Our First Wedding Cake- Japanese Red Blossoms

We finally did it! Our very first wedding cake.

A Japanese red blossoms inspired 3-tier wedding cake for a simple, intimate wedding.
One request from the bride-- "Keep it simple sweetie." She co-designed this with me, using the invitation with the Japanese red blossoms as inspiration. Her idea was falling flowers from the tree..."no branches," she says. The wedding is very intimate, only 80 people invited. Congratulations Olivia and Christopher- best wishes! Thanks for making Jessicakes Project a part of your wedding! :) The cakes are 10", 8" and 6". Each has 4 layers of cakes. The 10" tier is made of chocolate devil’s food cake and vanilla buttercream, while the 8" and 6" cakes were made of yellow butter cake and chocolate buttercream. All were frosted with white chocolate ganache and covered in gluten-free, vanilla fondant made from marshmallows.


For more photos, check the Weddings & Special Events tab. 

Transformers' Fondant Cake- Optimus Prime

In one of our most ambitious cakes ever-- a Transformers' cake like no other. This cake shows an embattled Optimus Prime rising from the rubble. Lots of firsts in this cake. This was the first time we made a figure using homemade rice krispy treats (RKT). It took us a couple of weeks to get Optimus Prime to come to life. We used marshmallow fondant to mold his face. This is also the first time we used LED balloon lights used at weddings and other parties. This was one of the toughest cakes we've done. Lots of lessons learned on this cake. 

Transformers Optimus Prime cakefront view. Photo copyright by JessiCakes Project. Please do not use without obtaining permission. 

Tranformers' Optimus Prime cake top view. Photo copyright JessiCakes Project please do not use without permission

Hey, Mickey You're so Fine!

We've been so busy these past few weeks that blogging was almost impossible. In the past months, aside from baby showers, most of our cake orders were for kids. We were fortunate also to do three Mickey Mouse themed cakes for three adorable young boys.

Mickey Mouse is such a popular birthday cake not only for boys, but for girls too. Unfortunately, we couldn't make cakes using licensed characters that are copied exactly the same due to license issues. We also do not want to plagiarize. Fines could run in the thousands (read more about it here). Fortunately for us, our clients are so understanding when we told them about this. What we have done is to create Mickey Mouse themed cakes without using Mickey's face. This way, we honor the character without running into licensing issues.

The first Mickey themed cake was for a boy named Daniel. His mommy said that he just loves Mickey. True enough, when we delivered the cake and cupcakes, the first thing that greeted us was his black-and-white photo hanging on the foyer as a young toddler with a Mickey Mouse plush animal. His mommy requested that we make a rectangular cake in vanilla flavor and cream cheese frosting. She also requested that we don't cover the cake with rolled fondant and that we use Styrofoam on the decorations. We were only allowed to use fondant in the decorations. Any fondant that would be eaten has to be gelatin-free. We also make chocolate cupcakes and vanilla cupcakes to accompany the 12" x 9" three layers of cake. All made from scratch. We decorated the cake with non-edible parts to create the Mickey Mouse Club House using mostly styrofoams. Then, used fondants to cover them. The client also has the Mickey Mouse and friends characters she bought from Disney store to use as toppers. She also furnished the cupcakes toppers.

In addition, the client also ordered cake pops (15 in Minnie Mouse silhouettes and 15 in Mickey Mouse silhouettes). Photos below.

Daniel's Mickey Mouse themed cake

Cake pop favors in Minnie Mouse and Mickey Mouse silhouettes.

The second Mickey themed cake was for a boy named Nicholas (Nick for short) who turned 1. The mother of this boy thought that a cupcake tower with the topper in Mickey's hat would work just fine. She requested grandness, which we hope that we have provided using our acrylic cupcake stand. We used the three tiers, with the top one wide enough to hold a 3-layer 9-inch round vanilla cake with fruit preserve filling (strawberry flavor) and vanilla buttercream. We covered and decorated the cake with rolled marshmallow fondant. We used Styrofoam to create Mickey's hat. The balloons were made of marshmallow fondant as well as the other details such as Mickey;s silhouette using cutters to form the shape.

The cutout starts with the celebrant's name are edible along with the balloons and the round balls that decorated the bottom of the cake. There were 50 cupcakes in four flavors-- chocolate (with choco mousse frosting), strawberry (with cream cheese frosting), green tea (with vanilla frosting) and purple sweet yam (with cream cheese frosting). The cupcakes were topped with fondants shaped in Mickey's hat.

Nick's Mickey Mouse themed cake

Closer look at some green tea cupcakes with vanilla frosting and topped with green jimmies and Mickey Mouse hats. 

Lastly, another customer requested a simple cake with cupcakes for another boy who turned 1. His name is Mason. The mom wanted just a small cake plus 2 dozens of cupcakes. So, we created a 2-layer 9-inch round chocolate cake with chocolate mousse fillings covered in rolled marshmallow fondant. We also decorated with Mickey's Clubhouse; however, this cake was much smaller in scale than that of the first Mickey themed cake that is why we were able to make every decoration edible. Although this cake was the smallest of the three, we made the scenery around the cake pop out, as if you're driving along the scenic spots of hills, valleys and trees until you reach the clubhouse. We also used 5 cupcakes of same flavor, which we provided as extras to put the letters to spell MASON, which we placed in front of the cake.

Two dozens of cakes were requested-- 1 dozen in strawberry flavor and 1 dozen in honeydew flavor. Each one topped in Mickey Mouse silhouette, which you will see in one of the photos below.

 Honeydew cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting topped with green jimmies sprinkles and silhouette fondant of Mickey Mouse.

Mason's Mickey Mouse themed cake.

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!

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.


Then, we started decorating using white MMF (marshmallow fondant). We used the ribbon cutter from Wilton to create the quilt effect.



We then created the make up and bag embellishments.

Baby Diapers Fondant Cake with Tutorial