Boys of Summer

I love baseball, I really do. I don't have a favorite team, I just like watching it played. I think it reminds me of when I was a kid, my brother played for many years, and one of my best friends was on the baseball team in high school.

I've said before that I really like making cakes for men. You can only make so many girly, frilly, children's cakes without going a little nuts. But then maybe that's just me.
**Sidenote: Had a discussion with Sgt. Awesome the other day while we were watching previews for movies. The words that actually came out of my mouth were "Maybe I'm a man because I would much rather see Hall Pass(which looks super dumb) than Sex in the City (which makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out)." So maybe I'm just predisposed to slightly less feminine themes? Who knows. Probably more than you ever wanted to know about me. Sidenote over**

Ok, so what does all this have to do with cake?
Well, I made a baseball themed cake for a man's birthday.

We had originally discussed just cupcakes with the Dodger's logo on each one, but I though that would make me crazy. I'm glad I came up with the pennant idea, it's something I've been meaning to make for Awesome's birthday for some years but he keeps getting the girly white chocolate cake.

I used my cake dying skillz to color the inside of the cake.

I also had to make a template to maximize the cuts in the cake so that I could get the longest pennant shape possible out of two 9X13 cakes. Math makes my head hurt.

Happy Belated Birthday!

The Husband's big Four-Oh was on the 4th of this month. Unfortunately for him, he spent it in bed sick with Norovirus. I guess it's going around our area...Awesomesauce!
So, obviously no cake for him on his birthday.
The next week, he went on a trip, so no cake again.
I told him that the only way he was going to get a cake for his birthday was if I could bring it to him at his office. There was no way in processed grains and sugar hell I was going to have a big cake sitting on our dining room table for a week.
So I took it to the office last monday.
I swear, I don't mean to sound like I'm stereotyping, but taking a cake into an office filled with cops is like chumming the water on Shark Week! One person left the office with a slice of cake, and soon enough there was a line out the door!

Anyway, onto the cake.

This is a special cake I only make for him on his birthday. Not the most masculine cake ever to grace these pages, but it was fantastic!

Sgt. Awesome's White Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake, with white chocolate buttercream, fresh strawberries, and white chocolate dipped strawberries.
White chocolate is his favorite obviously. Luckily the strawberries have started to come in to the stores, and they are very nice for this time of the year.

Happy Birthday Mr. Awesome!

Hear me ROAR!

Ok, enough diet and exercise nonsense, I know you freaks come here for the cakes.

One of Kidlet's friends had a birthday at the movie theater, and they showed Voyage of the Dawn Treader (this shows how old this cake is). Originally we had wanted to make an actual Dawn Treader cake, but I gave myself a headache just thinking about it.

Finally, a brain fart, and thought I could make a Sir Peter Shield!!

Ta-dah!

Hey There Snoopy!

My first Snoopy/Peanuts cake, made for a 1st birthday.

The colors here and the Snoopy images came from the plates and decorations that the parents had bought for the party.

I was pretty happy with the doghouse that went on the top of the cake.

There was a Woodstock smash cake that went along with this cake, but I forgot to get a picture of it.

Cars

So another first. I have never seen the movie Cars, it came out during a period when The Kid refused to watch animated movies. Shark Week on Discovery Channel, yes, talking cars, no.

Anyway, here are some of the characters I know nothing about.

Bakugan Brawl-Day Cake

I'm brshing off my cake baking doldrums here to post some of the cakes in my backlog.

Here is a very simple cake I made for a Bakugan birthday party.

Super simple, but at the same time, time consuming. All of those flames are indivdually cut out and then hand shaped.

Racing to Finish

So, easing back into things, my first cake after a fantastic summer vacation was a pretty simple one.

Now, like many of the themes I deal with, NASCAR is a big mystery to me. Many, many times I give thanks for Google.

So, I turned out a slightly modified Jeff Gordon logo for this cake.

I found these little chocolate cars in my stash to add around the edge. They were not racing cars, and some of them were pink, but I hoped the birthday boy would not mind.

Mario

Here is a small somewhat last minute Mario themed birthday cake.

Very simple, none of the game's characters were represented, just the platform background.

The last time I made these...whatever they are...I got dinged by a 9 year old for not putting teeth in them.

The last time I make that mistake!

The Cake Baker Strikes Back

So, the second Star Wars, well the second one according to my time line is Empire Strikes back, my most very favorite Star Wars movie. Therefore naturally, my second Star Wars cake...we have yet to see if it turns out to be my most favorite Star Wars cake.

Anyway...

It's pretty good I think.

There are some of the same elements as the last one I did, but this boy requested "more Dark Side".

I added Clone Troopers.

And Storm Troopers.

To add a little more to the pot I ran some stars around the back of the cake, and black frosting. Oh, black frosting is a dangerous thing. For one, it usually tastes disgusting because of the amount of food coloring needed to darken it. And second, it can turn your mouth a very strange, strange color. Used sparingly it can work, but I do try not to use it too much.

Caketimus Prime

Transformers are pretty popular with the kids these days. I'm still always a little concerned, since I don't know if they're expecting a carved cake that looks like one of the characters. I've seen them online before, and they are impressive, but waaaaay outside my capabilities.

So, this is what you get if you ask for a Transformers cake.

I was kind of hoping that my Optimus Prime shrinky dink would turn out bigger, but sometimes you never know how large they will turn out. I got the logo down pretty well though, and I was able to find a Transformers font online which kind of tied everything together.

Gray frosting kind of creeps me out, but it worked pretty well here. You can't tell from the photos, but I lightly dusted the whole thing with a silver luster dust to make it a little more shiny and metalic looking.

Still loving those flame cutters!

Look! Up in the Sky!!

Not really the most obvious Superman cake ever.
I was suffering from humid conditions at my house, so an actual Superman image flying out of the cake was unfortunately not going to happen.

The recipient was turning 15, so it was really more of a gag cake than a serious one.

We had a debate at home as to the meaning of "Swagger 16", and without Googling, decided that it is the dude equivalent to a "Sweet 16". But we could be wrong.

I added the cape behind the initial chest plate to give it more of a Superman feel. I think that since I have not been working with Fondant too much lately I could have done a better job with the draping.

I forgot to warn the recipients about the dark blue frosting though.

Tends to turn the teeth a lovely blue for a couple of hours.

Cake vs. Kim...30-Love

I was just about tapped out when it came to this cake, which made me feel really bad since this person had booked so far in advance.

But it all came together at the end.

The things I find in my stash amaze even me sometimes. Tennis ball shaped bubble gum!! Plastic knights for a graduate who's mascot is a Barron (represented by a knight on all their logo-ed items)!! I feel like Marry Poppins sometimes.

That tennis net was a stumper for a long time. A lattice was going to be too unstable and take a tremendous amount of time to create, a royal icing net, also the same stability issues. So, I sat down one night and poked about 500 holes out of a sheet of gum paste with a straw, and it dried to just the right hardness.

Any guesses as to what those posts that are holding up the net are made from?*
Set and match.

Oy, that net looks really crooked in this shot.


*They were Lik-a-Maid sticks that I had...in my stash!!!

Go Sox GO!!

I will refrain from that classic school yard chant regarding the Red Sox and the Yankees.

Baseball season has ended for the kids on our base and I was asked to make the cupcakes/cake for the two Red Sox teams.

First were cupcakes.

The Boston B.

And then the cupcake/Cake combo for the older kids.

Du-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu

BATMAN!
I know that does not really translate...

Anyway.

A very simple Batman cake for a birthday boy.

I know it's hard to tell, but those brown blobby things all around the cake are chocolate themed Batman candies. I discovered I had a Batman candy mold in my stash-o-stash.

BAM!! POW!! Again, I know I'm dating myself there, but it was fun.

This cake probably could have used a little more "Bam!" and "Pow!"

Pong?

So, I think I've discussed my lack of tallent at video games right?

I get worried when people start asking for video game related cakes.

But, I love the internets! Luckily there are lots of PSP pictures out there.

PSP cake!

I realize that it is not exactly as long as a real PSP, but hey, it's made of cake!
I wish I could have made a little more of the screen. I think I should have made some kind of game on there (Pong?), and wrote on the cake board instead.

My little details came out pretty ok though.

FORE!!!

I think I've said it before, I think that cakes for adult men, and older boys are really hard to do. Too much on it, and it starts looking too fru-fru.

This one was no problem though.

A golf cake for Steve's big Fore-OH!


I swear that grass tip is going to give me carpal tunnel.


"Nice bunker" was The Husband's comment. I don't even know what that means.

And then I found this little guy in my collection of cake toppers. I think my mom sent it to me. Thanks Mom!

The Big Freeze

These were kind of a last minute creation for one of The Kid's classmates. I made his cupcakes last year too, so I was more than happy to do these as well.

He wanted Ice Age cupcakes this year.

Sid and Manny were the only characters I could sculpt, the others kept coming out too blobby.

Add some snowflakes and a few acorns here and there.