My First Successful Stacked Cake!

Greetings, all! This past weekend, I decided to experiment with stacking cakes. I feel that after making cakes for 4 years, I should be able to make stacked cakes with confidence. Since I haven't had any orders for one, I didn't want to just make a stacked cake and throw it away (I need to befriend more cake-obsessed people). So I decided to make a stacked cake for a friend's birthday as his gift. His ZS name is Firebird, so I went with a phoenix! Here is how I assembled this confection:

First: the board. I hot glued two cake circles together (remembering to cross the grain!) and covered it in gold foil.

Then I iced the 8" cake as I normally would. I stuck 4 dowel rods into the cake in a square pattern, making sure to mark and cut to just about the cake height.

The next step was the 6" top tier, which I placed on a 6" board, traced around, then cut the board to fit perfectly.  I added a blob of icing to the middle of the square, and placed the naked cake on top. I find it easier to ice the cake while it's already on top of the bottom tier. But if I were covering the tiers in fondant, I would definitely cover them separately then stack them.

I iced the top tier with a small offset spatula (which was kind of difficult for me because I actually like using a bucket scraper to smooth my icing).

Then I scored a phoenix design onto the front...

And I filled in with yellow, then orange, then red. For the flames, I pulled one color into the next with my handy little fondant tool.

And now onto the feathers. I must admit, I was never good with drawing animals, especially of the feathered variety. However, I was able to translate the feathers pretty well with a regular Wilton tip 3.

After a lot more feathers...

Tri-color borders. Bam!

Voila! I like how it came out! If I had to change one thing, I would make the feathers longer on the wings. Oh! And I made a little flame cupcake for the birthday guy, which was devoured immediately.

Firebird also enjoyed the cake, and so did everyone else at the party, so I was super excited. And best of all, it survived transport, which makes this stacked cake a success!! I feel like I've gained enough XP to reach the next level in cakery! And to think, I actually pulled this all off on Friday the 13th!

Easter Greetings

Leviathan wishes you a happy Easter!

 Happy Easter, everyone! From Levi, my Betrothed, and I . I've been super-busy at work this week, so I wasn't able to make the egg cake I wanted to make. But I'll be back with more sweet treats soon!

Double Birthday Cakes : Big Foot and Grand Theft Auto

Hello, readers! I made these cute little 6" cakes a little while ago, but I've had my nose in the Kindle reading The Hunger Games. The book was awesome, and after seeing it yesterday, the film was awesome as well. Loved it! So now I can breathe a little bit before I start the second book!

Anyhoo, these two cakes were for siblings that had birthdays a few days apart. They definitely have very different tastes! The Bigfoot cake was based around the Animal Planet show called "Finding Bigfoot." I had never heard of it, but it sounds super-interesting. But what happens when they actually find Bigfoot? Would the show be over, or would they start a new series called "Hangin' with Bigfoot"? Hmmm... But I digress!

The Bigfoot cake was chocolate cake with mocha buttercream (pretty much just chocolate buttercream with a bit of mixed espresso). I added a "hairy" border to the bottom and "dirt" made of chocolate cake crumbs.

For the top and the sides, I added foot prints.

A few plastic tree pics and some writing, and voila!

It was a simple little cake that made a huge impression. :)

The other sibling likes Grand Theft Auto. I wasn't quite sure which one, so I went with the original logo. I printed that on edible image paper and placed that on the yellow cake with vanilla buttercream. Then I scored the Rock Star logo...

I filled it in and added money stacks and dollar signs around the sides.

...And, of course, an AK-47

Other than a pile of coke, I think I captured the game pretty well! Everyone loved the cakes, and the birthday boy and girl were excited. I'm glad I helped make their birthdays special. :)

This week is going to be super busy for me at work because of Easter, but I'll try to crank something out. I recently acquired an egg pan. Hmmmmm...