morning.

~ Charles Ghigna (with permission)

Run Run Rudolph (Click photo to enlarge)

I straight stole this cake from someone at my favoritest website in the world, cakecentral.  I didn't just borrow the idea, I borrowed the design:  verbatim.  It's an exact replica.  There are so many versions of this cake that have been done over and over on that site, that I'm not sure who did the original design.  But I'd like to thank them because it was super easy to do, it's silly, and it's ridiculous.  I took this cake to a family gathering and my darling nephew, Jayce (pictured below) giggled and giggled over it.  He did a real belly laugh and threw his head back and just giggled over it.  It was one of those sleepy giggles that he just couldn't stop, and I won't lie, my heart melted right there on the spot.  Man, if that's not the best payment you can get for a cake, I don't know what is.

Nativity Cake (Click photo to enlarge).

I'm so far behind on posting my December and January cakes!  Christmas was a total and utter blur, and in between the blurriness, I had about a dozen orders to fill, a ton of baking to do for friends, mine and Gary's coworkers, our neighbors, and family - and then there was a request for this manger scene in all fondant.  That was cool, but the tough part of this cake was that I was asked to make the characters look "real" and not like "cartoons."  Um, but it's CAKE!  So yeah, wow, that was hard for me to wrap my mind around.  Remember, I've been doing this for just over 6 months, so that's a pretty tall order for a noobie like me.  I redid the angel 3 times.  I redid her face, I redid her wings, I redid her stumpy little body, I redid her hair.  She was blonde, she was brown, she was black.  After I began my 6th hour of nothing but angel-work, I finally just tossed the entire thing in the garbage can and started fresh.  Although this last version was an improvement on the first 3 that ended up filed in #13, she was still nothing like I had envisioned her to be - and I was NOT a happy girl with her or with this cake in general.  The actual manger was made from tempered chocolate and was the one thing I liked about this cake.  It seemed like the characters just all gave me so much trouble.  Just as I was wrapping baby Jesus in his swaddling clothes, I dented his head beyond repair.  But I couldn't bear to cut off his little baby Jesus head, so I gently squished him back into a ball and started over.  Even though I avoided the sugar carnage of a beheading, I still cringed at the thought of squishing him.  But it was the lesser of all the evils - as it seemed better to save his head than to throw him in the garbage.  And yeah, this was 3 days before Christmas, so I was feeling pretty guilty about having to dispose of Jesus.  It's a wonder Santa came to see me at all after all the havoc I wreaked on his "manger players."  Maybe that explains why I didn't get that set of square cake pans I wanted.