Princess Cupcakes

These were for a little girls birthday. Castles, flowers and wands on chocolate cupcakes. The castles took so long to make. Isn't it amazing how a few sparkles and pearl dust can make something nice look even better?

65th Birthday

This cake did double duty as my final exam for my latest cake decorating class and as the birthday cake for my mom's 65th birthday. The flowers are gumpaste and this was my first ever attempt at the basketweave on the sides of the cake. I am now a fan of the basketweave. I'm sure you will be seeing me use it again and again.

Mike's Amazing Cakes

Check out this guys work. It would be amazing to be this good.

http://www.mikesamazingcakes.com/

A Princess cake for a princess

One of the lady`s that came to my neice`s baby shower loved the cake so much that she asked me to make a cake for her daughter`s 7th birthday. She wanted a princess cake. This was my first pillow cake. I wish the pillow hadn`t ended up so thick but the feedback I got was all positive so I guess I was just being nitpicky. The slipper was a challenge too. But the goal is to learn something new from each cake and so far it has always happened.

A Baby Shower cake for my neice

My neice Jessica is expecting and my wife and daughter were putting on the baby shower. Of course dad is going to do a cake! The only instructions I was given was to have Winnie the Pooh somewhere on the cake. So a trip to Scoop N Save to purchase Winne the Pooh figurines (no way I was going to try to make them from fondant, they`re too recognizable) and then I went to work on the cake. In my defence, even though I chickened out on making Winne the Pooh from fondant, I did do the fondant baby. The footprints were fun to make too.

Finally, a wedding cake

Well it finally happened. From a Craigslist ad I was hired to make my first wedding cake. If I thought I was nervous about earlier cakes it didn't even come close to the nerves I had with this assignment. A three level cake in hot pink fondant with quilting and a gum paste bow on top. Another first for me, I had never done quilting on a cake before.

The three levels didn't get put together until I was at the reception hall. It would have been too difficult to tansport otherwise. But it all arrived and went together beautifully, the bride and groom loved it and I can now say I am an experienced wedding cake designer. One cake equals experienced right? Right?!

Monster Energy Cake

My son Devan turned 16 this year and he is a big Monster energy drink fan. I was nervous about trying something like this because it would be very easy to mess up something so recognizable. But he really wanted it and what good is it to have a cake decorator for a dad if you cant get exactly what you want for your birthday cake?

So here is the final result. I'm including a link to the video Devan made of the making of his cake. He posted this on Youtube. In the video you will hear me refer to a Christmas cake video as well. Sadly, this video never got made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S88M1AnytzY

Cupcakes and Lady Bugs

This was the second project I actually got paid money for. A little girl's 3rd birthday and she and mom decided on a garden creature cupcake theme. The cupcakes are covered in green buttercream icing (notice the two different shades - always make sure you have enough icing before you start). Each cupcake then had a gumpaste leaf and either a caterpillar, snail, butterfly or ladybug (my favorite)

Snowmen and Penguins

Our church was holding a silent auction to raise money for local charities like the food bank and Christmas Bureau etc. I donated this cake. The snowmen and penguins are rice krispie treats covered in fondant.

A Christmas Present Cake

This cake came about when my wife decided to host a Norwex party. They sell all kinds of cleaning products and stuff like that. Colleen asked me to make a cake for the party. We went back and forth for a while on what kind of cake to make and ended up deciding on a Christmas present cake since the party was happening in December. The cake turned out even better than I'd hoped. It was my first time doing a gum paste bow since my fondant class and I think it turned out pretty good. The cake was a hit, after all, who doesn't like opening a present?

Father-in-Law's 70th Birthday

This cake was for my father-in-law's 70th birthday. Needless to say he is a golfer. I purchased the golfer figurines and trees at a shop in Langley called Scoop N Save (weird name for a cake supply store if you ask me). My only problem with this cake is I need to learn how to make grass better. I was not happy with the grass on this cake at all. If anyone has any ideas or methods for making grass on a cake look more realistic please let me know.

Fondant Class

My next step after my first cake for profit was to take a fondant class at Michaels, the craft store in Abbotsford. I had already taken a basic cake decorating class there when I first started out in my quest to be a cake decorator. Let me tell you, if you are at all interested in cake decorating these classes are a great idea. My instructor was a lady named Kerry Proudfoot and she is fantastic. I am taking another class with Kerry right now, learning more about making flowers.

Anyway, every course ends with making a cake. For this course I chose to do a basket of fall leaves for my cake since the family needed a cake for Thanksgiving. So this cake is covered in fondant and the sides of the barrel and the leaves and flowers inside it are all gum paste. One thing I learned was not to use only gum paste when making really thin leaves. Gum paste dries out when exposed to air and the leaves became very brittle. Luckily I had made a lot because I broke many of them trying to place them on the cake.

My first cake I was paid for

So my intent here is to post a history of the cakes I have already done and then we will go on from there with new cakes as they come along.

This cake was the first cake I was ever hired to do. Up to this point I had practiced my craft only on birthday cakes for family. I'm sure there were many cases where they were forced to politely compliment my early faltering attempts. I am so grateful that they let me learn from my mistakes at their expense.

This cake came about when a guy asked my good friend Phil Bonk, owner of J & B's Candy Shop in Abbotsford if he knew anyone who did cakes. Phil called me to ask if I was still doing cakes and I jumped at the opportunity.

To say I was nervous would be an understatement. This wasn't family, this was a paying customer. The cake was for a retirement party for a Corrections Officer. He wanted the cake to have the Corrections Canada logo. So I went to work. The cake is in buttercream icing (I hadn't learned to work with fondant yet) and if you notice, he asked me to change the wording in the logo from Corrections Officer to "catering service for convicts."

One sad part to this story however, when he was transporting the cake to the party he had to slam on his brakes and the cake went flying, which ended up damaging a portion of the cake. I felt awful when I found out. Please learn from this. Cakes are a fragile creation. They must be protected from any and all possible occurrences.

My first ever blog

Well this is a first. My first blog ever. It feels momentous .... I guess. But in the ongoing search to find new (read "free") ways to promote my cakes I am even willing to dip my toe in the world-wide blogging pool.

Believe me when I say that no one is more surprised than me that I have ended up as a cake decorator. I mean, yes I took some Home Ec. classes in high school but that was because they were an easy 'A'. But I suppose there were signs. Colleen will tell you that I have always used baking as a stress reliever. Whenever she came home to find me baking she would always ask "what's wrong?"

I have never really been able to put my finger on what it is about baking that calms me. It may be the creative element. My closest friends tell that I am never happier than when I have a creative outlet. For years that outlet was satisfied with acting or sketching. But I never associated baking with being yet another creative outlet for me, at least not until I discovered cake decorating. Now there are no illusions, cakes tax my creative juices in incredible ways. Perhaps I should stop trying to analyze it and simply accept that cake decorating is zen for me.

Anyway, enough of the deep thoughts. I hope you find this blog to be enjoyable, informative, and perhaps even a small glimpse into the mind of this cake decorator (a frightening concept of ever there was one). Enjoy yourself here, comment on what you see, send me links to things you think I might find interesting, and I will do the same.

Thus endeth my first blog. "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride."