Threadcakes 2011 … the rest of the story

 

"You're the cake decorator who said it was possible. I'm the kid with the high hopes. If we don't succeed, it's all on you."

That was my niece's comment when I was practically positive that I'd finally over-reached what I knew how to do with cake. I could easily picture all of our hours of work coming crashing down around us. Who really thought it was a good idea to say yes to making a cake with minimal support structure, that had the largest cake on the top, and that needed to look like the cakes were pointed at the bottom? Seriously, what had I been thinking?

Oh right. I remember. It's for a contest and I didn't what my niece to be disappointed. There's a long history of Aunt Karen making crazy cakes for my nieces' birthdays. I don't get to do it as often any more, but the tradition is still there. How could I not say yes when she took my suggestion seriously that we make her birthday cake together this year and make it an entry for Threadcakes 2011?

If you've never heard of Threadcakes, you should definitely check out the gallery on their website. There are some ridiculously amazing and complicated cakes that have been inspired by on printed Threadless t-shirts. My niece is a huge fan of their t-shirts. There were five new shirts already waiting at our house when she arrived this summer. She'd hunted through their designs, and picked Well Seasoned as her favourite. I knew it would be a challenge, but I had no idea how many hours of work or batches of cake, buttercream, rice krispies and fondant it was going to take.

We'd originally talked about making it on a small scale, but that was before we had figured out what we were going to use for our structure. A trip to the local Michaels store resulted in the purchase of a Wilton stand that used 10, 12 and 14 inch cakes. Suddenly the cake was getting much larger and that meant more rice krispie treats to attach to the bottom. There's no question that decision caused us some issues. I did learn a lot about working with rice krispie treats in cake decorating ... even if most of it was from learning what not to do first. Isn't that how all the best lessons are learned?

It might still be an understatement when I say that both of us were utterly exhausted by the time we were taking the final pictures. I wrote up our entry, sorted through all the pictures we'd taken to find the best ones to show the whole creation and eating process, then it was time to upload our photos and submit our entry. After looking at all the amazing 3D entries for 2011, we didn't think we had a chance of being in the top 5.  We had laughed a bunch along the way that Kerry Vincent (from Food Network Challenge) would not have approved of our technique, but we were proud of what we had accomplished.  If you’re curious, there are about 30 photos and lots more detail about the process in our Threadcakes entry.

After the winners were announced ... including several of our favourites ... they decided that a finalist banner would be added to all entries that had received at least one vote from the judging panel. The eleven judges all submitted a list of their top ten cakes. Imagine our surprise and our joy when we discovered that out of 190 3D entries, our creation was one of 35 3D finalists!

Crazy though it may be, we've already talked about making a Threadcake next year too. What can I say? The adventure was worth the exhaustion and the memories will last a lifetime.

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 =)

Cupcake Cakes & a Happy Birthday Panda!

I've decided I'm a big fan of icing a bunch of individual cupcakes like it’s really one large cake. Quick to cool and no crumb coat required – that makes them a perfect option for a cake decorating adventure that fits into a single evening.

 

 

You can go for something straightforward like a circle of cupcakes that becomes a pizza or a truck tire. A few strategically placed Oreo cookies between the Cookies 'n' Cream cupcakes added structure in places where the gap between cupcakes was too wide to ice over. Who’s going to complain about icing on a cookie?  Nobody at my workplace apparently.

While my recent adventure that led to the truck tire reminded me of how much fun cupcake cakes can be, my favourite cupcake adventure is thanks to Grace, the younger of my two nieces, who turns 16 today. Most Julys, she comes to spend the month with us which means I still get to make her a birthday cake.  A couple of years back, she decided that we would make her birthday cake together using a new “toy” from Wilton – Animal Puzzle Cakes Silicone Build-A-Cake Set – that I hadn't been able to resist purchasing.

There was much discussion and planning about what we could create using the three-quarter moon, diamonds, triangles and round silicone cupcake forms. Yoshi was high on the list, but the winner was Rice, an adorable panda created by my friend Christine at Crumpled Paper. Grace's birthday present had included a hand-drawn card and an fabulous blue monster puff that Christine had graciously made.

The basic bear shape was carefully adapted to make a panda and the extras forms became a present.

Only problem, none of us really wanted to eat Rice.

It seemed a little mean ... definitely a potential hazard when a cake takes the shape of a favourite character!  Hmm, …I seem to recall a similar concern when I made a Winnie the Pooh character cake for Grace’s second birthday. =)

Happy Birthday Grace! I can't believe you're already 16 ... and I can't wait till you get here this summer so we can share another cake adventure creating this year's birthday cake.

HUGS =)

Cross-Stitch and Buttercream?

I first learned to cross-stitch back in the eighties. It was so much more flexible than the needlepoint that I'd learned to do in the seventies ... Wow! I'm really dating myself here. Somewhere around the same time, I first started to teach myself how to decorate cakes based on my gleanings from a 1974 Wilton Cake Decorating Yearbook that lived on the shelf with my mom's recipe books. Never would I have imagined that two of my favourite hobbies could actually be joined together. One can't help but get a bit messy at times, and the other should ALWAYS be kept far away from sweet, sticky things ... unless you decide to trade in your floss for an icing bag with a really fine tip and your cloth for a cake covered in fondant. Add in a cross-stitch pattern that just happened to be on the bib I'd purchased to cross-stitch as a gift for the same baby shower for which I was thrilled to be making a cake and you've got great cake inspiration ... As long as you're crazy enough to think cross-stitching with buttercream sounds like fun. This blog post does come with the warning that mixing these two hobbies is not for the faint of heart. Consider yourselves warned =D

To celebrate the pending birth of her first grandchild, my friend Lynn asked if I would make a cake for the baby shower. I couldn't resist. I knew how excited she was about the little one's arrival and she'd already been a great source of encouragement on my cake decorating adventure.  She’s the same one who got me started making goodies for work and who needed the Scrabble cake for a friend’s birthday.

I'd seen the idea of cross-stitching on fondant when we’d been looking through books for inspiration with a cake decorating class I'd taken several years ago. I can remember thinking it looked gorgeous, but who would be crazy enough to do that for a cake! It’s one thing to do that kind of detail work on a piece of cloth that will likely be kept for a long time, but on something edible, that will be eaten in less time than you spend creating it? That seemed ridiculous. It still does, but doing the ridiculous and making realistic looking things out of cake and icing is exactly what I love best about cake decorating. You just need to make sure you take lots of pictures to remember the moment while it lasts.

The mom-to-be liked elephants and they found their way into practically every part of the shower. I’m pretty certain I did actually squeal in the craft store when I discovered that the bib I needed to buy for my planned cross-stitched gift came with a pattern for dancing elephants.  Combine that with an idea that our manager had seen in a magazine to make a onesie out of cake and I had to try the crazy idea of cross-stitching with buttercream. 

Add some blue strips of fondant marked to look like stitching to make the bias tape edgings and some stars and hearts for to make an overall pattern and you’ve got a onesie … good thing it was for a baby boy since the shoulders are pretty broad.  Football player anyone?

If I’m ever crazy enough to cross-stitch in buttercream again, I’d make the icing an even thinner consistency.  It’s a lot of fine piping and the combination of icing that was a little too stiff and a very tired hand meant that the detail was not as clean as I imagined in my head.  The end result looked more like stamped cross-stitch than my preferred counted cross-stitch, but …

… when you pair it up with the matching bib, the combination was everything I’d hoped for.

It’s hard to believe, but Lynn’s grandson turns one today. 

Happy Birthday Cutie Pie!

Can’t wait to see you and celebrate you on Friday.  HUGS!

Friends, farewells and Devil Ducks

A wonderful WyzWmn commented on my most recent cake adventure and I was reminded of two adventures that she inspired long before I started chronicling my forays into cake decorating. The first one made a brief appearance on a post about piping gel transfers, but it rates a second visit as thank you to a very special woman.

Back in the day, she was my team lead at a call centre for a large American cell phone company. Our team had recently lost a contest due to a weird twist in the rules. We were all feeling pretty frustrated by the situation because the whole team had worked so hard and felt our defeat was unfair. Being the WyzWmn that she is, our team lead decided we needed to celebrate what we had accomplished even though we didn't win the prize. She bought us pizza and I made a cake featuring our team's mascot that another member had drawn. We'd all still tell you the same thing the cake said that day ... Devil Ducks Rock!

Much to our sadness, eventually our fearless leader announced that she would be leaving for a new job. We debated a cake with a picture of the Pickle (her green three-wheeled motorcycle) but back then I couldn't find anyone local to print on edible paper. So, instead, we collected a list of our favourite WyzWmn sayings, and I wrote them all over the cake.

While the words on that cake might not mean anything special to someone who wasn't a Devil Duck; for us, they are reminders of so many moments that made us laugh in the midst of a crazy job.

The call centre is long since closed and we've all moved on to new places and jobs, but I'm certain I'm not the only one who still has their devil duck sitting where it's a constant reminder of what we learned from a very WyzWmn.

Thanks my friend. I want to be just like you when I grow up.