Hula girl cake

I had a lots of fun creating this cake for my little girls birthday.  In case you missed my previous posts you can find the party here and my hula girl figure tutorial here.

I started the figure a week before so she'd be nice and firm by party time.

I usually bake my cake and make my frostings 3 days before the event.  The buttercream gets tastier and it helps break up my work.  Most of which is done in the wee hours to avoid little hands from my two year old terror cutie.

Cakecentral.com is a great resource for recipes, inspiration, and tips.  I've learned a TON from that site.  In a future post I'll show a quick tutorial on how to help get those layers even without sagging and having the seam where you layer your cakes visible.

Two days before the cake needed to be complete I made my flowers.  I wanted to create a hibiscus flower but found it hard to find a reasonably priced cutter so I decided to improvise.  I used one of the flower cutters that came in my wilton kit when I took classes last year.  They are plastic so they don't cut great but I made them work.

1. Roll out your fondant / gumpaste mix thin.  (50/50 mix)

2. Cut out your flower with your cutter.  Press very good around the outer and inner edges to get a clean cut.

3. Take your exacto and cut each petal in towards the center to make the petals thinner.

4. Place on foam pad that has been dusted with a cornstarch powder mix. Take your ball gumpaste tool and dip that in the mixture every petal or so to prevent it from sticking. You want to put pressure on the outside of the petal from one edge of the petal to the other. You can do this a few times to get the desired thinning and curling of the petal. I also pressed in a bit with the ball tool to help it curl up.

5. I then pinched the edges of the petals a bit.

6. Roll tear drop shaped pieces to place as the centers of the flower, attaching with tylose glue.  I used papertowel pieces to help some of them dry upwards.

7. Now lay to dry on petal tray to help them curve a bit.

8. I used pink pearl dust around the edges on the white flowers to add some color, sorry I didn't take a picture of the process.  Just use a dry paint brush to apply.

I was able to use my airbrush that my parents gave me for Christmas this past year.  It took me six months to build up the courage to try it out.  I had a cake the previous week I helped a friend with and planned to use my airbrush on that cake.  Around 8 pm the night before the cake was needed I realized I was missing a $3 adaptor to use the compressor.  We ended up using canned air brushing and the next day I placed the order for the part and spent $12 on shipping for that $3 adapter to make sure I had it in time for Adia's cake.

You get A LOT of overspray from these machines.  I was blowing blue out my nose for days. After walking into the house with a blue nose and teeth my husband found me a face mask.  Make sure you do this in an area you don't mind overspray and only use airbrush colors.

Cute aren't I with that mask =)

Doing a light coat and letting it dry and going back over it is the trick. Not too much pressure or too close. You can always go darker.

I decided to keep the design pretty simple.  I originally thought I'd try the royal icing brush embroidery I saw on my inspiration cake but that was a flop so I went with plan b.  I will say being flexible is necessary with caking.  Hey if I wanted cookie cutter I'd just go to my local supermarket.  Mistakes are what give it character.

I bought a cakeboard at my local cake shop and had my hubby put little wooden pegs on the bottom to help get my fingers under it when moving the cake.  Then I put wrapping paper on it and then trimmed it with ribbon.

I layered the cake using a technique called SPS (Single Plate System) that I found on cakecentral.

I took out my clay extruder and used the trefoil disc.  It looks like three circles put together.

I used the disc in 2nd row 2nd from left.

When you squeeze it through and then twist the string it looks like a rope when you are done.  That is what I used to hide the seem between the two tiers.

Then I placed flowers around the smaller tier and cascading down one side of that tier. I used the flower plunger set I mentioned in my hula girl figure tutorial for small flowers to decorate the smaller tier as well.  A couple more flowers placed on the bottom layer and it finished it off.  If I had to do it over again I'd only do the smaller flowers around the middle tier and just the cascading hibiscus flowers from the top tier to the bottom instead of having them placed around the second tier.

I'm linking up here this week

Hula girl figure

Last week I gave you a view into my daughter's hula girl party.  Here is a glimpse on how the hula girl figure came to be.  I have only made three other figures in the past so I'm not claiming to be an expert.  My first was Buzz for my son's Toy Story party last year. Be on the lookout for that party in a future post.

A spent a lot of time on you tube and googling, funny how that's a verb now? One of the first cake pros that I found was Mayen from Way Beyond Cakes by Mayen.  That is where I found my first recipe for marshmallow fondant.  She is so willing to share tips and tricks freely so check her out on facebook and you tube when you get a chance.  She has a figure video that I used to give me some guidance on my figure.

You really need to give yourself a number of days to do a figure properly.  I can be a procrastinator so I really tried hard to start a full week in advance to give the figure time to dry between steps.

Day One

Get a styrofoam block to stick your figure into.  I used bamboo skewers and dug them into the styrofoam.  You can make your sticks a little taller than you think because you can cut them down when you form your body.

I mixed up some fondant / gumpaste with americolor gel colors.  I use a 50 / 50 mix of store bought fondant and gumpaste. The stuff tastes terrible but it is consistent for figures. I used a mix of white, brown, and copper to get my desired skin tone.

Roll into a tube, like rolling a snake and then cut two equal pieces to keep your legs even.

Create the feet and then each leg.  Then place a little tylose glue (recipe below) to the stick where the feet and legs will go and put onto skewer.  Then I used an exacto knife (used ONLY for caking) to cut out the toes.  Use your finger to pinch and form the toes round because they will be pointy.

Then take your fancy tool from your gumpaste tool kit and with the skinnier side form little toenails.

Inspired from the original cake I painted the toenails and fingernails as well.  I took a paintbrush (again ONLY use on cakes) and put a drop off americolor gel coloring into a paint tray I purchased for about $1.  Adia LOVED this touch!

Now let the legs dry for a full day or two so they are nice and strong to support the torso and head.

While waiting for the legs to dry you can work on the head.  I watched this video for help along with a number of other fondant figure videos on you tube.

I'm sorry this section is lacking in pictures step by step.  Watching the video will fill in the gaps.

Form a ball and slightly taper a neck out of the bottom side.  I forgot this step on this figure so I formed the neck on the torso itself.  Then slightly push in where the eyes will go (video shows this good).  Now take a small piece of fondant / gumpaste and form a nose.  I tend to have issues with this step.  I am never happy with my noses. Form two little nostrils with a toothpick and then adhere with a dab of tylose glue.

To form the mouth use the back end of an icing tip.

Then use your gumpaste tool that you used for the toenails to open the mouth wider if that's the expression you choose.  You can choose to make little ears at this point if you'd like.  Most of the time they are covered by hair so it doesn't matter too much.

For the eyes I used tips #10 and #12 to cut the shapes out of the fondant after rolling it out thinly.  I glued the white and then the blue circles on top.

Then I used a thin paintbrush and black americolor gel to color eyelashes.  I used brown coloring to form the eyebrows.  I let the head dry in the flower former you saw above overnight.

Sorry no picture of this step before hair added.

Day Three

I created the torso and glued it on top of the legs into the skewers.

I created the top and skirt before placing the arms on.  I found a great tip that you can use a clay extruder to get those tiny thin strings for hair and the trimwork on my figure.  I purchased this extruder with a 40% off coupon.  I love that it has a number of discs for different looks.  ONLY use it for caking and NEVER with anything else.

I then did the skirt, which hid my seems between the legs and torso.  I didn't have a cutter in the shape I wanted so I just used my exacto to freehand the leaves.  I glued each piece individually with tylose glue.  Trimmed with the pink and now I was ready to add the arms.

To make the arms you will roll out a snake shape again and cut evenly.  Flatten the tips into a hand and use your exacto to cut out the fingers.  Soften the tips of the fingers with your fingers and use your tool to create fingernails.

Getting the arms on is tricky.  Cut the shoulder area at an angle to help it blend in flush on the torso.  You put a toothpick into the armpit / shoulder area, make sure to use tylose glue on both sides to secure it.  I put another toothpick into her stomach and in that arms wrist to secure the arm that came across her body.  Then I placed something tall enough to support the other arm while it dried.  Let her dry for a couple days before removing the support.

If you feel your figure isn't strong enough wait to add the head.  If it seems firm enough you can place glue on both sides of a toothpick and place into the torso and leave enough to go about halfway into the head.

I used the clay extruder to create the hair.  You start from the bottom up and then I created bangs.  Only place glue on the head a small section at a time so that you don't get it too gummy.

In the end I decided to add the flip flops.  I used an oval cutter for the bottoms and used the extruder to create the straps.  I found these great flower plungers to create the little flowers used.  I bought some plastic cutters and they were downright terrible.  The metal cutters are better and even better is the plunger feature that helps to plunge the little flower out intact.

I lifted the figure out of the styrofoam and pushed the skewer into the shoe and placed the figure back down on top of the shoes after I placed glue on them. The flowers around the wrists and ankles not only added to the charm but helped hide some imperfections.

There you have it a beautiful hula girl figure!

Tylose Glue Recipe
credit to Lorraine McKay as this is her recipe that I found on cakecentral.com

Add 2 tbs warm water to 1/4 tsp of Tylose Powder and leave the powder to melt.  Don't worry if at this stage the glue appears not to be blending.  Put a lid on the container and leave it in the refrigerator overnight and in the morning you will have a perfectly clear and ready to use glue.  The glue should be a dropping consistency.  If it is too thick, just add a little more water and stir with a cocktail stick.





I'm linking up with these blogs

Hula girl birthday party

I can't believe my little girl is already 7!  Where does the time fly?  I LOVE to plan my kids parties even though I tend to go over the top and rarely get to sleep before 3 am the night before.

I found this picture while on cakecentral.com a few months ago and after a little research found that her inspiration was from Birthday Express's Hawaiian Girl party line.  I warn you in advance if you love beautiful cakes you can spend hours drooling over the amazing creations people post.  My favorites folder is pages and pages long. We have been stationed in Hawaii and I LOVE all things Hawaiian (it makes me nostalgic) so I knew this had to be her theme.

I normally love to create homemade birthday party invites and thank you cards but these past few months were crazy busy so I made them on the computer this year instead.  I'm NO expert with photoshop so don't look too closely.  I copied an image from the internet of the plates and cut out the hula girl and hibiscus flower.  I emailed copies to most people and printed a few of these 5x7 cards to put in her scrapbook.

I created a banner with scrapbook paper, ribbon, and my KNK cutter to cut the letters out.  I found a lot of  Hawaiian themed items at the dollar store.  I bought the hibiscus flowers, beach sign, and paper lanterns.  I love the touch my husband added to the table by adding our favorite picture of our new family right after she was born.  She's our little miracle that we tried over 5 1/2 years for and this picture captured our awe and joy so well.

We also had a pool party earlier in the day at our swim club with just a few friends so we kept decorations pretty simple and I decided to just do cupcakes. I was afraid the fondant on the cake would melt in the hot sun.

I used photoshop to create the cupcake toppers and then my KNK digital cutter to cut the pink scalloped circles.  A little glue and a toothpick with some 1M star tip swirls and you look like you took hours to decorate.

I found the tiki torches at Walmart and thought they not only added to the atmosphere but worked out great as table weights.  A pink tub from the dollar spot at Target added a nice burst of color and was a great chip bowl.

If any of you are like me you can do without all the little goodie bag trinkets that end up broken in the car ride home.  I decided to give something that the girls could use over and over again.  I am LOVING my embroidery machine and my favorite thing to use it for is machine applique.  There are a number of great sites to buy digitized designs from. One of my favorites is Planet Applique. Another warning if you own an embroidery machine, this site is HIGHLY addictive.  I bought the hibiscus file from her to create these fun giveaways.

The towels were on sale at Target for $3.75 so they were reasonably priced, pretty easy, and best of all functional!

Be on the lookout for some tips and tricks I used while decorating the cake, fondant topper, and cupcakes in my next post.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cake flops to pops

So here is my first attempt at cake pops AKA my cake flops

Sad isn't it?  I thought I'd read and re-read all the directions needed but still came up short.  They melted, fell through their sticks, and overall just looked terrible.  In between baking, decorating, and then delivering 5 dozen cupcakes for an engagement party I made an emergency trip to our local cake shop, had to bake another cake and was then up till 12:30 in the morning working on round two.

Here are the steps I took, along with tips that I learned from my caketastrophy.  (Yes it's a word in the caking world, LOL)

1. My friend Dawn found (from her google searches) to put your cake into your mixer and use the paddle attachment to crumble it.

2. Add SMALL amounts, I do mean SMALL amounts of frosting to your crumbles until you get a thicker, NOT sticky mixture that holds together when you try to roll into a ball.

3. Let dough mixture sit out for about 30 minutes before working with it.

4. Now get a cookie scoop to make your balls.  Roll into ball shape and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

5. Freeze for ONLY 15 minutes.  Do not freeze for hours on end as they will look like the picture at the top of this post.

 

6. Slowly melt your candy melts in the microwave in very short intervals after the initial 30 seconds.  Your chocolate will seize if you heat too quickly and you'll be near tears when this happens.  Then you'll need to make another trip to your cake supply store to buy more candy melts.  My first attempt was with my double boiler, I think the steam came up from the sides and seized my chocolate.  ANY water, even small, will seize your chocolate.

Or better yet buy yourself a fancy chocolate melting pot when you get your next 40% off coupon, it's on my wish list after this fiasco.

*tip
If you are coloring your candy melts you MUST add something called Flo Coat from Americolor if you want to use your regular gel pastes.  You use 5 parts of it to 1 part of your coloring.  Again tears will be had if you do not use this correctly as this will also cause your chocolate to seize.  I've learned these candy melts are a finicky thing to work with.

*another great tip
The cake shop recommended something called Paramount Crystals.  I added it to my candy melts and it helped to thin out the mixture to get that nice viscosity I was looking for when dipping.  She said the colored and even white candy melts tend to have a thicker consistency.

7. Take your cake balls out to rest a few minutes before working with them.

8. Dip your popsicle stick into the candy melt mixture and then stick in about half way into the cake ball.  Then place stick into a styrofoam block that you pre-poked holes in.  I found it easier to let them dry a minute or two before dipping again.

First using double boiler, not good to use!

9. Then, making sure your melted mix is deep enough, dip your cake ball into the mixture all the way and lightly tap to remove excess.  Watch Bakerella's video on amazon to see her in action.

10. Place in styrofoam to dry.  I chose to decorate with swirls and wiggles so I placed some melted chocolate in a piping bag and used a #3 tip to do the swirls after the orange color had dried.  I used a coupler so that I could remove the tip and re-heat as needed.  I found it easier to let the mixture firm a bit to have better control of my swirls.

Well, there you have it.  I'm by no means an expert but practice sure does help.

I made these for my daughter's dance recital this past weekend, their colors are orange and blue.  They needed two dozen of something and I thought it'd be a great way to use up my cake crumbs I save from leveling my cakes.  My husband made a stand for me and I spruced them up with some blue and orange ribbon.  I was so excited that they were a huge hit!

Teacher tote bag

Here is a quick and easy end of year teacher gift.

You will need

tote bag
fabric transfer paper
Scanned picture
iron

My daughter graduated from pre-school a couple years ago and this is what I made and her two teachers LOVED them.  I scanned her class pictures and printed on fabric transfer paper.  She attended a Christian school so I used a scripture on the bottom of one side of the bag and another saying I came up with on the other.

Some tips for fabric transfer paper.
Do not use steam
Iron on a hard surface
Most importantly, print your image MIRRORED!

*I could not get this to work in word because I didn't like any of the wordart options.  After much research I found you can use microsoft paint.  Create your wording and then under rotate choose "flip vertical". You will want to do this with your scanned image as well.  Some printers have a mirror print option however I couldn't find it with my canon printer.

Everyone loves to be green so a tote bag is a great and easy gift.