Relief Society Commemoration Cake

I signed up to bring a cake for my ward's Relief Society Commemoration dinner this past week and having complete creative freedom I decided to try something I haven't done before: an open box cake. It turned out to be a little more time consuming than I anticipated (which is usually the case 99% of the time) but it came together right as I needed to leave. The cake was a Triple Chocolate with Mint Chocolate Chip Buttercream Frosting.

Miss Sophie's Tangled Tower

After Disney's Tangled came out I started hatching birthday cake ideas with a sweet little girl named Sophie for her 6th birthday. Well of course the decision was to make "The Tower". Talk about the most challenging cake of my life! I started weeks in advance and when it came down to crunch time I was up with my precious mom for about 36 hours straight trying to finish in time. What you see above is the final result. I have to honestly say I wish I would have had just a few more hours to tweak with the design and detail of the cake but it is what it is. Please allow me now to take you through the making of this tower.

 

(yep, 3:00 in the morning)

Did I happen to mention that I also brought the rest of the desserts you see: Cherry Cheesecake, Chocolate Chip Cookies and Black Bottom Cupcakes. (Thanks again for your help Mama!)

A Flamingo for the Flamenco

I've been a little MIA with the blog lately and not for lack of cakes, I've actually been vacationing in Hawai'i with my husband and his side of the family and haven't had a minute to post some pictures until now. It was so beautiful and warm...its hard to come back to reality (and cold Utah).
So the following cake is for a friend I work (or worked) with at Riverwoods Urgent Care (my full time job right now). We call her "Pink Bird on a Stick" because her last name is Flamenco (and now the cake will make more sense).  And instead of posting just the finished product I thought you all might like to see what this crazy cake making process is like. So the following is a series of the process, be prepared as there are a lot of pictures. Hope you enjoy!

Construction of the support for the cake, (thanks honey).

The head is made of styrofoam and covered in royal icing (trying to keep it as light as possible)

Don't you love her fake eyelashes!

Of course the cake requested was the Red Velvet with cream cheese frosting (horrible to try and carve but it worked out in the end).

Making the feathers.

Isn't that a cute tooshi.

Transporting this bird was horrible. I sat in back holding her neck and body from cracking and falling while my husband drove me to work.... would definitely need to re-think the design if I ever do a cake like this again.