Orangesicle Cake

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Party time!

Thank you, Sweetapolita, for this lovely Orange Party Cake Recipe! I was intrigued by the summery theme for a good, light dessert for a joint birthday party. And I am a big fan of your Pastel Swirl Technique Video Tutorial! I still have a lot of practice ahead of me; Mine don’t turn out nearly as beautiful and perfect as yours, but celebrations make the perfect excuse to practice.

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First layer down with filling on top

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All layers and fillings ready for crumb coat

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Voila! frosted, complete with flower on top. I picked up these adorable flowers at Miette in San Francisco.

Race Car Cake… inspired by true events

My boyfriend and I made a race car birthday cake, reminiscent of our friend’s actual race car. Our friend has been working on maintaining what started out as a 1986 Chevrolet Chevette suitable for racing at events, such as the ChumpCar race that takes place at Portland International Raceway. In his first race, he won the trophy for the “Spirit of ChumpCar”! You can follow his facebook page here!

The car itself has gone through quite a series of transformations as far as paint jobs, decor, tires, other parts and engines are concerned; besides tires, he is even known for switching out engines mid-race!

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We sculpted the double-layer chocolate cake, and decorated accordingly….

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Beginning to take shape…

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Crumb coat complete…

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Final frosting layer complete

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Side 1 View

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Front View

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Side 2 View

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Back View

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Vrooooooom!!

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At the party, he made yet another engine switch….

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…this time with the hatch!

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Duckie Baby Shower Cake

I baked this duckie themed cake for a friend’s baby shower! Once again, I used one of my favorite frosting techniques from Sweetapolita. I found the “Mamma” duckie at a party store, and borrowed the other “baby” duckie magnets from a friend. Honestly, if I made this cake again, I would add a ribbon around the bases or something more subtle and simple. I think it ended up feeling too busy with all the frosting, sprinkles, ducks and what was supposed to be a blue fountain 🙂 One cake was chocolate and the other was my favorite strawberry cake

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Bottom layer done….

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Before finishing touches…

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Done!

 

Strawberry Dual-Birthday Cake

I discovered Rosie’s Sweetapolita baking website and fell in love with her strawberry layer cake recipe. The color is beautiful and the cake so fragrant. For the birthday cake that I made, I used Sweetapolita’s fancy Pastel Swirl frosting technique.

Having taken birthday treats to various restaurants before and not having an issue, it didn’t occur to me… but for this dual-birthday celebration at a local restaurant, we were told a cake cutting fee per person would be charged! We were already there though, and they cut the cake and served it for us.

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The cake in process in my kitchen

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At the restaurant, ready to be sliced by our server

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Mmmm!

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Sliced and ready-to-eat at the restaurant

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that was delicious.

 

Since I ended up with a little extra batter, I made some mini cupcakes… love these little treasures, the colors, and white non-pareil sprinkles. 🙂

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1981 NBA All-star Games Throw Back Cake

My friend, Lia, asked me to help her design and bake a cake that would fit with a themed ‘1981 NBA All-Star Games Throw Back’ surprise birthday party for her husband and brother-in-law.

View from the top

Finished product – View from the top!

Our final design sketch to scale

Our final design sketch to scale

The boys are big fans of the Portland Trail Blazers, so the font reflects that team’s identifying logo, and the entire cake represents a basketball backboard with their names and stars for all-stars 🙂

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This was my first cake using fondant for decoration, and I also used licorice strung on a wire for the rim, and wove the net out of yarn.

Close-up of Reese's basketball and red licorice hoop

Close-up of Reese’s basketball and red licorice hoop

We ran into some complications along the way, for example, we ordered a full sheet from Costco for the main part of the backboard, but they only gave us a half sheet! So Lia and I had to run around to Fred Meyer and pick up another half sheet to make it whole. The two cakes aren’t quite the same height, but oh well; we had to work with what we could get. I baked the three-layer ‘basketball’ portion of the cake, and added a little orange food coloring to the, really yellow, cake to look a bit more basketball-ish 🙂

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‘Section cut’ through basketball at the party

We couldn’t find any ready-made boxes big enough, so Lia spent a long time designing and making the beautiful and gigantic box with the blue base and transparent star on top. The whole thing–box with cake inside–was so bulky, awkward and heavy by the time the finished cake was inside of it, I had to ask my neighbor to help me carry it out to my car!

Custom designed and assembled cake box by Lia

Custom designed and assembled cake box by Lia

Let’s take a look at how we got there………………………………..

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Costco didn’t give us a full sheet like we were expecting…. so we had to run to Fred Meyer and pick up another half sheet so that we had a full sheet size. Variety in flavors isn’t bad, right??

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Transferring these half sheets onto the cake box board was challenging

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One down… one to go

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Second one up…

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Success with minor damage!

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Wax paper edging to protect the final board surface underneath

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3 cake layers, waiting in the wings

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Carving room for the basketball

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Two flavors

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Round cake homemade filling/frosting, and large sheet cake homemade frosting

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First basketball layer down

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Second basketball layer in place

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Second layer frosted

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Third layer down

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Basketball form complete

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Applying basketball (Reeses) detail

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Voila!

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35-red borders!

First fondant borders on

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The big ’30’

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The rest of the custom Blazer-type fondant lettering and finishing touches

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Done!

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Creating the basketball hoop

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Weaving the net

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Ready!

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In the box, ready to go!

Hello Kitty and River’s Third Birthday

This cake was entirely planned by and prepared for by my friend Amelia for her daughter’s third birthday. But I was there to document and help frost, so I wanted to share 🙂

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Good thing Hello Kitty will be wearing full hair and make-up for the party!

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Starting with hair….

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Sprinkle assistance

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Foundation layer complete… It was difficult to frost the rest of Hello Kitty’s face without getting her bow in it!

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One set of whiskers on…

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Comparison

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Ready to party

3-Tier Wedding Cake

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I never realized how much work goes into a simple tiered cake like this! But I made this white cake with passion fruit filling and vanilla buttercream frosting for my brother’s wedding. I baked each layer and froze them separately (few days a head of time), then assembled each tier, chilled it, crumb coated it, chilled it again, and frosted it with its final layers. Day of the wedding, I brought each tier separately along with my wooden support dowels and assembled on the spot – I didn’t have any cake carriers tall enough for the whole thing! My Mom supplied fresh flowers and my sister helped me arrange them. There were a few rough spots on the frosting, but the flowers were great to cover those areas up. We only had an hour at the site before the event started, so it was quite a rush, but we did it 🙂

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This cake required a test run… i made these cakes, froze them, crumb-coated them, and froze again until I had time to test assemble… here they are thawing out… cakes everywhere!

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Cake!

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Good consistency

Next time, I would put more passion into the filling and give myself a little more time for assembling and adding finishing touches.

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Assembling the tiers on site

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Final icing piping

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awaiting cupcakes from another vendor…

Heart Engagement Cake

This cake falls within one of the first handfuls that I made, and my friend Suzie and I made it together! I remember the summer was a very very hot one, and we slaved away on this cake for hours into the night so that we could take it with us the next day to our friend’s engagement party.

We baked enough chocolate cakes for a double-tier freehand heart-shape cake…

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The newly-engaged couple practicing cutting cake together 🙂

 

Happy 41

I baked a decadent chocolate cake for my brother’s 41st birthday… I wish I remembered what recipe I used!

I cut out letters in thin chip board, placed them on top, dusted with powdered sugar, and then carefully removed them. I think I put tape tabs on top of the letters (sticking straight up) for easy removal…

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