JessiCakes Project: August 2011

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Facebook Contest

UPDATE---9/1/11

We have decided to declare two winners-- both posts have the same time stamp of 12:33pm/pt. Since we could not tell who's first or who's second, we declared both Kathy and Deb as winners of our first giveaway. The more the merrier!!! Yay!

Congratulations to Kathy and Deb.

We'll be doing more contests in near future with more prices and a better process. It's best to entice people to post answers below the contest post / announcement for better time and post tracking.

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Update--- 8/31/11

Hours after announcing a winner, it came to our attention that the time stamp for Deb was not 12:45pm, but 12:33pm. The 12:45pm post was a follow-up post that Deb made. So, there are two posts with 12:33pm/pt time stamp-- Kathy's and Deb's. We're investigating how much time difference in seconds they're apart from each other to see who is the real no. 2 poster.

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We have a winner!--- 8/31/11

We posted at 3pm/pt a video of the drawing, where the 2nd poster (Deb) at 12:45pm/pt that has correct answer was declared as winner.

Congratulations Deb!

Thanks to all those who played.

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Our co-founder is celebrating her birthday today. To celebrate, we're having a giveaway contest on our Facebook fan page. Post reads:

In honor of our Co-founder's bday, we're having a giveaway. Until 12MN/PST, name two new charities we added to our list of favorite charities. We'll draw a number. The matching number of the posted answer wins. Only post once. Get more chances, refer us to friends who aren't fans yet. Make sure your friends mention your name on their post. If your friend wins, you both win a prize. Prize -- 2 dozens cake pops (any flavor, double bite size, round) OR cupcake necklace/earring combo set.

The answer must be correct in order to count. Contest is valid for US and non-US residents.

Above is the photo of the cupcake necklace/earring combo set. So, what are you waiting for? Come join the fun and enter! Good Luck!

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Dr. Seuss Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 Cake with Tutorial

This is one of our favorite cakes to make. It was fun making this cake, which is inspired by Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat and Thing 1, Thing 2. Since the birthday celebrant is turning one, we (with our client's permission) used only Thing 1 as the topper. We took hints from JMC Cakes' version, but placed our Thing 1 on top and the fish at bottom (sans the glass bowl).

We first made the Thing 1 figure,s tarting with the torso and legs in one piece molded from strawberry flavored marshmallow fondant (MMF) tinted in red. Then, we made the two arms and let them dry overnight. Since we live in an area that experiences temperatures in the high 80s almost daily during summer that shoot up even to high 90s or in the 100s, we used a small tabletop fan to aid in the drying process. Adding a couple of pinches of Tylose powder while kneading the MMF also helps in speeding up the drying process making it behave like a gum paste. On the second day, we attached the two arms using a dab of tylose glue on each side of the shoulder. Then we inserted a toothpick dipped in tylose glue to hold the future head.

Thing 1 torso.

Shaping Thing 1 face took a few minutes, perhaps close to 10 minutes, to get it right. A flower former helps in eliminating too much hand holding and finger marks.

On the 4th day, we were able to paint the eyes, nose and lip of Thing 1 and added the blue hair. We created the hair using small strips of fondant that we cut using an Xacto knife. We tried using an extruder, but it was not working well for us. So, we decided to create several small strips of blue fondant that we rolled, curled and applied by hand. We used tylose glue to attach each strand. Then, when the paint had dried up, we connected the head to the body using the toothpick.

We used 3 layers of 9-inch round cakes (cookies and cream flavor). After crumbcoating, we covered the cake with sky blue MMF. We continued the application all the way to the side of the board. This will be our base, which will have the flying kite scene along with the ball, book and fishbowl.

We created the cloud effect by cutting out uneven round shape to mimic the cloud using white MMF. Then, we applied water with a brush on top of the blue fondant before adding the white MMF cloud on top.

For the Cat in the Hat's cat, we covered with red strawberry flavored MMF a 4-layer 6-inch round cake (cookies and cream flavor).

Then, we added straws cut out to the height of the bottom tier to add support. We then connected the two tiers with a wooden dowel for stability.

We cut out a couple of 1.5-inch wide white MMF to create the stripes on the hat. We attached them with tylose glue.

Using an edible black marker, we added lines on the white stripes. Then, we rolled black fondant in long strip and attached it to the cloud and sky in irregular pattern to simulate a flying kite movement. This will act as the rope/thread that will hold the kite. We cut out small circles in pairs to apply on the rope/thread.

We did not attach all decorations prior to delivery to prevent risks of damaging them. We added the ball, open book with a birthday message written in a Dr. Seuss fashion and also the fish in a fishbowl at the client's kitchen. The finished product turned out great. The client, her friends, family and the birthday girl all loved it!

Chanel Makeup Bag Fondant Cake with Tutorial

Creating our first purse cake was easier than anticipated. Only after the first cake was delivered did we start on creating the design. We used 2 layers of cakes, one in chocolate flavor and one in vanilla flavor. We used cream cheese filling and chocolate mousse frosting.

Using a ruler, we measured the center.

Then, we made an even cut.

We only used one-half of the cake for the purse. We created another cake with the other half.

We crumb coated using the chocolate mousse. Then we let it sit in the refrigerator for about half an hour. To make the cake stand up, we applied buttercream on the cake board.