Mountain Biking in Colorado

This was a busy week for cakes! The second cake I made was for Steve's graduation party. Steve and Lindsay are moving to Colorado in a matter of days so Lindsay wanted the cake to represent this move and Steve's love of biking. My first thought was that I didn't want the Colorado mountains to look scrawny! We all know how majestic and beautiful they are so I had to do them justice...but I also had to keep the cake size rather small and the costs relatively low. After all, they didn't have 500 people coming to the party to help them eat a mountain-sized cake!

I decided to make paper mache mountains as a 3-D background (I haven't done paper mache since grade school!). Then, the cake was the "rough terrain" leading into the mountains. I made a gum paste station wagon with Steve's bright yellow bike on top. The entire thing was edible except for the 4 pieces of toothpick that made up the "bike stand."

Lindsay also asked me to make the car's license plate one from Colorado with the letters being "Knievel." Such a cute idea! The license plate was easy to make: just cut some gum paste and allow it to dry for several days. Then use food-writer markers to draw the license plate and the letters! Piece of cake! (Sorry, I had to say it. Have I used that phrase on this blog yet? If not, shame on me! If so, sorry, I'm forgetful sometimes so you get to enjoy it again!)


Thank you SO MUCH, Ben, for giving me an airbrush kit! It worked perfectly for this cake! You'd be amazed at how much depth a little brown airbrushing gave to this rough terrain! It was like a transformation!

Side note: To anyone thinking about airbrushing a cake, do it outdoors! I placed this cake in a big cardboard box, from which I'd cut two sides. I thought this was rather smart so that the cardboard box would catch all the airbrush color that went past the cake. Apparently, I have no concept of where the color goes when you airbrush...the color was EVERYWHERE! I only did quick little spurts of color on this cake and the entire thing took about 5 minutes! But later, Adam and I were walking around the kitchen and noticed the bottoms of our socks were turning brown...uh oh. I mopped the kitchen floors 5 times and I was still picking up the color! Dang, and I thought I was being so clever with that box. Oops!

Spring has Sprung!

This week, I made a cake for Jordan, who is graduating from high school. She told me she liked the bright colors and the whimsical flowers on this cake. She wanted a cake that was "fresh, pretty, and sophisticated" with "retro orange, celery green, vibrant pink, sea-foam blue, and brown."

When creating a cake like this, the key is to plan ahead. All of the gum paste flowers need to be made days ahead of time so they have plenty of time to dry before they are placed on the cake.

To make the flowers, roll your colored gum paste to the desired thickness. I used a pasta roller on the largest setting so I was sure to get a consistent thickness for every flower.


Cut the gum paste into strips of even thickness. I used the Wilton roller with a 1/4-inch spacer in between the blades, but there are many other ribbon cutters available. Alternatively, you could just use a ruler and a pizza cutter.


Cut six lengths of each of the following sizes: 2-inch, 3-inch, 5-inch. Place them under plastic wrap so they don't dry out.


Fold the first 2-inch length in half, without creasing. Pinch the ends around half of a toothpick.


Fold the 3-inch length in half around the curved 2-inch length, again without creasing. Do the same for the 5-inch length. Let the six petals dry until they are hard to the touch (usually overnight is long enough).


Once the petals are dry, roll a ball of gum paste and insert the petals into it. You may have to use a small amount of royal icing (it's best if the royal icing is the same color as the flower petals or center) to adhere the petals securely. Let the entire flower dry for several days before putting them on the cake.

The flower created in this tutorial is rather basic, but these same techniques can be used to make many different flowers. The only thing that changes is the lengths you cut and the way you pinch and shape each strip. Here are a few examples:

A new blog, a slightly new topic

This summer, I registered for an online course called "Web Skills for Everyone." The course is basically teaching us how to use new internet technologies and how to keep up with the technologies as they advance in the future. It's really interesting, and I'm learning a lot! Anyway, our assignment this week was to create a new blog. My new blog, called Just for Dessert, is about desserts available in and around Gainesville.

I know, it's no surprise that I'd blog about sweets...what can I say? It's an obsession - I mean passion.

A Twist on a New Classic

I received another request for a giant stethoscope cake, like the one I did in early May. This time, she wanted the cake to be a bit more colorful (specifically, orange and blue) and have a doctor gator (Dr. Albert from UF) on it. Since I have already done this cake, I've already done all the trouble-shooting and I was able to crank it out in about 6 hours - start to finish!


Dr. Albert was made using the Frozen Buttercream Transfer Method. Stay tuned for a future tutorial on this cool & versatile skill!

A Relay for Life Mother's Day

Adam and I both love participating in Relay for Life and raising money for the American Cancer Society, but we couldn't make it happen this year. Time just wasn't on our side. So when one of my students said she was selling cakes at Relay, I was thrilled to be able to contribute in some way! Her team held a cake walk and sold cakes for donations to the American Cancer Society. She's amazing because she made 5 cakes in one week! Since I had to do the stethoscope cake this week, I was only able to do 2 cakes for her. We decorated the cakes in somewhat of a Mother's Day theme...and I decided to do one whimsical cake and one regular one.

Before I show you the cakes, I want to take a quick time-out to say HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all the mommies out there!

Anyway, here's the regular cake, which I decorated with shades of purple since that's Relay's color:


And here's the more whimsical cake with ribbon roses on top:


Which do you prefer - serious or whimsical? Reality or fantasy? Elegant or fun?

A Stethoscope that Trumps All Stethoscopes!

A friend of mine recently asked me to make a giant stethoscope out of cake for her brother's graduation from medical school. My first thought was that the only part that can be cake is the round metal part that the doctor holds against your chest. If that's huge, then the tubing and ear pieces will also have to be huge, right?! Turns out, she only needed to serve 10 people so a 6-inch cake was plenty big enough for them (thank goodness!).

So I knew that doing the giant stethoscope was feasible...but, how should I spruce it up a bit? I mean, a giant stethoscope just lying there is kind of boring, right? So I decided to decorate the cake board like a huge prescription pad with the graduate's name on top. Sounds easy enough...

But then I remembered that writing with BLACK royal icing on WHITE fondant is just a recipe for disaster! Any little mistake and you're done. If it were almost any other color, you could "erase" the mistake with a little water, but the black color is just so potent that you just can't mess up!

Well, I did! I say all the time that one of my mottoes is that professional cake decorators are not perfect, they're just good at covering mistakes. Wow, I just leaned something new! I didn't know that is how the plural of motto is spelled, did you?? Anyway, I digress. When I began writing the brother's name on the cake board, I realized halfway through the first name that I didn't leave enough room for the entire thing! Not good! So, I removed the black royal icing as best I could, leaving a huge stain on the white fondant...and turned the board around! I redesigned the layout of the stethoscope so that the cake would sit right on the stained spot. Go back to the picture - can you tell where the stain is??? See? It's all about covering mistakes!

Anyway, then I knew I had to be careful. I carefully spaced the rest of the words and it all worked out in the end. Phew! With working full-time in the lab and teaching classes 2 nights a week, I really thought I would need to work on this cake for a couple of nights before I completed it. But, I finished it all in one night - about 5 hours of decorating work. Does that mean I'm getting faster or am I becoming less of a perfectionist??? You decide. *wink*

As seen in...

One of my cakes has been published in the magazine Mailbox News! While this is not necessarily a prestigious achievement, it's still exciting the one of my cakes in print! Mailbox News is a small magazine put out by the same folks that do American Cake Decorating Magazine. If you're a decorator, I highly recommend BOTH magazines because they're excellent sources of ideas and information. Mailbox News is almost 100% comprised of viewer's cakes. If you make a cake, you can send your photos and a brief description of how you created the cake to the editor. If you're lucky, they'll print your photo in an upcoming magazine! I have been submitting my photos since last summer and this is the first cake that has been published. Can you find it???

The description reads: "Melanie Judge of Gainesville, FL, decorated this confection for a local poker party. The marbled yellow-and-chocolate cake was baked in a 13x9-inch pan. She iced the cake with chocolate Italian Meringue Buttercream after carving the cake into a slightly oval shape. The cake was covered in chocolate fondant and adorned with colorful fondant and gumpaste accents. The edible topper, gum paste playing cards, was decorated with edible food writer markers."

Thanks, Mailbox News!

Our Day at the Central Florida Fair

Last Saturday, Adam and I went to the Central Florida Fair. Our main reason for going was to see all the other entries in the confectionery arts competition, but we also thought it'd be fun to spend the day eating, playing carnival games, and spinning on all the rides!

Because I was DYING to see if my cakes won any ribbons, we ran straight to the cake competition! We were both thrilled to see that both cakes had won ribbons! The tulip wedding cake won 1st place in its category - "wedding cake 4 tiers or more" - and the It's Showtime won first place in it's category too! The It's Showtime cake also won Best of Show! How exciting!!! What's even more exciting is that I competed in the professional division this time! The rules for the fair competition stated that teachers were to enter the professional category...so...I guess that included me! Here is a photo of all of the confectionery competitions entries at the fair:


And here are some close-ups of a few of my favorites. The first one is the cake that got 2nd place in the "wedding cakes 4 tiers or more" category.


For the record, this cake topper was probably not leaning when the artist dropped it off at the fair. The Florida humidity often alters the entries since people are constantly in and out of the exhibition hall during the day. She's probably just "wilting" due to the humidity.

I'm sure you also noticed that each of these cakes won either a red or blue ribbon. There were SO many categories so lots of ribbons were awarded!

As I mentioned in the previous entry about the Central Florida Fair, there was also a Peeps diorama competition. These aren't the winners, but they're my personal favorites:

Hot off the Press!

Have you seen the latest copy of Gainesville Magazine? Pick one up on the way home today! Then flip to page 120. No, you're not seeing things - that's me! In this month's issue, they posted 10 pictures from the Let's Eat Cake wedding cake competition in Februrary. While I don't feel like they did the event justice (after all, they didn't even print the name of the man who won Best of Show, professional category), it's exciting to see it all in print!

I scanned the pages from the magazine in case you can't get your hands on a copy (click the photos to enlarge them):

Adam's First Cake Delivery!

This post is a little delayed because this cake was actually delivered on the same day as my last library demo. Since I was all the way in Newberry at the same time they needed the cake delivered to the baby shower, I asked Adam to deliver it for me! His first delivery!!! He was nervous, but I walked him through all the little details. The worst part about it was I asked him to place the gum paste baby blocks on the cake at the baby shower. I was afraid they'd slide around too much in the car and ruin the cake. Overall, the delivery went without a hitch, but Adam seemed to have trouble getting the baby blocks centered on the cake. He's an engineer with an extreme Type A personality! How did he get it so right-skewed!? I'm just teasing, I love to poke fun at Adam. Lord knows, he teases me at every chance he gets too!