2 MORE CAKES

Here is Veronica's Cake. Buttercream with fondant floral garland

This is my own wedding cake I made myself back in 2005. They are individual cheese cakes with fondant bows. Delicious!

CRICUT CAKE

Okay, so I just found out about this crazy cool machine by Cricut. You can roll out your gumpaste onto this mat and stick it into this machine. It will cut letters, designs and much more for you. It's sooooo cool. I'm in love with this machine!!!!

DECORATING TIP #2

It can be a challenge to get a really smooth finish to your cake. One tip that might be helpful is crumb coating. Basically you are going to frost your cake with a very thin layer of your frosting. Use an offset spatula. It works best. I like to clean off my spatula evertime I go to put more frosting on it. I simple use a bowl to scrape off the edge of the spatula. This will ensure that you do not get any crumbs into your unused frosting. Once you have put on a very thin layer (you will be able to see your cake through the frosting a little bit), go ahead and refrigerate it for 30 minutes. This will allow the frosting to harden just a bit and the crumbs will remain in this layer of frosting and not in your final layer.

LEAH THE BALLERINA

My sister-in-law, Leah is in dance. She has been doing this for years and a few years back, she made to point. This cake was made to celebrate her great accomplishment! The dress is made by wrapping different colors of fondant around the cake. Then I sculpte the figure out of fondant.

LAUREN

This was Lauren's birthday cake. She loves animal print, so I came up with the idea to paint zebra stripes all over the cake. Both the leaves and elephant are made out of fondant.

EMILY'S SWEET 16

A coworker of mine had asked me to make this cake for her daughter's sweet sixteen birthday. She loves music from all eras. There are edible records all over the cake and hand-painted musical notes.

decorating tip #1

To create the flat top you see on professionally decorated cakes, take the cake out of the pan and, using a long bread knife, slice off the rounded part of the cake. Then flip the cake over onto your serving tray so that the bottom now becomes the top. You will have a perfectly flat top to your cake to which you can decorate to your hearts content. You can layer this cake by slicing your flat cake in half. But always use the bottom of your baked cake as the top. This will also help control the crumbs when you go to frost your cake.