"It'sa me, Mario!"

The challenge: Three cakes in three weeks.

I went for months without making a single cake.  Then suddenly, I realized that I had committed to three cakes in three weeks.  I would need to be Super Mario himself in order to pull this one off.  Would I rescue the princess?  Or would I succumb to the mushrooms, flying ducks, spitting fireballs or worse?

Only time would tell.

Week One: Mario

My nephew, like many young boys his age, is obsessed with video games.  He LOVES Super Mario.  And he is very good at it.  He was quite shocked to discover that I hadn't passed the first world yet (he's beaten the game and is now trying to go back and collect all of the star coins).  I have since made it to World 2.  Where I am stuck on level 5.

So we decided to make a Mario cake for his birthday.  Now, I may not be the best at playing Mario, but I was determined to be the best at caking Mario.  You know what that means.

A Super Mario fondant figure.

I've been getting better at my people/figures/fondant sculptures, so I wanted to try this out.  The idea was to make a sort of simple cake, just one tier, with a lot of the Mario elements.  Then on top, I'd put a pipe and Mario going into the pipe.  Piece of cake.

The cake itself wasn't too bad.  I made a chocolate cake with chocolate fudge filling, as requested, and covered it with light blue fondant.  I freehanded some green fondant to look like trees and hills.

That's what it looks like right?  Trees and hills?

Then I did some clouds.  I looked everywhere for a cloud cookie cutter, but I couldn't find one, so they are free-handed too.  Who knew making clouds would be so difficult?

I made some yellow fondant and cut out a bunch of stars, squares and circles to use as elements on the cake.  I also cut out red circles and ivory circles to make little mushrooms.

They are all covered so they don't dry out before I need them.

Then I started adding elements.  I decided which section I wanted to be the front and added the brown door.  I also added some piranha plants in pipes.

Awww, it looks so cute and innocent right now.

Then I began adding stars, coins, mushrooms, and question blocks.

Then one of my favorite elements - the vine.

Then I did some piping to finish off the elements.

Then I started to work on Mario.  I used two tutorials that I found on Pinterest.  Mainly this one from  by Cesare Corsini on Cake Decor but also this one which I have no idea where it came from.  I started with the body.  Cesare's tutorial is for a Mario that is standing, but I wanted it to look like mine was going into the pipe.  So I omitted the legs, but I put two little stumps there so it would like he had legs that were in the pipe and also to help balance the body.  Sometimes I think we make the mistake of trying to make the body and then add the clothes.  You have to think of it a little differently so it is easier to make.  So here we see the blue pants and the red shirt.

I add the arms in red (all of this is using gum glue to stick it on tight) and then the suspender straps.

For the head, I made a ball out of ivory fondant and made eye impressions with one of the green fondant tools.  I tried to follow the tutorial as best I could.

He used paint for the eyes, I went with mostly fondant, except for the pupils.

It took forever for me to figure out if Mario had brown or black hair.  In some pictures, he had brown hair but a black mustache!  I just decided to go all brown because it was easier and I didn't want to buy a whole thing of black fondant.  This was white fondant that I colored brown.

I made the back of his head kind of flat because I knew I would be adding the hair.  I'm still not very good at the whole weight balancing thing.  This little guy got real heavy, really fast.  I did have to adjust the head later on.  Another problem was that I had already painted the pupils onto Mario's eyes using black food coloring.  Then when I was squeezing the hair on, I realized my fingers were touching his eyes!  So it got a little bit smeared.  Probably should have painted the eyes on last.

The hands were pretty fun to make.  I just used a knife to cut the fingers and then shaped them a little and folded them over into fists.  They look pretty good!

If I ever do this cake again, I will not make the pipe the same way.  I thought that I had this brilliant idea - I would use the cake that I cut off the round cakes to make them flat.  Then I would mix them with frosting, like a cake pop, cover that with fondant, and have a great pipe!

The first problem was that I used my new baking strips.  My old ones were kind of dying so I replaced them with these purple cloth ones.  The thing I love most about these is that they have built in straps to hold them in place against the cake pan.  No more pinning the baking strips!!!! Yay!

You can get a six piece set at JoAnn's for $25 and if you use a 40 or 50% off coupon,
that's pretty close to what Wilton charges for 2 pieces.

However, they worked so great, that at first I thought I wasn't going to level them at all.  And then there would be no cake to make the pipe.

However, I did end up leveling them and using that to make a pipe shape.  I tried to freeze it after I mixed it with the frosting, but it did not stay firm.  (I know now that I used waaaaay too much frosting).

So it took awhile, but I finally got some fondant over it and it sort of looked like a pipe.  Sort of.

I brought Mario separately to my parents house, planning to put him on the cake after arriving.  Unfortunately, since he was so heavy, the foot stubs I had on the bottom had flattened in front, causing him to lean forward.  So I just added a little more blue fondant on the bottom to balance him out.

Here is the finished product, right before we cut it:

It kind of looks like he is standing on top of the pipe with really, really short legs, but oh well.

I tried to get a picture from all angles, so you can see all of the details.

You can see here how Mario's eyes got a little messed up.

And here is the birthday boy with his cake!

Happy birthday Peter!  

One down, two to go.

I am Obsessed With Angry Birds!

I am obsessed with Angry Birds!!!

That's what my nephew Peter said when he begged me to make him an angry birds cake several months ago.  He's six.  And he LOVES Angry Birds.

Now Peter knows my methods, so he wanted to look at Angry Birds pictures with me to find the perfect cake.  The first one we found was a playable cake.  (This dad is such an over-achiever.  Yeah, I'm jealous)  Peter's eyes lit up.  "Can you make this one Aunt Joy?" he asked.  Oh boy.

After sifting through tons of pictures, Peter picked about 8 that he liked.  He specified some details - for example, there were to be no black birds.  And he definitely wanted a sun and clouds.  Oh, and there should be a bird in the air and it should be a red one.  (Thanks whoever was genius enough to figure that one out.)

My main task was to make the birds.  The cake would be two tiers, a 10-inch and a 6-inch.  But the birds (and the pigs, of course) were the main attraction.  Now, if you don't know anything about Angry Birds, I suggest you go educate yourself online.  I had to.  Otherwise this cake will not really make sense to you.

I started by finding the best picture online of all the birds, collectively.  I found this one, a picture of edible cake toppers made by the Artisan Cake Company.

They were selling these for $115.

Say what?????  Maybe I'm in the wrong business . . . .

I made all of the birds and pigs out of fondant.  A few of the details were added with icing.  When you are using fondant, don't forget to cover, cover, cover!  You don't want it to dry out.  Wrap the part you aren't using in plastic wrap.

I won't bore you with exact details of how I made each character.  If you are making some yourself and really want to know, shoot me an email (email address is in the upper right hand corner).

I started with the pigs:

Rolling out the green fondant

The Pig King
(I know, he looks creepy because the eyes aren't finished)

Then I started on the birds, first the white and yellow ones.  I have no idea what each bird does, I was just going off of the picture.

The secret to the birds (and the pigs) is in the details.  And the real secret is the beak.  I cannot claim this idea as my own.  I found a tutorial on the red bird and whoever wrote it gave some great advice.  To make the beak look real, first you form it into the correct shape.  And then you cut it with scissors.  It just looks right.  I used this trick for all of the beaks.

This yellow guy was my favorite one.  He just turned out so well.
His eyes and eyebrows are made from fondant.
Most of the other bird's eyebrows are made with frosting.

First stage complete

Now I was pretty impressed with my bird making skills so far.  I am not a sculptor by any stretch of the imagination.  But give me basic shapes and I'm good.  That's what I loved about these characters, anyone could make them.  Or I guess you could spend 115 bucks.

Next I made the slingshot, eggs (which apparently the pigs stole) and the dreaded bird in the air.

I wasn't sure if this was going to work at all.  But I knew Peter really really wanted a bird in the air.  So I bought some wire and stuck it into one of the red birds.  I was hoping the fondant would harden around the wire and hold it in.  (No such luck)

DAY 2

I made the cakes and the blue frosting, filled the cakes and frosted them.  Then I had to finish the birds and pigs by adding black frosting for the eyes, eyebrows and other details..

I also had to make some structures for the birds to knock over.  I started with Nutty Bars, a delicious combination of chocolate and peanut butter.  I sliced them up in varying sizes.

I made some modeling chocolate using mint chocolate candy melts.  I didn't plan on using mint, but that was the only kind available when I was at the store.  I rolled out the chocolate (which I made the night before) and wrapped it around the nutty bars.

 Next I rolled out yellow fondant for the sun, white fondant for the clouds and green fondant for the grass and applied them to the cake.  All that was left was to place all the elements on.  I waited until the cake was delivered to put the slingshot and the bird-in-midair on so they wouldn't fall off on route.

The cake made it intact to its destination.  I added the slingshot.  Next was the bird in the air.  I managed to balance it on the wires.  It was totally intentional for it to be knocking the cake over.  Totally.

And the cake was done.

Here are some close-ups:

I love the pig with the mustache!

The birthday boy matches his cake.

Most people don't want to cut my cakes when they see them.  The first thing Peter said when he saw it was, "I can't wait to cut it!"

Peter wanted to take some pictures too.

And a shot of my favorite.

So, what was Peter's favorite element you ask?  Not the angry birds, nor the pigs, not even the bird-in-mid-air!!!  It was the crown on the king pig.  The crown????  He was so impressed with it.  He told me, "I didn't know you could do that!"  What a funny kid.

Peter thought the birds and pigs were so cool that he wanted to keep them.  So his mom bought some spray that would preserve them.  So now he has a collection of angry bird figurines.

Happy Birthday Peter!!!