Late Post : Double Birthday Week 2012 and a Red Bottom Shoe!

As you may already know, my mother and I my brother have birthdays 3 days apart. I do my best to make them separate cakes, especially when Thanksgiving doesn't get in the way. This year, I decided to make my mom the cake that I actually wanted to make her last year-- a purse! My mom looooves purses and shoes, so I designed a purse using the colors of a bag that she currently carries-- white and taupe! I was kind of winging the design as I went along. It was really fun to put together a purse. I imagine it's similar to making a real purse out of cloth and leather.

I made a yellow cake from scratch (I'll post the recipe once it's been fine-tuned-- it was good, but I want to make some changes). It was baked in an 8" square pan. Once the cake was cooled, I cut the cake at about 2/3 then stacked the other third on top. My mom requested caramel icing, so I just had to oblige. I used that to fill the cake and also filled the cake with candied slivered almonds. Yum!

I carved the cake down and made a purse shape. Then I base-iced with the same icing. I let the cake chill for about half and hour, then I covered the cake with 2 sheets of white fondant. Sidenote: I liked making this purse because I didn't have to hide the seams-- I could play off of them. My Wilton quilting tool definitely came in handy for this one to add finishing touches and details. I added an "R" for Regina and voila!

My mom loved it! Perhaps next year, I'll make her a shoe...

As for my brother, I knew I just had to do something music-related. But what? Well, my bestie had the idea to make him a turntable. He doesn't necessarily DJ, but it's something prominent in the music world (he's a music producer), so he would be able to appreciate it-- which he did!

This cake was a strawberry cake with cream cheese icing filling (his favorite!) and vanilla buttercream on the outside. I also baked it in an 8" square pan, but no carving this time. I tinted some grey icing (however, it came out a bit purple-- anyone have a solution to this?) and covered the square cake. Then I cut out a fondant record, shaped a knob as well as the needle, and cut out some smaller circles for buttons.

I made up the GD-32 model-- it's my brother's initials and his age! He loved his cake inside and out. :) What to do for his 33rd next year.. Hmm...

Along with these cakes, I had an order to make for a new client. It was a 21st birthday cake that featured a red-bottomed shoe. I had to do a bit of research to figure out exactly what that was, and I learned that I had to jump up a couple of tax brackets in order to ever buy one! They are mostly very high heeled pumps with red soles, and the most basic one I could find was black patent leather.

My client had ordered a half sheet cake, so I didn't want to take away from the number of servings by carving a huge shoe shape. Instead, I carved the heel and sole out of the side of the cake to show the actual red bottom.

My client loved it, and I was happy that I figured out a cute, creative way to incorporate a semi- 3D shoe into a sheet cake!