Masculine Baby Huey Cake

Hello there! That title doesn't seem to go together, but it does. I was asked to do a cake for a 65th birthday that somehow incorporated the family business and the recipient's nickname--Baby Huey. Since the family business dealt with engines, snowmobiles, motorcycles and chainsaws I knew I wanted something that looked like it could be in a garage. This one definitely made me step out of my comfort zone.

Decorator Tips

For the bottom tier, I used a diamond plate impression mat on gray modeling chocolate. The mat wasn't very big, and even though the edges lined up, there would have been a line, but that was fine. I decided to cut the chocolate into rectangles and put them on the cake as panels. Since I used modeling chocolate, it was super easy to lift the rectangle onto the side with little to no stretching. For the "screws", I pushed in an icing tip (I don't remember what size), and then used the end of one of my shaping tools for the straight line. Super easy. 

To color it, I started by airbrushing silver on. Modeling chocolate usually doesn't like liquid color on it as it just beads up, but I've found that if I use a super light coat of airbrush color it won't bead up. Then, I went over each panel with different shades of gray and brown petal dust to give it a dirty, rusty kind of look and to emphasize the panels. 

The middle tier was inspired by a masculine cake I saw online somewhere. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find it now. I loved the look of the browns, blacks and silvers brushed along the bottom, kind of looked like grease and grime. I'm not sure those two adjectives have ever been used to describe a cake before.

I don't often decorate my boards, but I really wanted to pull out some of the brown from the design so I decided to do a wood grain look. I used a tutorial from Evil Cake Genius. Guys, this is the EASIEST technique ever!! And it's kind of addicting. I wanted to wood-grain a whole cake after doing this. It's super shiny in this photo because it hadn't dried yet. I was kind of sad that most of it ended up being covered by the cake.

To get the family business on the cake I printed logos from the different brands they were associated with and a copy of their business card onto wafer paper and cutting them out. Not sure if you can read it, but this card is too funny!

Oh, I almost forgot about Baby Huey. Do you remember him? I vaguely remember him showing up in a couple of Saturday morning cartoons when I was little. Anyway, he was made with fondant mixed with a little tylose. I printed an image of him, laid that over the rolled out fondant and traced over the lines with a tiny ball tip tool. After cutting him out and letting him dry I colored him with petal dust mixed with lemon extract. Once that dried, I outlined him with black airbrush color. I like how he added a pop of color to an otherwise monochrome-ish cake.

Hope you enjoyed my masculine cake. I have a few more to share with you later.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!!

Pretty Pink Peony Cake

Hello there! How are you this fine spring day? I'm enjoying some slightly warmer weather. I enjoy all the seasons, but this one is especially fun as it seems each day we see something new and green popping its head up. We just covered my flower beds in a fresh layer of mulch and the green stems of the tulips and daffodils peaking through look so vibrant against the red. Of course, this is spring in Wisconsin we're talking about. We're forecasted temps near 70 on Sunday and possible snow on Tuesday. Ah well.

While seeing flowers in my garden is still quite a ways off, I did get to enjoy a beautiful one in my kitchen this last week. I don't do sugar flowers often as they are very time consuming, but the results are oh so worth it.

Isn't it beautiful? Because my cake had gold accents I decided to dip the stamens in gold airbrush color to give them a touch of glam.

My friend's mom was turning 50 and they were throwing her a surprise party. My friend asked for a small cake to use as a centerpiece for the party. They were decorating with black and white striped fabric, pink peonies, and gold accents. I managed to fulfill 3 of the 4. To fit the size of my peony, the cake ended up being much larger than expected. Oh well, more cake to eat!

Decorator Tips:

My inspiration for this cake came from the Sparkle My Heart cake from De La Creme Creative Studio. I loved the different widths of stripes and that splash of gold right in the middle and since my friend had asked if I'd done any marbled cakes before, I decided to marble the top tier.

The black stripes were made from modeling chocolate, and I used the wax-paper transfer technique from Jessica Harris to get them on the cake. That doesn't always work flawlessly for me, but thankfully, modeling chocolate is pretty sturdy and because you use shortening as the glue, it kind of slides around into place if needed. The center strip, however was yellow fondant. I knew I was going to cover it in gold petal dust mixed with lemon extract, and that doesn't work well on modeling chocolate.

The topper was done in gumpaste. I printed the number in a font I liked, placed the paper over some rolled-out yellow gumpaste and used a tiny ball tool to trace around the number. That left enough of an impression for me to use as a guide to cut it out with my scalpel blade. Once it was completely dry I brushed some of the gold petal dust/lemon extract mixture over it.

The hardest part for me is always the flowers. Not making them, but deciding on how many to use and arranging them. My original idea was to do a bouquet cascading down the right side, then I thought just the large peony with a few buds, and eventually opted for just the single flower with some greenery.

All-in-all I think it came out quite nice, and my friend loved it. :o)

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!!