I Could Have Danced All Night

So I'm skipping ahead a bit because I'm really excited about this particular cake.  Yes, I made my own birthday cake.  Not because I HAD to, but because I wanted to.

I have wanted to make a shoe cake for a very long time.  The only problem was that it didn't really fit anyone that I knew.  Then last November I started taking dance lessons from Brian Wong at Chicago Dance Factory.  And suddenly, I had a reason to make a shoe cake.

Almost every Wednesday you can find me swing dancing at West Coast Wednesdays at Galway in Elmhurst.  If you have ever wanted to learn to dance - you should come try it out!  There is often some kind of cake or dessert whenever someone has a birthday.  So when my birthday landed on a Wednesday - I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

A dancing shoe cake.

SUNDAY NIGHT:
First I had to make the shoes.  Thank you so much to Christina who gave me some of her old dancing shoes to use as a model!

Started with a dancing shoe.

First, I cut apart the shoes.  This was kind of fun and kind of scary at the same time.

Dancing shoe cut into pieces.

Then I made a pattern using the shoes pieces.  The shoes were a little big for the size cake I was making, so I made the pattern a little smaller than the actual shoe.

I covered the real shoes with plastic wrap and laid the fondant piece on top of them.  That way they would dry in the correct shape.

Next I made a pattern for the back of the shoe.  Cut and paste.  I like to use plastic wrap to help the fondant hold its place because it is easy to form, comes off easily and holds its shape well.

Then I cut out strips for the front of the shoe and for the straps.  I used one of my tools to make stitching on the straps.  (I used this technique before on the baby converse shoes).  First I glued the straps together.  Then I carefully lifted it and placed it on top of the plastic wrap on top of the shoe.  I cut down the straps to the right size and glued them on.

And now they had to dry.

MONDAY NIGHT:
I made the cakes and they turned out great!  Yay for figuring out the new oven!

TUESDAY NIGHT:
The usual late night.  Hem hem, I mean I went to bed really really on time!

I found a bunch of silhouettes of dancing couples online and printed them out.  I tried to pick ones that were simple so they wouldn't be too difficult to cut out of fondant.  I could hear my mother's voice in my ear saying, "Really, that's simple????"

Then I rolled out the white fondant, traced the silhouettes with a knife and voila!  Beautiful, simple decorations for my chocolate cake.  I did four on the sides and one on the top.  It took a lot longer to make them then it took for you to read this paragraph. 

I was a little worried that they were going to fall off the sides of the cake.  It is really really warm in my apartment and I wasn't sure the gum glue would hold.  But they managed to stay up!  I love how these turned out - especially with the contrast of the chocolate frosting.

Then I had to finish the shoes.  I took the fondant pieces off of the shoe and added the heels.  Then I glued on the strap and buckle.

The only problem was that the shoes looked, well, pink.  I had kind of been going for the black white and red look.

So then I had a brilliant idea.  Wilton sells this color spray for decorating purposes.  I figured I could spray the shoes red and that would be perfect!

WEDNESDAY:

Well, the spray didn't work exactly the way I thought it would.  It was very runny and the color ran down the shoe as I tried to make sure I covered the entire thing.  Oh well, I thought.  It made the shoe look more realistic and, well, used.

The finished shoe.

I had to cart the cake and the shoes (separately) to work, then to my dance lesson, and finally to Galway for West Coast Wednesdays.  And then I put the whole thing together.

Of course I forgot my Ipad at home that day, (you know, the Ipad that comes to work with me every single day of the week, so annoyed).  So I didn't have a camera with me to take pictures.  Instead, I borrowed my friend Ken's super awesome camera to take these shots (thanks Ken!).  These are probably the best cake pictures I will ever have.

The shoes looked so good, more than one person was concerned about eating the cake that had someone's dance shoes sitting on it . . . . .

Beautiful and realistic looking fondant dancing shoe.  It looks like you could try it on!

My friend Beth graciously offered to provide plates and forks.  She and Rosa helped me pass out the cake.  I cut about three quarters of it, left some slices on the counter and walked away for about 10 minutes.  When I came back, the cake had disappeared!  As always, it tasted as good as it looked.

Happy Birthday to me!

Hoffman Family Camping

Well I officially have four posts that have over 130 views!  I know in the grand scheme of things that isn't very much, but at least it's just more than my mom reading my blog.  Unless she went to the same page more than 100 times . . . . . . . .

So, I have a really big extended family.  Usually when I say this, there is one person who is all like, "Oh yeah, me too!  I have 10 cousins!!!!"

Psshhhhaw.  That's not big.

I am fortunate enough to belong to the clan of Hoffmans.  My mom is one of eleven children and there are around 50 cousins (I'm not sure of the number, there's too many to count).  And now they have all been getting married and adding spouses and great-grandchildren to the mix.

Needless to say, it is difficult to fit us all in one place.  So every year in July, we go camping at Hoffmaster State Park in Michigan.  This is my favorite vacation of the year.  We have a lot of traditions involved in camping.

My cousin Annie got married in March.  My Aunt Nancy asked me to make the cake for Annie's wedding shower.  And Annie chose the theme of camping (for the cake) because it is so special to our family.  But the shower was in Michigan - a whole 3 1/2 hours away.  The farthest away I have ever transported a cake.  But I was determined to do it.

The plan

The plan was to make a whole bunch of fondant pieces ahead of time and then just stick them on the cake Saturday morning when we arrived.  Of course, things never go as I plan them.

I did get off to a good start.  There was one thing I knew I had to have on the cake - and that was the turkey.  Every year my dad makes a turkey over the fire for everyone to eat (well now we make two and rumor is we may be adding a third).  Each family contributes something to the meal that they cooked over the fire.  Then we all gather together and stuff ourselves.  It's like Thanksgiving and it's the best turkey you will ever eat.  Sooooooo good.  We even have special sticks that we have used for years to cook the turkeys.  So that was what I made first.

I used lollipop sticks wrapped in chocolate fondant because I wanted to make sure it was sturdy enough that it wouldn't fall over.  I formed the body of the turkey and poked a hole in it so I could slide the stick through.

 Then I added the wings.

I also made the doughboy sticks and some sleeping bags (in Michigan colors!).  Next came a bunch of wood and an axe.  No Hoffman Camping Cake would be complete without Big Blue.  Big Blue was a ginormous tarp that my dad used to use to make an ice skating rink in our backyard.  Only this time he hung it up between the trees so I could use it to practice my tennis serve.  (Can't let vacation get in the way of tennis practice!)  Big Blue was also used for a number of other purposes over the years.

I also wanted to have some camping chairs sitting around the fire.  I knew this would be complicated, so I wanted to glue it ahead of time so that it would be nice and solid when I put the "fabric" part on.

Salt Shakers - who knew they were cake decorating tools.

 Thursday night I was supposed to bake the cake, fill it and frost it so that all I had to do Friday night was add the stuff on top.  That night was a terrible snowstorm and it took me like 2 hours to get home from work.  Only to discover that we had no eggs.  Needless to say - there was no baking that night.

So now it's Friday night after dinner.  I have to finish the cake because we are driving to Michigan at 5:30 in the morning.  I set out the different elements on the cake to see if everything fit.  I had since made the fire pit and some marshmellows on sticks.

See anything wrong with this picture?

 Now granted, the dunes were supposed to be "off in the distance," (yes those are dunes), but when your camping chair is about 2 times the size of the dunes, you know something just isn't right.

Epic fail.

So I scratched the chair idea.  Sigh.  Next time.

Now I had to make the tent.  I started with 2 6-inch round cakes and cut them down to this:

The tent was a bit of a struggle.  I put too much filling inside and when I went to frost the outside, it came squishing out and got all mixed in with the frosting.  I tried not to panic because I knew I was putting fondant on top - so it would be okay.  The fondant didn't look that great, (I really need to learn how to do the tent thing better) but it kept all the frosting and filling in nicely.  And it looked fine with the rest of the elements.

The dunes pre-brown sugaring.

 I covered the dunes with frosting and then added brown sugar on top to look like sand.  I thought they turned out pretty well.

I frosted most of the cake with green frosting and about 1/4 of it with blue frosting for the water.  I added a little brown sugar for the beach.  (Note - the cake is NOT built to size).

I thought I had more pictures of the faces as I was making them, but I guess not.  I tend to get on a roll with things and then forget to take pictures.  But I made Annie and Tim's heads out of fondant, added noses, eyes and hair (they are both smiling, you just can't see it.)

Peeking out of the tent.

I added the sand dunes and the cake was ready for transport.

I won't mention the fact that by the time I cleaned up the kitchen it was around 3:30, or that we were leaving for Michigan around 5:30, or that I was driving.

I was nervous about the cake making it intact.  My mom, sister, sister-in-law and two nieces were all packed into the van with presents and the cake.  Every time we stopped I checked on it to make sure it hadn't been smooshed.  Fortunately, we made it in one piece.

At Aunt Nancy's house I added the rest of the details to the cake. 

Here you can see a little book called "Bee Stings."  That's a little family inside joke.  When we were much younger, we were up on the dunes going to the lake when Annie got stung by a bee on her lip.  My sister, having recently read Grandma's Attic, knew that putting mud on a bee sting helps it feel better.  Of course we didn't have any mud - but there was an abundance of sand.  So we mixed some water and sand and put it on Annie's lip.  I don't think it helped.

Bee Stings and Big Blue

Anyways, the story became part of Hoffman family lore, and I had to include it in the cake somehow.

Sleeping bags and a camping chair.

Since the camping chair didn't work out, I included one still in its bag.

The turkey turned out great!

That's a doughboy stick leaning against the fire pit.

The axe and the wood pile.

The beautiful bride with her cake.

The cake of course was delicious!

We cut the cake around the tent so Annie got to take it home and show it to Tim.  Looks like they are ready to jump off the cliff!

Congratulations Annie and Tim!

Oh Boy!

I usually like to have a lot of time to think about my cakes before I make them.  I do a lot of planning.  For this cake, I didn't have that luxury.

My sister and a friend were throwing a surprise baby shower for another friend, Corissa.  She already has 3 boys and is expecting another one.  That's a lot of boys.  They asked me a few days before the shower if I could make the cake.  Ah, a challenge!

I've seen so many baby shower cakes with the little baby shoes and I have been wanting to try them for awhile.  They look really hard to make, but it actually turned out to be fairly easy, but time consuming.

Since it was so last minute and I had other plans for that weekend, my sister baked the cake, put in the filling and iced the cake for me.  She did a great job.  Elisa assisted her, of course.

My friend Rachel was visiting for the weekend from St. Louis.  She was my assistant/cheerleader/photographer.  Thanks for all your help Rachel!

I found a great tutorial and pattern online from marzipanmom (http://marzipanmom.blogspot.com/2012/02/baby-converse-cake.html).  She also did a youtube video, which was very helpful.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cBcVz2IR_g

I cut out the pattern in different sizes and then cut out the fondant pieces.

This picture is like a Wilton commercial.
How many Wilton products can you spot?

I used a mixture of fondant and gumpaste - about half and half.  Don't forget, when you are working with gumpaste and fondant, you need to keep it covered because it dries very quickly!

Baby Chloe is watching all of the action.

Once the pieces were cut, I added some trim onto the shoes using a fondant cutter.  Then I began gluing the pieces together (using gum glue, not real glue).  I put some clingwrap inside the shoe to help keep the shape until the fondant dried.

Then I added the shoe laces.

I made the holes before I glued the piece on the shoe using a #3 frosting tip - the perfect size!  I used the fondant shaping tool to stick the laces into the holes.

If I do this again, I will make sure to punch the holes a little lower so the laces go all the way down.  But I thought they turned out pretty well.

Each shoe has a slightly different look.

4 different fondant baby shoes

The last thing I added was the little loop on the back of the shoes.

Here is a better look at the detail.

Finally I cut out some fondant circles and arranged them on the cake.  I borrowed the cookie cutters I gave my sister-in-law for Christmas last year to cut out the letters.

Then I placed the shoes on the cake for the final touch!

And here are some close-ups:

The baby shoe (so cute)

Elder Middle Child shoe

The Eldest  - I think this one might be my favorite

Younger Middle Child Shoe

This cake was done in record time!  For me anyway . . . .  And Corissa got to take the shoes home for her boys.

Congratulations Corissa!  I can't wait to meet your newest little boy!