Ruffles and Bows

Okay, so at least for this one, just ruffles (I'll get to the bows in a few posts). I'm all done with my Wilton's classes now, but I've been a total punk and haven't posted anything in a while. I took wonderfully low quality pictures will my phone during classes though, so I'd have some to share.

Wh got the opportunity to play with swags and ruffles and some other buttercream techniques. I actually loved this a lot. My piping skills are horribly lacking and I appreciate an excuse to use some of the 20 bazillion tips I own.

Lesson #1- Embroidery

This is cool and looks pretty neat and not all tacky like a bunch of Wilton's stuff. This would be awesome with a bunch of these flowers done on a fondant-covered cake.

Lesson #2- Swags

So these get either tacky or wickedly awesome. I've seen some really cool, traditional wedding cakes using swags. But I thought this was kinda fun one way or the other. The way to test that your frosting consistency is correct is to swag your finger. Buttercream was on its best behavior this day. Note the picture of the cake in the photo to show what you can actually do with this.

Lesson #3- Ruffles

These were suprisingly easy. It's a nice way to border a cake.

Lesson #4-Double Ruffles

These were totally my favorite. And it's one of the tackiest cakes ever made, but this is how you do the Barbie cake skirt. Gotta find someone with a birthday to really put this to the test.

Naked Mohawk-Baby Carrot Jockeys!!!

As an avid lover of almost all things cake, I had the opportunity of a lifetime yesterday. That's right, I got to meet Jen and John of Cake Wrecks! They're on a booksigning tour right now and came to Tempe's Changing Hands Bookstore (FYI:Pat Benatar and Cat Cora are coming up soon).

The night was filled with suggestive cakes, way too literal bakers, awesome cake, friendly people, and of course, the stars of Cake Wrecks. The hubbin declaired that Jen and John just seemed like dorks and perfectly normal people, I suppose they should take that as a complement.

Of course here's some photo goodness:

Jen and John-ain't they adorable? The witty banter was entertaining.

The winner of the make your own wreck contest:

Jen and John with the picture of the famous Naked Mohawk-Baby Carrot Jockies:

And of course, me getting my copy of the book signed:

Happy Falker Satherhood!

If you don't get the title, please visit one of my very favorite websites of all time. In honor of Father's Day, I got to spend some time with two of my favorite people. These are particularly attractive people who are busy growing a particularly attractive baby.



See how cute they are? (Please excuse me for stealing your picture from your blog!)

And since it's a Pre-Father's Day for them, I decided the Father-to-be needed a cake. What one item says expectant father? A cigar!

They parents-to-be dubbed their upcoming son/daughter "Sharky" early on due to the startling resemblence in a sonogram. So the hubbin suggested I used this as a theme for the cigar band. And I took the opportunity to practice my fondant painting. So this is what I ended up with, all hand painted with food coloring. Pretty cool if I do say so myself.

The cake is chocolate sponge, filling is mocha, and it's covered in ganache. Pretty yummy stuff if I do say so myself. And the pregnant lady (who's a particularly picky eater) said she liked it.

And as a side note, I've have decided that Erik is a curse upon cakes. You might remember that I had a dismal failure making his birthday cake last year. This time didn't go much better. This was actually the second cake I baked, it's still mostly shellaced together with the filling because the cake roll cracked when I unrolled it and my mocha filling was speckeled instead of being nice and mocha brown. But my rule is that it must taste better than it looks and it needs to look good enough to satisfy me. ]

So Happy Falker Satherhood Erik! And good luck Sharky, we'll see you in September!