Zebra Print Fondant

ZEBRA PATTERNS

I try to make my life less complicated when decorating cakes.  Although I love using brush for painting, making a little mistake can take a while to repair.  When trying to paint zebra patterns over white fondant it can get even measier. So here is a quick and easy wait to get perfect zebra patterns on fondant.

All you need is:

• White fondant
• Dark fondant (chocolate in this picture)

Instructions:

I'm using a small amount of fondant here for demonstration purposes. So keep your mind open for different zebra patterns over larger surfaces.

1) Knead desired amount of white fondant.

2) Pat the fondant 'dough' over your prepped fondant rolling mat.

3) Knead chocolate (or dark colored) fondant and make logs of fondant in different shapes and sizes. Logs ends should be pointed. Place over patted white fondant creating different paterns (make sure to make Y's here and there). - REFER TO PICTURE

4) Roll the fondant in one direction (e.g., vertically) in order to enlogate the chocolate logs until these get 'incorporated' into the white fondant. The chocolate fondant should looks as part of the white fondant.     -REFER TO PICTURE

5) Continue stretching the fondant to it's desired lenght.

6) If you want to make the patterns a little wider, then roll the fondant across the stips (e.g., horizontally).      - REFER TO PICTURE

7) Cover desired cake with zebra print fondant. Enjoy.

** Come back for animal print cake examples***

                                                                                                                                 

The Little Mermaid

The little mermaid cake was a hit at this 7th birthday party!!  All the girls wanted to eat Ariel's flower and the boys wanted to eat the eyes... yes, that's kids nature :). This time, I stayed away from the typical chocolate cake and ventured with a "peaches and cream" cake. A regular sour cream cake with pieces of peaches and filled with pastry filling (similar to whipped cream) with peach pieces as well in order to stay in the same flavor subject. The cake was then covered in butter cream using the star tip method.  It was a hit with both children and adults alike!

The HOW:
I used the Wilton Disney Princess Ariel Cake Pan to bake my "peaches and cream" cake.  I then covered the cake with a thin layer of icing leaving the cake outlines for help.

For decorating this cake I followed the included pan instructions, which suggest piping tips 3, 16 and 21. Black icing is a little difficult to get, so I just used the Wilton Black Icing Tube and attached piping tip #3 as a shortcut. You can attach any piping tip size to these tubes!!

For the eyes, instructions suggested piping blue buttercream, but I wanted to create some depth in the eyes so I tinted some Wilton Piping Gel with a little blue gel icing color.

Although you can buy the little mermaid icing color kit (Disneys Little Mermaid Icing Color Set), I opted for making mine since I can create these colors with the basic set of gel coloring from Wilton that I already own (basic wilton set or Wilton Set of 12).  In order to obtain the skin color icing, I played with brown and pink gel colors on my white buttercream.

Don't forget to pipe the eyelashes. It makes a difference, trust me!!

For more decorating tips please see my previous posts:
Star Tip Decorating - http://thecakestylist.blogspot.com/2007/09/buttercream-star-tip-decoration.html
Buttercream Icing Recipe - http://thecakestylist.blogspot.com/2007/09/buttercream-icing-yield-3-cups.html
Icing Consistency - http://thecakestylist.blogspot.com/2007/09/icing-consistency-buttercream.html

Tinkerbell Cake

I created this fun and colorful Tinkerbell cake for a baby shower in late November. The mom-to-be was a chocoholic, so I themed the flavor of this cake as "Death by Chocolate".

The cake was super moist triple chocolate cake (chocolate cake with chocolate pudding and chocolate chips), filled with Ghirardelli fudge and frosted with home made chocolate buttercream .

The cake was then covered with fondant and decorated with fondant accents. All fondant pieces included the purple flower where Tinkerbell is sitting on, grass, pink mushrooms, grey stones, leaves and the pink/purple flowers. The only exception was the Tinkerbell candle.

You can find the candle at amazon.com (Walt Disney Tinker Bell Tink Candle).

The base of the cake where 3 cake rounds that were covered with green fondant. I wanted to add some fun to it, so I wraped the base with a boa.

I'm glad to say that the cake was a success in this babyshower. It blended perfectly with the outside baby-shower party. The party's guest tables had center flower arrangements and we added little Disney Fairies figures to these arrangement, so guest could take home.

How to Make a Cowboy Hat - Step-by-Step Instructions

How to Make a Cowboy Hat - Step-by-Step Instructions:

You'll need:

- gumpaste/fondant Mixture
- Small Cake (desired size of hat)
- Knive for carving
- Buttercream for frosting

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. We need to start by making the brim of the hat as this will take a day to dry. For this cake I used a gumpaste/fondant mixture (just knead a 1:1 ratio of gumpaste and fondant). If you use fondant only, it might take several days to dry.




2. Use a real hat brim to draw a template on a poster board.




3. Roll out your gumpaste/fondant mixture to desired thickness and cut out the brim using your board template - If you don't have a cut just cut a gumpaste/fondant circle that is larger than the cake (which is going to be center of hat). If you like use a fondant sewing wheel to mark around the edge of the brim a 'seam'.




4. Place gumpaste/fondant brim over upside down cake to hold its curl shape. If you don't have a hat, place the gumpaste/fondant brim over a surface and lift its side by placing something under the sides to hold the curl until it dries.




5. Use whatever size of pan to create the size of your hat. I used the small wilton oval pans for this cake (2 layers) and torted them into 4 layers to add alter layers of chocolate fudge and dulce de leche. Place on top of a cake board of same size and trim to fit the size of cake.
   
   
   
6. Trim and shape your cake to look like your hat. I carved an indentation on top.




7. Cover with frosting or buttercream.




8. Then, cover with fondant.




9. Once the brim is dry, place the cake on top of it.




10. Decorate your hat to your desire. I added a fondant ribbon and bow.

Slice of Cake - Fondant

I made this cake for a babyshower last Friday. I really wanted to create something funky yet adorable, so I came up with a slice of cake with adorable fondant bear toppers. The cake came our bigger than I thought it would as I ended up stacking 4 layers of cake. It was then frosted and covered with fondant. Green ruffle is buttercream.

I made the bears ahead of time out of fondant and painted the paws, the nose and the eyes with black food coloring. The top bear is mama bear holding the newborn cub in her arms. The bottom bear is papa bear. The mother decided to keep the bear toppers so she can use them as cake toppers for the baby's first year cake.

This cake was actually 4 layer of chocolate cake with two fillings of chocolate mousse and one layer of "dulce de leche" (similar to caramel). It was so yummy!!

Barbie Doll Cake

I just made this cake this weekend. It was soooo much fun designing the dres and dressing her up in it.

The barbie cake is chocolate chocolate chunk cake iced with fudge. The rose cake is strawberry cake with strawberry filling and iced with white fluffy vanilla buttercream.

The dress is all fondant. The white decorations on the white portion of the dress are white buttercream icing piped with a small round tip. The rose cake is covered in white fondant. The ruffle is white buttercream and the roses are fondant. Check how to make fondant roses here.

Pink Cowgirl Hat Cake

I made this cake at the end of 2007 for a 1 year old birthday girl. I forgot my camera at home, so I only have my cell phone's pictures.

Cakes:

The bottom cake was super moist chocolate chocolate chip cake filled with raspberry and iced with vanilla buttercream. Green grass is green vanilla buttercream, flowers and leaves are fondant. Lasso is chocolate fondant (I was too tired at this time I just left it that color, I suggest making it a lighter color).

The hat is cake too!!! It is sour cream vanilla chocolate marbled cake filled and iced with fudge. Covered in pink fondant. Ribbon is white fondant.

The cupcakes are white chocolate cake with white chocolate chips, iced with colored buttercream. Flowers and small hats are made of fondant.

How to make a HAT cake tutorial

Nintendo Super Mario Brothers Cake

Someone asked me to make a cake for their birthday. I wanted to create something colorful and fun, so I came across Su-Yin's cake and decided to replicate it. This cake was fun to make. I started by making Mario which I knew would be more difficult than the rest. Once he was made, the rest came about easy.

Double click on the pictures below to enlarge the pictures and see all sides of the cake.





The cake is a marble chocolate-vanilla cake filled and covered with chocolate fudge, then covered with marshmallow fondant (MMF). Mario's body is filled with bread and covered with marshmallow fondant. All decorations are MMF.

Superman Cake: Frozen Buttercream Tranfers (FBCT)

I was trying for the first time the Frozen Butter Cream Transfer technique. It turned out to be very easy and the end result is WOW.

What you need:

• Wax paper
• Pencil
• Buttercream, buttercream... that's all!!! (medium consistency)

Instructions:

1. Choose a template for your cake design (sometimes the template comes with the cake pan).
2. Trace the cake design on wax paper. If using a molded pan, trace insert.
3. Invert desing as we will have to transfer buttercream onto cake by flipping image (if using molded pan insert, don' t need to invert image as it is already inverted for you)
4. Trace outline with black buttercream
5. Fill the rest with buttercream (color of choice) with a piping bag using a round tip. Width of your choice. You can peek to see how image is coming out!
6. In order to avoid gaps between colors, it is okay to overlap some of the buttercream on top of other. Don't mix.
7. Place in freezer for one hour.
8. Place wax paper over cake, with buttercream touching top of cake (the cake can be slightly frosted).
9. Remove wax paper carefully and VOILA!!!

This is the end result cake: