Cakes

When I am not doing crazy farm work, I like to bake and decorate cakes. This past summer/fall I had more time to decorate cakes for Birthday Cakes 4 Free. We provide free cakes to financially and socially disadvantaged children and seniors. You should check it out and see if there is a chapter in your area. It is a great volunteer opportunity (especially for moms since you can decorate at home. Even if you aren't much of a cake decorator, you can use this to practice your decorating skills while making others happy. I haven't had much time to bake cakes lately but I thought I would share my three favorite cakes from the last few months.

The first was a snake cake. None of the other volunteers seemed too excited to make a snake cake. I was fairly busy at the time but I like snakes so I took it on since it sounded fun to make. The snake is made of cake and buttercream frosting, much like a cake ball only shaped like a snake. It was then covered by more buttercream, textured, and "painted" with food coloring.

The Elsa cake was made for a five year old little girl whose favorite color is pink and she loves the movie, "Frozen". The entire cake is buttercream, except for Elsa's face, which is made of candy clay. It may not be perfect but I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

The Lego cake was made for my nephew who was in town visiting on his birthday. The Legos are edible. It was a little creepy watching people eat the Legos though, especially my youngest daughter who still puts toys in her mouth sometimes. I just wanted to yell, " Take those Legos out of your mouth!"                  I tried a different technique with this cake. I made a frozen buttercream transfer of Emmet to put on the cake rather than free handing the design myself. Basically, this means I traced a picture using frosting, froze it, and stuck it on the cake. I didn't really like this method as the black frosting bled a bit when it thawed. Next time, I will likely free hand the picture, as long is it isn't too difficult!