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Pizza Cake!

Two and a half years between blog posts isn’t so bad, is it? (I’ll keep telling myself that).

Hello, my sweet friends! Welcome to my BRAND NEW WEBSITE! Do you love it as much as I do? Please take a moment to poke around! I am so excited for the new look of Cassie’s Confections and hope it is as pleasing to your eyes as it is to mine.

The timing is wonderful, as I have a fantastic cake to share with you all today!

You may or may not have seen this little teaser that I posted on social media last week:

Indeed, I was making a pizza. But don’t let the taste of cheesy, meaty, tomato-y goodness start to fill your mind and your mouth… this pizza was made entirely of cake and sugar!

I am a true pizza lover, just like the little boy I created it for (my son), but I have to say that I was not one bit disappointed as I bit into this deliciousness. I have often found that cakes resembling food or other objects are not quite as tasty, as they are created using tons of fondant and other decorating items from the cake world, and less of cake. But this was *delicious*! It’s a win!

I think we all love a good food cake. Take this one for example, by the talented Laura Loukaides.

AMAZING!

So when I decided to take on a food cake, I knew it was going to have to be as realistic looking as possible. When my goal is realism, I definitely don’t pull up images of what other people create. Instead, I use all REAL images of the item I am creating, and sometimes even the actual item itself. I try to use actual objects or tools that would be used in the making of the real item as well, or at least create a similar effect.

I think my final product definitely achieved what I was going for! The most common comment I heard was “it looks so real!”. Mission accomplished.

If that doesn’t make you hungry for pizza then I don’t know what will!

The best part about this cake was that, although it was thin enough to look realistic as pizza, it was a thick enough amount of actual cake to be absolutely delicious. The boys devoured it!

Although the pizza itself was 13″, our party was pretty large, so I decided to make a pizza box cake as well. It included fun touches like the birthday boy’s name and a realistic looking label to select topping choices.

This added such a fun touch to the party! So many people didn’t realize it was cake until it was cutting time. Any idea what sort of tool we might have used to cut the cake?

A pizza cutter!

I hope you enjoy this cake! I have created a full tutorial on how to create this simple pizza cake on my YouTube channel. You can also watch it below. 🙂

Thank you so. much for stopping by! Leave me your thoughts in the comment section!

xoxo,

Tools you may need:

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Elegant Monogram & Striped Cake

Happy May Day, my sweet friends!

Oh my goodness, how life has gotten away from me these last couple of months! Between four kids and their busy schedules, my husband traveling for work and more glorious orders than I know what to do with (because, let’s face it, it’s hard to say no!) I’ve been too busy to write.

But here I am.

This past week was one of those weeks that I adore… with nothing but the most fun projects on my plate. If you know me, you know that I love the beautiful, elegant, feminine, detailed and clean designs the very most. So a week full of these types of orders brings me great joy.

There was one cake in particular this week that I couldn’t get enough of.

Isn’t she a beauty?

The precision of the elegant striped bottom tier appealed to all my senses. I used my upside down method (similar to this video) to create the most perfect seamless stripes.

In order to create stripes of similar thickness in both colors, I rolled out long strips of each color and then laid them side by side and rolled them simultaneously. This gives a smooth, flat appearance on the tier. Perfection.

The elegant monogram encircled with black pearls on the top tier and the gold pearls around the bottom tier added a touch of class.

What is it about a gorgeous monogram that can bring anything to the next level? The way the swirled gold “M” catches the light…

The coral and gold floral arrangement wrapping gracefully around the middle of this cake adds a beautiful change in texture and a gorgeous pop of color. The gold leaves and centers create a bit of elegance and help to blur the line between naturalistic and whimsical.

The clean lines on this cake are so pleasing to the eye, and the sugar on the board at the base of the cake adds a bit of sparkle to complete this design.

Every once in a while, a cake is born in my bakery that makes me feel especially satisfied… this is one.

I hope you love this cake as much as I did.

On another note…

If you would love to know exactly how I created the striped bottom tier, I will consider creating a video tutorial for my YouTube channel. Please leave me a comment below and let me know!

I’ll admit, I’ve been feeling a bit confused lately, my friends! I want to know just who my audience is.

Are you a cake decorator watching videos and reading blog posts for fun? Are you watching or reading them to learn? Are you someone who just enjoys beautiful photos? Are you someone who just loves those mesmerizing cake and cookie videos floating around online?

Please let me know who you are, so that I know what to create for you and how.

Tools used in this project:

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Box of Chocolates Cake & Tutorial!

It always amazes me how quickly Valentine’s Day comes after the new year starts! It usually arrives with the surprise of just how much needs to be done to plan for four kids’ worth of Valentines parties, and with that usually with the fact that I did not account for said parties when booking my cake schedule.

However, this year I was able to plan ahead just a bit and create a super fun treat just for fun!

I took a beautiful box of chocolates that I purchased and used it as my inspiration for a cake!

With some fondant, gum paste and edible lace, I was able to create an adorable cake that looks like a box of chocolates.

This would be such a fun gift for any loved one in your life, and such a fun sell to clients looking for a special themed treat!

Due to allergies of the ones I created this for, I stuck with basic inside flavors… but think of the possibilities! Chocolate upon chocolate… maybe even chocolates in your filling!

Please enjoy the video tutorial I created of this cake! If you do get creative with it, I would love to see your photos!

I am quite sure my little loves with enjoy this cake this weekend!

Supplies used in this project:

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An Electric Guitar Cake & a Fear of Airbrushing!

Here we are again, on a lovely Sunday with a few extra moments (finally!) to write!

It seems that 2017 has so far been about facing my (cake) fears! Which is good! In my life, a fear will nag at me incessantly until I finally stand up and deal with it, so cakes will be no different.

I have dabbled with airbrushing in bits and pieces, while learning to adjust the settings on my airbrush and test out the colors.

I’ve also done an entire white fondant cake into dark colors, such as this style. (This works wonderfully well as a way to avoid black or dark fondant or buttercream!)

I won’t deny that the cake above is really pretty and somewhat impressive looking, but it does come at a price! That would be me, heart pounding, hands shaking, second guessing and panicking.

This week, I once again decided to give another little push at my discomfort towards airbrushing. While I know that I am creative, I feel that I am creative in a structured design aspect as opposed to a wild artist aspect, so painting and things that are more artistic can sometimes throw me a bit. Such is the way with airbrushing. When other cake artists airbrush, I see gorgeous, vibrant colors spraying wildly at a cake and turning it into a stunning canvas of perfectly dispersed color molecules.

But when I airbrush? Ugh… not so much!

However, I do see the potential of an airbrushed cake and I’m determined to at least partially master it.

This week, my biggest project was an electric guitar cake! Not just any electric guitar – the specific one that the birthday boy owned. And it was not just a plain old guitar, but one with a detailed pattern and colors. This one!

I knew right off the bat that some airbrushing was going to be needed. After much brainstorming and mulling it over with my husband (which I do often), I decided to use fondant to create a similar design pattern and airbrush the color to achieve the purple edge effect.

It was not without it’s challenges (never forget that any lumps and bumps in your surface pick up airbrush color), and I am positive there is a purple layer of color dust coating my entire bakery, but it turned out pretty well!

All the tiny edible details were super fun to create. I chose to go with silver floral wire for the strings. I decided that it was more important to me that they look realistic than be completely edible, and I was quite happy with my choice.

Due to the amount of servings needed, I chose to create the neck and head of this guitar out of foam core covered with fondant and other edible elements (please, no angry musicians being mad at me for my lack of guitar knowledge and terminology!) and propped up by clear bubble tea straws (which you can see in this photo).

Oh, and the wooden board that this guitar is sitting on is actually a silver cake drum covered with white fondant and decorated/painted, and you might notice that I use this look quite often on my cake boards. If anyone is interested in learning how I create this, let me know and I will put something together!

I hope this musician had an awesome day!

Supplies used in this project:

Classes you might like:

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Pooh Cake Version 2.0

Have you ever created a cake that was a hit… and were then asked to recreate it later on? Me too… often.

I was a hairstylist for 10 years and also did wedding hair for much of that time. Eventually, I gave up the wedding hair part of it for a specific reason. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the updos – I loved them! I would meet with the bride for her practice hair appointment and all would go just swell. Frustratingly, though, I would go to recreate the updo on the wedding day and struggle with it. Every. Single. Time. I felt like the wedding day hair was never as good as the practice hair… but what bride is willing to forgo the practice session? So, I eventually dropped that from my hair menu.

I find that recreating cakes can be the same level of difficulty for me at times. It’s not like I take step by step measurements and notes all along the way, so my colors might turn out slightly different or my sizes may vary. It has taken me some getting used to stepping back and re-entering the initial design mode that allowed me to create the first one.

You might remember this cake:

With it’s soft, hand-painted look and classic appeal, this cake was a blast and a favorite.

I was asked to recreate this cake and was excited to do so! My customer wanted some changes made, however… she wanted this cake turned into a two-tier and with more characters included. Begin the design process once again!

How was I going to tie the beehive at the top in with a two-tier cake, and how was I going to include the characters and the classic storybook sky without having one big open sky tier?

I decided to go with one of my favorite parts of the classic storybook… when Pooh “rides” a balloon up to the beehive in the tree.

Being that this was a birthday cake, I decided to ahead and bring the birthday balloon theme in as well, and as a way to tie the other characters in to the overall theme of the cake.

And of course I included the birthday boy’s name on top.

Overall, I was pleased with this cake!

I could definitely pick on the details… of course I have already. I could be worried that the colors are too vibrant, or that my blue sky sponge effect turned out a bit differently than last time. I could go on.

But this is where I’m going to learn that each cake IS actually a different project, with previous cakes only as inspiration.

Just as we strive to avoid copying another cake designer’s work exactly, I’m going to decide that we should do the same with our own work. I would say Pooh cake 2.0 turned out fabulously, right down to it’s tiny wafer paper bee wings!

Oh, and bonus:

A cute little coordinating smash!

Merry Christmas a few days early, my friends!

Tools used in this project:

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Brave Inspired Cake

Wow, I’ve been busy lately!

Between orders and family, I’ve been neglecting my blog and all of my social media! I’m hoping to become a bit more active again after this week’s trip to Texas!

I have some awesome photos to share with you. First: cake!

This week, I was able to create a Brave-inspired cake. I have been challenging myself lately to get out of the rut of creating the same old cakes that are everywhere in the cake world… you know – the Minnie/Mickey Mouse ones, the Buzz Lightyears and various buttercream ruffles. I’m listing these ones because I’ve done them. Not to insult any of those cakes (if I did them for you), as I tried to add my own touches and make them as clean as possible so that you could have a unique version and I could still feel proud, but my heart is yearning for my own style to emerge. I am just trying to figure out how to allow this to happen.

This Brave cake was a great start for me! I chose to NOT search out the internet for ideas and inspiration as I normally do. Thanks to Kara’s Couture Cakes for that bit of advice… it’s too easy to have a cake become just another cake because of the other cake images that you can never erase from your mind once you’ve seen them.

I also did not want to violate any copyrights by using logos or exact characters, so I literally closed my eyes and thought through the main details of the movie that stuck out to me. I came up with a few things… Merida’s turquoise and green dresses, hair, the wisps, tapestry and her bow and arrow (luckily, the bow and arrow were my client’s one creative request).

After brainstorming, playing the workability of ideas out in my head, considering the budget my client wanted to stay within (not that I would not want to give it my all but some of those ideas would be very time-consuming), considering the limitations of my medium (my client wanted buttercream), I settled on a design.

I put my design together, and here was the result…

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I was pleased!

I took special care with the bow and arrow, as this was the birthday girl’s one request.

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The bow and arrow are created with gumpaste. The only non-edible item was the twine used as the string. Sadly, the exposure makes it so that you can’t see in the photo that I created the feather on the end of the bow using wafer paper.

Afterwards, I decided to peek around online and discovered that the tie is not the most original idea, but I definitely gave it some beautiful detail and feel proud of it for that reason! I think little Olivia was pleased!

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And now for another exciting part of my last few weeks!

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you may have already seen my beautiful new kitchen that my husband surprised me with!

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Amazing, right?? I have the best, most supportive husband in the world.

So this is the new Cassie’s Confections bakery! Being in my own beautiful space has already been so inspiring!

Lastly, I read on a cake blog once that part of my online presence should include a bit of personal information, as people want to know me. I don’t usually do this, but I am taking it to heart this time and sharing a recent achievement that I am so proud of!

I have been training in Taekwondo for five years now. I started training with my dad (a black belt) and over time, three of my littles have joined me. They have so far achieved their red, blue, and white belt with yellow stripes. A couple of weeks ago, I earned my 2nd degree black belt!

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Here is one aspect of my test – I broke 3 boards at one time with a step-behind side kick.

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I love this special activity and exercise that I can do with my babies, and I truly believe that training AND cakes keep me motived for each other in a way.

Anyway, I’d love to hear your comments or questions on anything in this post! I’m hoping to get more videos up on YouTube soon, as my subscriber list is growing slowly but pretty steadily (if you have any video requests, please let me know!)! If you haven’t already subscribed, please do so here!

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Some supplies used in this project:

Classes you might enjoy:

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A Foxy Woodland Cake!

Wow, what a busy week it has been! I feel like I have barely had a moment to breathe, let alone stay on top of my social media and website. Phew!

I just wanted to share a fun woodland-themed baby shower cake that I was able to create this week!

woodlandfoxcake

Although I was exhausted from the 370 cookie order I also had to complete this week, and the cake I created the day before this one, I was able to relax and enjoy almost every moment of the making of this baby shower cake!

You all know that the mention of rustic, woodsy, “messy” type cakes often sends me into a slight bit of panic, but I think I handled this one pretty well!

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The sweet little foxes gave me their share of trouble, but my wonderful husband assured me that they did, in fact, look like foxes. Now that is love, right? 😉

That beautiful birch tree tier is an image that I purchased on Etsy and printed as an edible image.

Now let me tell you something about edible images, friends… ain’t no shame in using them! I searched high. and. low. for the perfect image for this cake… I’m talking definitely more than one hour of scouring the internet using every search term I could think of to try to make Google understand my vision. That is not the easy way out, and a perfectly chosen and placed image in the perfect color can be the wow factor on your cake.

The bottom tier was my favorite!

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This tree trunk tier was a first for me also. A woodgrain impression mat, some awesome clay carving tools, and some hershey brown petal dust created this fun, slightly realistic yet slightly cute and whimsical tier.

I was pretty pleased with the final result!

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Leave me a comment with questions about any other details of this cake and I am happy to answer!

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Tools used in this project:

For some other fabulous tree trunk and bark methods, as well as many other texture tutorials, I recommend this class:

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A Vintage Airplane Cake Topper

A couple of weeks ago, I had the most wonderful opportunity to create a vintage airplane birthday cake for an incredibly loved little boy. From the moment his mom sent me a copy of the party invitation, I knew I was going to love this project! And I did… from start to finish.

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The airplanes on the side of the cake are hand-painted with food coloring. I just love painting on cakes… it is so relaxing and creates such a wonderful look! I especially loved the dreamy clouds on this cake. Every once in a while, there is a project that reminds me of the magic of childhood, and this one did just that!

But of course the element that I enjoyed the most was the adorable airplane cake topper!

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This sweet topper was created from gum paste and was nearly all edible (minus the toothpicks). It traveled straight from my imagination to the top of this cake, and I adore it.

So much, in fact, that I created a video of the making of this topper!

Enjoy!

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A few fabulous tools used in this project:

Craftsy Cake Decorating Class

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