Happy 2015! What happened to 2014?

Sorry it's been so long since my last post, but these last few months have been absolutely crazy. My hubby and I both came back from an Arizona Thanksgiving being sick with this icky respiratory stuff, and are just now feeling better. So we worked through my busiest catering/cake/cookie December ever, being less than our normal selves and with my catering partner out of town. It was difficult, but somehow we made it through. Still trying to catch up on my rest. Whew! 

Every little girl is still into Frozen. I started off the season back in November with another Frozen cake. I love making Olaf... each one has a little different pose, but he's a cute character to design for a cake. Used more isomalt for detail. Oh, did I mention how much I love isomalt? I got creative on some of my wedding cakes with isomalt too, which I will show you a bit later. Love the stuff! 

Here's a couple of other birthday cakes I made in November...

Then came the crazy December...

Started off with cookies, lots and lots of cookies... 50 dozen for a PTA function for my grand-daughters' school. I always learn the hard way... will not do that again. Too many cookies for my smaller than commercial kitchen. 

And more cookies...

And cinnamon rolls...

And then the annual goodies for the friend and neighbors...

Chocolate covered Ritz peanut butter cookies, chocolate covered brownie bites, and toffee

All packaged and ready for delivery

This is something new I tried... chocolate covered bacon for my bacon loving friend...

It was actually very, very yummy!

At the end of November, I purchased some really fun new decorating tools... anything to make my work easier and a little more fun and creative... and used some of my old tools in a different way. That will be the subject of my next post, but these are some of the finished products...

Cake for my granddaughter's piano recital (which I had to miss by the way because of a catering job :( )

3 wintry wedding cakes, to go along with wedding catering gigs... I really enjoy decorating winter wedding cakes.

Last, but not least... a cute little gender reveal cake... by the way, it was blue inside...

We ended the month with a catering gig for 100 on New Year's Eve afternoon. And no, we didn't celebrate much that night. Just glad to be home on our cozy little couch, watching Back to the Future II to see what 2015 was supposed to be like! Happy New Year! 

Making Carissa's "Frozen" Cake

What little girl is not in love with Disney's "Frozen" right now? My granddaughter Carissa turned 5 today. One of her gifts from Mom and Dad was the "Frozen" DVD, so I decided to make her a "Frozen" cake with Olaf as the central figure. I started making the pieces a couple of days ahead, and assembled everything this afternoon. The flavor was vanilla with fresh strawberries and strawberry mousse. I didn't want to refrigerate it because of the fondant and isomalt pieces, so I assembled it just before we needed it.

First of all, what winter cake is complete without snowflakes? I had a few left over from Carissa's preschool cupcakes from last week, so used those plus made a few more. White chocolate is perfect for piping snowflakes. Just copy a bunch of snowflakes on regular paper, tape them onto a board and cover with waxed paper. Then just pipe over the patterns and let set up. Very easy. I made a few snowflakes also with a First Impressions blue silicone mold. They were very difficult to make, as the mold is very shallow and intricate. I tried using gumpaste, fondant, modeling chocolate, 1/2 modeling chocolate with 1/2 gumpaste or 1/2 fondant. I tried putting the molded snowflakes in the freezer before unmolding them. Some of them turned out beautifully, but several just fell apart when trying to unmold them. Not the most favorite mold I've used. 

Next I made Olaf. I looked for 3-D pictures online, and then just patterned Olaf after the pictures. He was made from 1/2 modeling chocolate and 1/2 fondant, His arms and hair were piped out of dark chocolate. Pipe plenty extra because most likely you will need them if one breaks while you are assembling him. I also made a few snowballs out of the same 1/2 and 1/2 mixture, and then rolled them in sanding sugar.

Next I made the ice pieces and a few curly cews from isomalt. If you've never used isolmalt, you must try it. The results are amazing. It's not hard to use once you learn how. You can go to the CakePlay website and watch their video tutorials. CakePLay Isomalt To give it a "crinkly" look, I bunched up a piece of aluminum foil, then smoothed it out and sprayed it lightly with cooking spray, then spread the melted isomalt out thinly on the foil. 

I iced the cake with vanilla buttercream and then covered it with blue and white marbled fondant. I love the look of marbled fondant. Here is a good video on how to marble fondant. She also uses "The Mat" to roll out her fondant like I do. How to Tie Dye Fondant

After the fondant was on, I started assembling the pieces on the cake... here's where you can use your creativity. The last thing I did was cut out Carissa's name with my Tappits and white modeling chocolate, and then sprinkled the entire cake with clear edible glitter.

Carissa's reaction to the cake was priceless. She couldn't stop laughing at Olaf! It made all of my work worthwhile. Happy Birthday Carissa!