Sushi Boat Cake

Hello, again! I am so excited to say that I am going on a mini vacation with my beloved, and it starts tomorrow afternoon! And I'm glad that I was able to finish my entry into another cake contest as well. This one was The Great Cake Contest sponsored by Disney Family Fun. I chose the "faux food" category and made a sushi boat cake! I started with yellow cake baked in a 13 x9 pan then cut it lengthwise and stacked the halves on top of each other. Then I carved the cake into a boat shape.

I carved out the middle then crumb-coated it...

Then covered in fondant...

Then I scored "boards" on the outside and inside of the boat and scratched wood-grain into it.

I mixed up some brown dye and some yellow dye into vanilla flavor (vodka works too!) and brushed it on.

It looks like wood now!

Then came the fun part-- the sushi! I mixed up some colored fondant that matched raw tuna and salmon. I also mixed up some orange and greens (carrots, cucumbers, wasabi) and made little fondant sushi rolls the way I would make regular sushi. For my "veggie roll," I rolled out logs of light green and orange. Then I bundled them together and rolled a thick layer of white over them (the "rice"). Then I rolled a thin layer of black over the whole roll (my "dried seaweed"). I cut the ends off then cut little slices with my X-acto knife. The little sashimi were easier, and I even dipped some rolls into orange nonpareil sprinkles (the "salmon "roe). Here are some details of the rolls...

A little pink petal dust for the yellowtail sashimi

I textured the outsides with crumpled foil!

My little hand rolls at the front of the boat :)

And, of course, I can't forget the pickled ginger and wasabi!

My finishing touches were a fortune cookie, chopsticks, and a little bowl of "soy sauce" (piping gel dyed brown and thinned out with a little water).

And here it is all put together. :)

I must say, I am very happy with how it came out! I won't find out the results of the contest until the end of next month-- fingers crossed til then!

And if you have any further questions about any of the rolls I made or techniques I used, feel free to comment or email! [mysweetdiversion@hotmail.com]

Cake with Gumpaste Roses

Hello, all! I've actually had this cake in my archives for a little while, and I thought I had already posted it! This was a little 6-inch cake that I had decorated with gumpaste roses and leaves. It looks like a mini-wedding cake, and since it's still wedding season, why not post it now? 

I iced and covered the little cake in white fondant, then made a little mound of fondant on top (I had some leftover yellow, so you'll see it in the side view) I started by making a large rose (for a refresher go here). I didn't have any wire or floral tape, so I stuck with toothpicks. I kept going with a few more, and stuck the roses into the mound then continued with progressively smaller roses cascading. On this particular cake, I made 4 large roses, 4 medium roses and 2 buds. I finished with leaves that I had cut out of green-tinted gumpaste. I folded them in half and let them dry on folded notecards (so they can hold their shape). I just chose little gaps to fill with leaves, then finished with a pearl border. Here are some more views...

One criticism that I would give the cake is that I am not really a fan of the leaves. Unfortunately, I only had one cutter, so they only came out to that one size. However, I went to my craft store and found this!

Courtesy Wilton.com

All those cutters! Can't wait to see what I can do with those...

My Jelly Belly Cupcake Challenge Entry!

 I've been hard at work the past couple of days making an epic entry for the Jelly Belly Cupcake Challenge. I have finally completed it with twelve hours to spare (hey, I'm a recovering procrastinator), and I am totally excited about it! I wanted to originally make a cupcake rendition of Starry Night, but it had already been submitted, so I went for my second favorite painting, Edvard Munch's The Scream. I started by drawing a 5x7 grid on a print-out of the painting, then I arranged 35 cupcakes in the same grid pattern.

Then I colored some frosting peach and black then set to frosting the cupcakes using those base colors. Then I chopped up a bunch of Jelly beans, starting with black licorice flavor.

Then, I set to work placing the chopped jelly beans onto the cupcakes, making sure to follow the grid.

I wanted to make the figure's face and hands, as well as the boardwalk and shore in the background out of fondant. It allowed me to give them a more painterly look.

Many many layers of food coloring!

A few buttercream accents and some filler jelly beans later, it all came together. And voila!

My official entry into the contest! I love how it turned out! Here's a close-up of the screaming figure.

Fourth of July Cake!

Hello, all! I have been working on a couple of things, so there will be another cake post soon. I promise! Anyhoo, my beloved and I were invited to an Independence Day shindig this evening, so I volunteered to bring the dessert! I made this little strawberry cake and covered it with regular vanilla buttercream...

Then I scored the surface with a set of star-shaped cutters...

Be careful not to pull any icing off with the cutters!

Then I outlined the stars in either blue or red. A few stripes and dots later and voila!

I really like how this turned out! It's a simple but cute pattern, and it's fondant-free (however if you want to make the stars out of fondant, it wouldn't be much of a problem either). Here are some other angles...

Have a safe and happy Fourth of July, everyone!