Pirate Cake

I met the sweet and delightful Clarisse through my friend, Cela. Her beautiful daughter, Nia was turning 4 and having a pirate-themed birthday party.

I baked a dark chocolate sheet cake for the water base, a cupcake for the treasure chest, and used a casserole dish for the boat. After chilling the cakes, I then carved the shapes of the chest and the boat, and covered everything in vanilla buttercream.


I covered the treasure chest in a layer of dark brown fondant, then went over it with paler pieces of fondant that I used a toothpick on to add the texture of wood. Then I placed some dragee balls and yellow sparkle sugar in it for the treasure.




The boat is covered with fondant - again I used a toothpick to create a wood grain and plank look. I added fondant cannons and a steering wheel. I thought it was too brown overall, so I added a little fondant bird to cheer things up, some yellow portholes, as well as Nia's name in bright red on the side.


For the pirate girl figure, Clarisse sent me a photo of Nia with her pirate costume, and I tried my best to replicate it with fondant. I think it ended up looking pretty cute...although the scale with the boat was way off. Oops! (Huge treasure chest and pirate...little mini boat...um...I was trying to add perspective? haha!)

The sails were made with wood chopsticks and fondant squares that I affixed with fondant and toothpicks, and left in the fridge to dry (with chopsticks behind them to add a slight curve).

Lastly, I used various shades of blue buttercream to make the water. I think it turned out pretty cute!

Itty Bitty Safari Cakes

I made these cakes for Brianna, a girl at my church, who loves animals! She really wanted little cakes as individual favors for her birthday party guest, and I was thrilled to try something different!

I found a Noah's Ark cookie cutter set with the mini shapes perfect for the cakes. I covered each cookie in royal icing, and let them dry before adding all the details. They were labor-intensive, but a lot of fun to create.


Brianna's favorite colors were green and yellow, so I decided to cover the cake base with yellow fondant and green fondant leaves. My little assistant, Bella, helped punch out the leaves. Each cake was crumb-coated in apricot preserves before being iced with chocolate butter-cream, with finally the fondant, and the cookie on top!


I found the clear take-out containers at the Party Store, and just added a few decorative touches - a green and yellow polka-dot ribbon on the side, and Brianna's initial stamped on a piece of paper glued to the front. The packaging really helped to finish the look of the individual cakes.


They were super cute, but I still couldn't resist eating the extras!

Safari Cookies!

These are cookies that will go on top of individual cakes for an upcoming birthday party!

I'm really excited - these will be my first individual cakes. I used a Noah's Ark cutter set to cut the little animals (elephant, zebra, and giraffe - the birthday girl's request), and used royal icing to cover them. I used a toothpick for all the details. I think they're pretty cute. (ate quite a few that didn't make the cut...mmm!)

Monkey Cake

Our little Bella just had her 5th birthday party! How time flies...

She was born in the year of the monkey, and just loves monkeys! (She was a monkey last Halloween, and her favourite blankie since she was a baby is from Auntie Ingrid, and has little monkeys all over it). So - of course, she had to have a monkey cake.

The body is banana chocolate chip (appropriate for little monkeys), and her head is chocolate (for other non-simian children...)

Bella helped me colour all the fondant (took a lot of kneading - especially that brown!), and do the flowers. I loved doing her little face and dress.


After a swift, painless decapitation, the girls at the party devoured the head in complete silence...Nothing like cake and ice cream to bring on peace and quiet!

Happy Birthday, Bella! We love you!!!

Guitar Cake

My lovely friend, Jen, asked me to do a guitar cake for her daughter Katelyn, who was turning 7 and having a High School Musical party. She got a picture online of a Fender to use as a model.

It started as two chocolate sheet cakes. I traced and cut out the shape after it cooled.
The toughest parts about this cake were: coloring the fondant (literally took hours of kneading the paste color in until I got the vibrant red and the dark brown), and doing the strings and knobs.

My first attempt using dry spaghetti for strings was awful. They stuck out at all angles, and I couldn't get them to line up...So I gave up, slept on it, and thought of using real string. I ended up using embroidery thread! All six threads for the first string, five for the next...until the last string - which was a single thread. It was a challenge to get them to line up with all the knobs, etc. but after a few hours of playing with them, they finally looked right.


You can actually tighten each string with the knob, like a real guitar! The knobs were made with fondant stuck in the side with toothpicks, then brushed with silver powder.


My friend, Linda, who is a shopper extraordinaire, found some High School Musical stamps that I used on pieces of fondant to surround the cake.


I was ecstatic when Jen told me how much Katelyn loved her cake! It was so much fun to make, and I was relieved that the birthday girl and her friends enjoyed it!