Clever Cake Studio

This little fella was for a young man’s birthday. It’s a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting. For a tastier result, I used marzipan (a sweet almond paste) rather than fondant for the scales, which were just individually shaped by hand and applied. You can get a more refined look by rolling out and cookie-cutting smaller circles, but I didn’t mind the more imperfect cartoony look for this one. I made little wings as well, probably the only thing distinguishing it from a dinosaur. The eyes and claws are fondant, simply because I wanted them to be very white, and marzipan is that light beige-almond color.

I brushed on silver luster dust to give it that fantasy shimmery look. If you mix luster dust with a tiny bit of grain alcohol, you get an edible metallic paint, which would be another way to go for a bigger wow.

How are these for cute baby shower cupcakes? The new mom and dad are both geeks and gamers, and babies are both adorable and delicious, so pikmin seemed a perfect choice.

The cake is a simple vanilla-almond with simple whipped icing. The pikmin themselves are made of marzipan, which is a nice sweet almond paste. It’s easy to mold, doesn’t dry hard, and is much more tasty than fondant (no matter how much flavoring you try and add).

The pikmin were a process to make. I had originally intended on them being much, much smaller and then ‘burying’ them into the center of the cupcake (digging a hole for them to fit) so that just their ’stems’ would be showing. It would be very true to the game, but I’d have to put floral wire in the stems to keep them upright. I didn’t want to put anything inedible in them, so I tried this instead. Ended up being fun to give them all some personality (for plantlike drones).

I used the same cake recipe I had been using for the past several cakes, which is a middle ground between standard cake and pound cake, so it’s denser and better able to withstand sculpting or the weight of tiers. In a slice of cake, you don’t always notice that, but in a cupcake, it stood out. But it was complimented, people liked that it was a richer, firmer cake. Coolness.

This was a small cake done for a friend, who commissioned it as an anniversary surprise for his wife. The cake inside is vanilla with a pale orange cream filling. Their wedding colors had been deep and light purple (lavender and lilacs), very classic and clean.

The design is pretty straightforward and simple: two tiers of square cake covered in icing and white fondant with twined ‘rope’ and flowers, all fondant. Then on top, a white box, within he hid another present to her, some custom jewelry. Seriously! How sweet is that?

This cake was made for a boy turning 6 years old, and was probably came with one of the most rewarding responses I’ve ever had: jaws dropped and eyes wide, he and his other friends were totally awed and happy about it. It has lots of little details, I tried to keep adding more and more and even wish I had done some others things. But it was a lot of fun to make.

The cake is vanilla dyed blue, with chocolate frosting. The blue fishies are marzipan (the kids really loved them) and the rest of the decorations are fondant. I used some silver and gold luster dust, and sprayed here and there with some blue to add some dimension (I used the can you can buy at the grocery store, nothing really technical). Then mixed up some blue shades and tints of green in some dairy icing (very whipped cream tasting) on the tray to increase the water presence.

This sweet thing was a mini cake for a coworker, as a surprise to his wife on her birthday. They have two calico cats, so I made marzipan miniatures. I’m told the likeness was pretty decent. It was really, really nice to do something sweet and simple after several progressively harder (and larger) cakes.

This is a vanilla cake with raspberry preserves inside, and a whipped icing covering it with fondant flowers and butterflies. As mentioned, the kitties are marzipan, with fondant eyes. The layering and decorating of this probably took a few hours - I was watching reruns of Scrubs and Family Guy while working on it.