Purple Wafer Paper Fantasy Flowers

A simple birthday cake for my sweet sister-in-law.

Purple fantasy flowers and leaves from wafer paper with chocolate fondant fern coils.

The inside was Devil's Food with espresso butter cream all covered in dark chocolate ganache.

We waited three days to cut it and it was much moister than I expected. Almost gooey.

I guess that ganache is great for sealing in moisture. Nice to know.

The cake rode for about 5 hours on the front seat of the car in pouring rain with no major mishaps.

Just a little slippage on what became the back side that I managed to repair a bit before it went under the knife.

Hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable long weekend!

Pink Dahlia

Another flower made from wafer paper.

Have I told you how lovely wafer paper is for making thin petals?

This time I hand painted the edges as well to give it a little more dimension.

Short and sweet.

The end!

Wafer Paper Roses Tutorial

As promised . . . 


Note - if you'd like flavor in your rose, use extract or flavored alcohol of choice in place of the water "glue."
Pinnacle Whipped Cream Vodka is especially nice.

Would love to see what you do with them!

Heart Wreath from Cupcakes and White Wafer Paper Roses

Look Ma! No carving! This wreath was made using mini cupcakes.

Here they are. Pretty in pink. All lined up and ready to go.

Twenty six little bundles of joy before the frosting.

The cupcakes were attached to the fondant covered

foam core heart with a dollop of butter cream.

Then all of the nooks and crannies were filled.

A final layer of frosting was slathered over the

 these pink beauties before covering them with fondant.

Kind of hated to hide them but won't they be a lovely surprise?

Here's a close up of some of the 60 wafer paper roses that adorned the heart.

They were SO easy to make and went rather quickly.

They also are as light as a feather and melt in your mouth.

Not in your hands. Unless your hands are wet.

Happy Valentine's Day and thanks for stopping by!

(Tutorial can be found in the next post.)

I Heart You Cake

I have an acute fondness for letters in all sorts of fonts. There. I've said it.

Now there's hope for a cure. Until then, why not put some on a cake?

This one was inspired by something I recently saw on Amy Atlas.

Jenny of bloomdesignsonline was featured on

Amy's Sweet Designs blog for her S.W.A.K. party (congratulations!!!)

and included this alphabet in a frame kind of tucked away on a shelf.

Just waiting for me to find it. See if you can spot it here.

Did you find it?

The pink and gray stole my heart.

And if you want a little less pink in your design . . .

. . . she's got that too. But wait . . . there's more.

A red and black one as well! 

Jenny was kind enough to allow me to create her alphabet on a cake.

She also generously provided these three versions of her art

as pdfs which you can download here.

I chose the red, black and white because I had this cute

little alphabet ribbon that I planned to use at the bottom.

But it looked a bit too babyish when the time came. So I left it off.

Much cleaner look and more what I was hoping for.

The cake is covered in fondant with fondant trims.

The ribbon was textured using this fun tool from

Walnut Hollow that I found quite a while ago at Michael's.

It was sold in the metal art section but works great for cake decorating.

Time to go put away the baking toys for today. : (

Thank you for the fun and creative graphic Jenny!

I knew I would like you at once when I saw your bubblegum . . .

Sheet music by traditional-songs.com

Thanks for looking!

Heart Shaped Love Knots

These little heart shaped knots are made from fondant that was extruded from my handy dandy clay tool.

Such a great tool to have in your toy box!

Here are a couple of styles that work well:

I used this one from Walnut Hollow with a crank style handle along with the disc with 12 holes.

This one works great if you ever want to extrude your lines directly on to your cake.

This is a tip I learned from one of the smartest bakers in the world, my sweet friend Jessica.

She piped the trim on her precious purse cakes one handed right onto the corners and other parts of the cake!

Amazing stroke of genius and a fabulous trick!

That way you don't have to worry about stretching or marking up the strand before it reaches its new home.

She really does make everything look so easy by working smarter, not harder.

This love knot concept would also work for wedding or anniversaries.

Or add any number of strings to represent a family instead of a couple.

Since Valentine's Day is around the corner, I decided to try them with a little non-traditional coral color added in.

To make the heart knots:

Color the fondant to desired shades.

I added a bit of shortening to make sure it would be easy to work with.

Load one color of fondant into tube of tool and extrude onto waxed paper.

Lay the individual strands slightly apart and not touching.

Cover with plastic wrap while forming the second color of strings.

I made my strands about 9-10 inches long so that I'd have

plenty of room for my clumsy fingers to tie the knot.

Using one strand of each color, carefully tie into a knot.

It's best if the fondant is slightly dry so that the strands don't stick

to each other but still pliable enough to form the knot without breaking.

Using your thumb and index finger, gently pinch the

bottom to form the point of the heart.

Allow to dry slightly.

Place on cupcake or cake and trim ends to desired length.

Place a dot of royal icing to hold the pearl dragee in the center of the heart.

I could get carried away with these.

Can't you just see a whole line of "heart string" related creations?

Happy Caking!