Disco Birthday Cake. Disco ball is lemon chiffon cake filled with lemoncurd

buttercream. Green tier is white cake filled with lemoncurd buttercream and blue tier is chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream. All is covered with colored vanilla marshmallow fondant.

This week's cake was a challenge. Humidity can make fondant very hard to work with so with the rain in Northern California this week I was challenged to the point of frustration. Add in the fact that the can of silver food coloring spray malfunctioned and suddenly I had to handpaint all those tiles..well, it was a frustrating day. BUT, if you keep with it, keep your patience, take needed breaks and come back to the project then you will be able to finish it and have it make you happy.

The secret of this week's cake was supposed to be the silver spray on food coloring but since it didn't work and I had to handpaint them all I don't really have a "secret" to share. So I'll share a tip instead. When working with fondant that you want to stand up, like the stars and numbers, you want to make sure you assemble the pieces a few days ahead of time so that the fondant has time to set up. If you try to do this last minute the stars would just flop right over. So I cut out two of everything using cookie cutters and, using water to adhere the pieces together, I sandwiched the two pieces together with a stir stick in between. Then I let them dry for two days. The stars are grey fondant that I then painted silver after they were totally dry. The numbers were painted with white sparkly luster dust mixed with a bit of vodka to a paint like consistancy. So there you go...if you want to make cute little pieces to stand up on your cakes or cupcakes it just takes a little planning ahead!

Speaking of cupcakes! This week is our annual Halloween Party and I have cupcakes to design and make..wish me luck! I have made cupcakes before for our Halloween Party so I have to come up with something completely new for this year. Cupcakes are always a challenge for me since you have this tiny canvas to work on. I'm making mini cupcakes this year so the canvas is even smaller!LOL! So, yes, wish me luck and I'll post the results next week!

Cat