Raspberry Mousse Cake

I was inspired to make a mousse cake for Valentine's Day, mostly because I've been watching too much of Zumbo's Just Desserts and I want to make fancy things like he makes. I'm not quite there yet.

It's a raspberry mousse with sponge cake on the bottom, and fresh raspberries inside. The decor is fresh raspberries, sugared with white, black, and gold sugars.

Romanov

My French baking book calls this a Romanov. I made it for my Dad's birthday. It's a sponge cake on the bottom and a white wine bavarian cream on top, with fresh strawberries on top and an orange juice glaze. I waited about 3 seconds too long to pour the glaze, so it turned out lumpy, but it was delicious!

Spike Roller Cake

This very pink monster is a mini-boss from Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. It's chocolate cake with milk chocolate ganache icing. The spike roller itself is a tube of dark chocolate with white chocolate chip spikes and milk chocolate mousse inside.

Ghostie

Another giant stuffie for my nephew! This year, he wanted the ghost from the video game Forager. It's very soft and squishy and perhaps a little larger than I expected it to be.

Fabstaff

Yet another video game inspired wooden weapon! This is my IRL interpretation of the Fabstaff from the Calamity Mod of Terreria. The staff is poplar and the crystal at the top is lexan colored with Sharpie.

Holiday Candy 2019

Most years, I make candies to send to friends and family over the holidays. This year, I got a new great new book called Spice, so I tried a bunch of new spice combinations. Starting with the pink marshmallows in the upper left and moving down and then to the right, the flavors are: mulled wine marshmallows, tamarind garam masala marshmallows, cardamom sesame brittle, rice pudding white chocolate ganache, spiced apple caramel, spiced milk chocolate ganache, and dark chocolate mole bark.

Yiga Blademaster Halloween costume

This Halloween, I made my nephew a Yiga Blademaster costume from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s made from two body suits sewn together, with accents of faux leather, craft foam, and feathers. The windcleaver sword is made of poplar.

Isaac Caboom Cake

Based on Duke Caboom from Toy Story 4, the figure on top of my Isaac Caboom cake was supposed to do a daredevil jump off the end of the cake. Like many of my cake mechanisms, it sort of worked eventually, but not as well as I had hoped. Which is pretty on brand, both for me and for Duke Caboom.

The cake is lemon cake with raspberry mint white chocolate ganache. The red, yellow, and orange piece on top is isomalt. The guy is made out of gum paste with royal icing detail piped on top.

Brain Chocolates

My friend was having brain surgery. My way of showing support was to send her brain-shaped chocolates.

4th of July Entremet

Here's a little entremet I made for a 4th of July party. It's vanilla cake layered with cherry mousse and a cherry jam glaze on top.

25 Cake

My friend just reached 25 years working for our theater company! I made her this cute little cake to celebrate. The cake is Mexican chocolate and vanilla with buttercream frosting. The topper is isomalt.

Ancient Red Dragon Cake

Our love of Dungeons and Dragons continues! For her birthday this year, my niece requested an Ancient Red Dragon, guarding a d20, sitting on rocks that spell out “Roll for initiative.” At this point, I’m becoming something of a dragon specialist (see my Frost Dragon Cake and my Norbert(a) Cake), so this seemed well within my skill set.

The chunks of rock themselves are sea foam candy, carved into the shape of the letters, with strips of red and orange LEDs behind them, hooked up to a basic flicker effects controller.

The sides of the d20 are made of gum paste, precut into triangles and assembled around the cake in the center. It turns out that an icosahedron is a very difficult shape to assemble accurately, so I had to do a little shaving and filling to make everything fit, but I was able to mostly hide the imperfections on the back and underside of the die.

I premade the head out of gum paste, so it would be totally dry when I went to assemble the cake. The wings, the spines on its back, and the little fins around the mouth are made of wafer paper (of course with some wire support inside the wings.)

To make the mouth glow, I ran wires down the underside of the belly to a flame simulation LED under the tongue (which is also made of wafer paper). I really wanted smoke to come out of the mouth, too, so I ran a tube up the underbelly and into the mouth as well and hooked it up to the same dry ice fogger I made for the Frost Dragon Cake. The fog didn’t really come out of the mouth, I think because the tube I used was too narrow, so I unhooked it and just made a dramatic atmospheric cloud of fog around the whole scene.

Pusheen Cupcakes

If you haven’t figured it out already from the Rainbow Pusheen Cake, my nephew loves Pusheen. For Christmas, he got a Pusheen calendar that indicates that February 18 is Pusheen’s birthday. So naturally we had to have a party. The cupcake toppers are run-in sugar portraits of all the stuffed Pusheens that he owns, plus Pusheen’s siblings, Pip and Stormy. Happy birthday, Pusheen!

Rainbow Unicorn Pusheen Cake

What’s cuter than Pusheen? That’s right – Rainbow Unicorn Pusheen! Cute cakes aren’t generally my forte, so I’m pretty pleased with how this turned out. The cake is lemon butter cake with white chocolate ganache filling, in rainbow color. The horn, tail, and mane are all royal icing.

Taco Pillow

My nephew asked for a taco pillow for Christmas. I think I did a good job delivering on the request, even though we both agree that it turned out rather larger than we expected.

Castleton Door Hanger

This is a joke that will be very difficult to explain to anyone who is not a member of our family. Suffice it to say that, inspired by an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, we decided to name our house Castleton. So I made this for my sister. It’s freehand cut and routed from poplar.

Dawnbreaker

For Christmas, my niece requested Dawnbreaker, which is a sword from Skyrim. For reference, here is what it looks like in the game.

It’s made primarily of poplar, with sculpted details using a 2-part epoxy clay and leather grip. The magical glowing crystal in the middle is made of a clear plastic ring box, sprayed on the inside with a frost spray paint with a ball of LED fairy lights inside. The orcs in our neighborhood don’t stand a chance.

Holiday Candy 2018

Flavors include coffee-chocolate squares, sesame seed brittle, crème fraîche, cinnamon-marshmallow with chocolate ganache, eggnog, and ginger-rum.

Christmas Pudding

This is the first time I have ever made a legit British pudding!

D20 Pumpkin

We're all about Dungeons and Dragons around here these days and I didn't have much time for pumpkin carving this year, so here's my quick D20 pumpkin.