MINI Cakes or Cakes for 2

For the past few months I have been contemplating the idea of Cakes for 2. These cute little cakes are completely customizable, but are tiny and only feed 2-6 people. I love making Over the Top cakes, but I understand that not many people need that much cake. Unless you are getting married or having a huge birthday party, which is always fun, cakes seem like too much.

So my answer to this dilemma, make small Over the Top Cakes!

 This New York Giants cake feeds about 6 people. The cake itself is Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese icing. The football is made of rice cereal treats and covered in modeling chocolate. I delivered this cake to the Swan and Dolphin Resort at Disney World and had it delivered to my clients room, so when she and her boyfriend returned to the hotel from a great day at Epcot, his birthday cake was waiting for him. She said it was a great surprise and it was fun to be a part of it.

This cake fed 2 -3 people and was made for my very tall brother-in-law who loves to camp!

Cakes for 2 can be a great way to surprise a loved one for an intimate birthday, anniversary or just to say I love you! They are personalized, fun and say I love you and I am thinking about you in a very SWEET way.

Let me know what you think of Cakes for 2.

Monkey Cake Tutorial

Welcome to Wendy Woo Cakes 1st Tutorial!

A few months ago I was asked to make a monkey and banana cake, with lots of bananas all over the cake. We made the cake and it was a huge success. The family loved it! Last week, we were asked to make the same cake for a baby shower, so I thought this time I would do a tutorial for the cake. Please let me know what you think, and if you have other topics you would like to learn about, I am always happy to share what I know.

All cakes, of course need to be crumb coated. This is the top tier which is Red Velvet cake with Madagascar Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream...say that 3 times fast:)

Smooth out the icing and place it in the fridge to chill. While it is chilling, cover your board in fondant.

 After chilling for about 30 minutes in the fridge your cakes are ready to cover. Just a reminder...your fondant will only be as smooth and flat as your buttercream and cake underneath. If the buttercream is lumpy, your fondant will be too.

 Cover the cake carefully and cut away the excess. I like to use a sharp steak knife that IS NOT serrated at all! Or sometimes I use an exacto knife. It depends on my mood.

 After your cakes are covered give them a few minutes (20 minutes) to sit and rest. The fondant needs a few minutes to start to harden. If you cover a cake then try to move it too soon, the fondant will slip, stretch, slide, or bunch and all of those things are not pretty.

I usually take this time to get my other supplies ready or make other decorations. Cut your dowels for your bottom tier. You will need at least 4 dowels inserted into your bottom tier to hold up the top tier. I forgot to take a picture of this step. If you don't want to use dowels you can also use large staws (Tea Straws) they can be found at craft stores or kitchen stores.
For this cake and most cakes, I also cut a long dowel that will run the height of the cake that can be hammered through all of the tiers to help with stability in transporting the cake.

For this I use my "gardening" shears, a utility knife and a hammer, all of which are only used for cake purposes and have never been used outside. I sharpen one end of the dowel with the utility knife, you could also use a pencil sharpener, just make sure it hasn't been used for pencils.

For this cake, make the dowel a few inches taller than the cake itself, so it can support the palm tree on top. Then using the hammer, pound the dowel through both tiers (through the cake board) and into the base. Don't be scared, it really will work and it wont hurt your cake. Although I will admit, it is terrifying every time you do it.

 After the cakes are stacked, decorate the cake the way you want it. If you look carefully you can see the dowel sticking out of the cake.

 For the top palm tree, I wrapped modeling chocolate around a large straw, then cut out tear shapes and started at the top of the tree and worked my way down, covering the entire tree trunk in "bark".
Now that it is finished, you can simply slide the straw over the dowel and down into the cake.

 After the trunk is in place I stuff modeling chocolate down the top of the straw. Once it hardens, it will help hold your wired leaves in place. The bottom trunks are made of all modeling chocolate with no straws or dowels. The leaves go on last. Leaves are a whole different tutorial:)

 The monkeys and bananas are made of modeling chocolate. I made the bananas the night before.  The leaves are made of gumpaste and were made the day before as well.

 I also used brown food coloring mixed with a little white coloring to paint the tips of the bananas to help them look a little more realistic. Add the leaves and viola!!! You have a super cute monkey cake!

Enjoy!
Please let me know if you have questions.

Wendy Woo
email me at wendy@wendywoocakes.com

Vroom! Vroom! Jeff Gordon!

Jeff Gordon's 2011 Cherry Red Car!

Happy Birthday to Phil, and a huge thanks to his wife Lori, who loves to challenge my abilities as a cake artist. She also ordered the Armadillo Cake. We love repeat customers!

The cakes was a Sour Cream Vanilla Cake with Almond Meringue Buttercream and Raspberry Filling. The cake is covered in fondant and all of the "stickers" are edible. The tires are gumpaste. The checkerboard is also done in fondant.

Phil loved the cake...here is what Lori emailed me after the party.

"It was AMAZING AND MOST MEMORABLE!!!! Phil was so very surprised and stood in awe of the race car actually being a cake.  He couldn’t wait to bring the boys to look at the cake when they first arrived at the house!  Pictures of the cake were sent all over cyberspace (Jax, Connecticut, New Jersey, etc.) by him showing everyone who wasn’t at our home and, of course, to all our race car fans!!!  The checkerboard board was a huge hit and again appreciated the effort and attention to detail!

    He did not want at all to cut it but to preserve it!  However, he finally relinquished and cut the cake in half lengthwise – he took the #24!  Of course, Jeff also came in second place at Brickyard!

Delicious and just over the top of any and all expectations.  Just know your name is out there now!  Can’t wait for the next “challenge” opportunity for a party and always let there be CAKE/an art masterpiece!

Thank you again to Lori and Phil!

My Armadillo!

Introducing Armando the Armadillo!!! He is our latest creation and we are so happy to have him! I wish everyone could have seen him in person, because he looked even better. We were so happy with the way he turned out.

So, did you just have a flash back to Steel Magnolias? Yes, well you are in luck...cut him open and you have a bleeding Armadillo. He is made of VERY Red velvet cake and Red Raspberry filling, with Vanilla Buttercream dyed red of course.

His head and tail are both make out of Red Rice Krispie Treats. Did you know you can dye marshmallows? Just add the dye once the marshmallows are melted and you can color them any color you want. I was also very worried that his head would not stay on, so I melted red (white) chocolate and covered his head in it. It worked perfectly!

 As for his color, I have an amazing friend who is an amazing artist named Martha Stoetzer. So I finished the cake and he was a really cute gray armadillo and then she came and faux painted him using food coloring mixed with piping gel. He is completely hand painted. I sat in awe as I watched her take him from a really cool gray armadillo to an amazing realistic replica and bringing him to life. Thank you Martha!!!

Below is the structure of our armadillo, built by my very talented husband! I couldn't do any of these cakes without him. I am so grateful for him! 

Thanks for looking!

Have a wonderful Day!

Monkeys and Bananas!!!

 Happy Birthday Logan!!!

I don't think cakes can get more fun than this!!! I was thrilled when I was asked to make this 1st Birthday cake and the Smash cake for a cute little boy named Logan.

The monkeys were inspired by the invitation and I just loved how playful they look.

The monkeys and bananas are made of modeling chocolate, as are the tree trunks. The leaves on the trees are gumpaste and the leaves on the ground are fondant. The top tier or the cake is Banana cake and the bottom is Vanilla both with Vanilla buttercream.

 Here is the back of the cake. Can you see the monkeys tail on the top of the cake?

 And here is the smash cake, just for Logan to dig into. Yum!

Happy Birthday Logan!!!

Celebrating 40 with STYLE & BLING!!!

Many people spend their 40th birthday depressed and sad that they have reached yet another milestone in their lives.

 But NOT Kim!!!

I was so excited when Kim called and asked if I could make her 40th Birthday cake and her instructions were to put as much BLING on the cake as I could. It was a pleasure working with Kim and her husband Craig.

If you look closely you can see that the fondant sparkles and shines. Go ahead click on the picture, it will get bigger and you will see it better. It's really pretty.

 The hanging jewels are made of sugar and the Roses are gum paste. When Kim said she wanted bling, the first thing that popped into my mind was a beautiful hanging chandelier of edible jewels.

Again, if you look closely you can see the beautiful finish on the fondant. The broach is real as well as all of the zebra print ribbon, but they went so well together. I just love it!

Craig's Cake

During our first meeting Kim sent Craig on an short errand and then quickly explained that she also wanted a surprise cake for Craig. I was happy to oblige. Kim knew what cake flavors she wanted on her cake, but Craig was trying to talk her into other favors, so we set up a cake tasting, pretending it was for Kim, so we could find out what flavor Craig wanted:) It was really neat to see how well he treated her. She would look at him and say, "Well, which one would you want?" he would smile at her and say, "What ever you want..." She would ask again and his response was the same. After about 20 minutes she had run out of ways to ask his opinion on the cake, because he would "just want her to be happy" or "want her to have what ever she wanted". Finally, I jumped in and asked, "If this was your cake, what flavor would you choose?"

Vanilla cake with Almond buttercream and Raspberry filling. DONE!

Kim's cake was Chocolate with Cream Cheese Icing and Vanilla Cake with Vanilla Buttercream

So, a huge Happy Birthday to Craig as well! It was a pleasure to meet you both!

NY Yankees Baseball Cap

 I have wanted to make a baseball cap for a long time. So I finally got a chance. I was asked to make a New York Yankees, New Era 59 FIFTY baseball cap

 And if you are wondering, yes the bill of the hat is supposed to be flat:) To see actual hats you can go to www.NewEraCaps.com 

The sticker is edible.

I really enjoyed making this hat, it was fun to watch it come together.

Happy Birthday Chris!

A Baby Shower for Lucas

Welcome Lucas!

There is nothing more amazing than holding a newborn baby in your arms for the first time. We love celebrating every addition to a family. Lucas will be the proud owner of those darling booties on the top of the cake and his cute mommy was the recipient of a very fun cake.

I love to quilt, when I am not baking, decorating or spending time with my family, which means I don't get much time to quilt. Making a cake that looks like a quilt was even more fun though. This cake was covered in modeling chocolate, which is a lot like fondant but tastes like white chocolate. YUM!!!

I loved the way the patterns on the "fabrics" were all different, but flowed well together.
This cake reminds me of all the hours spent wandering through fabric stores with my mom and sisters. We could spend all day at a fabric store, talking about the possibilities of the quilts we could make and who we could make them for. Fabrics have a wonderful way of bringing back lost memories, like a dress you wore when you were a child or the apron your grandmother wore.  I think in that way cakes are like quilts. They bring warmth and love, whether you are the giver or the receiver.

A Soldiers Homecoming!

Welcome Home David!!!

 Last week I was honored to make a cake for a soldier who just returned from serving 9 months for the Navy in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. I loved designing the cake with his wife. She was so excited for him to be coming home and it reminded me how blessed we are to have so many men and women who are willing to serve our country, to keep it free and safe.  And that each soldier has an amazing family at home supporting them. Thank you to all military families out there who do so much.  

The fun part about this cake is that everything is edible, well the cigar is real, so I guess it could be considered edible or at least smoke able.

The bottom cake is Vanilla Cake with raspberry filling and Almond butter cream. The top tier was Chocolate Cake with Chocolate butter cream.The playing cards are edible and if you flipped them over they were Braves cards with the Braves Logo on the back. The baseball was made of Rice Krispie treats and covered in white modeling chocolate

The poker chips were my favorite part of the cake. Each poker chip is made of fondant and you could pick them up and when you dropped then on the table they would "clink" like real poker chips. The base of the cake (the poker table) was also done in fondant.

 Here is the invitation I was given to base the cake design on. She loved the airbrushed look of the invitation, so all of the cake was airbrushed to match.

 Delivering the cake was so fun! The party was a surprise so we got there early and Tiffany, David's wife was kind enough to invite us back to the party to meet David. It was an honor to meet him and the rest of the family. They were so kind and hospitable. They all loved the cake and it was so fun to be a part of such a great celebration.

Thank you to Tiffany and David and the whole family!