"So, do you want me to make a cake for Luca's birthday party?" -Me
"Sure!" -Danesa
"What kind of cake should I make?"
"Something like a skull and cross bones."
"Um, I meant what flavor..."
"Oh, doesn't matter, but lots of frosting. And a skull and cross bones."
"Okay...I'll, uh, work on that."
I was scared. I love making cakes. I love trying new recipes, new frostings. But...I am not much of a cake decorator. The extent of my cake decorating is seeing just how smooth I can get the frosting on the sides of the cake and then maybe putting another little poof of frosting on top. Fancy. Yeah.
Don't get me wrong, ever since I saw Cake Boss I have been dying to get my hands on some fondant, but, I do not think of myself as a creative person. So the thought of rolling out dough-like frosting and turning it into something super cool and artsy has intimidated the living hell out of me. So, instead I have just had a wild crush on it. A crush I am too scared to approach and actually talk to. I have just admired this fondant from afar, hoping someday I have the nerve to go say hello. Saturday was that day.
To prepare myself for this adventure I went to Michael's and perused their baking aisles; which means I threw every single thing that looked interesting into my cart and bought it. Hey, if I am going to do this, I am going to do it big!
I settled on black frosting dye, white fondant, edible frosting markers, and a felt skeleton mask that I could use as a stencil. I am happy to report that I used all of it. I will skip the gory details of assembling the cake and skip right to the fun stuff...
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I rolled the fondant out on a counter dusted with powdered sugar and then traced the skeleton mask on the fondant with edible markers. I then cut everything out with the tip of a sharp knife. I flipped the skull over so my markings wouldn't show, drew in a few skull cracks, some teeth and -- WA-LA! A skeleton head! I just winged the crossbones and drew them free hand.
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| TA DA! |
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| A happy birthday boy! |
I have no idea why I was so scared. This cake was SO FUN to make. I'm still not willing to admit yet that I have any creativity in my bones...but I am hoping it will start to creep in, because I could have some fun with this!
We partied like pirates and had an awesome time. Happy 4th birthday Mr. Luca!!
Strangely enough, Mace was half way across the country celebrating another pirate birthday with another awesome 4 year old. Happy #4 to you too Mr. Finn! Love you to crazy little pieces!
What is a pirate's favorite kind of beer? PB Arrrrrrgh!
What is a pirate's favorite kind of sock? Arrrrrghyle!
What does a pirate drive? A Carrrrrrrrgh!
And on and on...
Hope you had an awesome weekend! Happy Monday!
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ReplyDeleteI love it! Stayed a few minutes late so I could read this entry. :) Great job on your first fancy cake! My BFF Beck does AMAZING cakes (I know you saw the redneck reception tiered one she made use), and her superbowl turf chunk was my favorite of all time - let me show you pictures!). Next time they visit I'll hook you guys up. Such a cool talent to develop in yourself! If you need anyone to eat the "practice" cakes count me in! :) kate
ReplyDeleteThis is great! You did a wonderful job! I bet the birthday boy was so happy when he saw that cake :) I know I would be!
ReplyDeleteWow, what a fun cake! I have zero skills at decorating, frosting is all out for me (mostly because I don't like it much), but like you I think it's the coolest thing. We had two people in my department that took a cake decorating class and always brought in their works the next day, so pretty!
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful. Great cake.
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday to Luca! You did a great job on the pirate cake. I just bought some fondant to and have never used it. Nice to see that it as not as difficult to deal with as I thought. Great post!
ReplyDeleteWow, this looks great! Especially for a first time using fondant. I'm too afraid to try fondant.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great pirate cake! I haven't used fondant yet. I want to because it looks fun to work with, but I don't really like the taste of it. I like what you did here because it's not a ton of fondant. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteLol! The cake looks great!!! You inspired me, I think I'll give fondant a chance (I've always felt intimidated by it)
ReplyDelete@Tina, Jenn, Stephanie & Ruth--I was super intimidated too, but it ended up being a ton of fun and the fondant is pretty forgiving. If you screw up you can just ball it up and roll it out over and over again until you get the results you were looking for. You can do it! Have fun ladies!
ReplyDelete@Stephanie--I don't like the taste either, I just picked the fondant part off and ate the rest!