Do you Sudoku??

I'm really behind on posting my cakes, but I have to do James' cake next because every I see him, he asks, "Did you write my post yet?"  Thanks for keeping me on my toes, James.

Now one day at church, James came up to me and started to ask me to make his birthday cake.  He wanted a book cake and he thought that since I have the book pan, that wouldn't be too hard for me to do.

"Wait, how do you know I have the book pan?"  I asked.

"I read your blog," he said.

Now James is only 9 years old.  So I wanted to clarify some things.  "Do you mean you looked at the pictures or actually read it?" I queried.

"I actually read it," he said matter-of-factly.

As the conversation went on, James kept saying things that were straight out of what I had written on my blog.  Later his mother confirmed that he had indeed read my ENTIRE blog.  All on his own.  I think I found my biggest fan.

So of course, I wanted to make him a great cake.  James' mom emailed me his list of requirements.

Hello Joy!  I've made two lists of things for my cake:

THINGS I DON'T CARE ABOUT
I don't care if my cake is regular flavor or chocolate.
I don't care when you get it done (I'd prefer you finish before the end of the year though)
I don't care what the title of the book is, but I'd like it to have the word James in it.

THINGS I DO CARE ABOUT
I want it to be a book.
Can I have Orange frosting? Not the flavor, but the color.
I'd like to have some fondant on my cake. (I like fondant.)
I'd like it to have strawberry filling (the kind mixed with something like you used for Kingston's cake).

Ok, so a book made of yellow cake with strawberry filling . . .

Check.

Orange frosting, the color, not the flavor . . . .

Check.

Title with James in it . . . . .

Check.  

I don't remember if he came up with Boy Wonder or if that was my idea.  I'm sure he will let me know after he reads this.

I asked James what other kinds of things he liked to do, besides reading.  He suggested Sudoku.  So I made a solvable fondant Sudoku puzzle, complete with numbers to fill in the blank spots.

Fondant?

The numbers

Check.

But the cake needed a little something else to make it really special.  I knew that James likes Legos (I mean, who doesn't) and I had this Lego mold I had been dying to try out.  So I melted some candy and filled in the molds.

 They turned out great!

 Then I just had to add the Lego bricks and the rest of the numbers.

 

James, thanks for being so patient waiting for your cake!  I hope you enjoyed reading this post.  Happy Birthday!

Chapter 11 (Not the bankruptcy kind)

A friend of mine recently asked about the process I use when making a cake.  Well, it all starts when someone asks me to make a cake!  Usually they have an idea of what they want the cake to look like or a particular theme they have in mind.  Then I search the internet for ideas using their theme and either try to copy a cake, merge different parts from several cakes together into a new design or create my own.

This was not the case with this particular cake.  My mother's friend Carola wanted a cake for her daughter's 11th birthday.  But she did not have anything specific in mind.  She told me that Jazzy likes books and plays the violin.  Hm, so violin shaped book?  Nah.  I decided to use my trusty book pan again, but what to put on it?

I started off with a violin on the right hand side of the book.

I free-handed this.  Not great, but passable.

 After the black outline was done, I added brown icing for the wood parts and white strings.

It's kind of hard to see all the detail in this picture

Now I needed to add some words on the left page.  Jazzy was turning 11, so this is what popped into my head:

My icing-writing is getting pretty good!  Of course I added the piping gel to the frosting before piping the words.

Next I got out my box of sugar flowers.  Now I really don't like making the sugar flowers all that much because it just takes so much time.  But it was really awesome just being able to pick the flowers out of the box and put them on the cake.  That, I like.

Pre-made roses, carnations and lilies.

Then I added a few more finishing touches (yay leaves!) and the cake was ready to go!

  

The Adventure of Jazzy: Chapter 11

 I heard the family thought the cake was great!  Happy Birthday Jazzy!