Have We Graduated Yet??

~

Where did summer go????  My kids have already finished their first week of the 2011-2012 school year,

 and I have yet to post pictures from the 2011 graduation season.  Wow....time sure flies!

Better late than never, I guess. 

So, here they are.....a collection of cakes from the graduation weekend 2011.

...for one of my bff's daughter.  The cap is all edible; the diploma is not edible, but it can be unrolled and filled out for a keepsake.

The stars and diploma are made of fondant.

A cupcake tower for our pastor's daughter, Cheyenne.

The top cake is dusted with red edible glitter and the diploma is made of fondant.  I also did some catering for their reception....pictures of that are included later in this post.

Another cupcake tower.  Go Big Red!

This customer graduated from Wellington (hence the red cap on top), but wanted something a little wild with bright pink, animal print, and she also said she wanted it "blingy"!  All of the black animal print is brushed with hologram glitter and the cap on top is also covered in red and hologram glitter.  Blingy!!

One of this graduates interest was band so we focused on the instrument that she played in band.  I made this saxaphone from fondant and hand-painted the detailing.  

Here is a close-up view of the saxaphone. 

I carved this Crusader head from a 1/2 sheet of red velvet cake.  I had a smaller printout to look at so that I could draw the shape out on the cake and then carve it.  It is the same one that is on our water tower here in town.  GO BIG RED!

These pom-pom and tennis ball cupcakes went with the Crusader head cake.

Congratulations Megan on your K-State graduation!  If you look closely, you can see that the glitter sprinkles are little tiny stars.



This cake was for a nursing school graduation and the cupcakes below went with this order.  I made the nursing hat from cake and fondant.

Nursing cupcakes.



Master of Divinity graduation....I believe that was a faith-based degree and had nothing whatsoever to do with fluffy white candy. hehe heh

Soooo....that pretty much does it for the graduation cakes.  But, I made several other cakes that weekend as well.  Including:

 A birthday cake that was loosely inspired by the "Wonky" Scentsy warmer.  Her mom is a Scentsy Rep. :)

A baby shower cake with a little fondant mother-to-be, handbag, and flowers.

A first birthday cupcake tower with a giant cupcake on top.

The middle tier features a mid-sized cupcake with the toddler's name on it to be used as a smash cake.

A cupcake tower with a giant fondant bow for a friend who's little girl was turning 10. 

 A three-tiered wedding cake....did I mention graduation weekend was a busy weekend???

Sheetcake that coordinates with the wedding cake pictured above...

 ...and, the Groom's Cake!

Here it is all set up together. :)

I also made 140 cinnamon rolls for that Sunday morning.  This is an order that I've made for the past 3 years now.  The local Methodist Church has a breakfast/reception to honor the seniors in their congregation.

 Below are some pictures of the catering that I did that weekend for the graduation reception that our pastor's family held for his daughter.

 Deviled Eggs

Kinda funny that the pastor's wife ordered "Deviled" eggs! lol

Tea Bun Sandwiches

Tuna Salad and Turkey

Giant Fruit Bowl

Yummmm.

 Wow....I am worn out just reflecting on that weekend!  Hope you enjoyed all the pictures.  I still have several more cakes from the Spring/Summer months to post in the next few weeks.  Hopefully, I can get all caught up soon. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'll leave you this time with a tid-bit that I recently discovered and, being a baker, found of particular interest.  Maybe you will too.

Did you know that on January 18, 1943 SLICED BREAD WAS BANNED IN THE U.S. during WWII?

Sliced bread went stale faster, and therefor Americans used more wheat, needed to feed soldiers. Bread slicing machines also needed metal parts for repairs - metal that was needed for manufacturing ships, tanks, guns etc.

 

March Madness!

~

Well, okay....anyone that knows me probably knows that I'm not a big sports fan.  I am about as far away from athletically inclined as they come.   Brackets?  What? Are you hanging a shelf on the wall??? What else would you need brackets for??  So.....I don't know much about March Madness.  But, I DO know a thing or two about cake...and I believe this first one will fit under the March Madness category:

I made this cake for our longtime family friend and neighbor Denny and Sandy Pettigrew.  It was for their daughter's birthday.  It is iced with buttercream and all of the decorative pieces including the bow, ribbon, Jayhawk, and lettering are made from fondant. 

Here's a sampling of the many other college/sports/team related cakes that I've made in the past.

...for E-Palm's birthday last year.

Happy Birthday Natalie!

Happy 21st Megan!

Happy Birthday Nathan

The following three pictures were for graduation parties.  I hand-made the pieces on top to represent the sports that these graduates were involved in.  I made them from fondant and then painted the detail on with a paintbrush and food coloring.

Baseball

Tennis

Cross Country/Track

That just about covers my knowledge of sports, so now we'll move on to some other cakes I've made recently.

Superhero Cakes are always a fun choice for a young boy's birthday party.  Here are two that I have made recently.

...and Tractors are also a fun choice for the young and young at heart.

I made this one using color flow icing and the hay-bales are fondant.

My great-niece celebrated her 5th birthday this weekend and, of course, "Hello Kitty" was on the guest list:

We had strawberry cake iced with buttercream.  I made Hello Kitty and the hearts from fondant.

We also had some matching chocolate cupcakes...

...iced with buttercream and decorated with fondant hearts.  So cute!

While we're on the subject of cute girly girl stuff, here's a super-cute First Birthday cake that I made recently.

What could possibly be more girly than Minnie Mouse??!!  The entire cake is iced in buttercream and the lettering, silhouettes, bow and ears are all made from fondant. 

The top tier is also covered in fondant in order to achieve the look of the Disney "ear-hats". 

I made the ears and bow about two days ahead of time so that they would be dry and stand firm.

 

You can't have a first birthday without a smash cake for the guest of honor:

These cakes were so much fun to make!  I loved how they turned out.

The last cake that I have to feature this week is a baby shower cake that I made on the same day as the Minnie Mouse cake.

This is the second bow that I have made from fondant.  The first one turned out fine, but this one is alot better!  Perfecting my technique, I guess. :)  I used a different method to make the loops and it really improved the final product.  This entire cake is iced with fondant over a thin layer of buttercream.  Everything you see here is edible.

I'll leave you with a sweet little fact this week:

Did you know?

 According to Harper's Index, the estimated amount of glucose used by an adult human brain each day, expressed in M&Ms is 250.

I better go pour myself of a bowl of M&Ms right now!  I've got a long ways to go to reach that goal!

Fast Cars and Women....and a few other things

~

Ready for this week's adventures?

  I have five cakes to showcase this week.  It was a good week to celebrate...whatever the occasion happened to be.  I'll start with my favorite cake of the week.  Another cake for the Ryherd Family.....I love those people!  :-)  They keep me busy and always want something fun and unique.  What's more fun for a 1-year-old boy than a race car???  Not much.....unless it's that certain race car named:

LIGHTENING MCQUEEN!!!!

Happy Birthday Wyatt!

...and, of course, every 1-year-old needs their own smash cake to demolish...

Smash Cake



Both cakes are iced with buttercream and decorated with pieces that I made from fondant.  The blue and yellow balls, the black squares, and the road are all made from fondant.  The flags are made from red fondant on which I then painted the message with black food coloring.  Even Lightening McQueen was hand made by me and completely edible.  My 3-year-old son was a little curious about why I would want to borrow his toy McQueen...and was very watchful to make sure I wasn't going to give it away to someone else!  I had it sitting on the table to reference while forming the fondant into the right shape.  He was sure glad when I handed it back to him!

That covers the fast cars, now....on to the Ladies,

the Girls,

the Twins,

The Pointer Sisters......

I could go on, but I think you've got the picture.  Well, here's the picture:

Save the Ta~Tas!!!

I made this cake for a lady with breast cancer.  Some of her friends and co-workers ordered it to have at a Girls Night Out for her before her upcoming surgery for the cancer.  Her son also has cancer.....makes my crazy, hectic life seem pretty easy.  Reminds me of just how much I have to be thankful for.

It is iced with a thin layer of buttercream and then covered with fondant.  I then piped the buttercream trim onto it.  It was actually easier than I expected it to be....although, I have to say felt a little weird as I was smoothing out the fondant.  I was thinking, "I hope no one walks in as I'm cupping the breasts on this cake to get the fondant smooth!"  That would be awkward! Ha! 

Anyway, I think it turned out quite nice...actually, I might be a little jealous. 

Maybe she's just extra perky because of the COLD weather we've been having:

Brrrrrr!!!!!

Do you see that???? It says "BLIZZARD" on my weather center in my kitchen window!!!  We didn't get too much accumulation out here, about 4 inches or so.  My road was better than the streets in town.....maybe it was because the wind was blowing 9 million miles an hour!  OK, maybe not quite that hard, but out here in the wide open spaces, the snow didn't stick much...it just blew on past!  I also want to point out the -5 degree low temp....who ordered that?  Through another log on the fire!

Oh, look....here's the upcoming forecast:

See that fluffy, cute little pink cloud that says 5-6"???  Hopefully, I can make it up to Wichita for Brent's appointment with the Orthopedic Specialist (maybe he'll get to wear a tennis shoe out of there instead of that big ol' boot--I hope, for his sake), get groceries for the Valentine Banquet, and go to Cake Stuff before most of that hits the ground.  I'm pretty confident in my driving abilities...but some people see a snowflake and suddenly they are so completely incompetent that they shouldn't even sit behind a steering wheel, let alone start the car and drive it.

OK...done ranting about the weather...it is winter, after all, right?  Come on Spring, the groundhog says you're not far away...I hope he's right!

OK, Back to Kakeland...

My next cake was a baby shower cake for a Mommy who likes K-State.  Baby is a girl. 

So...Pink and Purple, of course!

The baby quilt is made from fondant and the purple details are hand painted with food coloring.  It says "K-State" on the middle square.  I also used my fondant/gumpaste tools to make seam lines and ruffled edges on the quilt.

The other two cakes that I made this week were both birthday cakes.  One was Dora the Explorer.  I found a picture I liked and piped it onto the cake using buttercream icing.  Some of the sprinkles around the edges are shaped like ABCs and 123s.  Fun!

And finally,we have Toy Story!  I love that series of movies.  I think Zackary could possibly quote the entire Toy Story 3 movie and always insists on acting it out as we watch it.  Why did we pay so much to see it in 3D at the Warren when it came out??? It's like 3D every time we watch it with Zack!

So, here's the cake:

I started this cake with no real idea of how I was going to decorate it.  I had the two characters to go on it, but no real direction.  So I decided to "write" the Happy Birthday message like the Toy Story Logo with the 4 dangling off the end like the 2 is on Toy Story 2.  I used fondant and my alphabet cutters to do the lettering .  I did the piping around the yellow letters with blue buttercream.  I think it all resulted in a fun design.

One last delicious picture:

Homemade Pizza!

Well, it's not a cake...but it turned out looking so yummolicious that I had to take a picture of it!  It tasted just as good as it looked, by the way.  :-)  We love homemade pizza at this house!

Until next time, remember:

"Vegetables are a must on a diet.  I suggest Carrot Cake, Zucchini Bread, and Pumpkin Pie."

                        --Jim Davis

February 8, 2011