Edible Holiday (or any occasion) Bunting

Lately, I am in love with Bunting. The edible kind of course. It’s a super sweet and easy way to personalize any cake and it works with almost all occasions. You can spell out a name or a ‘Happy Birthday’, ‘Congratulations’ or a ‘Happy Holiday’ for example.

The best part for me is that these kind of decorations can be made way in advance. Like a bunting for a Christmas cake right after Thanksgiving. (Ummm, yep that’s me. I always, always work ahead as much as possible, because life happens.)

The Decorated Cake Board

The well decorated cake board can elevate your cake from ‘that’s a nice cake’ to jaw dropping speechlessness. Well, that’s at least how I feel about it.

Truth is though, it can make a smaller cake project very fancy, or you can add a lot more details without the baking bit. My go to materials are 1/4 inch foam core boards and a glue gun. With these two you can get a lot done in record time!

For this project I was asked to make a turbocharger on a workbench. Do I know what a turbocharger is? No, of course not, so thank you google! Since the cake needed to be somewhat smallish I decided to turn the cake board into a workbench.

Cupcake Toppers

I am not going to lie, but the cupcake and I have a somewhat difficult relationship. It starts with the fussy way of eating it. If the cupcake is served on a plate with a fork I am good to go. But what are you supposed to do when the cupcake is handed to you in it’s little wrapper and nothing else?  Do you peel the wrapper and then try to take a bite, knowing full well that the frosting will stick to your nose, or do you lick it and then eat the cake? Although the later version is, admittedly adorable on a three year old, less so on a grown woman…..

Now, once I am on the other side of the cupcake process and create them there are a few advantages. Number 1; they only need to bake 22 minutes. Yep, 48 cupcakes in 22 minutes. Amazing, right? Number 2; frosting them is super easy and last but not least there are structural components that I never ever need to worry about. A cupcake is just a cupcake after all.

But, making cupcake toppers can be fussy. At least for me. They are very small, very detailed and most of the time they need to look alike. So unless they are accompanied by a cake, or have a totally awesome theme that I can’t resist, or they are for a wonderful cause I tend to say no. Queue; the Bainbridge Island Marching Band!

Steampunk Wedding Cake

I love unique wedding cakes. Cakes where little tales are told, tiny hints of stories that ties the couple together and made them fall in love with each other. For instance, a hose clamp (a broken down car incident, apparently) or copper gears. In this case lots and lots of gears…

Yup, you’ve guessed it (I guess the title might have given you a hint). This cake was all about Steampunk. Now the bride wanted to surprise her husband with the Steampunk elements of the cake and opted for a Peek-a-Boo design. The front was super simple white spackled buttercream and the back third told the couples love story in Steampunk language. Isn’t that just awesome?

The most important detail of any Steampunk themed cake is in my opinion the gears. And that’s what I am sharing with you today.  How to make edible, metallic gears.

How to make a Halloween Bat Cake

I never celebrated Halloween as a child. Growing up in Austria we celebrated, or sometimes feared come to think of it, many other Holidays like the Krampuß for example. (Google it! It’s the stuff of nightmares…) Until this day I don’t leave the house on December 5th, which is ridiculous since I live a continent away. But there you have it, scarred for life. (Update: now of course, a decade later, the free candy idea caught on and Halloween is everywhere in Austria.)

Halloween sounded kind of creepily wonderful in a not so scary way. And it is. Just like this cake:

The Naked Cake

It’s all the rage, the naked cake phenomenon. Now the ‘naked’ does indeed only refer to the lack of icing on the cake and is NOT as my husband hoped or dreamed a reference to the bakers clothing status. (Yep, that’s actually what he said. In a funny kind of way, of course… sigh.)

The trend started to really take off a couple of years ago, although there were a few bakeries, mine included, who offered cakes with just beautiful piped frosting between the layers and nothing else, for quite some time.  But these cakes were rarely intended as wedding cakes or celebration cakes. Think maybe more in the lines of a bigger cupcake for an afternoon tea. But the naked cake is still going strong and it’s actually becoming my wedding cake best seller.

As easy and delicious as it looks, there are a few hiccups with these cakes. In fact there are many bakers who will not sell them, period. So here are a few tips and tricks to help you along: