Noah's Ark Cake for Kiana's 1st Birthday!

Hard to believe, but our little Kiana is turning one!! The year has gone by so quickly...and our tiny bundle of long-awaited joy has grown into an adorable little charmer! (Of course, I could be a little biased...)

Our first daughter, Isabella, loves to read to her little sister...and one of her favourites is "Noah's Ark"! I was shocked to hear Bella reading it to Kiana the first time, cover to cover, complete with the booming voice of God! (She wasn't even five yet! But I guess we must have read it enough times to her...) So, of course, when it came time to choosing a cake for Kiana's first birthday, we thought of Noah's Ark...

Because we were showing our house (to sell for our future move to Vancouver), and needed to keep it immaculate, our dear friends, the Lees, allowed me to crash their kitchen to make the cake (and even hosted the party!) I brought over all of my materials (or so I thought), and started on the cake.

The ark itself is made of two halved vanilla sheet cakes (4-tiers total), filled with vanilla buttercream, then carved into shape. I made the "house-like" structure on top with what was left-over from the carving, to make it look more like an ark. The whole thing was then covered with buttercream.

I made the marshmallow fondant, and then discovered...I had left all of my food-colouring pastes at home!!! I needed to cover the cake with the fondant ASAP to keep it fresh underneath, but I couldn't make brown with regular food colouring (it would have ruined the consistency of the fondant). That was when my friend, Linda, came up with the most absolutely brilliant idea...of putting cocoa powder in the fondant! I decreased the amount of icing sugar in the recipe, and added Ghirardelli cocoa (quite a lot of it, actually!) until I got the dark brown I wanted. Finally, I could seal up the cake, and worry about the details another day!


Making the animals was so much fun for me! I loved making each pair a "boy" and a "girl" by adding little details like long lashes, or a pink bow, a little hat or scarf...

Every once in a while, our kids would stop mid-play and come around to check out the progress on the cake. The biggest hit by far, with the kids, was Monsieur Pig with his funky little moustache!


I had made scales on the snakes with the edge of a straw, but couldn't think of anything to make the pattern on the turtle shells. That's when Linda came up with Brilliant Idea #2...use an Allen Key (with the hexagonal cross-section)!

I just loved making all the animals, although I did get frustrated after dropping the bunny's tail / nose/ eyes, for the umpteenth time! Those itty bitty pieces of fondant sure were finicky!

Because of the number of people coming to the party, we decided to make another sheet cake for the base (water) of the cake. Unfortunately, this was AFTER I had started on the ark, so you can imagine the pain it was to move the cakes into position. (Many animal body parts were lost in the move...) I stuck a number of straws into the base for support, but it still ended up a little smooshed after all the repositioning. (My sweet husband, Paul, suggested helpfully that it made the ark look more like it was riding on choppy waters.) The whole process was nerve-wracking, to say the least.

At the end of it all, we all loved the cake...and Linda couldn't wait to get it out of her fridge (where it was taking up an entire shelf)!


The birthday girl was a little perplexed by the whole party, and eyed the cake rather suspiciously.


But as soon as she got her hands on a piece of it, she quickly decided she loved it too! :)


Happy Birthday, Kiana! We love you soooo much!

Bouncy Castle Cake

My impossibly beautiful and sweet friend Ally asked me to make a birthday cake for her adorable twin daughters, Camryn and Kendall (who also happen to be in Pre-K, Sunday School, AND T-ball with my daughter, Bella!). Since they were having their 5th birthday party at the Malta Bounce, she asked for a bouncy castle design.

I wish I had taken a picture of the mess I made when I first tried to bake this cake! I made a double batch of chocolate cake in one 9x13 pan - thinking I would be saving myself the prep and clean-up of another pan... Well - you can imagine what happened next. (I only clued in when I smelled the smoke...) The cake had bubbled and glopped out of the sides of the pan... and welded itself onto my oven floor. Yummy.... I stuck another pan underneath to catch the drips, but by then, it had gotten too smoky and messy. So much for saving on prep and clean up... hahaha! (NEVER cut corners when you're baking!)

After that fiasco, I was able to finally start on the cake - four layers of devil's food cake with chocolate buttercream in between, then iced on the outside with vanilla buttercream. I used the twins' favourite colours throughout the cake. Bella helped to colour the fondant. It was a big job for little hands...but she felt sooo good making her contribution to the cake! (Don't worry - she washed her hands very well before, during, and after!)


My favourite part of the cake was molding the girls, and their outfits. Ally always has them matching in these gorgeous clothes...I thought I'd match their colours, but vary the clothes a bit. Their faces were fun to do...although I had to throw out the first attempt. I had used fondant for their features, and they ended up looking a little freaky (clown-like...shudder!). I decided to scrap that idea, and used a toothpick to draw on their faces instead. Aahh...much better.

For the finishing touches on the bouncy castle, I added stitch details, and ridges (to make the castle parts look "poofy"!) Then I molded the words on the sides and back of the cake, and a "5" for the top - leaving room for the candles to go on the roof.





Happy Birthday, girls!

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!