M&M Birthday Cake

These M&M Cakes are so gorgeous!  I like the thought that one is for Miranda and one for Mikaela.  Each twin got their own birthday cake.

One cake is chocolate cake with hazelnut buttercream and the other cake is chocolate cake with strawberry filling.  The hundred cupcakes (102 pieces total) were filled with chocolate-hazelnut fudge and strawberry-preserve buttercream.  After the cupcakes with filled, each cupcake is decorated with colored vanilla buttercream.

Sesame Street Wagon Cake

Ethan was not even born yet when I made his first cake.  It was the baby onesies shirt cake, then followed by a Christening dress cake when he was 6 months old.  Now, my little customer is 1 year old... this was his cake.

This was one tough cookie to build and decorate.  Overall, I love this design.  I build the wagon stand from scratch, cutting PVC pipes to pieces and assembled them together.  After assembled, I covered them with black modeling chocolate.  The wheels were made of rice krispie treats.

The cake was a vanilla sponge cake with mocha filling.  The cake was adorned with Satin Ice fondant tinted with AmeriColor Red-Red food coloring.  Elmo, Big Bird, and Cookie Monster were made of rice krispie treats and covered with modeling chocolate.

According to Tita Eden, the cake was a big hit!  The attraction of the party!  One happy customer, the third time was a charm!

Roger, Capt. Alex!

Captain Alex turned two years old this past weekend. He simply adores flying objects, planes, kites, birds, more.  So, the theme of his birthday party was "All Aboard, Captain!"  The tail of the plane has his age "2" and the other side of the tail has his initials "A"

I didn't had the chance to see his reaction as the cake and cupcakes were set-up.  The little captain was sleeping on the arms of his uncle.  On both wings, the red circle has his name, "Alex," inscribed.

The cake was a vanilla cake with chocolate fudge filling.  The cupcakes were a mix between vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate fudge filling.  The airplane cake topper was made of rice krispies treats covered with modeling chocolate and a layer of fondant.  The mini airplane cupcake topper was made of fondant. 

Feedback from my husband's cousin, Jennifer, who attended the children's party: The cake and cupcakes were a hit!!!

Octopus Cake

On May 5 - 6, 2012, the Institute of Culinary Education offered a Fun Shape Cake Class II.  My cousin (Anne from Syracuse) and I baked and decorated a cake design of our choice from the following selections: robot, castle, octopus, and train.  We had options to use one of the two recipes provided in our booklet.  My cake is buttermilk spice cake filled with Swiss meringue coffee-rum buttercream and iced with chocolate ganache.  My cousin chose the eggless / vegan banana cake with wiss meringue coffee-rum buttercream and iced with chocolate ganache.  The tentacles and Marlin (Nemo's dad) were made of rice cripie cereal that we also made in class. 

After the class, we brought home our finished product.  For my cake, I gave it to my family's friend who can share the cake to her church and to little children.  Well, since this is an atypical cake flavor that children are not accustomed to, I am sure they won't eat it simply because it is not a chocolate cake!