Saturday, October 27, 2007

GOOOOOAL!


This cake was quite a kick at this 9-year-old's birthday party. I really scored with this one.

Okay, okay, enough with the witty puns. But in all seriousness, I thought this cake was awesome!

And as a friend (Hillary!) said, the grass looks really good, and it didn't take me near as long as it looks, because I have one of those nifty tricks of the trade to make decorating a lot easier. I used a star tip for the grass, but instead of one opening, it has 3 star-shaped openings so that the cake can be decorated in one-third of the time! Cool, huh?

And I love the contrast of the chocolate lettering with the green frosting... almost like mud and grass, right? And speaking of chocolate, the icing was really tasty. I used butter flavored Crisco, since I knew the icing didn't have to be white. Although not as good as real butter (which does not hold up in this Georgia climate), it was still a very tasty buttercream. And the cake itself was chocolate, an added bonus.

The net is made up of royal icing that dried over night. I actually made three nets. Dad actually broke one, but I promise (!!!!!!!!!!) I don't hold it against him, because I broke the other one. And that's why I made three.

The soccer ball is actually a little clock that stopped working. The birthday boy got it from one of his soccer seasons, I think (he's played seven), and he graciously let me use it for his cake.

The only thing I don't like is that the J looks funny... but that's just how I write them. Oh well. And the writing is a bit off-center, but again, the person who really matters didn't care. If the birthday boy likes it, so do I!

There was definitely no foul with this cake!

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Love for Chocolate


I had a bit trouble coming up with an idea for this. I'm not too creative at coming up with manly cakes. With my brothers, it's okay, because they are so young. With Dad, all I can think of is: golf, cars, and chocolate.

I usually make a golf-related cake for Father's Day, so I wanted to do something different and avoid un-uniqueness. Finally, I settled on chocolate.

I made my own chocolate butter cream icing (basically by making regular butter cream and dumping in a lot of cocoa powder), but reserved some of the butter cream for the boarder and words.

After I decorated, I melted some chocolate candy in a pastry bag and squiggled it all over the cake. I did some dots around the garlands, too.

The triple chocolate (cake, icing, candy) cake went over well with both my dad and his dad, as it was a joint party. My chocoholic family gobbled it up, myself included!