Critical Capacity Reached

I hope everyone had a fabulous Memorial Day weekend!  My weekend was filled with cake, cake, and more cake, though I did manage to fit in a wonderful meal with the fam and a quick, jam-packed trip to the nearest "big" city.  At least my past six days in the kitchen were a little easier to handle since the weather was not only hot, but also VERY windy...I wasn't being tempted by beautiful weather!

Here's the rundown of the past week's handiwork:

1 State Championship Golf Team Cake

It was designed to be a replica of the team golf bag, and included an edible copy of the official state tournament scorecard.  For additional realism, I included an R11 driver (apparently, according to K, it is the latest and greatest in drivers) made from rice krispy treats and a gumpaste putter and iron.

1 Luke Skywalker Lego-inspired Figure & 36 Lightsaber Cupcake Toppers

These cupcake toppers were made from fondant and gumpaste...meaning they were completely edible.  And in the interest of complete disclosure, I didn't make them.  A, my handy sous chef did.  I provided plenty of tips and pointers, but A ultimately did all the sculpting.  She did an amazing job!  Not to mention, she saved me a lot of time and a fair amount of sanity.  Thanks, A!!

2 Birthday Cakes

One for my former marine, brother-in-law's 40th un-birthday.  (His birthday isn't until much later in the year, but sometimes you have to celebrate when life allows!)  The logo was made using a chocolate mold; I then painted it using food dyes and luster dusts.

And, one for my second-eldest sister.  Hers was an un-birthday cake as well.  See, she's married to the former marine brother-in-law (see above), and they were lucky enough to get to spend a couple of weeks with us before heading to their new post, so we opted to celebrate their birthdays with them.  This cake was fairly simple in design, but was absolutely delish!  It was a white velvet cake with chocolate chip peanut butter cup filling.  Sis practically swooned when she tasted it!

1 Retirement Cake

A fairly simple retirement cake for a local teacher.  The notebook paper was made from gumpaste and drawn by yours truly.  I think maybe I have a future as a sketch artist...then again, probably not!

3 Graduation Cakes

This one was a "Memory Lane" themed cake.  It included several of the graduate's favorite memories, as well as a look at his future college plans.  I used edible images for each of the "memories," though in hindsight, I should have backed all the images with white fondant before applying them to the cake; the colors would have looked considerably brighter...

A 4-year dance team participant's graduation cake.  This was a tough one to find a suitable design for...there's not an over abundance of dance team themed cakes out there for inspiration, but it turned out exceptionally well.

Orange and black was the color of the weekend for graduations...  Everything was edible on this cake with the exception of the graduate's hat.  And, although you can't really tell in this photo, the monogram was spiffed up a bit with edible silver disco dust.  Ooo...sparkly!

And...

1 Cowboy Hat Groom's Cake

This cake and I had a couple of disagreements while I was building it; I broke two hat brims, and ended up having to use a flat one, but it turned out alright in the end.  Though I am now on a mission to create a properly shaped hat brim from fondant and/or gumpaste...I'll keep you updated on my attempts.  The board was covered in wood-grained fondant, then the brand was carved from it to look "burned" into the wood.  The spur was also made from gumpaste.

That's all folks!

I'm off to bake 500 servings of cake; see you soon...hopefully!