Do you remember when I was so excited about my first set of baby booties made from gumpaste? I did them for a baby shower for one of my x-ray friends. Well, guess what? It's been a year, and I had the honor of making the cake for the baby's first birthday.

Sublimation

Sublimation is when a substance changes directly from a solid state to a gas without going through the liquid phase. Yeah, I know, you wanted to read about a cake project, and you're stuck in a science class. Hang in there, it's a cool science lab day! Carbon dioxide (aka dry ice) sublimates easily here in our Earth's atmosphere. When water is added to dry ice, the process of sublimation is accelerated. When the process of accelerated sublimation is applied to cake, you get a smoldering volcano!

The boys had a blast helping me to get the perfect shot of the "smoke". We took probably 60 pictures, trying to get the lighting and wind drifts just right. Even the mom helped with the photo shoot when she came to pick it up. These are the three best shots, although none of these even come close to how cool it was to watch the "smoke" billowing out and dropping down the sides of the volcano.

It drops down rather than floating up like regular smoke because carbon dioxide is a heavy gas - still working on getting the science lesson here LOL.

Now I'm noticing that while I was working on getting a good angle for the smoke, it was a horrible angle for the rest of the cake. I promise, it wasn't really that wrinkly or lopsided in real life. It was a vanilla cake (including the volcano) with strawberry filling, iced in buttercream. The trees and lava were made from fondant. Yes, I totally cheated and used plastic dinosaurs this time. An extra crazy life this week didn't allow the time to make edible ones, plus now mom doesn't have to break up any fights about who gets to eat the stegosaurus. ; )

Sharpedo

Time for Canion's birthday, which usually means I have to do some research to get the details of his cake just right! This year, mom wanted a shark cake, the birthday boy wanted something called a Sharpedo. All I knew from the mom was it was a Pokemon character, described as a really mean shark-torpedo hybrid creature. She showed me a photo online, and as usual, gave me free rein for the rest of the design. As I was looking for other photos of this creature, I couldn't ever find a hind view of it. All the descriptions were very specific about the two notches on the dorsal fin, the stars and the vicious teeth. I couldn't ever find a picture or description of what its tail looked like. Then, finally, I found out why.....it doesn't have a tail! Google it to find out how it propels itself : )

As always, my favorite part is seeing the face of the recipient when they first see the cake. He came running out to meet me as I pulled into their driveway, and stood over me, grinning from ear to ear as I finished assembling it. This time, I was able to get a pic of that smiley face! Happy birthday, Canion!

Well, I have somehow misplaced my memory card from my camera. Again. I'm hoping some of the parents from this party will send me their pics so I can add them to this. This one little view doesn't properly illustrate how huge this "50 serving cake" turned out to be! It was displayed on a round table that was 60" across, and it almost took up the whole table.

This was for a high school classmate of mine. Her daughter is graduating this year, and they had a big, huge blowout party with four other girls. When A originally called me, she said she needed it for about 50 people. OK, no problem. We decided we would do the sculpted numbers in the zebra print, pipe the edges in pink and on a silver board. Then she calls back the week the RSVPs are coming in, the group decided they needed about 120 servings. I was driving to Houston to go to the Michelle Bommarito class I won the previous day, so I couldn't sit down and immediately draw anything out to figure out how to sculpt it to get the right number of servings. It was just as well, because not an hour later, A calls back and asks, "Are you still driving?" No, I had just pulled into a parking lot when her call came through. "You're parked now, right? 'Cause you're gonna...." and then I hear is a nervous giggle...."we counted up all the RSVPs and we're gonna need 200!"

The honorees are all athletic girls, so most pics I have seen of them have been sports related: shorts, t-shirts, hair pulled back, etc. They all looked absolutely gorgeous in their dresses and heels. One of the girls, who happened to score a basketball scholarship, is also the holder of my "Best Cake Reaction EVER!" award. The gal did the cutest little leap...in heels...with a successful landing...when she saw the cake! I loved it!

My friend Carrie emailed me, asking me to make a baby shower cake. Her nephew's room was going to be decorated in a Western theme. For some reason, she thought I knew a little bit about little boys and cowboys! I had been just waiting for the opportunity to make some little cowboy boots out of fondant and gumpaste, so I was excited to do this for them.

I went a Day of Sharing in the Houston area, and ended up winning a raffle prize to attend a class with Michelle Bommarito the following day. Those of you who follow the Cake Challenges may remember her most recent competition for the Sex in the City cakes (she was assigned Carrie). Michelle's class covered "Tricks of the Trade". She's a wedding cake designer, so I didn't know how much of that lecture was really going to pertain to me and my little ol' birthday and shower cakes. It was a group of about ten students, so we were able to sit directly across the table from her, have a close-up, clear view of what she was doing, and be able to ask questions as she was working. Then she starts talking about how she likes to make her ZEBRA STRIPES!!! BINGO!!! I had been commissioned to make a graduation cake for the next weekend that was to have that element! I haven't been happy with my zebra stripes on some other projects in the past, but couldn't figure out why, or what was wrong with them, they just didn't ever look "right" to me. Perfect timing!

After the class, I took a chance and a deep breath, and went up to her and asked her if she would look at a photo (thanks goodness for smart phones!) of my previous stripes and tell me how to fix them. Now, this gal is not from the South, and she talks really fast. Super fast. I guess I had a deer-in-the-headlights look as she was giving me my consult, because she paused and said, "Now, babe, you told me you wanted me to critique your work!" I started laughing and had to tell her that yes, I DO want your critique, I'm just excited that you're willing to help me out, and I don't have time to write down everything you're saying, and I'm trying to memorize every little bit of advice you're willing to give, so my head is spinning! I got some great pointers from her and was so excited to try out her methods the next week for the graduation cake.