Christmas, WoW, and Superman

As I started to learn more about cake decorating, I began to look for any reason to make a cake.  Fortunately, the holidays came around, and after the holidays came a wave of birthdays in January. Even though the next three cakes I got to make were stretched out over a month, it felt like I got to spend several days in a row just reveling in my new hobby.  And I sure did learn a lot along the way!

For our 6th annual Family Christmas (which actually consists of our group of friends, not actual relatives at all.  I'm not really sure how it got named that back when it first started) in 2010, I made this little holiday cake.  For the green and red design, I just took little design presses, lightly indented the fondant with them, and then traced the lines with the buttercream.  It was a chocolate cake with a peppermint buttercream, and I also added a layer of crushed candy cane for some crunch - kind of like the layer of chocolate crunch in a Dairy Queen ice cream cake, except you know, it was candy cane.

My next cake came from another set of group birthdays.  John, my husband Rob, and Sheldon had two major things in common: birthdays in January, and (at the time) an obsession with World of Warcraft.  It made the choice for this cake pretty simple; since Rob and John played both played Horde and Sheldon was the only one of the guys who played Alliance, I went with the majority and put the Horde symbol on top of the black fondant.  On the sides of the cake, I piped 'Happy Birthday' and then my favourite phrase from WoW, 'Quest complete.'  Ladies, if I lost you a few sentences ago and you suddenly had no idea what Horde or Alliance meant, thank your lucky stars that you've never had a boy in your life obsessed with WoW.  Anyways, the cake was a red velvet cake, with a white chocolate pudding filling, and then a cream cheese icing. 

The last cake I made in January was for our friend Chris.  He's wasn't into World of Warcraft at all; instead he's a classic guy's guy.  He loves Spike TV, collects superhero figurines (is that even the right term?), and loves Superman.  Since Superman happens to be my favourite hero too, I was more than happy to decorate a cake with the Superman symbol, and even a red cape for the cake.  For this cake, I used my favourite red velvet recipe and iced it with cream cheese icing, except there was a small twist: instead of red velvet, I actually made it a blue velvet.  Superman style!  I just wish that I had gotten a picture of the inside of the cake.

Now looking back at these photos, just like my first post, I can find so many things I'd improve upon.  I even feel a little twinge of embarrassment putting them up.  But this is all a part of the learning process right?  Well even so, I'm sorry for the quality of the photos and all that shiny glare staring at you.  I promise it will get better soon!