Polka dots cake in black, white and yellow

To me, there is cute...and there is Ellie cute.
I absolutely adore the way she has a very clear idea of what she wants, with no hesitation and drama. I often joke that she is such a low maintenance kid, but it is true. She very rarely asks for things but when she does, she is very particular. However, when she asked for "fashionable pool party", naturally I had concerns. In general, "fashionable" and "pool party" don't go well together in my vocabulary, but Ellie assured me it will be "spectacular". If there is one thing that I was sure of it's that if there is one person that can pull that off, it's definitely Ellie.

So, we began with the preparations. In Bulgaria we have a saying that sometimes you buy a button and then sew a coat to match it, in the case of Ellie's B-day party it was quite similar.

We got the dress first

 and then coordinated everything to it:

- The invitations

- The cake 

   

- The table

Believe it or not these napkins were chosen from 3 different kinds of black napkins with white dots " because they are the right size". ( eye roll here)

- The balloons

It was a beautiful summer day, a fantastically fun pool party, and our amazing girl turned 6 just like that. 

 

Happy birthday, my little sunshine! 

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Cake

It is funny how sometimes I have trouble deciding on the design of a cake for a particular person. Sometimes I would come up with a design that is nice, but still I don't feel like it has that "wow" factor. Other times, I just know exactly what I want and how I'm going to make the cake, and it feels just perfect for the person ( and the occasion) . The moment we decided against an ice cream cake I knew exactly what I'll make for my husband, Alex.
If you have followed my blog, you know all of the cakes I've made for him in the past  5 years and how he always decides to be on a diet exactly around that time, making it difficult to come up with ideas of "guilt-free" cakes. Well, it was a challenge, but I have always, always pulled it off , even when he was fasting. What can I say, I'm pretty creative :-)

This year though, I made him the ultimate cake- a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu cake. His competition is in a couple of weeks and we are so very excited. Since I started training with him I think I'll be better at shouting tips from the sidelines while he is on the mat or simply freak out his opponents by speaking Bulgarian even if I have no idea what he is supposed to do to get out of a choke or something.Worst comes to worst, I can always help him choke them out ;-P

So, because he won his gold medal at the last competition with an armbar, the cake had to reflect that.
Behold, the Armbar Jiu Jitsu cake ( or as his Mr. Armbar T-shirt states-"Submission with a slight bend in the elbow" )

Not everyone is as lucky as I am, to be married to their best friend, going through hell together and still surviving whatever comes along. Alex, you are my rock, my love, my everything! Happy Birthday, baby!

Chess B-day Cake

I have always wanted to make a chess cake and I am glad my son decided to have one for his birthday. One thing I decided to make a little  bit differently than usual is the way I molded the chess pieces. I would have made them out of fondant, but then I decided to use chocolate, because I thought the kids would enjoy the taste better. Not to mention that white chocolate is the perfect ivory color for a chess piece.









The kids had a blast and the b-day boy was so excited to share his edible chess pieces with his friends.
Happy 9th Birthday, Kalin!

Fondant parrot, fondant palm, fondant waterfall, fondant Mom.

You know there are days, when you go to work and you just know it's going to be an awesome day. That day was Thursday for me. My boss left for me a contract to do from top to bottom ( excluding baking, cutting, icing and stacking, which was perfectly done by Matt and Chris), but here is the best part- I could do it the way I wanted! I LOVE contracts like that! :-)

The cake was supposed to be parrot with palm trees and a waterfall. I admit, I went a little ( or a lot) overboard with the details, but I soooo enjoyed it! ( Rach and Matt, I hope you can forgive me!) :-)

So, I started with the actual cake first, then I went to work on the parrot.
I have never made a waterfall from fondant before, but the ones I've seen always looked too stiff for my taste, just marbleized fondant in blue. I wanted it to look more realistic. So, I printed pictures of waterfalls. Real ones.
And here is the cake:

I wanted white foam, splatter, white, lots of white. You would not believe how much white there is in waterfall water! I don't know why, but it helps me more to look at pictures of real things that I have to recreate out of fondant, than to look at fondant replicas of the same things.

Here are some details:

     

 That is the back. I am mighty proud of these palms. Yes, I looked at real pictures for these too. 

Some more details again: 

     

 This is a side view: 

How about that parrot you would ask? Coming right up!

   

And here he is:


I had so much fun coloring him too!


And I named him...Rico. I know, I know,don't say anything. :-) I don't name all of the cakes I make, duh! :-)
He is a bit of a show off, so he'll turn around for you:
   

Ta-da

 I'm a sucker for birds. It just comes so naturally when I start making them! You probably remember my Firebird cake?

Unfortunately, as it happens with  most of the cake decorations I make, I couldn't see the finished cake, but if someone at the bakery remembered to take a picture for me, I'll definitely show you how it looked like. 

I hope you enjoyed my little parrot story as much as I did making it!

Annie

P.S: What about the Fondant Mom from the title? Oh, yeah! I almost forgot, my daughter started calling me Fondant Mom. :-) Cute, right?

Movie/Cartoon characters

There is nothing more rewarding than seeing the faces of the kids( and sometimes the grown ups) that these cakes were for !

 

I wish I had some of these when i was a kid, it would have been awesome! Do you know, that when I was growing up, the last birthday cake I got was when I was 10 years old( Until I was 28 and I made myself one)? I still remember it, two tier, covered in chocolate with 3 pristine white roses on top.