Angry Birds for a Happy Birthday!!!!

Leo turns four today and he is celebrating with this Angry Bird cake. He absolutely loves them and hopefully he'll love the cake too.

Cool Cake Pops-A New Phase

 

                                                           I recently started experimenting with cake pops and the different designs you can make. I make the cake pops from scratch forming each one individually and then dipping them in melted chocolate. Once the first layer hardens I dip them in a second color and then pipe the melted colored chocolate into cool designs. I really like the dark blue one with light purple shapes. I also tried covering them in crushed candy bar, colored sprinkles and candied pearls. The designs are only limited by your imagination.

Fondant "Present" Cake

 
This was a cake covered in fondant and made a fancy detailed bow to look like a present. I covered a vanilla cake in white fondant and colored the fondant purple for the ribbon and curled thin strips of fondant to give it a little more detail. I made pink fondant for the decorations. I alternated colors in the stars to make them pop out. The lucky person who got this cake couldn't wait to open the present and eat the cake that was inside.

Sydney Knows Shoes!!

Syd's a fashionista!!!
 
Syd knows shoes!!!
 
This was  a fun cake to make yet very demanding. The focus of the design was obviously the SHOE. Each one of the little candied pearls that decorate the front and heel of the shoe was placed by hand. A very slow and time consuming process that requires a steady hand, a good tweezer and LOTS of patients. But definitely worth it as she went heel over head (I know a bad pun) when she saw this cake.

Little Boys Love Dump Trucks

This little boy loved Elmo and dump trucks so I made it seem like Elmo was driving the truck. I was able to form the truck by layering cakes and cutting them on an angle to make it look like the truck was dumping its load. The load is crushed Oreo cookies with some smashed M&M's to give it a bit of color and make it look more like real garbage. If you look carefully you'll see that I left a few Oreos intact to use as wheels.

Shared Birthday Cupcake Cake

Cathy and Max have shared many birthdays and many cakes. This was fairly simple but focused on the details of the letters. By the way this is one of those cupcake cakes where everyone gets to eat their own cupcake.

Loving the Lion!!!!

This is one of my favorite cakes. I had so much fun using a special tip on the icing bag to make the lion's mane. By layering the icing I was able to give the mane a full look. I used little candies for the ears. Since I like the cowardly lion so much in the Wizard of Oz, I made this lion friendly looking rather than ferocious.

Spiderfic Cake

I had so much fun making this cake. Spiderman is this little boy's favorite superhero so there was no question that when his mother ordered a cake it had to have Spiderman on it. I decorated the sides by draping black icing to look like the spiderwebs that Spiderman shoots at his enemies. The only difference is that this cake had NO ENEMIES!!! Everyone loved it.

Doctor's Stethescope-All the Better to Hear Your Heart!!!!

This cake was for a fantastic pediatrician who has been taking care of me since I was born. I always tease him about wearing his stethoscope on his neck and that he can't hear my heart that way. So when it came time to make him a cake I really wanted to include a stethoscope. I colored and rolled the fondant  and then formed it into the stethoscope. I don't think he'll hear my heart with this one either but I bet it will taste great!!!!!

Fun with Fondant Shapes

This cake was an opportunity to experiment using fondant in all different colors and cutting it into all different shapes then mixing sizes to create depth and 3D. I purposely covered the cake in white fondant so as not to distract from the different shapes and colors. 

Hockey & Baseball Go Together

Once again I got to bake a cake to celebrate Max and Josh's birthday. This time is was their 18th birthday but the theme was the same. You should have heard them fighting over the Mets and Yankees. I think Max likes the Mets just to upset Josh the Yankee lover. 

Happy birthday boys!!!!!!! 

Now you really can drive each other nuts.

"Kit Kat" Kake

Calling all chocolate lovers! This was a chocolate cake, with vanilla wafers in between so when they ate the cake it seemed more like a rael Kit Kat. It was covered in red colored fondant and had crimped edges for a real candy bar wrapper feel. On top I iced the Kit Kat logo and Happy Birthday. In the corner of the cake I carved it out to look like someone had taken a bit out of the bar. Around the board I scattered some other candies like M&Ms, Kisses, Laffy Taffy and others. What a great candy cake!!!!!

New Baking Form-So Fun!!!!!

I just got this new baking form as a present and wanted to try it out. The forms are made of an oven-proof rubbery material so when the cake comes out of the oven you can peel the form off the cake. This cake was just for fun but it's so cool. I can make tiered cakes without have to cut them to size. I made this for a spontaneous get together and surrounded the tiered present with cupcakes. Then, I quickly iced everything and added sprinkles.

Sara's "7th

 

This was a number "7" cake for Sara's seventh birthday. She wanted a chocolate cake in the shape of a seven with white frosting and balloons.

Cherry Cake for Jaime

I made this cake for a girl who goes crazy for cherries. So not only did I make the cake in the shape of a cherry but if you look closely you'll see the I decorated the cake with cherries on top. I carved cake to look like the stems and make it seem like the cherries are attached.

Duggie Loves Roses

This cake is made from a moist and rich Devil's food chocolate cake recipe. I covered the cake with white fondant and added small, medium and large elegant pink roses. I added a sweet touch with beautiful little green petals on opposite sides of the rose. Around the two layers I put small white dots to finish off the cakes. On the bottom layer of the cake I wrote Happy Birthday Duggie!!!!

Flowers, Flowers Everywhere

On this cake I was trying to perfect my flower design. You'll see several different varieties including roses, pansies and some generic looking flowers. I also added the leaves for some realism. The sides of the tiers have some piping design. The Cake Boss makes it look very easy and it's NOT!!! All I can say is practice, practice, practice.............

Camoflouge Fondant Cake

I made this cake for a W.W.II nut , who always wears army shorts even in the dead of winter. I covered this cake in fondant that I colored to look like camoflouge. On top I made a dog tag out of gray colored fondant and made little balls to look like the chain. He went nuts when he saw this.

Mollie Gets Blessed

This cake was to celebrate the gathering of a group of women to share their thoughts and good wishes at a "Blessing Circle". I wanted to make the cake colorful and tried to keep all the shapes rounded to keep in line with the circle theme. Mollie loves chocolate so I placed all the lettering on a chocolate square.

Halloween Birthday Cat

Not sure whether it's lucky or not to have a birthday on Halloween but Moreen loves cats so her birthday cake had a "Black Cat". Talk about a "treat", there was no trick to this cake.

Peace, Love & Happiness

This world cake is a vanilla globe I was able to fashion by layering cakes and then carving them into the globe. I frosted in the "World" in blue to replicate the oceans and used copper fondant for the continents. All seven continents are on the globe. It "floates" on top of a dark blue rectangular cake that looked like outer space. I made this cake for a Bat-Mitzvah. The meaning of this cake was world peace. I wrote in two different languages, Hebrew and English.

Artist's Palette & Paintbrush

 

This was a welcome cake for an artist who was visiting New York. In keeping with the artist's theme I carved the cakes into the shape of a palette and paint brush. I added colors to the palette to simulate the paints and added color to the tip of the brush to make is seem like there was paint on it.

Golden Wedding Anniversary

This was for a wonderful couple who celebrated their "50th" wedding anniversary. I frosted this cake in white and brushed it with "Gold" pearl dust which seemed most appropriate for this anniversary. I made champagne glasses from fondant and brushed those with "Gold" pearl dust as well. I placed them at the bottom of the cake so they could toast their special day.

Baking with Friends

This was SOOOOOOOOOOOO COOL!!!!! As a young baker I was given the chance to review this book before it was printed and the authors included my review in the printed edition. 
I'm published now!! 
The book has great recipes that even little kids can make. The authors were autographing their book at Book Expo America and asked me to bake some of the recipes in the book and hand out samples. That's me with one of the authors and the book's publicist, Pam Atherton. It was so much fun handing out sweet treats  (and missing a day of school).

Roses, Roses, Roses

This cake is made from a dark chocolate devils food batter. It was covered with light pink fondant and beautiful pink and white roses around the sides. On either side of the roses I out a small green petal made out of fondant as well. On top of the cake I wrote "Happy Birthday Irene".

Circles and Dots

This cake was wrapped in white fondant and inspired by the paper plates used at the party. I made the circles on circles just like on the plate and added little white dots with icing. I've included a picture of the plate so you can decide for yourself how close I got.