What to make for a girl's 17th birthday cake?

I am very excited to be asked to make a cake for my son's sweetheart. She will be turning 17 next month. I am thinking something tiered and simple. Maybe with ribbons around the bases and a few large, beautiful gumpaste flowers. The fancy kind. :) Daisies? Sunflowers? I really like this one:

Or maybe a cake and cupcake combo on a pretty tower, like this:

Or am I off the mark entirely? What do you think? Any suggestions???

Hippy Birthday Cake

My dear friend asked me to make her daughter's birthday cake this year. The theme was 1970's. Of course, the very popular peace sign had to be involved and lots of bright colors. Originally thinking a two-tiered cake with a gumpaste peace sign on top would be perfect, we eventually decided to get a larger 1/2 sheet cake from a local bakery in order to be able to feed everyone at the party. I do not have a pan big enough to make the sheet cake, so this was a perfect plan and the cake was delicious!

Lauren and I used Wilton's neon-colored fondant to make different sized flowers and smiley faces. We made over 100 of them, but it was fun and the Wilton fondant is so easy to work with that it went by quickly. I made the peace sign a week and a half earlier to make sure it dried completely. I mixed the neon green fondant with the gumpaste to get a sturdy 3-d peace sign. I put three toothpicks in the bottom while it was still soft so that when I placed it on the cake, the sign would stand up. Toothpicks worked very nicely.

We tried to add wires with small fondant balls on the ends, but they would not stay up and started to tear the cake. We even used the coffee straws inserted into the cake for more support, but it still did not work. Maybe it was the weight of the wire? Will have to try again using a lighter weight floral wire.

In the end the birthday girl was happy and she has the gumpaste peace sign to keep as a memento of her big day. She is such a sweetie and it was a pleasure to be able to make this for her. Happy Birthday Victoria!!!

Poor Jack

Another birthday cake. This time it is for my son, Douglas, who turns 17 today. He is a huge fan of Jack Skellington. He is the main character in the Nightmare Before Christmas movie, for anyone who does not recognize the name. I realize this is not very festive for a birthday cake, looks more like a Halloween cake, but it a surprise for Doug and he loves Jack, so there you have it.



The piping gel was the store bought kind that come in the little tube. Since I needed black I decided to use store-bought and not make my own. I have a fear of making black icing. What can I say?!? You need a lot of coloring or else you just get a dark gray. Something about adding that much black food coloring to my icing just seems unnatural and...well, toxic. So, the little tube made the gel come out too thick and my lines are not as thin as I would have liked. Poor Jack has a glob for a hand and his smile is not quite right. Next time I will make my own so I can use a tiny tip for thinner lines. Live and learn. Oh, and if you start with a chocolate icing and add black to that you won't need as much food coloring. Thank you to my Wilton instructor for that great tip. :)



To get the image on my cake, I printed out a drawing I found online. I then traced the picture onto a piece of parchment paper with a pencil. Place the parchment on your cake to make sure the image will fit before you proceed to the next step. Take parchment off of cake and lay it down so that the pencil side is face down. Using clear piping gel in a parchment bag, trace the pencil lines you have drawn. (I use the Wilton piping gel that comes in the small tubs) Now, take the piping gel side of the parchment and place it on the cake. Gently run a small paint brush or your finger along the lines you traced to get the gel to stick to the cake. Peel paper off of cake and use whatever color icing to trace and fill in your image. Next time I will take pictures for a better tutorial, but you get the general idea.

I will definitely be doing another Jack cake around Halloween. He is just too awesome! Thank you Tim Burton!

Birthday Cake!

So I made my second fondant cake a few weeks ago. Sorry the post is late, but I got frustrated trying to get my photos on here and had to step away for a bit before trying again. My daughter decided on a beautiful hibiscus two-tiered cake for her party.

Here is the photo that inspired us -

A few color changes and this is our version -

Pretty okay for a beginner. We used a piece of scrapbook paper as a template. Cut out the paper hibiscus and laid it on the fondant and cut around it. I need to get stocked up on the flower cutters so I can really make nice ones. My daughter and my sister did a lot of the work on this, so they deserve some credit. Nice job Lauren and Jenn!!

Sugar Pansies

Lauren and I started our second Wilton class last night.  We used gumpaste for the first time to make pansies.  After seeing the pansy picture in the class book I must say that I was not really excited.  It seemed like a nice enough pansy, but something wasn't quite right.  Our instructor made the sample flower and I must say it looked much prettier in person than in the pictures.  So we proceeded to make our pansies and this was the result:

The pretty one on the left is my daughter's.  The sad, cracked one on the right...yep, that's mine.  Well, let me just say that I was a little devastated.  Ready to throw in the towel on this crazy cake business talk.  Who was I kidding?!? I couldn't even make a simple gumpaste pansy. *Sigh*

After a long, cranky night, I woke up determined to try this pansy again.  I looked online for some photos of real ones and realized what was missing from the flower.  I carefully constructed a few new flowers and I think they are much improved.  I am happy once again and ready to take on more flowers.  Bring on the roses! And the peonies and carnations, too! 

Real Pansy

My new and improved pansy

The missing part was the darker center area. I painted it with purple food coloring.  I think it looks much better now. Not perfect, but better.     

First Cakes

I must say I love my Wilton class.  I went in thinking that maybe it would be a waste of time and that with enough practice I could do this on my own.  But I figured that if I was going to have any credentials for this biz I should have some type of training to show that I was serious.  Well, I learned quite a bit and had fun doing it, especially since my daughter, Lauren, was taking the class with me.  Our instructor was terrific and a great resource.  Happy to say she will be teaching our next two classes.  Yay! 

Here are our first all buttercream cakes.  Lauren's is the fish, and mine is the cupcake.  I think they turned out super cute! 

Welcome

Welcome to Sweet Mia's blog! Sweet Mia's is a home-based cake and cupcake bakery. Tired of sitting at a desk and being someone's assistant, I am giving up the business world for fondant and frosting. Follow along with me as I learn cake decorating techniques and skills, but be forewarned it may not always be pretty. :)

My first step is to complete the Wilton courses at my local Joann's store. I just completed the Basic course and start "Flowers and Cake Design" this week. September will be my final course which focuses on fondant, I think. The first three Wilton courses combined with books, blogs and videos will be a good foundation for my business. Plus lots and lots of practice!

I do have a tendency to get side-tracked on other projects, so I really need all the support (and occassional push) I can get. I also do some sewing and scrapbooking. Not being at a full-time job is messing with my time-manangement skills because I have more time to manage and think that I can put things off. Focus, Kate, focus!!!

Thanks and I hope you all will enjoy my blog.