Lemon chifffon cake filled with lemoncurd buttercream. Covered

in handpainted marshmallow fondant and trimmed

with fondant candy pirate coins.

All edible except center coin, keys and cake topper.

Happy Sunday! This was a busy week for me. Lots of baking went on in the kitchen followed up with a whole lotta decorating! First up is the Mickey Pirate Cake. The rum cask is made up of handpainted "wood" panels trimmed in edible gold painted straps. The coins were the fun part of this project. Planned months in advance I was able to pick up certain items when we visited Disneyland in April in order to make this cake work. The cake topper is actually a frame. I simply removed the plastic photo holder and replaced with with the handpainted scroll. The coins were made from fondant circles that were embossed using the collectors pin in the center of the cake. Once they were embossed they were allowed to dry overnight then sprayed with edible gold paint, allowed to dry another day before handpainting them to bring out the texture of the embossing. The "sand" is just ground up graham crackers. Normally I'd use ground up animal crackers because they look more like sand to me but I wanted the color of the grahams this time. The real "secret" to this cake is how it's baked. I used two small 2 cup pyrex cups from Pampered Chef to bake the cake in. These are made for baking so check first to make sure yours can hold up to the heat of the oven. Once they are fully baked you can trim off the dome and then invert one upon the other. You do need support for every 4 inches so put a piece of cake board inbetween and dowels in the lower section. I even put a long dowel into the top going all the way to the bottom for more stability. This worked in two ways...it gave more stability and helped hold up the topper! To cut a cake like this you simply remove any extra embellishments and then seperate the layers. It was a real hit with the birthday guy!

Dark Chocolate Cake fill with Raspberry Buttercream and covered in

vanilla marshmallow fondant. Trimmed in sugar roses and silk flowers.

The second cake this week is a wedding cake for Diane and Mike. They will be married today in a local venue which is a renovated barn. The sugar roses match the ones that will be in the Brides bouquet and the silk flowers match the flowers she is using in the centerpieces for the table. This is a wonderful way of incorporating your bridal style into your cake. Remember if you use real flowers to make sure they were grown organically or that your Cake Artist is using the proper tubes to insert it into your cake. More flowers than you know are actually toxic to humans or are sprayed with insecticides that you don't want anywhere near your cake. Silk flowers are a nice way to get the look. Just wash them carefully and let them dry thoroughly before placing on the cake. These are actually placed on top of buttercream piped around the bottom tier so that if any of the flower touches the cake it's only a petal or two. The sugar flowers, which are on wires, are inserted into food grade coffee stir sticks and then into the cake so that the wire doesn't touch the food. Check out the website later today for photos of this cake on the cake table at the venue! Http://www.thecherryontopevents.com/cakes.html

This upcoming week brings three cakes! This client has a family birthday party for her daughter plus a friends party at a jumphouse party place plus her mom's birthday as well! All in the same weekend! So I'm making three small cakes for those occassions. I'll share those on Sunday!

Cat