January 2016

January 29, 2016
by Jennifer Lori 1 Comment

Making a Pitfall: The Lost Expedition cake, day 03 part 2- assembly

For those following along, at this point in the Pitfall: The Lost Expedition cake process, I had fondant pieces, I had rectangular baked cakes, and I had some cardboard and a brick-wall-looking stand. Now, on the night before the party, was the time to start putting it all together.

Step 1 – cover the cardboard cutouts with tinfoil to use as makeshift cake boards.

Step 2 – Confirm plan. At this point I got a piece of paper and made a note of the order in which I had to do each step, because if I’d gone out of order (like sticking the waterfall down on the top tier before icing the bottom, for example) I’d make things harder on myself than they’d need to be.

Step 3 – carve the cakes. I always use my largest unserrated knife for this, and have a large tupperware or two nearby for collecting the leftover cake (after being leveled or sculpted).

For the top cake, which would become the top of the waterfall, I didn’t level it. My cake had baked up much thicker in the center, but in a large enough area that I could cut a thicker cake in the shape I needed. If I’d leveled it first to the height of the outer edges I’d have had a much shorter cake for no reason. If the cake had been wide enough to cut my oval twice and stack them, I’d have done it, but it wasn’t big enough. I cut the cake from the thickest part and used some icing to ‘glue’ it down to the cake board, then set it aside.

For the lower cake I used the cardboard to carve out the right shape so I could butt the cake right up against the stand. After making sure it fit, I set that one aside as well.

Step 4 – Solidify base. I had my cake boards, 2 of them ‘glued’ together with icing. I needed to attach my base somehow because otherwise the moment I’d try to transport the thing it would tip backwards, being so heavy, and separate from the cake which would be stuck to the board. I stared at it a little while, wishing I had thought to Dremel 2 holes in the base BEFORE decorating, so I could quickly zip-tie it together, when I got an idea. The base sat a few mm above my cake boards (less than 1/4″). I couldn’t use glue or tape because I didn’t have any thick enough, but I did have fondant, and I knew that could dry pretty hard. First I traced the shape of the stand onto the silvered board. I took a few gobs (technical term) of white fondant and moistened them slightly so they’d be sticky all around, and pressed them down around inside the base’s outline. I quickly put the base in position and pressed down on the lowest tier, using a knife handle to get into the back, and really squish the fondant and board and base together. I waited a minute or two then tried to lift the base by the top tier… and the entire board lifted. Success!

(Around this time I’d also cut open and re-taped a cardboard box, as seen above, for transport. It was open at the front but had a closed back so I could carry the cake by supporting the back of the box instead of touching the stand itself when I moved it.

Step 5 – After making sure the base was well-stuck to the cake boards I cut a strip of plastic from my baggie the width of the waterfall I wanted, and used packing tape to tape it down to the bottom of the lower tier. I used a few smears of vanilla icing to glue my cake board down over it, sticking it well to the stand. I didn’t want it able to move at all.

Step 6 – I crumbled some of the leftover cake and mixed it into store-bought chocolate icing to make a rough, earthy-texture, and used that to coat the cake board for the cave floor.

Then I set the healing spring into place. I didn’t bother using anything to stick it down, the icing floor was still wet and the spring was heavy enough that I knew it wasn’t going to move.

Step 7 – Then I taped the waterfall up and into place with more packing tape, making sure it was secure. I knew there’d be a cake sitting on top of it, but still…

Step 8 – At this point I set the cakes into place. I put the lower cake down first, using icing to glue it in place. I protected the cake board with strips of parchment paper, then set the top cake down with some icing too. Putting the parchment around the back and under the front (on either side of the waterfall) was a bit trickier, but I used the tip of a knife to ease the cake forward or up and wiggled the parchment strips into place. Then I gave everything a dirty ice (crumb coat) with vanilla storebought icing.

I just realized the pics are out of order, and that I’d crumb coated the base before adding the top. Ah well.

Oh- I included the waterfall in the crumb coat on purpose. I knew it would later be mostly covered with blue icing, but I wanted there to be some depth to the water so it would look like it was moving. I also gave it a deliberate thick, choppy layer at the base where it reached the cake (as seen in the last pic). Waterfalls often have a churning, frothy spray at the base and this would help imply that.

Up next – the fun/scary part… decorating!

January 27, 2016
by Jennifer Lori 1 Comment

Making a Pitfall: The Lost Expedition cake, day 03 part 1- Pitfall Harry, crocodiles and a healing spring

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early to- *coughs* actually no. Saturdays I sleep in. But I did wake up somewhere around the crack of 10 or so and debated how to plan my day for the cake. I had 2 hours until I had to leave to take Henri to a birthday party, then had some shopping to do with Jakob, and then would have to go back out to pick Henri up, so didn’t think I’d get any more progress done until once I’d returned at the end of the day with both kids. But that was getting close to supper time, which would require clearing the table, so I wouldn’t want anything in progress that would dry up or break if I tried to move it or put it away for a few hours.

Hmmm.

The first thing I did was run downstairs and take a peek at the brick wall/cake stand to make sure nothing crazy happened over night, like the entire back sagging off or something. Luckily, it was fine. I did realize the colors were much more desaturated and ‘natural’-looking, vs the bright greens of the sprinkles I’d bought to use for grass, and the fondant leaves I’d made. Hmmm. They wouldn’t quite go together. So the next thing I did was to thin some of the leftover dark green from the moss (this is why you save your palettes) and brush it over all the leaves that had stems. I later wished I’d done them all, but at the time I figured I’d do the ones I knew I’d use, and come up with some way to salvage the smaller ones later on if necessary. I ignored the long grass strands, having already decided I wasn’t going to use them.

I calculated that I’d have enough time to paint a first coat on the fondant pieces before leaving for the party. Mostly to just block in the colors and give it a chance to dry while I was out.

The healing spring got a base coat of gray made by mixing Wilton White-White with Americolor black gel, first a quick base and then lightly tapping on some darker areas. For the center of the spring I used White-White with a bit of Americolor teal. The crocs got brownish green base coats made mostly by mixing up some of the previous day’s colors together. It’s hard to see from this pic, but before painting the full croc I used a scribing tool to mark a scale pattern into the hardening fondant. For the open-mouth one I blocked in some areas of white and red for the inside of his mouth. I didn’t touch the struggling Pitfall Harry in between his jaws, not thinking I had enough time to pay attention to it before having to stop, get dressed, wrap the gift and shuttle Henri out.

This was the state of my palettes when I left. The artist’s-style one has pure gel colors that I could dab from as needed. (The smear at the top was to help me identify which color was which… the darker ones are difficult to tell apart when in one small glob). The styrofoam piece is what I was really working from, and the plastic hors d’oeuvres palette was there mostly because it still had quite a bit of white left over from the prior day, and a decent amount of brown that was still usable.

Had a minor change in plans – the birthday boy invited Jakob to stay as well, which gave me a few hours of time in the afternoon that I hadn’t expected. I took full advantage, slapping some more paint down so it could dry. The main hazard of painting fondant pieces with this White-White/gel colors mixture is that if you apply it too thickly, the White-White forms a latex paint-like ‘skin’ on the work. If you touch it while it’s tacky (which can last a few days) not only can you leave fingerprints in the work, but I’ve had entire sections of color lift off completely. Not fun.

Here you can see more of the texture in the croc’s back. You can also see the other colors added to make it look more natural and create the illusion of shadowy, raised eyes. I deepened the detail inside the open croc mouth and blocked in Harry’s colors, getting a base coat down so I could finish it with details later.

These are the healing springs from the game. Of course it was only on day 3 that I realized I’d forgotten to make the little side braces that decorate/support the top and bottom. Ahh well. Creative license.

Using the game stills as a guide I darkened the gray with more black and roughed in the decorative areas. The base had its 4 quadrants, the middle bit got some stripes, and I copied the box pattern around the top slab. I did my best to copy the dark areas on the face too, as well as I could with my fondant carving. I left any smudges/smears and added some around the top to make it look aged, like it had been sitting in a jungle for years.

Once the pieces were dry enough to handle I added teal eyes and jammed the head toothpick down through the other pieces. A tiny dab of water was enough to stick them together. Looks horrible with flash but it was the only pic that showed the eyes.

Here’s a shadowy shot that looks most like the game’s version, I think.

And some final beauty shots, because once it goes in the cake it won’t really be seen. For the ‘water’ I mixed together a few large dollops of Wilton clear glitter gel icing, a drop or so of White-White, and a touch of teal. Unfortunately the White-White hid most of the glitter, but there’s just enough of the teal to provide the glow. I really wanted to make the water pour from the head’s mouth but chickened out on actually brushing it down the face. Ah well.

Now on to Pitfall Harry and his perilous predicament.

These stills show both the moment I was recreating (Harry in the croc’s mouth) as well as a clear view of his outfit.

And here’s the final Harry piece. Henri had complained that I’d given him black hair, and ‘everybody knows Harry has brown hair, Mommy’… so I softened it up a bit. I also broke a tiny bit of fondant off the front of his chest, because Yannick asked me why Harry’s curves were so… Madonna-esque. I tried to justify that he was straining, back arched… showed the pic… bent over backwards to show him… but other than laughing at me he wasn’t convinced 😛 I touched up Harry’s details and gave the croc an eye and more depth in his mouth. The very last thing I did was to add a few more coats of white for the teeth, because White-White has a habit of absorbing base colors. To make it opaque I actually used a small dab of thinned Betty Crocker icing mixed with the White-White, and that seemed to do the trick.

Now I had my fondant toppers, two cakes, and an ornate stand. All I had to do was figure out how to put it all together.

January 26, 2016
by Jennifer Lori 2 Comments

Making a Pitfall: The Lost Expedition cake, day 02

Most of the cakes I make are a 2-4 day process. The final 2 days are always baking 2 nights before the party (so Friday for a Sunday cake) and then decorating on the day before the party (Saturday for a Sunday cake). I add a few more days prior if I need to make fondant decorations or anything that requires drying time. This Pitfall cake, for as detailed as it looks, took 3 days.

Day 1: Thursday

When I got home from work I prepared the base stand to get it to look like a brick wall with a cave by covering it with fondant and scribing a brick pattern to match one from the game.

Day 2: Friday

In the morning before leaving for work I gave the stand a quick wash of color. I needed to fill in the grout lines and give it time to dry before I got home. In a small cup I mixed together 1 drop of black Americolor food gel, 1 drop of brown gel, and 6 ml of water. I used a food-only paintbrush to apply the wash to the fondant, not aiming for any sort of pattern, and allowing the color to drip and run a bit before smoothing it around. I let it set for a minute or two then dabbed at it with a paper towel to remove areas of excess, and then used the same brush with only water to remove even more color. The goal was not to paint or finish the brickwork but to allow the dark color to seep into the etched lines and provide some aging.

At this point it looks like a dark, muddy mess.

When I got home from work I rushed to bake the 2 cakes I’d need. I knew I’d have plenty of time for them to cool before I planned to ice and decorate on Saturday, but I often use the oven for storing fondant bits overnight and didn’t want there to be any residual heat left inside it.

pitfall the lost expedition cake day02 01

pitfall the lost expedition cake day02 02

When the cakes were cooled some I wrapped them in saran wrap to set aside for the night.

Then I prepared the table for getting down to some fondant painting. These are the supplies I prepared: in the lid of my color box are a smaller box of Americolor icing colors and a bottle of Wilton White-White, then the contents of the case itself is my collection of Wilton icing gels and some regular, grocery-store-type food coloring. I brought down some cotton balls thinking I might use them for blotting, but testing on a scrap of fondant revealed it stuck terribly to the wet sweet, and I quickly got rid of them. I’ve got a measuring cup of water for rinsing my brushes, a small cup of water and syringe for adding clean water to my colors if I need to thin them any (the syringe gives you way more precision when working with tiny amounts of color than dropping by spoonful or pouring), and a small cup of the leftover dark wash from the morning that I’d kept moist in a tupperware for the day. I’ve got a few sizes of food-safe paintbrushes and some paper towels for blotting, and finally at the bottom is my standard palette, left over from an old pack of hors d’oeuvres.

pitfall the lost expedition cake day02 03

That’s the palette I use most often, and it works great with larger quantities of color, like when tinting icing sugar/water for the fondant toppers I make. However when using tiny bits and blending a lot of shades I find it’s not as practical, and I eventually switched over to an artist’s style palette with small dabs of the gel colors on it, and a small styrofoam tray for blending. The colors bead up on the tray so I don’t lose any to absorption.

pitfall the lost expedition cake day02 04

I prepared the stand by putting it on my lazy susan., These things are SO useful with decorating and crafting! I’ve actually got three – one wood, one glass, and one plastic, depending on my project needs. I stuck a tub of icing in there to help weigh it down. The stand is pretty heavy, especially with the fondant, but that was a precaution.

The first thing I did was to mix up a color that approximated the bricks I was trying to copy. In the game they look like this:

Now that I had the general shape scribed in and the darker grout lines, I needed to lighten the bricks to a faded, creamy, beige-ish color. I began to mix up a color, testing on the paper towel until I had something that looked right. You can see at the bottom of this next pic where I’d tried out a color that was too pale, and I had to darken it up a bit. In the end I used some Wilton White-White as a base, then some brown and black Wilton gel colors, a touch of Wilton lemon yellow, and some of the morning’s dark wash water to thin it out.

pitfall the lost expedition cake day02 05

I painted small dabs of the resulting mix onto each brick individually, blending and smoothing until I got rid of the brush strokes and had something that looked like an old brick wall.

For the first time ever I took a short video of my process. If you find it helpful and want more video tutorials, please let me know in the comments. 🙂

pitfall the lost expedition cake day02 07

After the back was done I moved on to the front. The small amount of mixed color that you saw in the video was enough to paint the entire back and front.

pitfall the lost expedition cake day02 06

The next step was to add some greenery. I knew I’d have a lot of grass and vines and leaves in the cake, but wanted to add more depth to the bricks so I used more of the dark wash and deepened it up with Wilton gels (leaf green I think).

pitfall the lost expedition cake day02 08

I used a messy brush to pounce the color in areas where moss would grow, mostly around the bottom of the back piece and around the top and sides of the front. This is a great reason to keep those brushes that get all messed up, so you don’t ruin good ones!

pitfall the lost expedition cake day02 09

As I added the moss I made sure to keep the brush from being too wet – the effect was supposed to be subtle – and I also periodically touched my brush in different areas of the mix where I hadn’t fully blended, sometimes picking up straight gel from the edge of the palette. This gave me varying shades of green and a more natural look.

pitfall the lost expedition cake day02 10

Finally I used some White-White and Americolor black and a touch of brown to get a nice varying gray shade for the rock cave. Again I resisted the urge to overmix the color, so I could get depth to the wall. Sometimes I touched in a bit more white, which lightened the grays, and then I’d go back in with a more liquid black, getting into the cracks.

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Here’s the finished support, set aside for the night. The front (above) and the back (below).

pitfall the lost expedition cake day02 12

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January 23, 2016
by Jennifer Lori 1 Comment

Making a Pitfall: The Lost Expedition cake, day 01

For Henri’s 7th birthday party he wants a Pitfall cake. As in Pitfall: The Lost Expedition. As in the old PS2 game all 4 of us at home play, and love.

This gave me a bit of a challenge. The most iconic visuals from Pitfall are, well, the pits. And Pitfall Harry swinging on vines. Pits would be easy enough to make, but vine-swinging? Hmm. This required a think.

My first thought was to make a framework that would go over the cake with vines and a little fondant Harry hanging down, but while I poked around at work, looking at unused frame displays, a new idea struck.

I found a 2-level display that got my creative juices flowing. In order to plan properly (and avoid scale mishaps like in the Diego & Dora cake) I took iPhone pics from a few angles and then printed them out really pale, so I could sketch over them and have a rough idea of what I wanted to do.

It’s difficult to photograph something clear but you can get a rough idea of my process here:

First I sketched my plan onto paper. You can sort of see in the first image that I have a brick wall with a balcony-like upper tier. The blue overhang is supposed to be a waterfall that flows down onto the cake below, and it’s not easy to see unless you click, but there’s a healing spring/fountain hidden behind the waterfall. Once happy with the sketch I needed to see if it would work, conceivably, and so I used some scrap paper and made a quick mock-up of where the actual cakes would go. There’s one layer of cake on the top tier, the ‘waterfall’ hanging down, and then a layer of cake the same height as the bottom tier, butted right up against it.

Okay… maybe there’s something here.

This was Thursday, and his party would be on the upcoming Sunday afternoon, so I knew I had to get started right away. After work I stopped at a bulk candy store for supplies like green sprinkles and extra fondant. I also picked up 2 cake boards. I usually use trays for my cakes but I didn’t know how well the stand would fit and I didn’t want to be limited by side edges. I bought 2 so I could ‘glue’ them together with icing, as I didn’t think 1 board would be strong enough to support the heavy cake.

Here’s the same paper mock-up at home, on the actual cake boards so I could test for fit. What I was hoping for, and am happy about, is that the board is long enough for me to extend the lower cake section beyond the paper template. I plan to have crocodiles in the water but hope for room to put a pit as well, and I think this will give me enough.

Next I cleaned the display stand and wrapped it in saran wrap, and used duct tape to block off the two open edges. I also cut 2 cardboard ovals to fit over the tiers, as they have large cut outs where the products are meant to sit. The top one will be used as a cake board, and the lower one will merely be covered in icing.

Next I tinted some white fondant to a beige-ish shade and rolled out enough to cover the back of the display…

…and then trimmed it to size. At this point I realized that even dampened, the fondant did not want to stick to the saran, and I removed all the coverings. D’oh. I make the mistakes, so you don’t have to.

Water-dampened fondant DID want to stick to the clean plastic stand just fine, luckily, and I covered the back with the large sheet, smoothing it down well against the back and around the edges, blending it out with my fingers. I did the same for the larger areas of the front as well, and then carefully wrapped one thick-ish piece around the open edge of the upper tier, smoothing it into place above and below while being VERY careful to not tear through the open front.

Once the fondant was secure I used a scoring tool to scribe a brick pattern into the fondant. I had to be careful to not pierce the open-fronted balcony edge, but for the rest it was all flush against the thick plastic, and I could press pretty hard if I needed.

For the back and the upper tier I did a rough approximation of a brick pattern found in the game, as seen in the background here:

I did the back first, then copied the dimensions over onto the front. For the lower tier, I wanted it to look more like a cave than a brick wall, so I wet the fondant and pressed on little pieces with my fingers, smoothing and adding more until I had something that resembled a natural rocky wall.

I also used the same beige fondant to cut out shapes to let harden. On the left are a sleeping croc for in the water, round pieces and a tiki head for the healing spring, and a croc’s open mouth with poor Harry struggling to break free. (Or, what I HOPE will look like that eventually). I tinted my remaining beige into a few shades of green and used a leaf-press cutter to punch out 2 sizes of leaves, which I set over the edge of a Styrofoam food tray (saved from buying vegetables) to dry. I also cut a few strands of tall grass but I’m not sure if I’ll end up using them.

At this point it was about 1am and I set everything aside to dry by the dehumidifier and went to bed, knowing the next few nights would probably be pretty late ones to get everything done in time.

January 22, 2016
by Jennifer Lori 17 Comments

Skylanders Cookies and Cake Topper

We’ve now run through Henri’s 1st cake (football jersey), his 2nd (The Wiggles Big Red Car), his 3rd (Diego, Dora & friends), and his 4th (Jake & the Neverland Pirates). His 6th cake, the Minecraft plains biome, was already posted as well, which leaves one missing, for those of you who can count. 😉

Sadly, for Henri’s 5th birthday, I didn’t make a cake. His party was at the now-defunct Fundomondo and they provided a cake with the party package, and nothing I tried managed to convince them to swap the cake for something else so I could bring my own. I didn’t see the need for cake redundancy, so I made cookies instead that fit the theme for that year, and also brought my own cake topper. That year’s theme was Skylanders Swap Force so we had…

The first thing I did was bake my standard vanilla/shortbread cookies and leave them to cool. While they did their thing I drew up a sketch for the topper I wanted for the cake and traced its shape onto a slab of white fondant.

After the fondant had dried a few days I traced a mirror image of my sketch onto wax paper, using a toothpick and black icing gel. Then I carefully pressed the wet gel onto the fondant slap and pressed lightly to transfer the outlines. The process is the same I explained here.

I let the gel dry a bit so it wouldn’t smear when I sat down to work with it. When it finally got no more than tacky I painted the topper with icing I’d tinted with gel colors, then set it aside to dry until the party.

Here it is on the generic cake they provided:

I used the same process to painstakingly transfer outlines of the 8 different Skylanders elements onto 4 dozen cookies. Sometimes I had enough gel left on my little squares of wax paper that I could use the same transfer twice, but most of the time I had to re-trace each element each time.

I let the gel dry a while just as I had for the cake topper, then painted in each outline with tinted icing.

Once they’d dried another day or so I carefully outlined each one with a black edible ink marker. The icing dried hard enough that I was able to stack them to bring them to the party without any cracking or indents. Because they were so thick they were still fresh-tasting and tender even after being worked on for a few days. (I ate a tech one. Because Sprocket).

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Henri’s other birthday treats

January 21, 2016
by Jennifer Lori 6 Comments

Diego and Dora Cake

When Henri turned 3 he was all about Diego & Dora. Okay actually he was all about Dora. (I think he had a crush). For the longest time you couldn’t get through a day in my house without being encouraged to ¡vamanos! or go ¡al rescate! or yell at Swiper to stop swiping- and the Map! Oy. Don’t get me started on the Map!

Anyhoo… there was nothing he wanted for his cake except something ‘Dora’-themed.

So that’s what he got. (Complete with really crappy old cell phone pics… weeeee!)

Looking at the pics now, 4 years later… I’ll admit I was really disappointed with some parts of this cake. My own fault- I’d made the figures earlier in the week along with the basket for a hot air balloon, intending to write Henri’s name on a banner hanging from it, and set that aside to dry with the figures. Only later on did I bake the cake, and begin decorating while the figures were still set aside.

My plan was to make the cake look like a hill with a little waterfall running down… all so I could use my bright idea of Goldfish crackers as goldfish. I figured I’d stand the characters naturally around, like they were enjoying a day in the rainforest after landing from a fun ride.

The cake was iced with grass and water areas, and I put the chocolate rocks around the base and crushed up graham crackers as sand. Finally, the night before the party, I got the figures and basket up from the basement where they’d been drying near the dehumidifier… and instantly realized they were too big. Like, WAY too big.

In fact the only place on the cake that had room to set down the hot air balloon basket was directly on the top of the waterfall.

Even Dora and Diego would know that’s a muy not safe landing spot. 😦

But, it was too late to do anything about it. Now I know the importance of scale and measuring my work, and haven’t had an incident like this again.

Closeups of Diego & Boots, Dora (wearing Backpack), and Baby Jaguar, along with the Goldfish in the water. For the water I’d put down white icing first and let it set a bit, then overlaid it with blue icing and deliberately chopped them together in places, breaking the crust on the white icing, much like I did for the hot tub water in the Betty Boop cake. If I were redoing the cake I’d also take more time to make the characters look more screen-accurate, specifically in their faces, and most specifically for Dora’s face. I remember having the hardest time mixing the correct colors and had no tools beyond toothpicks at the time, so the figure modelling isn’t my best work, though the kids didn’t seem to mind much.

To make the hot air balloon I used a regular balloon attached to one of those rigid sticks with a balloon holder on top, like you get at carnivals and fairs. I always save stuff like that in case it comes in handy, and for this it did, as I’d had no idea how I’d rig up a balloon before I thought of it. I hung a loop of yarn around the balloon, tacked down in spots with dabs of clear nailpolish, and into the ‘basket’ part I pressed 4 paperclips, leaving only a loop off each end sticking out. I tied the dangling yarn to the paperclip loops and voila- a hot air balloon.

And when it came down to it? All the kids cared about was that they could eat it. And it was good. 🙂

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Henri’s other birthday treats

January 20, 2016
by Jennifer Lori 1 Comment

Record, Star and Music Note Cookies

Last year was my first year performing with the Becket Players. Actually it was my first time performing on stage since college, roughly 18 years prior. :O In addition to being one of the actors (the performers are divided between singers, dancers and actors) I also made most of the props for the show. I ended up making some really cool things for us to use, and I’ll be posting tutorials for all of it over the coming months. I’m part of the show again this year, and tonight is our first prop/set design meeting, so I figured it was as good a day as any to post these cookies I’d made last year and never showed.

Last April the cast got together for a costume parade at one of our homes… to eat, drink and try on all the costumes for every song, skit and dance number, take pics and see how everything looked cohesively, what worked and what needed last minute changes. Everyone was asked to bring a little something to eat, and I decided to make these cookies.

I made my standard vanilla plain/shortbread recipe and rolled the dough pretty thick, as I wanted them to remain somewhat moist in the center. I cut the shapes from star, music note and circle cookie cutters and then after they were baked I left them to cool overnight.

The next day I used the same cookie cutters to cut out some thinly-rolled fondant, yellow for the stars and black for the music notes. I moistened the top of each cookie slightly with water and then smoothed the fondant down over the cookie, making sure the edges were well stuck. The records were done the same way, only I used 2 sizes of smaller cutters than the base cookie, and a straw for the tiny center dot. If I were to redo these I’d actually cut the black circle with the smaller cutter and inset the yellow label into it, and do the same for the black center, as that would be more accurate… but for a quick design, the layered version works too.

The final touch was to write on the labels with my black edible ink marker. The theme of our show last year was Legends, Fads & One-Hit Wonders and I wrote all the names of the songs we did in the show on individual record cookies. I’d say they were a hit… but they already are! 😀

January 19, 2016
by Jennifer Lori 5 Comments

The Wiggles cake

Continuing to add Henri’s backdated birthday cakes as we count down to this year’s party, here’s the cake I made for his 2nd birthday, which had a The Wiggles theme.

I’ve posted about the party before, but sorta glossed over the cake, so here are some more details.

The first thing I did was to cut out a LOT of man-shaped cookies. Each invitee was going to receive their own set of Wiggles characters in their lootbags, and I needed to have extra for the cake, and in case of breakage. Once the cookies had baked and cooled I tinted up some homemade royal icing and got to work.

A little while later I had these guys. (The black icing marker details were added a few days later, to make sure the icing had dried enough).

Once thoroughly dry, the cookies were packaged up and attached to assorted coloring books to be given out after the party.

Then I was on to the cake. I had rented a Wilton 3D Cruiser cake pan from our local cake supply store. I baked the car-shaped cake out of chocolate cake mix, and for the base I baked a 9 x 13 sheet cake out of vanilla cake mix, as I wasn’t sure the car cake pan itself wouldn’t be enough to feed everyone. It took 1.75 boxes of cake mix, but it’s an odd shape, so I couldn’t guarantee it would be cut in a way that would give enough slices. It took me about 3-4 hours to make my own buttercream icing, tint the colors I needed, crumb-coat and then decorate the cake.

The cake as baked wasn’t a convertible, so I used a knife and carefully cut it into a more appropriate shape for what I was trying to duplicate.

I remember being panicked that I wouldn’t be able to ice the cake smoothly, which is why I’d ended up filling it all in with a star-tip in my piping bag.

I copied the Big Red Car’s colors off a DVD case we had at home, and used leftover of the 4 main icing colors to cover the sides of the base cake.

The logo and the front windshield were the only two spots I dared attempt to smooth over. After the basic shape was down, I piped the letters with a narrow round icing tip.

I waited until right before serving to add the 4 cookies I’d reserved, as I was afraid they would absorb moisture from the cake and crumble or break at the attachment points. So I brought them to the party in a flat tupperware and stuck them in at dessert time.

I let Murray have a chance to drive. 🙂

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Henri’s other birthday treats

January 18, 2016
by Jennifer Lori Leave a comment

Coloring with BIC Mark-It Markers

The more coloring I did, the more I wanted to do. I began looking for better supplies and looking up better techniques. It is impossible to be interested in ‘coloring’ and not somehow, somewhere come across Copic markers. For the uninitiated, Copics are alcohol markers, one of, if not THE premium brand, and are vastly loved by artists everywhere.

They’re also expensive as hell.

When I’d first heard of them, a few years ago, I immediately discounted them. I had no use for new art supplies that weren’t integral to my passions at the time, and that kind of investment just didn’t seem worth it. Lately, though… something was drawing me to them. Maybe I’d outgrown Crayolas, finally, or maybe it was the appeal of being able to blend and achieve digital-art-style results with something I could control by hand. I started finding reasons to justify them- I’d do more drawing, and finally open an Etsy shop… and they’re refillable, so over time the cost works itself out… and I’m an adult, and could treat myself to professional, adult supplies…

I was in. Hanukkah was coming up and the ONLY thing I put on my wish list was a gift certificate to Curry’s Art in Ontario, the place I’d found with the best prices for Canadians. The markers I wanted, Copic Sketch markers, are available locally at $8 CAD each. The cheapest US price I could find online is $5.35 but any free shipping deals were US only, and there would still be a cost conversion, and the exchange rate these days is insane, so I ruled that out. Curry’s has them for $6.50 each, and free shipping within Canada if you spend $75. Perfect! (Note: I found out about Curry’s by watching Baylee Jae’s videos on YouTube, thanks Baylee!)

Knowing I had some time to wait until we had our family gift exchange and I (hopefully) got what I’d asked for, I looked further, exploring more tips and techniques. Along the way I found a number of videos and blog posts mentioning BIC Mark-Its as inexpensive alcohol marker alternatives, stating they could also be blended, had better colors than Sharpies, and worked with Copic or other brands’ blending markers.

All my Sharpies were old and dried anyways, so I ordered myself 2 sets of BICs, the 36-pack fine and the 36-pack of ultra fine.

When they arrived I sat down with the boys one Saturday morning and we did some coloring together. They’d been watching me color lately and a few times I’d given them a ‘treat’ and let them use ‘Mommy’s good markers’. They love my colored fineliners and both were in awe of the stained glass coloring pages, so I let them pick their favorite pages to color for themselves. When I was ready to test the BICs I printed off some characters from one of our new favorite shows, Bravest Warriors, and we all colored together, with me allowing the kids to use the BICs as long as they were responsible with them.

Jakob went for speed, coloring the characters carefully, but quickly, and getting distracted here and there by the tv that was on in the background.

Henri did the opposite. He took his time, trying to color-match as carefully as he could to the original characters. He was SO thorough, in fact, that he drew in his favorite missing character – JellyKid (complete with toast!) and even added Pixel to Wallow’s glove!

I didn’t have anything in mind when I colored mine except to enjoy the markers, the lovely colors, and the flow of the ink. I didn’t attempt any blending or ‘Copic-like’ techniques, just colored and chatted with my boys.

Okay well maybe I did a teensy bit of shading… if you look carefully at Plum there’s some blue shading under her hairline and skirt. But that’s it.

I loved the BICs and I am thrilled that they’re part of my stash- uh I mean my perfectly adult and mature collection of art supplies. But my FAVORITE part of coloring with them was discovered after I was done.

The BICs, just like Copics and other alcohol markers, bleed through most papers. Alcohol markers are designed to saturate the paper to get even blending and streak-less coloring. With water-based markers like Crayolas, coloring hard over one section will leave blotchy, uneven patches of bled color. With these, however…

The bleed-through is so lovely! It looks like a watercolor illustration! I’m fascinated by how pretty the backside of this coloring looks and can think of so many ideas for deliberate reverse drawings, coloring one side while intending the back to be the later ‘front’.

Not that, but I was completely charmed by my discovery on the paper I was using to absorb the bleed-through. It looks like pointilism! Probably not really good for anything, technique-wise, but I like how it looks regardless. 🙂

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January 17, 2016
by Jennifer Lori 5 Comments

Henri’s Football Cake

Henri turned 7 last week.

I know, I don’t know where the time went either.

One minute he born, the next he’s this:

…this super-cool, chapter-book reading, rational-thinking, butt-shaking, quote-spewing funny, loving, sweet, creative, hysterical wise old soul.

His party is coming up and it got me thinking that I’ve never gotten around to posting all his cakes from prior years, so I’m going to amend that. First up: his first birthday.

When Henri turned one Yannick suggested a football theme, as the Superbowl was coming up and his favorite team at the time, the Indianapolis Colts, were playing. Using Yannick’s hat and jersey I set little Henri up for a photoshoot and got this pic:

Then, using the front and back of a Colts trading card for reference, I made up this invitation:

Love his stats 😀

The cake was only my second or third attempt at using fondant, so looking back on it now, I cringe, but at the time I was pretty proud. I’d tinted white fondant to as close a match to Colts blue as I could and then cut a huge cake into roughly a jersey shape. White fondant was used for the accents. I remember being afraid to trim the edges and have cake show through underneath so I’d left them look ‘messy’, hoping it would appear like rumpled fabric. Heh.

I shaped one of the cut out cake sections into a football which I covered with fondant I’d tinted brown.

The smaller cake not only provided a place to put his name without messing up the look of the jersey, but it also was a perfect ‘smash’ cake to give him, so he could get his first taste of sugar and try to feed himself.

It was a hit 🙂

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Henri’s other birthday treats

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