She's Pink AND Happy :)

The kiddies are going to see Yo Gabba Gabba Live! in a couple of weeks. In preparation I had some shirts made for them to wear to the show (yeah, I'm that crazy). I went on Etsy and found this talented woman to make shirts for the kids. They arrived today in the midst of the helmet making and Moochie was super stoked. Seriously- I showed her the Foofa shirt and she broke into the biggest grin! I had to put it on her right away.
Isn't this shirt awesome! The Foofa is made of felt and I had her sew sleeves so it looked like a layered shirt. She did a wonderful job!!! She also made a Toodie, Brobee and Muno- ALL of which came out amazing. I'll put the pictures up shortly. In the meantime, check her out on Etsy:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/nbarnes514

Hail to the Victors!!! Happy Birthday Joe!

Here it is! The final cake alongside a real Michigan football helmet.





And this is my favorite angle- The "Money" shot :)



SO, the face mask.... Three days was def. not long enough for it to set up. Every single one of the ropes of fondant cracked or broke while I was trying to assemble. Thankfully I made really long ropes so I had something to work with. I almost resorted to gluing the pieces back together and gluing the cross bars for stabilization. I ended up tossing one of the ropes all together and using 6 toothpicks to make it work.

I assembled it, said a prayer and a wish and sent it down to Ann Arbor for Joe's 30th birthday party. Apparently it traveled well and arrived in one piece! Yay! And some of the diners at the restaurant asked for my business card! Are you kidding? I was so pleased when I heard that... now to make some business cards....

....and now back to the show!

OK, made the marshmallow fondant and then as I was hunting down some black icing I found MORE white modeling fondant I had tucked away. argh! But, at least it was all set up and I could use it asap.

Anyhow, the cake is for #1's Godfather's 30th birthday. He played football in college and his number was 73. So as an homage I added his number to the back of the helmet:



Here is what the front looks like:



and now for the white stuff. I wanted to add a white border around the black face area so it would look like the padding on the inside of the helmet. Plus, it tidied up the lines between the black and the blue.



The other part I needed white fondant for is for the nameplate on the front of the helmet. I needed the black icing for this- to write out the word "Michigan"
I don't think I have a close up of this on purpose because it didn't look very good. Again, I should have done this with edible paint- but I just used icing and then various tools to make the lines 'cleaner'. This and the face mask (to come shortly) took FOREVER.



And here is the completed helmet. I feel sneaky showing you the final cake with the addition of the face mask without the steps in between. The face mask was hands down the hardest part of the cake.



I'll elaborate more on the next post....

More helmet-ing

I started bright and early today.. I didn't have to work at the bakery as my mentor is running a race so she wouldn't be there for me to shadow. I got to 'sleep in' on a Saturday! When did sleeping in mean 7 am?

Breakfast with the kiddies, coffee for me and I set to work. I also brought out a real helmet for some inspiration (You can spot it in the background of some pictures)

I warmed up the fondant so it was pliable and then laid it on top of the cake that had been refrigerated overnight. It was a little bit harder to shape than just a regular cake and also I was afraid I hadn't made enough so it was a little tricky.



Then I added some black dye to the navy fondant so I could cover the face area in black.



Then I set to work on the yellow fondant and began making the signature "wings" of a Michigan helmet:





Then I realized I needed some plain white fondant for the next steps and what do you know, I colored the last bit I had in yellow. Sweet. Pause while I make some more fondant.... This is the commercial break of the show, queue music...