The Super Awesome Porsche Cake

A few days before Father's Day, I decided to go really, super crazy, and make a totally-out-of-my-skill-set-and-comfort-zone cake for my dad? Why, you might be thinking? I had a few reasons.

First, the best time to make a crazy, potentially-disastrous cake is for someone you love. That way, if the project completely tanks, they'll still love you. It's only cake, after all.

Second, I wanted to tackle a project of this scale on my own for a while now...just to see if I could. Also: good practice.

And third: my dad has been incredibly helpful this year, and I wanted to thank him the best way I knew how, with a cake. He helped me pick out my new car, and did all of the scary haggling with the even scarier car salesmen, he helped put me through college, he loaded up all my stuff after graduation, and he's graciously (slight sarcasm here) letting me live at home until I can find a place to live.

You might be wondering why I didn't make a super fabulous cake for my mom, since, after all, she's done just as much as my dad in those areas, if not more, if you include all the times she took me out to lunch, or listened to me complain over the phone, or just put up with me in general.

But I also thought that since a) my mom isn't a huge dessert person (unless it's lemon or key lime flavored; I did get her cupcakes!) and b) I think she's more grateful that I didn't destroy her kitchen or get cake crumbs everywhere.

OK, OK, OK, time for the big reveal:

BAM!

And yes, if you've been following my twitter or facebook, this isn't such a surprise. But I really tried hard to keep it a surprise from Dad. At first, I was going to do all the baking and everything when he was at work, that way he wouldn't even know I was making a cake, but since I'm terribly disorganized, and have the worst time management, it was pretty obvious that I was making a cake. But I wouldn't let him see me decorating it, because the final design was still going to be a surprise! I didn't even tell my other family members, but eventually my mom guessed that it was the Porche. (Adam thought it was a taxi. Uhhh, what?)

Since we had a ton of family over for Father's Day, I gifted this lovely chocolate pound cake to all of the fathers in attendance: Uncle Kerm, Uncle John, Big Adam, and Dad. Thank you for being such amazing role models and fabulous parents!

Courtney's Cake

Who needs to study for finals when there are birthday cakes to be made?

OK, so maybe that's not the best logic in the world, but with only a few days until graduation, I didn't exactly have my priorities in order. And it wasn't just a cake for anybody. And I only had one final left anyway.

Ah, rationalizing.

So this delicious (if I do say so myself) red velvet cake is carved into a Tampa Bay Lightnings jersey, which combines two of Courtney's loves. (And, by the way, she is the biggest Lightning fan I've ever met, which is awesome, because hockey is awesome. I just wish Atlanta still had a team...sad day.) And if you weren't able to figure it out, the cake was for her 21st, hence the big 21 on the jersey and all.

In hindsight, the sleeves aren't exactly even, but I'm hoping I'm the only one who noticed (until I pointed it out to all of you),  and the Lightning logo probably could've been bigger, too, but that's what I get for doing something last minute.

One day I'll learn to stop procrastinating. Just not today.

Ooooh! And I got to use my airbrush machine too! The fondant I colored was a bit too light, so I mixed up my own airbrush color and just did a bunch of layers of color until it darkened up to the lovely blue that you see in the picture. Definitely enjoyed the practice. I also learned that you gotta be super careful when you put your fondant accents on top of your airbrushed fondant, because if you drip any water or gum glue or whatever you're using on the fondant, it makes the color run. And that's bad.

So there's my advice for the day! And happy birthday again to Courtney! :-)

The Airbrushing Class

I don't think I ever uploaded my blog post about the airbrushing class I took a couple months ago. It. Was. Awesome! :D The class was in Ocala, though, so that was kind of a bummer. It was a two hour drive from and we got super lost.

But once we finally made it to the class, it was so worth it. I learned about the different brands of airbrushes (and decided I loved my Duff version. Sure it's not the best out there, but it definitely works for my little projects. When I open up my own place, then I can look into getting one of those fancy brands).

We played with different colors, and learned how to do different techniques and textures, like covering an entire cake in one color, or using a stencil to do a pattern.

And I got to make a really big mess and my mom wasn't around to yell at me. ;-)

Since taking the class, I haven't really done any big airbrushing projects, aside from putting shimmer on some little details of cakes (I'll have to put pictures of those up later). But I definitely feel more confident using my airbrush than I did before the class!

The class was taught by the lovely ladies at Simi Cakes at Icing on the Cake in Ocala, FL. :)

The 90th Birthday Cake

Here we have a lovely two-tier square cake that I made for a 90th birthday party. It's a red velvet cake with cream cheese filling, Italian meringue buttercream, and fondant accents. Oh, the bow on top is gumpaste. Wilton gumpaste, not Bakels, because I learned my lesson with that one (Bakels never dries hard enough. It's quite tragic, considering how much cheaper it is.)

And I got a chance to try out my airbrush machine again! You can't tell in the picture, but the gold is very shiny and metallic.

The idea came from a larger, four tier cake I found on Google Images when I was looking for inspiration. The only thing I really had to go on was a suggestion for gold & black accents, and white frosting. So that's what I did! I wanted this cake to be really special because turning 90 is really special too! 

I'm so honored to be able to help celebrate such a momentous occasion, and for such an incredible, kind-hearted person. And shout out to my roommate, Joy, for setting me up to make the cake and assisting me along the way! :D

New Toys!

So like I said yesterday, I bought an airbrush machine. And today I went back to Michael's and bought the new Wilton gumpaste flower kit (I have the old one already). While it's not as awesome as some of the gumpaste cutters I've used in the past (you know, like the awesome--and expensive--metal cutters) I'm still pleasantly surprised with what I got. Plus, I used a 40% off coupon, so it was a deal, and that makes me happy. I also bought the impression mat (and some cupcake boxes that were on clearance; no comment on my spending habits, please).

Anyway, I used the rose cutters first, just because I've had the most practice with roses and I've already done that whole learning curve thing. I need to learn how to make lilies (preferably before this weekend) but they don't look too difficult, so I'll save that for tomorrow or Wednesday.

But the real reason I played around with gumpaste flowers tonight (other than practicing for a wedding cakes this weekend) was so that I could finally try out my airbrush machine!

I bought some pearlized stuff (these are all technical terms, obviously) since I couldn't pick one color and all that (note to self: buy Americolor airbrush color 12 pack) but the pearl looks so gorgeous when I sprayed in on the flowers.

See what I mean?

Gorgeous! Not the best picture, I know, but can you see what I'm getting at? Anyway, it's way better than the time I tried to paint luster dust on flowers. And just think about how cool my snitch cake balls would've looked with gold airbrushed all over them?

Airbrush Machine!

So today I finally got the Duff airbrush machine that I've been talking about since July.  Finally!!

I can't believe the darn thing has been out of stock for so long, and I'm sure the employees at Michaels who answer the phone are tired of me asking all the time if they have it in yet. Over the weekend, though, I called 3 different stores and they all had it!!

(Insert obnoxious fangirl screaming here)

And the best part (other than actually owning an airbrush machine now)? They still took my coupon! I had a 50% coupon stapled to a raincheck I got from the Michael's back home with a note from the manager saying "please take this coupon" because, well obviously, I wanted to use it on something they claimed was in stock but really wasn't. (If that run-on sentence made any sense.) And 3 months later, the super nice employees at the Michaels in Florida hooked me up!

I also bought a pearl luster spray to use. I wasn't sure which colors to get, and at $5 each, they're a little pricey. I wonder if I can get the Americolor airbrush colors at a cheaper price and bundled together? (And if there's any place in Pasco county, FL that sells cake decorating supplies. The closest store I found was in the south Tampa area.) Also, can you use gel paste that's been watered down, with water or vodka or anything like that? I'm pretty sure that you can use luster dust/vodka mixed. Honestly, I don't know much about airbrushing but I'm so excited to learn. If you have any tips or suggestions or products I can use, let me know! I already found some really cool stencils in the paint aisle at Michaels that I want to get. There was a zebra pattern that would look wicked cool on the side of a cake.

Oh, the possibilities!!

Airbrushing

I'm seriously considering getting Duff's airbrush machine at Michael's. And by "seriously considering," I mean waiting until it's not on sale and I have a 50% off coupon [Because you can't use 50% off coupons for sale items, and the airbrush is 25% off this week or something. It's silly].

I know it's not a top-of-the-line airbrush, and it's certainly not the industrial sized one at work (more about that later), but I'm thinking it would be nice for an at-home, hobbyist decorator such as myself (I guess you could call me a hobbyist decorator...I'm not exactly a pro yet but certainly not a beginner). I doubt I'll use it very much, but I really would like the practice. A well done airbrushed cake looks awesome. A poorly done air brushed cake ends up on Cake Wrecks. *shudder*

And I did play around with the airbrush machine at work, which like I said, is a heavy duty machine. Unlike the little light-weight, portable device that Duff endorses, the one I used is huge and heavy and comes in multiple parts. First you have the air compressor (?), then the air hose, then this thing  (maybe I should learn the terminology?) which might give you the ability to hook up multiple airbrushes but I couldn't figure that part out, so I just used one hose at a time. Then the air brush part has a little tub for you to fill with color, and that's where the fun comes in! I hope my explanation makes sense, but if not, I totally understand if you just skipped to the end of this paragraph while scratching your head and wondering why I ramble on so much.

My first airbrushing attempt. I made flowers and butterflies and cornelli lace on the top tier. The bottom tier is supposed to be tie-dyed, I think. ;)

Ok. So for the actual airbrushing I played around with 2 dummy cakes, and it took me a while to get the pressure right and get the right amount of color, but eventually I got into the groove and was able to make thin lines or thick lines. And I tried to do a tie-dye look on one of the tiers...it looked alright. But then I found a stencil and some pearl airbrush spray stuff and stenciled on a design. This is what it looked like:

Kind of... cool, right? I know the crappy camera phone picture doesn't look too hot, but I promise the pink/purple/orange combo looked better in person. Now all I need to do is figure out how to get the stencil to stay steady on the cake, because I only have 2 hands and can only do so much. I welcome your suggestions!!! :)

So that was my first experience with an airbrush machine. What do you think? Is it worth my $65 investment? Should I get one?