Ilan's rock star cake

Ilan the rock star turned 6 this weekend so naturally he requested a rock star birthday cake. His mom isn't a big fan of lots of food coloring, so I kept it simple. 12" chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and fresh strawberry filling, minimal color in the decorations, all of which can be easily removed and hidden away from sugar seeking kids while the cake's being cut.

Everything handmade from gumpaste and fondant. The moisture on the cake was condensation - cake spent the night in the fridge and the morning in my warm-ish kitchen. It went away eventually:)

Sometimes people make it really easy...

My good friend Heather, mom to Allie and Wyatt, made things very easy for me when she asked me to make a cake for Wyatt's 1st birthday. Immediately after asking me to make the cake, she handed me this:

Sometimes I love when someone says, "You decide what the cake should look like, I trust you." But it's also nice just to follow a road map. All I did was add a lasso.

I think he liked it!

Cake was a 10" vanilla bean with vanilla buttercream. Gumpaste decorations made by hand (except for these great cutters).

Cheater's Naan

I told my friend Jenny, of the awesome blog Dinner: A Love Story, how I make naan using her technique for cast iron pizza (it's quick, easy and delicious - definitely try it) and she wrote about it here. Thanks, Jenny!

How to frost a cake (in under 25 seconds)

I'm a long time Mac lover, but a recent iPhone owner. One of my favorite app discoveries is Motion Pictures - it makes it really easy to take timelapse movies. 

Here's my favorite movie - filling and frosting a cake in 22 seconds (decorating took a bit longer:)

 

The finished product: 12" Abby Cadabby vanilla bean cake with raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream.

Max's iPad cake

My first born turned 8 on Wednesday and for the first time in four years, he didn't request a racetrack cake or some sort of New York Mets themed design. Nope, he's a big boy now and aimed much higher - my all-things-electronic-obsessed sweet boy requested an iPad cake, specifically an iPad2 cake, just like the one I have and rarely let him use.

As usual, photos taken by the world's best cake picture taker (and my husband) Doug Schneider.

Side by side with the real thing (realized after the fact that I should have changed my wall paper so it matched a little better, oh well!)

close up: the Facebook, foursquare, Photo and iPod buttons are my favorite

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, even though the NY area was in the middle of a crazy heat wave and his party was at a local swimming pool (at least 95 degrees in the shade!)  We kept the cake in the refrigerator as long as possible, but even after 5 minutes it started to look a little shiny and melty. But it was a lot of fun to make and I'd love to make another one soon!  The cake was vanilla bean with a layer of melted chocolate and chocolate and vanilla swirl buttercream (another request from the birthday boy). Cake covered in fondant and all the app buttons were hand made from gumpaste.

Happy birthday, sweet boy! I can't wait to find out what you've got in mind for next year's cake!

Update on Monday, June 13, 2011 at 1:52PM by Sara

Thanks to Brand 66 for the mention!