natventures

MORE PINK ROSES!

Annie’s adorable daughter just turned 2, and so she ordered a pink rose swirl ombre cake to celebrate. I made a custom fondant butterfly topper, and hand painted “Kylie” on it. Of course, the inside also pink ombre - another delicious vanilla cake covered in vanilla buttercream.

Happy Birthday Kylie, and thanks for the order Annie!

LUCA’S HOLY FIRST COMMUNION

In addition to the lemon strawberry cupcakes, Daniela ordered a cake to celebrate her son’s first holy communion. We went with simple & clean - a three layer chocolate cake filled with baby blue buttercream, covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. 

I have to say, the typefaces that fondant stencils are available in are kind of killing me! I hate the Wilton one that is so common - you can spot it a mile away just like you can spot Comic Sans. Though, being a type nerd definitely helped when I freehand painted “Holy First Communion”! The ‘stained glass’ cross is inspired by this cake design I found online.

Thanks for the order, Dani!

100 DAYS CELEBRATION

Averie not only got some super cute cupcakes, but her mom also ordered a pink ombre rose swirl cake. Of course, it was pink ombre inside too! I used Glorious Treats’ version as inspiration for this fluffy vanilla cake covered in swiss meringue buttercream. I also made fondant letters to finish off the cake.

This was my second time making SMBC - I had no problems the first time so I figured this would be a breeze too! It wasn’t. It curdled and wouldn’t come back to life!! But this tip saved my curdled mess … definitely a lifesaver. Hopefully this will help you with your SMBC battles :)

100 DAYS CELEBRATION

A beautiful little girl just celebrated her 100 days, and her celebration called for “pink, girly, and hello kitty.” And so I made these cute little minis for Averie - chocolate cake with swiss meringue buttercream, topped with hello kitty bows!

MOTHER’S DAY IS COMING UP

After I posted my first cupcake bouquet, I had a couple more orders come in for more! Ruby ordered a purple chocolate bouquet and Bob ordered lemon vanilla, both for their moms. 

Mother’s Day is just a couple weeks away (May 12), so if you haven’t gotten anything yet these ‘roses’ will deliver something delicious AND beautiful! Place your orders by May 1 - email me at natyoung@gmail.com.

YES, IT’S A PEPPER MILL. CAKE.

Bob’s girlfriend is Danish and in Denmark, if you’re not married by 30 you get a peppermill for your birthday! Apparently guys get pepper mill sculptures - heavy oil drums stacked on your lawn spray-painted black and VERY difficult to remove. He’d gotten a few pepper mills for his 30th and it was time for his girlfriend to get one (or something else perhaps? haha)

I thought he was pulling my leg (he tends to do that) but I looked it up and it was legit! So I began figuring out how the heck I’d sculpt this - should it stand? Lie down? How to I go from rectangle to round?! I decided it had to lie down since Bob didn’t want a short, stubby pepper mill. I baked two large 10x13 pans and cut 10 circles. I trimmed about 1cm off the edge so it’d have a flat side to lie on. Frost, stack, and carve; frost again and fondant - easy peasy. Just time consuming! This didn’t have nearly the same amount of detail as the Chanel cake, just the top knob and bottom ring. (My mom pointed out that it should really be inset INTO the bottom, not just lying on top.) The bottom ring usually has the manufacturer’s name engraved so I stamped in BETINA.

It turned out better than I expected - poor Betina thought it was real and even tried to pick it up! Best feedback I could’ve gotten :) Happy 30th, Betina!

ANOTHER CHANEL!

My second Chanel bag - I made my first one a couple years ago and while this time there was less second guessing, I can’t say it went any faster! Howard ordered this Chanel Hampton Large Flap Tote in red for his friend’s birthday.

Funny story - I like to do my research and look at the actual bag before I make the cake, just to get a sense of the details and proportions. Ideally I’d have the bag next to me while I work, but… yeah that’s not going to happen haha. Howard and I went to the Chanel in Holts Vancouver and I asked to see the Hampton bag, which they didn’t have. Since we were already there I asked to see something similar. I started looking over a 2.55 and memorizing its details… I had it for no more than a few minutes when the sales lady took it out of my hands and said a curt “Thank you” before putting it back on the shelf. Err… what? We left and laughed about it after but man, that is some rude customer service!

I made a vanilla cake filled with vanilla buttercream and my own marshmallow fondant. I didn’t do a tutorial for this as there are good ones out there already (see here and here.) But here are some tips/notes:

- Make and prep your fondant in advance. I made the links two days prior and painted them one day prior to allow them to fully dry. Add a bit of tylose powder to your fondant when making the CC logo; it’ll harden it.

- It can be hard to get the colour right with the fondant so I usually do a light wash of food coloring and vodka over the applied fondant to deepen the colour.

- Instead of wooden dowels, I used clean bubble tea straws to hold the cake up.

- The chain is an illusion; the red ribbon doesn’t actually connect underneath the links. Looks way better than the braiding technique I did last time!

- I used corn syrup to glue the chain and logo in place, though the logo had to be propped up with a couple discreet toothpicks.

- I bought a tracing wheel from Dressew (a fantastic sewing supply store in Vancouver) to do the stitching - best $1.50 spent ever! I “stitched” the seams after applying the fondant on the cake since my fondant was distorting and stretching when I lifted it.

Thanks for the order, Howard!

SPRING FLOWERS

The torrential rain we’re getting is a sign spring is around the corner! I made these cute little flower sugar cookies for our monthly staff meeting. Do you see the dimpling in the petals? That’s from me not filling them properly, but I think it worked in my favour since they look more like petals now!

I tried out Sweet Sugar Belle’s recipe and while it was much easier to work with, my tasters have said they prefer the usual recipe from Glorious Treats … oh well, more work it is :P

I also made my own sanding sugar for the centre which was super easy - using raw or organic sugar (the grains are bigger than regular sugar) in a small jar, add a couple drops of food colouring. Close the lid, shake the heck out of it and shake even harder to get rid of lumps. Add more colouring as needed. You can add pinches of cornstarch to help dry it out, but you’ll need to spread it out on a plate/cookie sheet and let it dry for a few hours.

PURPLE OMBRE

I saw this cake style making the food blog rounds and I was dying to make it - luckily Bern’s birthday was just around the corner so I made her a purple version :)

I used the same recipe as last year’s rainbow cake (mainly because I really wanted to eat it…) and I love how it turned out. Next time I might go back to six layers, and definitely try using a smaller piping round tip to make the petals smaller. For a tutorial on this, head over to The Hungry Housewife.