The Nightmare Before Christmas...

" 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house.  Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse..." and so begins the legendary poem by Clement C. Moore.

This event was for a surprise birthday party (shhhh...it's this Friday) and since the birthday guy's favorite holiday happens to be Halloween, I used "The Nightmare Before Christmas" as the theme.  I was asked to combine the birthday theme with Christmas, and since I've always loved the characters in "The Nightmare Before Christmas", I was super excited to begin this project.

A couple weeks before the event, I begin researching ideas and envisioning what I wanted the cake to look like and eventually drew this picture.  As you can see from the photo above, I actually stuck pretty close to my original design (which doesn't always happen)!

Because I wanted to focus on decorating, I outsourced the 6" velvet cake from one of my favorite bakeries and asked them to simply cover it with buttercream.  At home, I cut multi-width strips of black, red, and green fondant and laid them aside to dry out a bit.  This is actually a bit more complicated and time-consuming than it looks.

Meanwhile, I cut a building silhouette out of sugar paper which was no small feat (for so many nooks and crannies) since sugar paper breaks easily.  After placing the colored strips where I wanted, I adhered the silhouette to the side of the cake with frosting and made some windows out of fondant.

Next, I rolled black and white fondant pearls and lined the base of the cake:

Now it was time for Jack, who was an architectural challenge (skinny legs, arms, hat, and tricky beard).  The arms were still too flimsy after several hours so I set Jack aside while I worked on the iconic moon and hill.  His arms ended up drying overnight and then almost for another day.

Here is armless Jack (his arms are behind his body):

Next in line to make were the pumpkins, which I nestled on top of curled holly leaves.  I also decided to make a couple of snowflakes for the side of the cake.

Here is the whole cake assembly, minus Jack...still waiting for Jack.....

 Left view & right view:

And finally...Jack!

Again, left view & right view:

More close ups:

Time to make some cake pops.  I already had the Santa Claus bellies from the previous post, so I made some Jack cake pops and created a design on yellow cake pops to complement the moon and the hill motif.

All the Jack's have different faces:

And voila!  Here is the whole display:

Aerial view:

Almost everything looked great to me when I retired upstairs for the night, but one little thing kept bugging me: the back of the moon.  I had covered it in candy melt so it would stand up, but I didn't like the look of it (see below).  Cakes are meant to be seen from 360 degrees, and I cringed at the thought of someone seeing the back of the moon, so I slept on it...

My solution the next morning were two more pieces of fondant on the back of the moon:

Packaging the cake pops for delivery:

This project was super fun but also challenging.  Estimation of total hours: 12 hrs.  But then again, there's the saying, "when you do what you love," it doesn't feel like work...I love doing this!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUSTIN,

and I hope you enjoy your cake and cake pops!  I've been requested not to post this up on Facebook until Friday night!  :)

Here's one more picture!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS...

Actually, it's been looking like Christmas for a while now, and Christmas is only a week away!  A friend needed a Christmas present for her boss, and since they have two granddaughters, she asked me to make cake pops with "just any X-mas theme."  I found these snowman and Santa Claus bellies online (I love that they are just the belly) and mostly recreated them, with butter cake and vanilla frosting on the inside.  The hats are an inverted chocolate candy melt with a Rolo candy on top, and I added green autumn leaf sprinkles (I didn't have holly sprinkles on hand) and piped berries onto the hat for a little pizzazz.  The snowmen's carrot noses are made of fondant, as are their eyes and mouths.

A few close-up pictures are always a must! I gave the snowmen a bit of color on their cheeks by brushing on pink shimmer dust. If these snowmen had hands, I believe they'd tip their hats!

Upon further investigation (by eating), we can safely conclude that Santa's belly is a cake belly and not a beer belly:

 One more week until Christmas...

Winter Penguins

A friend and I made these cozy little penguins for fun...the holidays are always an excuse to make something!  We decided to dip them in ice blue since we didn't have enough black candy melt, and I thought they turned out pretty adorable.  Each penguin was warmed up with a scarf, earmuffs, or a beanie.  The scarves were surprisingly the most difficult to make because the long strand of fondant kept cracking.  All the penguins are butter cake on the inside.

Here's a picture with a funny effect; the penguins look like they have blue eyes in this one.  Brrrr........

We packed some of the penguins away in their igloo for house-to-house transfer, and apparently, one of the "naked" penguins was immediately eaten upon arrival!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!