I love how this cake turned out despite the rough start. 

I made the fireman, fire hydrant, hose, cake board, tires and the birthday boy's name a week in advance in order for them to dry well.

Now on to the cake...
Susan wants a marble cake and I was having a hard time making the cake to a texture that I can carve (durable)  but moist. I have read several tips in carving cakes. One tip is to freeze the cakes for ease in carving. But since I was pressed for time, I just put the cakes in the fridge and hoping to cool them fast enough that I can start carving.

TIP: A good tip I learned to make the cake moist is to brush the cake (15 mins after it came out of the oven) with sugar syrup: 1 cup water, 1 cup water and 1 tsp vanilla extract or water and apricot jam.

 I should have prepared the cake the previous weekend and double wrapped and kept in the freezer. To tell you honestly, I have never frozen any cakes, something that I should try at some point. Every cake decorators seem to be doing it. But I want my cakes baked a day before decorating it.

The first problem I encountered was the red fondant  I bought at the Bulk Barn. It was tearing and cracking when I was covering the cakes.

The second problem was making the firetruck in sections. Covering each section by itself and putting them together side by side did not work well for me. I think it's because I was so much in a hurry that the measurements were not accurate. 
It looked really awful that I was willing to give up.
Almost thought of calling the client that I cannot deliver the cake.

So I made a decistion to remove the fondant cover, assembled the pieces of cakes and iced them together to form a truck. 
I placed it in the fridge and went to bed.

I was basically dreaming on how to decorate this cake in 5-6 hours tops the next morning and be able to deliver on time.

Started at 7AM the next morning and finished at noon!
I DID IT!
Altough in my opinion, with a little more time, there are things that I'd like to improve...but with available time, the cake really turned out wonderful.

What do you think? Would love to hear your opintion.

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY KEATON!
Thanks Susan for ordering the cake.

Love all the challenges and learning experience in making this cake.

I have posted more pictures of the truck and I hope you enjoy viewing them

This is the easiest cake I have made. Preparing ahead of time pays well in the end.

All the figures Winnie The Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger, Piglet, mushrooms, butterflies, bees, ladybugs and the cake toppers were done two weeks in advance.  Everything is completely edible, well except the wires and the toothpick inside the figures that were used as structures.

Days before the delivery date, I had to change the numbers on three dozen cake toppers...stupid me thought the little girl is turning two instead of one. So removed all the twos and replaced with ones.

 I made three dozen chocolate and marble cupcakes and IMBC (italian meringue buttercream. Colored the buttercream green and piped grass like on each cupercake.

The tower cake is a two layered 6 inch cake, filled with cream cheese and crumbcoated with IMBC and covered with chocolate fondant to make the tree stump. 

For the cupcake tower, I used post foam board and decorated with ribbons. To create the tiers, I used the two glass cake stands. It's cheaper than buying cake stands.

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY ELYSSA!

Here are more  photos of the cake. Enjoy and have a wonderful week everyone.
Cheers!

Yesterday, we were invited to a potluck party hosted by the Samimi Family. My good friend, Mae, requested that I bring a cake/cupcakes..chocolate is great, she said.  Of course, I said...YES! Just because...

I decided to make one of my favorite designer's design, the Bathtub cake design.
I challenged myself by making more than three dozen duckies.  I made all the duckies in one sitting about 2 hours...not bad I fnd.

All in all, this project was one of  the easiests I have done so far, no stress.
I said easiest because, I did not worry about tear and cracks on the fondant because of the tree stump design.
 The assembly was very fast. 

The cupcakes were decorated for less than an hour. I piped blue and white Italian Swiss Meringue Buttercream, placed a duck and sprinkled big sugar pearls. The cake is a four layer chocolate cake, very moist and dense, filled with cream cheese filling and crumbcoated with Italian Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

As always, I really had so much fun making this cake.

Getting a very nice comment from my friend the hostess, Imelda:
"Luisa, thank you so very much for the cake...it is awesome...I don't want to cut it yet...too beautiful to eat...", is worth all the effort!!!  

Have a great March break week everyone!!!