More Domesticity

Recently I've been a little interested in cakes. Or cake decorating. Mostly because 4 of my children's birthdays are within 4 weeks of each other. (Not a good idea, if you're wondering.) Anyway, instead of just running to the store and buying a cake, I decided to make them. I'm not sure what got into me, but it was fun.

Here they are in order.

Jordan's cake was my first attempt. She wanted a paw print cake. This is what I came up with. The purple's a little blah, and the crumbs drove me crazy! (I had yet to learn about crumb frosting. Basically you frost the cake to catch all the crumbs. Then 10 minutes later you frost it again, and voila, there are no more crumbs. Of course you should also start with a frozen cake.) But Jordan was really happy with it. And so was I (except for the crumbs).

Then came Jackson's cake. (He wanted a Spiderman cake but I was too cheap to buy the cake pan. So he got a Cars cake instead.)

I searched online and took a couple of different ideas I found and combined them into one cake. I think it turned out great. I still had the crumb problem, but since all the white frosting got covered, you can't tell. Yeah! I did learn that it is helpful to have two batches of frosting - one for frosting the cake, and a stiffer batch for decorating the cake. The grass didn't look too good in real life because my frosting wasn't stiff enough. But you can't tell in the picture. :)

Madison opted for cheesecake. Thank goodness! By the time her birthday rolls around we are sick of birthday cake. I searched online and found this wonderful recipe for white chocolate raspberry cheesecake. Yum!

Sadly the picture does not do it justice, or so I am told. (My diet prohibited me from eating any of this cheesecake.) But reliable sources told me it was very good. I will be definitely making this one again!

Finally it came to McKenna's birthday. I had been toying with the idea of attempting a fondant cake, and after the previous successes I decided to go for it. Here's what I came up with. (Again, this was a combination of a few different cakes I found online.)

Once again, the picture does not do it justice. It was A LOT of hard work but I LOVED the end result. And I learned a lot. I'm definitely attemping this again. But there are a few changes I will make:

1. I will not attempt to make a fondant cake the day after I finish canning jam (see previous post.)

2. I will make and freeze the cake several days in advance.

3. I will make and refrigerate the fondant several days in advance.

4. Instead of making one big batch of fondant and then breaking it into smaller batches to color, I will make several small batches and incorporate the color as I go. (Coloring fondant after it is already made takes a long, long time.)

5. I will buy more cake decorating tools. Hopefully at garage sales. :)

Now I just have to decide what kind of cake to make for Kennedy's birthday!

And if anyone knows an inexpensive way I can improve my indoor pictures, PLEASE let me know. (I'm sure it's all lighting.)