Elephant Baby Shower Cake

by caralin, in category baby showers

I have a sweet, simple baby shower cake to share with you today.

Momma’s waiting to find out the sex of the baby (how exciting!), so the request was for gender-neutral colours. I went for a soft yellow with purple accents, along with multicolour bunting to add a bit of pop. The lower tier is an extended 1.5x height – I’m really liking the look!

I just love using cute little animals for kids’ cakes. Mr. Elephant was a perfect choice to hold the welcome sign!

This cake might remind you of this yellow bunting cake I did last summer – I loved that one so much, I was excited to reimagine some of its elements again. The bunting and bow are reprised, but instead of the bright colours for a little girl’s birthday, I used a more muted palate to welcome this little one. The little elephant is a new addition too, of course – rather fitting for a baby shower celebrating a new addition, I think! 🙂

Feb22015

A CHEESE Cake!

by caralin, in category 3D sculpted cakes, carved cakes that look like stuff, just because

I made this cake for a farewell party at a company. The guest of honour is a big fan of cheese, in all its forms. They’d considered just serving big wheels of actual cheese, but since everyone also loves cake, we came up with this idea – a cake that LOOKS like cheese! The top tier is “brie”, the middle tier “gouda”, and the bottom “cheddar”, but inside they’re all tasty, tasty chocolate cake. Yum!

Here’s a close-up of the “grilled cheese” – actually vanilla cake with orange buttercream between the slices. I did butter and grill the cake slices to give them that grilled cheese look (I won’t say what happened to the last triangle, but let’s just say warm, grilled, buttered cake is DELICIOUS). The slices are laid out to replicate the company logo, which is three triangles in darkening shades. The t-shirt itself was requested because they’d once had company t-shirts printed with their logo as grilled cheese (you know, as you do). Now with the fondant shirt and cake logo, they can have their shirt and eat it too!

Of course, where there’s cheese, you’re bound to find cute little fondant mice. I couldn’t resist completing the cake with a CHEESY pun!

Mmmmm… now I want some cheese! And cake! And cheesecake!

Jan292015

Canadian-British VW Bug Cake

by caralin, in category carved cakes that look like stuff, weddings

I made this cake for a wedding couple who had both Canadian and British ties. Since my husband is a “Britnadian” himself (born and raised British, in Canada over a decade now), we actually did some Canadian and British touches at our own wedding, but we didn’t have it featured in the cake. We’ve been one-upped, and I helped them do it! 🙂 Well, I approve anyway.

The topper was a classic VW bug car, with the quintessential Union Jack on the roof panel. More Union Jacks and maple leafs alternated on the sides, with the “O” in “LOVE” shaped like a maple leaf and topped with a Union Jack – the ultimate representation of both countries! Tip top cheerio, eh? 🙂

Jan172015

Chevron Fox Birthday Cake

by caralin, in category birthdays

Happy New Year, everyone! It’s been a while since I posted, but I’ve certainly been busy (both with making cakes and with the general holiday chaos!). Now that things have returned to normal (whatever that is…), I thought I’d get back to sharing my tasty treats with you.

Today’s share is this cute fox cake for a little boy’s first birthday. His mom wanted to match these beautiful party printables from Etsy (check them out – ThePrettyPaperStudio is based in London, ON, so I’m always happy to put a shout-out for fellow Canadians!). Mom wanted to focus on the mint-green with white mini-polka dots, which I used for the name and age number. Grey mini-chevrons adorned the sides, and I created little Mr. Fox for the top! The set has a cute deer and raccoon, too, but the fox was her favourite (and I think mine too).

Mom also requested a mini buttercream smash cake for the birthday boy. I used a simple petal technique, with another mint polka-dot #1 to match the main cake.

I hope you enjoyed this cute little cake as much as I did! That’s all for now, but I’ll be back with more catch-up cakes later.

Nov262014

Braaaaaaain Cake.

by caralin, in category 3D sculpted cakes, birthdays, carved cakes that look like stuff

As the snow starts to fly and holiday lights start to twinkle, I thought I would share a special cake with all of you. It’s a braaaaaaaain!

Um…what? Wrong holiday, you say? Don’t worry, I know Halloween is over. But this wasn’t a Halloween cake, this was for an eight-year-old girl’s birthday party. Every little girl dreams of a realistic brain cake for her birthday, right? Well, this one did! She is a very cool kid, who threw a very cool “mad science” themed birthday party, and this cake was at the centre of it all.

I’ve pretty much always got cake on the brain, but this time it was cake AS a brain. 🙂 What do you think – fun? It’s shiny! Gross? You have to perform a lobotomy to serve it. Awesome? It’s braaaaaaains!! Well – it’s certainly tasty, whatever else it may be!

Nov162014

Canadiana Moose Cake

by caralin, in category birthdays, buttercream

I make a lot of mousse cakes, but today we have something a bit different – an actual MOOSE cake!

As a proud Canadian, I loved making this birthday cake. The request was for a Canada-themed cake to match the plaid-and-moose adorned invitations, so this was what I came up with! What could be more classically Canadian than plaid, a moose, and a lumberjack’s axe?

We also included a mini 4″ smash cake for the little birthday boy. Buttercream petals kept it sweet and simple, and the #2 is dressed with a bit of plaid to match the main cake.

Until next time… I’ll MOOSE you! Oh wait… I’ll PINE for you! Yeah, that’s a better pun. I WOOD choose that one. (Okay, I’m done now.) 🙂

Nov82014

Holy Batman Cake, Batman!

by caralin, in category birthdays

Sixteen sodium atoms walk into a bar followed by Batman. And he had cake! (I can’t say I know most of the periodic table, but I do know sodium is “na”… and I certainly know cake!)

As a follow up to my superhero cake from a while ago, I’d like to present this Batman cake. It’s styled after Issue #1 of the original Batman comics, which was a fun challenge to replicate in cake form! 3D edible Batman logo with the birthday boy’s name instead of the original “Batman”, and the 10 cent cover price was updated to be the age of the birthday celebration.

Here it is side-by-side with the original comic:

A better view of the 3D logo!

Nov12014

Pretty Pink Owl Baby Shower Cake

by caralin, in category baby showers

Whhoooooo’s ready for another owl baby shower cake?

Owls seem to be a hot-ticket item for all things baby-related this year – and I definitely approve, because owls are a hoot! Ahahaha, I’m hilarious. Okay, I’m just punny, but that entertains me too. 🙂

All puns aside (for now…), I hope you enjoy this cute owl cake. I made a similar one for a good friend of mine last year, but I customized this design to include some girly ruffles and a pretty pink and grey colour scheme.

(Also, I know I’ve been a bit awol from blogging for the past couple of months. It’s been a crazy fall! Don’t worry, though – I have been baking, so more posts will follow soon!)

Aug42014Jul 4 2016

Game of Thrones: Cake is Coming.

by caralin, in category birthdays, carved cakes that look like stuff

Winter is coming.

Luckily, today it’s in cake form!

Winter may be the last thing on your mind at the beginning of August, but for Game of Thrones fans these words take on a very different meaning. I definitely count myself among this group, so I was thrilled when I was asked to design a birthday (ahem, “name day”) cake based on the series.

The centrepiece is the infamous Iron Throne. The story goes that the throne was forged by Aegon the Conqueror from the swords of his vanquished enemies. This one is made gumpaste (much tastier) and finished with edible silver and gold paint. The entire thing is edible, if you’re so inclined!

I stopped counting at 100, but I’m estimating there are about 200-300 individual swords in here, plus 49 sword hilts.

The front of the cake features the logo from the opening sequence, with the birthday girl’s name replacing the series title. We were going to use “Queen Travina”, but since Daenerys, Kahleesi of the Dothraki, is one her favourite characters, we thought “Khaleesi Travina” would be more fitting.

Around the sides are the rest of the images from the opening, showing scenes from Robert’s Rebellion (click image for a larger view).

I even made a video for this one to show the 360 degree view – it’s not the most production-quality video, but it does the trick!

I really enjoyed making this one – it was a fun challenge!

Jul302014

Edelman/PayPal’s iPhone Cake

by caralin, in category 3D sculpted cakes, carved cakes that look like stuff, just because, Uncategorized

Okay, I’ve been sitting on this one a little while (not the actual cake – that would be sticky. And bad for business. I guarantee that all my cakes are non-sat-on). Now, however, I am happy to present you with one of my favourite recent cakes – an iPhone cake! This cake was ordered by the good folks down at Edelman Canada to celebrate the one year anniversary of their relationship with client PayPal.

The team at Edelman sent me a screen cap of PayPal’s new payment app and asked if I could modify that to show a Happy Anniversary message. Challenge accepted! It was handy that I have an iPhone of my own, since I wanted to be accurate – I measured every little dimension and scaled it up (math – woot!) to make sure that the finished product would look realistic.

I was quite pleased with how it turned out, and it seems the folks at PayPal were too!