YES! My biggest project so far completed! I'm quite proud of myself that I managed to get this done, so please allow me this post for some gloating (even though the result is kinda nowhere near the perfection of other food bloggers!)
The collage that I made using the PicStitch app...heh! Yup, it's an Angry Birds fest =P Let's see some close ups. LOL!
View from the top. This was a birthday cake requested by my manager for her son's first birthday. Initially, she wanted a playable Angry Birds cake (wouldn't that be a super fun project??!!), but she was worried that the cake would be umm...'too destroyed' by the time the kids were done with it, so she decided on a normal cake with the characters on it.
Excuse the horrible background. Table was messy. LOL! The initial plan was to have a cake similar to THIS design. But I forgot to print out the photo as I was decorating the cake (laptop was in the office) and I figured, oh what the heck, I'll just wing it. Ended up like this. LOL!
Okay, this was SLIGHTLY better. LOL! Anyhoot, as you can see I totally, TOTALLY botched the 'grassy' parts. Never occurred to me to pipe small blades of grass. Pfft! But what's done is done...and my sis commented that it looked like MOSS growing instead of grass. Wahahahahaha!
Some close ups on the fondant pieces....these were my first foray into playing with fondant. The first half an hour or so, I got so frustrated into just coloring the fondant and shaping the pieces into balls and triangles! But after a while, once I got the hang of how the fondant feels and works, the pieces came together quite quickly...sort of. Does 4 hours count as long to make these 10 pieces of birds, pigs and stones? =P Anyways, the birds were the harder ones to make. I think the most challenging one is the yellow one here. Shaping it into a pyramid-like shape was a nightmare! But I liked how it turned out though...so much so I made TWO! =P
Frosting a cake is SUPER hard....especially a square cake, as I'm told. Maybe I'm consoling myself, but yeah...my frosting skills DEFINITELY needs work, coz I can't seem to get it to be level enough. =/ The cream is actually whipped cream....and I finally got to use the whisk attachment on my KitchenAid! Super super cool coz it whipped up the cream in minutes!
Ooh yes...the little 'nests' are made out of mini pretzels stuck together with a bit of cookie icing. The initial plan was to use pretzel sticks, but I couldn't find them at the Cold Storage that I went to =/ So I just bought the mini pretzels, cut them up and stuck them together. =P Less than perfect-loooking nest, but it did hold up the 'eggs' (which are chocolate raisins...I underestimated the size. Should have used jelly beans instead!) so all's good I guess.
Three little piggies sat on a rock....LOL! They kinda SUNK into the rock frosting coz they were too heavy! (Go figure! LOL!) So much so, at some angles, it'll look like they have EMERGED from the rock or was part of the rock! LOLLL! These piggies were the easier ones to make...quite fun to make too! Ooh, I have to mention that the rock is made out of cake too =) I had to crumble the cake and shape it like a rock a la Cake Pops, and the put brown whipped cream on top. Halfway through decorating, I realized I had no brown food coloring...o.O" The shops were closed, and I had to deliver this the next day...so I improvised by mixing colors. Black, red and yellow....at some point I thought it would never become brown, but thank goodness it did =)
I know...could have used cocoa powder right? I DID! But it didn't turn out...hence the frantic mixing of colors and hoping they turn brown. LOL!
Last photo, I promise! Yes, the one on the left is intentionally left on its side. My sis, the ever creative one, says that the placement of the pieces made everything look too symmetrical and perfect and she dropped this one on the side to simulate that it's been plopped over by another bird a la the game.
Yup, so there is my biggest birthday cake venture yet. Hoping to get more projects like these so I can try out more techniques...=) Any takers? I don't charge expensive...just that I hope you don't mind the amateur-ish feel to the cakes. Heh!
