Jesse's Curious George Cake

Jesse turned 2 last month and had a Curious George themed party. The cake was vanilla bean with vanilla buttercream frosting. Decorations made from gumpaste and royal icing.

I realized again that noses are really hard to draw! Fortunately the rest of it looked enough like George that the nose didn't matter.

Talia's Swimming Pool Cake

Talia turned 5 last week and had a pool party, so naturally she wanted a swimming pool cake, and she specifically asked for one with a slide. I sent her some ideas from flickr and the favorite was this one made by the wonderfully talented Kelly O'Brien of Glass Slipper Gourmet.

411: vanilla bean cake with vanilla buttercream and raspberry buttercream filling (my new favorite flavor!) decorations made with gumpaste and fondant

9" and 8" cakes joined together, then I sliced a bit off the top of each top layer and cut out a smaller circle out of it to make the sides of the pool. Buttercream makes great glue!

Ready for chilling overnight (by this point it was 2am!)

I used a parchment template to help cut out the gumpaste for the water, making it much easier to fit it onto the cake.

Cake with water! I love the way the color isn't completely mixed in the gumpaste, so it looks a little more realistic.

The beach ball was a last-minute addition. I didn't have time for painted food coloring to dry, so I used powdered food coloring and petal dust for the colors.

Fire truck cake for Nicholas

The fire truck cupcakes were such a big hit, I thought I'd do a fire truck cake! Actually, was contacted by a friend of a friend to make a fire truck cake for her son Nicholas, who was turning 2. Nicholas has some food allergies - eggs, milk, nuts and even soy are no-nos, but butter, fortunately, was not.

Nicholas' mom gave me recipe she used to make muffins but had never tried as a cake. I modified it a bit (using butter instead of oil, upping the liquids) and it turned out pretty great (at least from the little crumbs that I was able to taste while putting it together).

All the decorations are made from gumpaste. I'm not a big fan of the alphabet cutters from Wilton, and have been using ones from Fox Run instead. These, called Tappits, are going to be my next purchase, I think, but I hear they're a little trickier to use than regular cutters.

The fire truck shape came from a Google search of fire truck coloring pages. I found one I liked the best, shrunk it on my copier and traced it on to a piece of gumpaste. Much better looking than freehand, especially when it's my hand doing the freehanding!

Happy Birthday, Max!

First it was Mets/Max cupcakes for his kindergarten class, then Max requested a racetrack cake for his actual birthday party, held at a local slot car racing place.

I've had a lot of practice making racetrack cakes, because it's the exact same cake Max requested when he turned 4 and when he turned 5! So this is racetrack cake 3.0! Cake was a combo of vanilla bean and chocolate with vanilla buttercream. Track "dirt" made from crushed chocolate cookies, grass is buttercream, all other decorations made from gumpaste.

Racetrack cake, circa 2009

(thanks to Flickr user CakeJournal for the race car inspiration!)

Racetrack cake, circa 2008

Racetrack cake, circa 2007

My friend Mike Schneider (no relation) says at a good blog is all about video, so here goes!

Maxie's (or Mets) Cupcakes

My sweet Maxie (a non-cupcake lover/eater, imagine that) turned 6 on June 8 and today he got to celebrate with his kindergarten class. He's a huge Mets fan and requested baseballs with a M on them. Actually, what he originally asked for was "a big green wall on each cupcake, with a baseball flying over it," but since he wasn't a paying customer I steered him in the direction of a ball with an M on it:)

Max and I agreed that there may be some people in his class who aren't Mets fans, including his teacher, so we told everyone, it's M for Max OR for Mets.

The circles and Ms are made from gumpaste, and I painted on the stripes with some powdered orange food coloring mixed with vodka. Have been looking for a reason to use the striped liners I got last year at Surfas, and I think these are a perfect combo.

Ready for their trip to kindergarten