Krista's Neighbor, Totoro

I was so delighted to be asked to make a birthday cake for a gorgeous young lady, Krista.  Her mom, Sara is our very good friend, asked me to bake a Totoro themed cake for her daughter.   As soon as I heard Totoro, oh boy, I was so excited.  It had been a couple of years since I saw the movie.  So, I pulled out my DVD and enjoyed watching the movie again, but this time with my baby boy, Benjamin.  I just adore Hayao Miyazaki's movies.

This is one challenging sculpted cake to make.  The cake was a vanilla sponge cake, which is not intended to be used for carving cake because of its delicate texture.  However, I managed to pull it through as shown in this picture. The filling was a delicate and rich chocolate Ghirardelli buttercream.

The cake was covered in fondant.  Piped grass was made of vanilla buttercream and adorned with cut out colored flowers.

Dog Cake 2

This is an incomplete picture of a Yorkie dog cake.  His name is Buster. I didn't had the opportunity to take pictures of the completed product.

He was one adorable piece of work. 

This cute dogie was made of vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream.  His back feet were made of rice crispie treats.  The two (2) front feet were wooden dowel supporting the cake and covered with modeling chocolate.

Ruffles Dress Cake

My inspiration for making this cake was my sister's, Sheena, dress.  She showed different pictures of her trying on red dresses that she planned to wear for the holiday.  One dress that I find her beautiful was a red ruffle dress.  I changed the color from red to a Lakers' trademark color - yellow and purple. 

This cake was placed 2nd Place in the Tiered Non-wedding category for the Advanced Division at the National Capitol Area Cake Show in Annandale, VA.

Masquerade Mask Wedding Cake

My inspiration for making this cake design was one of Martha Stewart's Wedding Cake.  I always wanted to make a masquerade them cake or Mardi Gras theme cake.  Rather, I stuck with my plan to make it all white cake with lace trim designs with four (4) half-face masquerade masks and a full mask.  The masquerade masks (full and half masks) were made of gumpaste.  The feathers are the only non-edible accent on the wedding cake.

Dog Cake

He's name is Kyle.  I was planning to make a Yorkie, but ran out of time.  I accidentally over did the airbrushing, which made the pup look way much darker.  The brown was supposed to be an accent, but inadvertently made it darker than I anticipated.

This dog cake took home 1st Place for the Sculpted Cake Category in the Advanced Division at the National Capitol Area Cake Show in Annandale, VA.