Annnnd more cakes.

This next trio is from Jack and Jeffrey's 6th Birthday.

Jeffrey's Army tank


























I think that was a 9x13, with a loaf cake on top. The gun was a Pirouette cookie. The tracks were Hershey Bars. The sand was crushed cookies of some sort. With plastic Army men. I especially love the one holding a candle like a bazooka!

And Jack's cake(s). Originally he wanted the Marine Corps symbol. So I researched to figure out how to do it. I ordered a special mold, and made it out of white chocolate. Then he decided he wanted a beach battle scene. I wasn't about to give up my awesome shield! So we decorated each layer differently.
On the left, Jack's beach battle scene, with crushed cookies for sand. On the right, my Marine Corps symbol, with white chocolate shield coated in gold luster dust. The "water" is just blue frosting smeared on the cake board.

Whooooo lives in a pineapple under the sea?
You guessed it! 9x13 cake. Shoulders, socks and shoes are Swiss rolls. Arms and legs are yellow twizzlers. Tie is a fruit roll-up. Everything else is frosting.

This next one was Luke's 4th Birthday cake.
The truck itself was a frozen buttercream transfer. First time I'd tried that particular technique. You simply lay a piece of wax paper over your image, and "trace" the image with frosting. The you freeze it. When it's frozen, you peel the paper off, and pop it on the cake. It's a great technique. The tires are marshmallow fondant. I'm not a big fan of fondant, and doubt I would ever use it to completely cover a cake. But I do like to use it for accents. It's easy to make, inexpensive, and tastes better than traditional fondant. My recipe is here.

Another use of fondant was on this requested cake. One of my son's friends was having a birthday, and his mom asked me to make a curling cake. Yes, curling. That strange sport that involves stones, ice, and brooms. So, I made a curling cake.
The circles are frozen buttercream. The stones are fondant covered mini donuts, topped with fondant. Nothing too difficult. The big deal on this cake was the actual icing. Swiss buttercream. I had never heard of it, but read about it over at Smitten Kitchen and decided I simply MUST try it. It was fab. But I wanted to smooth it out a little more. So I decided I would set the cake outside for a bit, and let the icing set. It was mostly butter, right? So the cold would firm it up. Well, it was -18 that day. The "bit" I left it out there actually FROZE the icing. When it thawed, the butter came out a bit, so the frosting was a bit yellowed. I'm the only one who noticed, though.
And yes, in the Winter our back deck often becomes an impromptu refrigerator/freezer. One of the perks of living in AK.