Gumpaste Shoes

Last weekend, I played with the new brooch molds I got. I was so excited about them! I was thinking of how I could use them.... then it hit me! Decorations on shoes!! It went hand in hand with another plan I had. My mom is in town to help me out because I got my wisdom teeth out today. Well, of course I wanted to make her a cake! And she loves shoes! I had some ideas (which I won't mention, in case I plan to do them in the future ;)

She deserved a cake!! Coming over 400 miles to help take care of me! Definitely! And even more so because she ended up having to take an extra flight to get here (5 hours later than planned). Gotta love flying. And her birthday is coming up!! I don't get to see her on her birthday so I had to take advantage of this. Can't mail a cake (or at least I do not plan to try!).

I saw a recipe I really wanted to try... Lemon Blueberry Cake. YUM! I wasn't sure about the blueberries since it's not blueberry season, but in my opinion it came out great! It was so tasty!! {I haven't gotten to eaten any of the actual filled and iced cake because of the whole wisdom teeth situation. Uncool} I decided to put a lemon filling in it also. Because of the filling and the blueberries it has to be refrigerated. I think that's kind of a bummer because it was so fluffy and tasty cooled down out of the oven. Not sure about the cooled taste.

 Here's the lemon filling. I should mention that I had this idea Saturday and she came in town Wednesday night. I had little prep time. I made the filling Wednesday after work. All good, except it is done on the stove so it was very hot when done. I didn't have much time and tried to cool it down as much as possible. I still think it was warmer than preferred when I put it on the cake. Live and learn.

 All the lemon and blueberry goodness! Yum. This is when it got so messy. I tried to keep the filling in by a border of buttercream around the filling but that wasn't very successful. I think it's tricky filling it anyway, but I'm convinced it would have been better if it was cooler. The left overs congealed very nicely later. Glad I had leftovers because once I cut the cake, not much filling survived the stacking.

Once I started icing, it was a mixture of buttercream and lemon filling. Such a mess. I was frustrated and losing hope. She was coming in a few hours and I wasn't going to finish!! Then her flights changed because of situations out of her control and she was going to show up 4 hours later. I hated what she had to go through all that but I'm really glad I was able to finish before she got there.

So the cake was a mess, I was frustrated, I was trying to fondant it and it was just awful! I ended up taking all the fondant off and started over. Hate to waste but it was worth it. Fortunately my husband fell asleep so I had the time to myself to do it all over.  

Ta-Da!!

 This is one of those cakes that I feel should not have been as difficult as it was. And the fondant work on the box was still not very clean. But it worked for this situation. I'll definitely allow more time if I ever do another.

 If you see cakes alot, you might notice that several people do gumpaste heels. Well this was specialized for my mom! And she does not usually wear heels. We're flats kinda girls :) Therefore, I pull out one of my pairs of flats. I made a template (using saran wrap, aluminum foil, and card stock paper) from my shoe, trying not to touch my shoes to what-will-be the tempate. My template could probably use some perfecting. Learning all the time....

I used fondant for the sole. Mistake no. 1. I know I should've used gumpaste, but I already had black fondant and did not want to make black gumpaste. So I had trouble with getting it completely dry. But I knew this and it was ok for this. Then I mixed fondant and gumpaste for the green. Again, probably best to use 100% gumpaste, but I had some pretty green fondant leftover that I wanted to use. Trying not to waste.

It was interesting trying to form these. Especially doing two to compliment each other. I did the first and it was ok, but I saw details that I'd prefer to change. Then I made a few others... that first one started looking way better!! Haha! I made the sole for the second one. I kept re-doing the green part and once I finally got it somewhat decent, I realized that I should've remade the sole. I think it ended up being larger than the first one somehow so it was throwing off matching the other. I was running out of the fondant/gumpaste mixture and I knew if I made more it would most likely not match the color I had made -- I wasn't even sure what I had used to get that color. So that was that. Eh, it was my first go-round.

 I couldn't figure out how to make it without the seam in the front :( I hated that.  

 I wanted to write something on the box, but I wasn't sure how I wanted to position the shoes; therefore blank. And I should've used a bigger cake board, but I knew it needed to go in the fridge, so I stuck with the smaller.

Was that enough pictures? I know they're basically the same but I'm leaving them posted. It doesn't take long to flip through pictures anyway.

And in case you wanted to see the pictures I couldn't get to post last week, here you go :)

I'm feeling surprisingly well after the surgery this morning. But I've been warned it's worse the second and third day. Oh dear. Thank goodness for pain medicine!!

Brooches & Baby Shower

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!! I wish it had been a little warmer, but it is still February so what can you do? I had to snuggle up on the couch instead of basking in the sun. Tough life. I'm sure spring will be here before we know it. 

I received some molds in the mail this week! Sooner than I expected them too! They're brooch molds. I love brooch molds but when I looked a few months back, found nothing that I liked. Then I happened across these a couple weeks ago and had to have them! I played with them a little this weekend.

Oh my goodness, I'm so excited to use these! Don't you think they're pretty?? Especially with the gold and silver shimmer. Maybe the picture isn't the best, but I really like them. I'm not sure what to do with these now, because I am not throwing them away! I'll figure out something.

And I thought of a great idea for using one on a cake!! I plan on doing it soon so we'll see how it turns out. If it's any good, you'll see pictures :)

I also made a baby shower cake this weekend for a young lady at church due in April with her first. It's a girl!! 

 It's vanilla cake (new recipe --- everyone seemed to like it. Hope they weren't just being nice!) with cream cheese filling and covered in buttercream. Fondant decorations.

 I think the pictures from my phone were actually better, but I can't get them to download so these will have to do. (ugh)

 I didn't realize it was blurry :(

This is a picture of the cake that the sister-in-law of the mom-to-be gave me to use as inspiration.

Hopefully you can see a resemblance! 

Night night!

Frilled Flower

I had a coworker ask me to make a cake for his wife's birthday. I'm sure there are guys out there that are full of ideas and care about cake decorating, but this guy is not one of them. He did not care except that it was chocolate with chocolate icing. So I get some details about his wife... the few he could think of. She likes dolphins, lily of the valley... that's about all I got. Well since it was a chocolate cake I didn't want a dolphin to be swimming around in brown icing so I nixed that idea. I've never made any lilies of the valley but from what I researched I didn't want to for this cake.


The good thing about not being confined to the ideas he gave me was that I could do whatever I wanted. That can be tricky especially since I am the most indecisive person ever. But I recently saw a post on My Cake School of a flower she did inspired by her little girl's favorite shirt. I thought it was cute and wanted to try it sometime. What a perfect time!


I also got a Cricut Cake last year and should really use it more. I have found it's trickier than I thought it would be, but I have it and know it can work so I am determined to not give up on it! I just need to work with it more. One of the cartridges I have has a "happy birthday" image so there we go! I can practice a new technique I found and work with my Cricut.

Before I start decorating the cake, I think "I'll do a tutorial of this flower." Then I begin... haha, I quickly learn you can't do a tutorial on something you've never done before! Duh!! She just made it look so easy that I didn't think I'd have an issue doing it. Maybe it is really easy for everyone else and I'm just a slow learner. That is a valid option. I also just did it pretty much from memory. It's funny that I test my memory even though my husband just offered that we get my memory checked. Haha, it's going early. Again, I think it is a simple technique but her flower looks so much better than mine. I suppose I can chalk it up being my first time. I have to do it better next time.


I will show you a few steps...

I have chosen my fondant and rolled it out. Now I put it through my snazzy KitchenAid pasta roller a few times. 

Then I roll out a few strips a half an inch wide.

Then, using a ball tool, "ruffle" one side of the strips. I need to practice this.

This is the point where I'm rethinking the picture by picture tutorial and thinking about just trying to accomplish this flower. I will note that I am doing this on buttercream and I'm pretty sure My Cake School did it on a fondant covered cake. I don't know how big of a difference it makes though. Do you notice how the ruffle on the outside seemed to disappear and reappear on the inside?? haha, magic. But this is the beginning of the flower. I used piping gel to attach the fondant.

Fast forward and here's my result

 Umm... I hope you can at least tell it's supposed to be a flower. I think it's... ok. But check out My Cake School. Gosh, hers is beautiful. Feel free to not compare hers and mine :)

There's the final cake. Now that I've written this, I really want to re-do this whole thing. Maybe I will. Eventually. 

At least, I hope his wife liked it!! (fingers crossed)