Cake Brags

Making your own cakes allows you to do character cakes you can't get at stores due to copyright infringements. As long as these are done for family or friends, and not sold, you are fine.

Kelly your character cakes are fantastic!

For those that have taken classes...how much work is done in class and how much do you practice at home? Would you start something in class and finish it at home, or would you just practice a technique in class? Now that I live in the middle of nowhere I know I'll never find a class. When I lived in the 'burbs of Detroit, JC Penney had the Wilton classes.

Most of your work in a standard 'by the book' Wilton class is done in class, on wipe off boards, or pages from a book covered with wax paper. If you want to practice at home you can. You will usually have plenty of leftover icing. Depends how much they make you buy... it can be quite an investment depending on the place you take classes. The only splurge thing I would suggest is to buy a turntable, or use one you have a cheapie plastic rubbermaid one at home, that can work to start. It makes life much easier when handling full size cakes.

I am in awe of the cakes you gals are creating (not just making, you're creating!)

Lori wrote:I have a photo saved of the litterbox cake. I promised to give my niece the photo because she wanted to try it.

Sorry Lori, this one gives me cause to pause... I just don't think I could eat that! Had cats and boxes that looked like for way too many years

I tended to use a lot of coloring books for simple designs

I loved Rainbow Brite when I was a kid!

I like the rocking horse that is too cute!!

Lori wrote:OK, it's off topic, sort of, but did anyone watch Last Cake Standing on the Food Network? The last show was on on Sunday night. I thought Courtney was robbed. I also felt lthat Bronwen got taken down a notch or two, and thought it could only be good for her. I think her head was getting a little too big for her own good. Mary Maher of Chicago ended up winning.

I thought so too at first, but then I remembered that one of the main judging criteria was creativity. I still would have given it to Courtney, but I can see why they thought that the geometric pattern being the same as the wedding cake took away from hers. Bronwen just didn't do near as good a job on any of her cakes as the others did. She wasn't up to her norm, even, much less the uber-perfect stuff that you'd expect for this series. Did you see Courtney's hippo? That was totally awesome. I know the glow factor won it for them, but I thought the hippo was even more impressive than the glowy-ness.

Tara- you are probably close in age to my daughter.

I'll be 29 next month

Close! She will be 28 in Sept.

Thanks lucky, I try to stick with characters that are made up of simple shapes with really simple faces, and those usually come out good. Kenny is basically a circle for a head and a square for the body, Stewie was a football shaped head with a rectangular body, Homer, was a little different, I had to try to draw the shape of his head on a large piece of paper and then I set that on top of the cake after freezing it and carved around the paper shape, the rest was all taking my time with the frosting and getting the colors right, and the faces right. Stewie and Kenny were made for my kids birthdays and they loved them because they knew that none of their friends were going to get a cake similar to theirs. Now that I am looking at the pics above Charlie Brown would be a good one to do, he's made of pretty simple shapes too, and as my sig implies I kind of relate to Charlie Brown lol

Yeah, I was still pretty new at this when I made most of these cakes. If I did it now I know alot more. I was taught to draw on your cake with a toothpick, until you liked it, you could kind of erase and redraw. Now I would break it down into more shapes, the face you can over turn a lid or bowl to place a mark on the caketop. I was pretty much freehanding back then, and I don't draw.

thebigscott wrote:
I thought so too at first, but then I remembered that one of the main judging criteria was creativity. I still would have given it to Courtney, but I can see why they thought that the geometric pattern being the same as the wedding cake took away from hers. Bronwen just didn't do near as good a job on any of her cakes as the others did. She wasn't up to her norm, even, much less the uber-perfect stuff that you'd expect for this series. Did you see Courtney's hippo? That was totally awesome. I know the glow factor won it for them, but I thought the hippo was even more impressive than the glowy-ness.

Karen, the glowiness must have come into play in the final decision. It sort of bugged me that Courtney's crisper, cleaner cake didn't win, but the judges did say that the glow technique was unknown to them and that Mary would always be remembered for bringing that to the cake world as a new process. The way they edited that, I totally didn't expect it to glow when they turned out the lights. I was so happy when it did! I strongly preferred the Firefly/Hippo cake in that round, while DH was strongly for the other team.

I think you're right. The judges didn't seem to be judging based on just the final cake. I think they gave Mary extra points for staying up all night, too. Plus, I didn't think it was fair that they came and told her she could nap on site rather than drive across town to the hotel but didn't mention that to the other teams. And her egg cake was awful! I didn't even really like her first cake (the big M with the paintings). I liked the paintings ON the cake, but not the overall layout. It didn't look yummy. Cake should look yummy.

While wedding cakes look difficult, they are actually the easiest cake to make. This was my challange for my final class.


This cake was made for a friends very small at home wedding.


Let me know if you've seen enough and I'll stop posting pics.

Never enough! Those are beautiful cakes!

I agree, keep 'em coming!

I never get tired of looking at cakes. I actually have a bookmark of sites that I have saved of cake decorating.
Nice cakes Lucky, I will get around to making one some time.

Glad you are all enjoying them. I know I sure enjoyed making them. I can say I learned something new with each cake. This was another spin on a basket cake, done for my MIL who crocheted all the time. Those are crochet needles sticking out the top.

Sorry these pics are so bad, but it's all I have of them

wow that yarn must have taken forever, it is very realistic.

How did you create the yarn lumps?

I'll take this opportunity to plug DH's cousin Linda's bakery. It's in Allen Park, MI and it's called Sweet Tooth Cakes and Pastries. My mouth waters just thinking about her cakes. They are soooo good!

http://sweettoothcakes.net/index.html

The yarn did take awhile, wish I had the sense to vary the thickness of the yarns more. To make the lumps I made a dozen cupcakes and cut the bottoms off. My daughter loved that day. I would have made a deeper basket normally, but my mil wanted only a 1 layer cake.