Cake Decorating Final!

I graduated! But before I could I had to make this final cake. It was supposed to be a wedding cake, but it was like a mini wedding cake. We had to meet certain criteria, and I tried to make that work as much as possible and still have a cute cake. I think it turned out pretty good! It is covered in Italian buttercream, and has fondant and buttercream accents. Here are some pictures:

The tealish stripes are fondant and the flowers on top are made out of gum paste. Gum paste is like fondant but it can dry much harder than fondant. 

I think that having fondant and gum paste accents on a buttercream covered cake is a great alternative to having a cake completely decorated in fondant for a couple of reasons. Reason one, I don't think fondant tastes that great, and yes people can peel it off but buttercream is just so much more delicious. Reason two, I think it is really cute! You can still do everything you would do with a fondant covered cake. Reason three, it is cheaper, I know some people are not concerned with this, but for those of us that would rather pay less, you get a better tasteing cake for cheaper, and it can look just as great! Win Win Win!

Rock Cake

My aspiring culinary artist, sister-in-law, Mariah, had a birthday and she asked me to make a cake for her. She said that her favorite color was blue so I wanted to have a blue theme for the cake.  My wonderful husband Adam and I love books, so naturally we like book stores, we stop by Barnes and Noble fairly regularly, and I go straight to the cook books and he goes to nature/religion/hiking books. As I was looking last time I found this cake decorating book that had some cool ideas. One I really liked was a cake that had rock candy all over it. I thought it looked very cool. So I took that idea and ran with it all the way to ABC Cake decorating store in Phoenix. I found some rock candy and was ready to roll. Here is the finished product:

I made Italian butter cream and I split it into 3 different colors, all different shades of blue. I swirled them altogether on the cake, then added the rock candy. Good news: She loved it. I think it turned out pretty cool.

Birthday Cake

I made this birthday cake for my friends birthday. It is a yellow cake with grapefruit curd filling and swiss butter cream. I got the recipe for the frosting from Martha right here. I think it turned out pretty good! Here are some pictures:

Also this next month I will be doing two wedding cakes so I will get those posted as they get done.