Under Pressure

We artists put a lot of pressure on ourselves!
Take for instance, a gluten free cake for a boy's birthday, a boy who is only 3 years old but already knows what power tools are and how to use them.

Well I'd better make those power tools look as realistic as I possibly can! They'd better be a realistic size too!

C'mon they've got to be as real as possible! Just because I draw cartoons doesn't mean they have to look cartoony!

And that wood grain detail had better be perfect!!

*Sigh* Alas, the ego is never satisfied. But as long as the kids eating it are. It's cool. Really. I'll get over it... :P

Fit For a Princess Cake

When someone asks me to do a Disney Princess cake I can't say no!

As someone who works in animation and still has a secret lifelong dream of someday working on a Disney film, I really wanted to do something awesome.

I wanted to do a cake that somehow represented all of the princesses, without actually having to mold each one. So I decided to take something that represents each one and make that instead.

 

And well, I'm an animator, so instead of printing each princess image and sticking them on I thought I'd draw little sketches of them, and make them like vintage cameos.

 

And have them going all around the cake.  The birthday girl's favourite princess is Mulan, so I put her picture on top.

 

The cake itself is a victoria sponge with pink almond buttercream icing.

  

Here's a view of the top. Hopefully people can have fun guessing which thing belongs to which princess! ^_^

Knitting Basket Cake

Taylor Swift Guitar Cake

My first ever guitar cake was really fun!
This cake was for co-worker's daughter, so I wanted to make it girly and cute. Here are some production photos:

It all starts with chocolate! Yum!


This is the reference photo I used from the Taylor Guitars website.

From that I drew a template on bristol paper (yay for drawing skills!).

Cut the guitar pieces from the template

Then assembled it on the board.

Frosting! I did one coat, refrigerated it, then went over a second time to smooth out holes and such...

Next I added the fondant to the sides, top and neck.

A bit of a jump here, but at this point I was working late into the night and doing multiple things at once: the roses, the guitar details, painted with edible silver paint (the side tuners were made with flower paste and Pocky), and the strings, which were spaghetti sticks painted silver. The Taylor Swift logo details were hand drawn with edible markers (yay drawing skills).

Pearly Pink birthday cake

This was a last minute order for a birthday. 6 inch cake with Victoria sponge and chocolate layers and almond buttercream, covered in fondant and royal icing details. Gave me a chance to work on piping skills!

Unite For The Fight cake

This cake was for the annual Unite For The Fight fundraiser! Everyone seemed to really love it! Each cake had a layer of vanilla sponge and rich chocolate, so there was something for everyone!

First customer!

So I recently had my first cake customer! This cake was for a little girl's birthday. I decided to challenge myself and make chocolate fondant - boy was that a challenge! It left me with tendonitis... wrists were in pain all weekend! But I learned a lot and it was fun. Destroyed the kitchen in the process too!

The ladybugs were the most fun!

Birthday Challenge 2009!

So yesterday was my birthday, and instead of buying a cake, I decided to give myself a bit of a challenge: If I was a kid today, what kind of cake would I want? The answer - a Princess and the Frog cake! This is a chocolate cake, with cream cheese buttercream covered in Fondant. The hard decorations are done with a fondant/gumpaste mix.