Love is blue !

I hope you remember when you are big,
how your mom wanted this cake to be!
Everything in place, no details left behind
A bundle of love, all dressed in blue!

A cake based on a friend’s design for her little girl’s Birthday, topped with miniature dolls from Disney’s Frozen collection, find it here

Rise of Jay !

There are cakes and then there are cakes that enlighten you ! When my friend K asked me to make a birthday cake for her son, I was excited and curious all at the same time. I was excited because K always has such inspiring design ideas and curious since I was clueless about the NinjaGo folks. Some of my wise little friends have since lectured me on this regard and now I at least know who is who. The blue Ninja on the top of this cake as you see is very BLUE, very SMART and is a favorite of the birthday boy! The Ninja’s name is JAY. If you are feeling up to soaking in some more of the trivia, Jay is the Ninja of lightning and has a keen sense of humor! No wonder it was great fun making this cake :)

The Ninga bust is hand molded from Rice Krispies Treat bar, and covered with fondant. Using RKT keeps the figure light weight and makes it less top heavy for the cake. You unwrap a rice crispy treat bar, squish and mold it like you please; it doesn’t get any easier than that. All stand up blocks are made with fondant mixed with some tylose powder and dried for a couple of days before placing  on the cake

Throw Back Thursday - Baby in a Peony Cake

It is Throwback Thursday everyone! For those of you who are wondering what Throwback Thursday means, here's an explanation from the recently enlightened (yeah, that's me :). It basically means recalling something from the past. It is a more hip way of saying, 'back in the day...'. Now a days if you start a conversation with 'back in the day...', you sound like an old woman. So in an attempt to hipsterize our blog (yeah, that's a made up word), I declare it is Throw Back Thursday at Grace Cakery!

I want to talk about one of my favorite cakes I have done to date, a sleeping baby in a peony. It was a shower cake for one of my dearest friends who was having a little baby girl. My friend likes green and so was born the idea of a bunch of pink peonies resting on a green butter cream cake. 

I used the very popular sleeping baby mold for this. The mold is simple and inexpensive, but getting the baby out of it without disfiguring it is not easy. It took me a few tries and I recommend making sure your fondant/gum paste combo is well kneaded and soft, or you'll end up with weird folds and lines on the finished baby. I use Turkish black petal dust instead of plain black for hair and eyes. Turkish black is actually a really dark brown and has a more natural look than plain black, which can look a little grey under poor lighting. 

For the peonies I used a a 50-50 gum paste and fondant combination. I made the petals white, and colored them with watermelon pink petal dust. A tip while making large closed flowers, use a small foam ball instead of fondant ball. If use fondant in the middle, the flower becomes too heavy and may not sit well on the wire. I used a spray of mini flowers and buds to complete the flower bunch. 

Well that's the baby in the peony cake. Hope you like it and let us know what you think.

Happy Easter!

Hello Everyone!

Archana and I have been very excited about finally coming together to share our love for cake decorating with everyone. We both believe our talents are a result of God's Grace and not of our own making and so, the name for our blog was a no brainer - Grace Cakery.

And what better occasion to post our first blog, but Easter itself, the Lord's Rising!

We were having a gathering at my sister's place and we decided to make Tiramisu for dessert. It was a large gathering, so we decided to make 2 six layered 8" cakes. Well we decided to have 6 layers but my 3 year old took a chunk out of one of the cakes and so we had to say adieu to one of the layers, Ha ha...

To cover the cakes, instead of the icing that the recipe suggested, I wanted something sturdier and so I used a combination of butter cream and mascarpone. The icing in the recipe is perfect for the filling though. And to give the appearance of grass, I used some edible apple grass, available at most hobby stores around Easter.

  

My favorite part about these cakes were making the fondant decorations. I loved making the little ornate love birds. I used paper embosser plates (like Cricut) to emboss the patterns on fondant. I then cut out the wings using fluted paisley cutters. For the body of the birds itself I used fondant that I kneaded with some tylose powder. I shaped it using my fingers and a cylindrical fondant tool that is pointed at one end. Sorry I didn't take many pictures as I went along. It is really difficult to stop what you are doing and take a pic, especially when there is a toddler hovering to take a swipe at things.

The other thing I loved making was the little carrots. I love applying a lot of details to tiny things, like the striations on the carrots that most people wouldn't even notice. It's like my little secret. The kids definitely didn't notice them as they popped them in their mouths at the speed of light :). I found the tutorials for the chubby little bunnies on Pinterest. I especially like the one burrowing into the ground for some carrots. Love its little paws.

Well, that's the first cake for our blog. If you want to look at pictures of cakes we have worked on before, please check out our Facebook page. If you like our blog, have any questions about the post, please leave a comment and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. See you soon!