Catfish Cake!

I know it sounds crazy but this was actually a pretty cute cake. A co-worker of mine ordered this cake for his daughters birthday. When he asked what she wanted she specifically asked for a green cake with blue frosting shaped like her favorite stuffed animal Oba the catfish. Well, I have not mastered cakes that are shaped like things so I offered up the idea of doing a mini cake for the birthday girl with cupcakes to go along with. Luckily that worked for them. I new I could pull off a small catfish made out of marshmallow fondant and a banner that said "Happy Birthday Clara Love Oba" - I made a vanilla cake with green food coloring and used a classic buttercream with blue food coloring. I also made grass/seaweed to go around the base of the cake out of fondant to make Oba feel at home :-)

Sports Themed Cake Pops

Basketballs, Baseballs, and Soccer balls! I got an order recently to make cake pops for a little boys class on his birthday and I wanted to share them with you. I think they turned out really well for never having made any sort of sports accessories before in the past. I used vanilla cake with white chocolate for the soccer and baseballs and orange for the basketballs. The trickiest part for me was the lines on the basketballs. When planning I thought I would just pipe them on with chocolate but that was nearly impossible. Then I thought I would draw them on with the edible markers but no one tells you that edible markers do not write on candy coating AT ALL! So my last idea was to use black food coloring watered down to make the stripes. I used a very small paintbrush and lightly painted the lines on. For the soccer balls I first cut out small stars in black marshmallow fondant using a star cookie cutter. I then used a sharp knife and cut off each point of the star which left me with little octagons just like a soccer ball has, I put a little melted white chocolate on the back of each one to act as glue. For the baseballs (my favorite) I just used a red frosting pen and piped out the red lines.

I will warn you - the black food coloring on the basketballs will get all over your mouth when you eat them but that is part of the fun! I went to the craft store and just got a simple white metal tin and put floral foam inside to hold up the cake pops with ease. Since I am crazy I also got some long grass from the floral section and cut it down to stick into the foam to simulate sports grass. It was the perfect stiffness to stick into the foam easily, and thanks to help from my friend Taryn we finished in no time. I really like to make the packaging fun when I am baking for a theme. I hope you enjoy the photos and try making them on your own at home...