Season of the Cake

August and September have me busy and baking with four different cake requests. They all vary in style, theme and complexity so I'm pretty excited for the challenge. I've posted preliminary sketches of the cakes here and will post photos of the finished products over the next two months.

Sock Monkey Smash Cake

My first cake will be a sock monkey smash cake for a first birthday party this weekend. For those of you who don't know what a smash cake is, it is a small personal birthday cake for a one-year-old to eat as messily as he or she pleases (there is a separate cake for guests). This provides amusing photo opportunities of the birthday kid grabbing fistfuls of cake or eating it face first. I'd never heard of this tradition until I started getting into cake decorating. I must say I kind of like the idea of the cake destruction, but not so much the clean-up afterward. This will be a simple cake filled and iced with buttercream and topped with a fondant sock monkey holding a number one. I think this cake will be a smashing success. Sorry, couldn't resist the pun!

Lego Batman Birthday Cake
I love the concept of this one and I can't wait to get started on it next week. We are still working out the details on the design, but you get the general idea.

This will be a two-tiered strawberry cake covered in marshmallow fondant. The bottom layer will be a fondant skyline of Gotham City with a billboard that says "Happy Birthday". The second tier will either be hand-painted Batman villains, another level of city skyline or perhaps something else. The top of the cake will have Lego-style pegs so that the whole top tier looks like a Lego piece. Also on top will be Lego Batman standing in front of a full moon featuring the Batman symbol. 

I've always loved playing with Legos as a kid (well, okay, as a grown-up too) and I find the Lego video games unbelievably adorable. I had to resist getting too carried away with this design, but I was so inspired by the theme!

Year of the Tiger Groom's Cake

In September, I get to make the groom's cake for my friend's wedding. Earlier this year I did a mini-version of the chocolate cake filled with buttercream and topped with ganache for her to sample and to make sure she liked my design style. The top of the cake is decorated with a thin disc of marshmallow fondant and hand-painted with a Year of the Tiger symbol since that is her soon-to-be-husband's Chinese zodiac sign. That was my first time doing such a cake, so the actual wedding day groom's cake should look even better than this sample one. If I had more experience, I might have offered to do the wedding cake as well. However, I need a LOT more practice before I venture into the realm of flawless and precise wedding cakes.

Black Labrador Birthday Cake

Wrapping up the end of September bring a fun dog-themed birthday cake. Considering how much I love dogs, I was thrilled by the chance to do a cake based on their pet labrador. We are still working out the details of this cake, but it should look something like the sketch. Someday soon I'll make a cake inspired by our adorable greyhound, Lina. I think that will have to be sometime after this busy cake season though.