Birthday Celebrations

I first taught myself to decorate cakes from pouring over a 1974 Wilton yearbook that my mom kept on her recipe shelf.  I’m not really sure why she had it.  They got married in 1963 so it wasn’t from deciding on her wedding cake and cake decorating has never really been her “thing”.  Don’t get me wrong, she a fabulous baker and I would have her Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake with Raspberry Jam filling and Apple Icing any day of the week.  Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.  It’s still my only choice for my birthday cake!  Whatever reason caused it to be there, I’m so grateful.  I found that book intriguing.  Back before there were Wilton classes available at the local craft store or before you could purchase any combination of cake decorating supplies and icing in several places in town. I taught myself how to make royal icing and make color-flow pieces to use on cakes.  I even learned how to make fondant from scratch from that yearbook.  Cake decorating was a lot of fun and I even wondered about making it a business.

Then my brother got married and I gained a fabulous niece who was almost two.  Her second birthday party was all about 101 Dalmatians and her Mom decided that she would rent a puppy dog pan and decorate it to look like Lucky, Holly’s favourite puppy.  I volunteered to do the decorating and I remember my brother sneaking quietly into her room late at night to snitch her Lucky stuffie so that we could make sure the spots matched up perfectly.  I haven’t found a picture of that cake.  I’m sure one exists somewhere, but that cake deserves a mention here because Karen’s Cake Adventures wouldn’t exist without it.  The joy that cake brought made me fall in love with cake decorating and started a tradition of Aunt Karen decorating crazy birthday cakes for her two amazing nieces.

It’s hard to believe, but today, Holly turns 21.  I don’t get to see her that often and it’s been a lot of years since I’ve been able to make her birthday cake, but I am super proud of her.  She’s an amazing young woman and she’s worked hard to make her dream of becoming a chef come true. 

It seemed only fitting to dedicate this post to her.  I’ve sprinkled it with old photos of the birthday cakes that followed Lucky: a Carousel ice cream cake for a circus theme birthday party, a puppet theatre cake to match the puppet theatre her Dad and her Poppa made just for her, and a magic pink castle cake for a princess theme. 

By the way, I don’t recommend asking a 6 year old what a castle cake should look like.  I made that “mistake” and was told “It should be pink and sparkly.  There should be a dragon and the queen should be in her garden picking flowers.”  YIKES!  Guess when I learned how to make fondant? 
Looking back at the pictures now, I’ll admit I cringed a bit.  I had so much fun making them, but I was completely self-taught.  I’ve taken 4 Wilton classes since then and decorated a lot more cakes.  My skill level has changed and when I first looked at the pictures I didn’t want to share them.  I could see all the flaws and knew all the things I would now do differently or with more skill. 

But then I looked at my niece’s face she saw the cakes and I remembered the joy of those moments.  That’s the part that matters.  When her eyes would go wide with surprise and I’d get a great big hug because she loved her cake … that’s what makes the time you invest in decorating a cake worth it … that’s why it’s okay to watch it get devoured and to see all the hard work eaten in a matter of moments. 

Those are memories that last a lifetime … and just maybe, they helped her find her path to being a chef.  I’m proud to say that for her seventh birthday I bought Holly her very first decorating set and we used it to make a bear cake together!
Happy Birthday Bear!  I love you forever =)

Piping Gel might not taste great but...

... it's a life saver when you want to add some detailed graphics to a cake.

Since there aren't any new cakes planned for at least the next couple of weeks, I thought I'd add some old ones that are favourites using the same technique that allowed me to get a reasonbly accurate map of British Columbia highways onto a cake a few weeks ago.

When I took the Level 1 Wilton class, I thought the idea of using piping gel to transfer a pattern was a little bit silly.  The pattern they suggested using it for was a very simple rainbow on a round cake, not exactly rocket science or even much of a challenge.  Of course, it's normally considered a good idea to try learning a new technique on something simple but I've never been good at that as far as crafty things are considered.  When your first project cross-stitching on linen is a large Paula Vaughan design stitched for a friend's wedding, or learning hardanger while making a christening gown for another friend, or making my first real sweater knitted in the round with a pattern around the yoke, I guess you could say I get bored easily, or that I like a challenge. 

Given all the dragon books, she'd been reading,
the book cake pan was the obvious choice. 

While I didn't actually try doing the rainbow transfer, Wilton does have a straightforward explanation of the technique that might be helpful if you haven't seen this before.  The first time I decided to use the technique was for my niece's birthday cake.  She was turning 11 and had fallen in love with dragons through a variety of dragon-related books.  After hunting far and wide for an image that could form the basis of her cake, I actually ended up using Herald, a dragon from a Teresa Wentzler cross-stitch pattern. 



Piping gel and some edible glitter
worked pretty well for his crystal ball.

The combination of the pattern being designed to allow the stitcher to pick their own colours and a dragon searching out the future seemed the perfect combination.  One of these days, I should actually send in a picture of my dragon to add to the stitcher submitted versions on the website.  I suppose I could have "cross-stitched" the dragon onto the cake, but that's a story for another day.  This blog entry is about fun with piping gel transfers.

One my other favourites experiences using this technique was a cake for the team I worked with at a call center.  For eight hours a day, our team, known as the Devil Ducks, answered calls from business customers for an American cell phone company.  Definitely not the best job in the world, but thanks to a great team lead and a good bunch people to work with, we managed to have a lot of fun.  

 

Devil Ducks still rock!



One of our team members loved to draw and he created a super hero version of our team mascot (a little red rubber duck with black horns that sometimes rode around on top of our team lead's head).  When it was time for a celebration for our team, I volunteered to make a cake and we decided our Devil Duck had to be front and center.  I don't know what I would have done without the piping gel transfer!