Well not exactly perfect, but getting better.
Combining my packed July birthday calendar and my newly learned fondant skills I was busy making fancy little cakes last month.
First off Miss Madi's Tiffany box. The 3"x 4" cake was a very dense chocolate cake topped with a coffee simple syrup and rich chocolate frosting. (My first batch of frosting was grainy so I ended up making a second batch using Trader Joe's Sipping Chocolate and it turned out fantastic. Thanks for the rescue Trader Joe's!) The frosted cake was covered in a thin layer of '5th Avenue' blue fondant and topped with a white fondant ribbon and bow. I finished this cake about 4am the same morning it was shipped so I was lucky to snap this photo right before it went in to the box. It was cute, but definitely room for improvement.
Next shipment were three little brownie bites decorated to look like little Tiffany jewelry boxes. They were pretty darn cute and much easier to cover in fondant than the larger cake.
Unfortunately they clearly smelled very delicious and never made it to Annie - she sent a picture of what happened to her birthday package. We were all relieved that Molly didn't get sick from eating the brownies! What kind of birthday gift would that have been? Next time I should put a warning label on the box, "Keep away from the dog, tasty treats inside."
It took me two tries to get this next little cake right, but the extra effort was worth the end result. This little chocolate cake was covered in chocolate fondant (which tastes like Tootsie Rolls - yum) and then decorated with white fondant polka dots and a fondant bow. I'm sure you are wondering, no the bow didn't survive shipping, it was flattened. And yes, for the sake of my test kitchen I did eat the first cake. I have to make sure what I'm sending people tastes good, right? Right?
And to wrap up July birthday season I made a white cake that was turned in to one little rounded cake topped with a sea blue fondant and molded shells and sea creatures. Clearly I didn't have plan on how to decorate the cake with the decorations, but they all looked so cute I had to use every last one.
I bought fancy cupcake boxes to package my creations. I don't think it helped them as much during shipping as I had hoped, but they looked good when they left my kitchen.
That same white cake also made 6 little petite fours - these were just about 1.5" x 1.5". I covered each one in a different shade of blue fondant, I was going for more of an ombre effect but it didn't turn out exactly as I was picturing it in my head (that happens more often than not, btw). These little cakes were harder to cover than the larger cake. I had to be careful not to smush them down. The brownie bites had more structural integrity than the small cake bites. I do love how each little cake highlights the individual decorations. How cute is that sea turtle?
Ahh, August! With no birthdays on the horizon until September what am I going to do?
