Do You Want to Build a Snowman?

Disney's new movie Frozen is quite possible one of the cutest movies ever! The princesses are strong and independent. Olaf the snowman is an amazing character, and stole my heart from the moment I saw the first teaser for the movie. He is such a cheeky little guy!

My first order for a Frozen cake was, of course, with Elsa on it. I made this cake a while back, before I had actually watched the movie. I knew I had to include snowflakes and sparkle, that was pretty much all I got, based on googling images!

Once I had seen the movie, there was no way I wasn't going to make Olaf in cake. The next order I had, I practically insisted that I make Olaf rather than the princesses! I didn't need to do much convincing though... Really, who can say no to such an adorable creature!?

I really wanted to take a picture of myself holding his head, like in the movie, but hubby was too busy working on the next cake, so I had to settle for a selfie :D He turned out much bigger than I had initially planned! Oh well, it's a happy mistake! 

Oh The Places You'll Go!

It's graduation season! It's always very exciting to move on to bigger and better things. My little niece is starting kindergarten in the fall, so she had her daycare graduation last week. This has to be the cutest grad I have ever attended! It was complete with little ones stumbling across stage, amazing performances, teeny graduation hats, and a proud parents paparazzi crowding around the stage with a million cameras. It was all quite the sight!

As a little present to my niece, I made her a graduation cake. I based it on the Dr. Seuss book, Oh The Places You'll Go! I've been dying to make any Dr. Seuss themed cake, and this book is just so terrific, and a classic for graduations. 

Sporty Cake

A very confused mother approached me a few weeks ago, with no clue as to what kind of birthday cake to get for her 18-year-old son. After much brainstorming and many rejected suggestions, I was at a loss for the first time! I asked about everything from hobbies to color schemes, and got nada. Guys are always tougher, I guess... I finally found out that he's actually quite the sporty guy and plays both basketball and soccer. Birthday boy's brother came up with this design, and thank goodness for him, it all worked out in the end!

Heigh Ho!

Here it is! My big project of the year! OK, maybe just one of many big projects I take on... but still, a biggie! My niece has grown up being spoiled with some crazy birthday cakes, and this year was no different. As she gets older, she's a little more specific with what she wants. First off, the cake had to be chocolate-chocolate. She asked for Snow White, the dwarves, and they had to sing and dance! I'm guilty of feeding her some of these ideas ;) 

We came up with a design where the cake was the dwarfs' quaint little house; chocolate cake, chocolate buttercream in the layers, and masked in a dark chocolate ganache. The mines are made out of rice crispy treats, and all the figurines are fondant. So, entirely edible! 

Check out the video of the cake in action! 

It was entirely devoured, cake, rice crispies and all!

Go Bananas!

This is the perfect cake for me to blog about today. I just came back from an amazing week in the sun, and I'm fighting some terrible winter blues! This was a cake I made right before leaving on my trip for an adorable little birthday girl who loves monkeys and bananas. Put 'em together, and you've got this super cute combination! 

Lately, I've been asked to make the inside of the cake as fun as the outside. Whether it's rainbow or obmre, it's super fun to cut into a cake to find a surprise. This time, I was asked to make something I had never done before - checkerboard! I had no idea how it was going to turn out until right up to the cutting, so that made me super nervous. In the end, it looked better than I hoped! 

ConGRADulations!

I've made cakes for just about any occasion, and in all sorts of shapes, but graduation cakes are definitely something new!  When I was asked to make a friend's grad cake, I crossed my fingers and my toes hoping he wouldn't want something typical including hats and diplomas... To my relief he asked that I make a  cake version of the McGill arts building! It was a ton of fun to make, and I think it was my first cake replica of a building. The inside was a chocolate cake with a choco-hazelnut buttercream, sooooo delish! 

Don't forget the miniature McGill flag, hand-painted, of course! 

Periwinkle Takes the Cake!

This weekend was Montreal's first annual cake show. To see what I was up to on Saturday, check out my last blog post. On Sunday, they announced the winners for the cake expo entries. It was insanely nerve wracking, but it turned out much better than I expected. Aside from the cupcake challenge (where I won Finest Looking Cupcake!), I entered 3 other categories in the expo. Overall, I ended up taking home prizes for 3 out of my 4 entries! Amazing results! 

As Halloween was on its way, and I was way too consumed with my caking to do our usual candy giving madness, I needed to get my zombie fix elsewhere. So, for the sculpted cake category, I decided to enter a zombie cake. I had so much fun making a zombie head for an order a while ago, so that was  obviously what I had to make again! I was super excited... until I reread the rules and realized my cake had to stand at least 24" tall and be made entirely of cake. Yikes! As scared as I was, I changed my zombie head to a zombie body, and went ahead with it. Being so huge, no part of making this cake was easy. Not the carving. Not the masking. And definitely not covering him in giant pieces of fondant. What a nightmare! 

He turned out great in the end, but when we brought him in to the expo, and looked for our number on the tables, my heart sank. Right next to our spot was this beautiful, multicoloured owl sculpture that totally drowned out my zombie. Chef Zombie looked dull and unimpressive next to THAT! So, when they didn't call out my name for 3rd place, or 2nd place, I really didn't expect it when I got called for FIRST! I was stunned! AMAZING! Chef Zombie look home the GOLD in the advanced sculpted category! 

My last winning entry was my Valentino inspired shoe. It's something I've made a couple of times before, and I keep getting emails, and comments about it. Its something I was very confident making, and knew I had to enter into the sugar shoe category. So I did, and of course, it came home a winner too! 

So there you have it! My winning entries! I also entered a wedding cake, but with all the amazing talent in that division, my cake didn't win :( But that's a-okay... I'm already planning my cake for next year ;) I'll share pictures soon!