Minnie Mouse Birthday Cake!

Wow! Simple and cute but there's no mistaking that this is a Minnie Mouse cake!! It was done for a little girls 2nd birthday party! It's what I would pick for my little girl if I had one!!!
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Bottom tier is funfetti with strawberries and glaze and the top is chocolate cake with chocolate cream filling!!

Tropical Birthday Cake!

A small personalized cake, but it looks so alive with these handmade sugar flowers!!! Calla lillies and hibiscus look great together!!
This is a tres leches cake with buttercream icing!! I really loved how it came together!!!

Scooby Dooby Doo!

I love Scooby Doo and so do my sons! I made a Scooby Doo cake for my friends nephew! It was his 5th birthday and he's a big fan!! He loved it!! He was jumping up and down when he saw it!!! I love those kind of reactions!!!!
The bottom cake was marble with bavarian cream and the top was chocolate with fresh strawberries and glaze!!!

Survivor Butterfly Cake

The first of four cakes this week is for someone who has survived cancer and was celebrating her birthday!! She wanted a cake with a cancer ribbon incorporated in it! So the ribbon became the center of the butterfly. The entire cake is buttercream. I drew the butterfly on wax paper using colored buttercream. Then I froze the buttercream and flipped it on the cake. The image came out perfect on the cake!! I thought it was artistic and touching to make a cake that has do much meaning!! I lived it!!!
This cake was a vanilla pound cake with raspberry white chocolate filling! One of my personal favorite combinations!!!

You only Celebrate a 40 Year Anniversary Once!

Well, first of all the flowers are my take on a peony! I kind of came up with the style on my own using heart cutters that have ridges around them. I layered them over each other until I had a look I was happy with. These flowers used up a lot of Fondant, not to mention all the little pearls around the cake. But I thought it looked very modern and the flowers reflected my style of decorating. So I was happy with that.
It was actually an anniversary cake for my parents 40 years of marriage. It was a small gathering but even in small gathering the cake should be a standout piece! :)
The bottom was Tres leches with strawberries and glaze and the top was devil's food with whipped chocolate ganache.

Fall Carnival....making 5 cakes not a "Cake Walk"! :)

I promised my son that I would make 5 cakes for his school's Fall Carnival. Basically they have a game called a "Cake Walk" it's kind of like musical chairs. You walk around a circle with the alphabet written on it, when the music stops you stop on a letter. They then pick a letter out of a tin can, whoever is standing on that letter wins a cake!! The more cakes donated the longer the game lasts. Plus the class that takes the most cakes wins a prize! Well I was the only one in my son's class to take any cakes:( Needless to say his class didn't win. I played to try to win one of my cakes, but I one store bought cupcakes instead! What a rip!! hahaha It's okay though, next year I'm making them smaller...like mini buntcakes!

I love the finger's sticking out of the cake, also the ghost's they came out really cute and spooky! Everyone at school loved them!

I made 3 different cake flavors

Red Velvet with cream cheese

Banana with coconut cream cheese

Vanilla pound cake with lemon filling

I have no clue who won my cakes because I was there for almost three hours and they still hadn't handed them out!! I was hoping to take a picture with the person who won my cake! Maybe next time!

Hello Kitty get's a manicure:)

How fabulous is this cake for a little girls birthday party!? I think it was perfect since my friend told me she was going to have a few 1o year old girls get together and give them manicures and facials! Her daughter loves Hello Kitty and she wanted her to have her nails painted. That was a challlenge since Hello Kitty has no nails:) I created some on her paws and painted them! OMG how fun! I made her a pink dress and a little black jacket on top. I added some white in the cake so it wasn't so dark. This was my first time making ribbon roses and I really like them. They look young and girly! I also got to make lipstick, a compact, nail polish, blush and brush out of fondant! Since I wear make up all the time that was a cinch! LOL I really thought it came out young yet sophisticated.

The bottom tier was a marble cake with bavarian cream and the top is strawberry cake with fresh strawberries and glaze!

Nerf Gun Cupcake Cake!!

Well this was a mixture of chocolate and white cupcakes. I arranged them in the shape of a gun iced them in buttercream. I made the image using a buttercream transfer. I was a little nervous to see how it would look once I pulled off the wax paper. I think it looked just like a nerf gun! I really liked the result. I would love to make these all the time. Cupcake Cakes are soo awesome for kids parties:)

Cake...errr.. Balls...no Bites:)

These are red velvet cake bites hand dipped in milk chocolate. Then I topped them with various sprinkles and edible gold disco dust. Delicious and sparkly! Who wouldn't want a box of these for their birthday?? LOL

Winnie The Pooh 1st Birthday Cake

Well I was finally able to make the clouds out of fondant I've been dying to try. Winnie the Pooh is sleeping and dreaming of Hunny in the top tier. Below are the bees buzzing around the woods. I added the the Winnie the Pooh colors on the bottom tier so that it popped! I thought it worked well together.
It was a marble cake with bavarian cream filling, the center tier is red velvet with cream cheese and the top is strawberry cake with fresh strawberries and glaze.

1st Birthday and Christening Cake

This cake is very bright and fun and I made it for a little princess who was turning 1! Her Mom sent me a picture of the decoration's so I used that to make the crown. It was hot pink and black. I added the bow and the 1 to make it pop. The bottom tier was white cake with fresh strawberries and glaze, then chocolate with cookies and cream filling and the top tier was red velvet with cream cheese. It was iced in buttercream and all the accents are fondant.

Tecate Beer Cake

This was a really last minute cake for a man celebrating his 48th birthday. It was a devil's food cake with bavarian cream. The Tecate Beer Logo is the eagle and I replicated using a buttercream transfer technique. I flip the image then layer it with buttercream, freeze it. When it's completely frozen after about two hours I flip it onto the cake. It's still time consuming but I like the results.

Baby Shower Crib Cake

A baby shower cake for a boy. The crib is handmade out of chocolate fondant! So is the baby and the blanket in the crib. I replicated the blanket that I received by email It had a sports theme so I included that in the cake. The cake is half chocolate with bavarian cream and the other half is red velvet with cream cheese. Very tasty!

Bows and Calla Lilies

Swirls, diamonds, butterflies and calla lilies make a sophisticated birthday cake. The cake was actually put together rather quickly. I made the bow with only two days to spare due to a strained back muscle. This is definitely out of the ordinary because a bow should set for atleast 3 days minimum. Especially a thick large bow like this one. There was some breakage when I first attempted to stack the bow loops, but I had made plenty of extra's. The calla lilies are very simple to make.Watch this video and you can learn too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUIjP1zRhH4 !!

So since my back hurt I decided on the calla lily because I was able to make a baker's dozen in about 3 hours total time. Roses would have taken twice as much if not longer to complete.

Before I forget, my Mom baked and filled the cakes. All I had to do was ice and add the decorations. I piped the swirls out of royal icing over parchment paper. I had to carefully pull the parchment paper off to avoid breaking the swirls. It worked out pretty good. My aunt was very happy, she's never had a birthday celebration so I felt a special cake was appropriate for her.

The bottom of the cake is a half sheet of tres leches (three milkds) and the top is a 10 in round of chocolate cake.

This cake fed about 80 people all together!

Stay tuned, I will be making a tutorial on putting together this cake shortly.

Circus Themed Birthday Cake

Children's birthday cakes are vibrant and playful! This is inspired by a cake from http://pinkcakebox.com/ . Their cakes are always very smooth and look very clean. So whenever I get a request to make a cake similar to theirs I always know that I have a lot to live up to. The design is simple, stars and stripes. However, when you stack it and make a large cake the stars, stripes and polka dots make it look very alive! This cake feeds close to 100 people. The bottom tier was a chocolate cake with whipped cream and fresh strawberries, the center was white cake with coconut cream cheese filling and the top cake is funfetti and vanilla buttercream.

(Quick note, the wire is not touching the cake inside. Instead I inserted the wire into coffee stirrers and cut the coffee stirrers just below the cake so they wouldn't show. Hopefully this example will help.)

If you want to do this use 20" floral wire, I got mine at Michael's. The coffee stirrers you can buy at Smart & Final. You will have to go through more than one sometimes, the holes on the coffee stirrers are not always big enough.

Here they are on the finished cake!

Fairy Birthday Cake

OMG! I loved making this cake! I loved the colors, the hand painting, the butterflies around the border, and covering the cake in fondant! It was a request for a little girls birthday cake themed around fairies and butterflies.

The butterflies and mushrooms I made ahead of time so that they could dry. The fairy I had to re-do twice, her head kept squishing down her neck:) It's funny now, but frustrating at the time! Being able to hand paint on fondant makes it so look more artistic.

Here's the final result!

The whole cake was covered in fondant. It was a white cake with strawberry filling. I got a call from the Mom of the birthday girl and she said that everyone loved it! That's always nice to hear!

Tropical Birthday Cake

A really young, bright cake is always fun to make. I always feel like I'm still a young girl, and then I remember I'm in my early 30's! LOL So I made this cake for my cousing who turned 24 in June. She handed out invitations with a Hawiian girl, in a grass skirt on the invitation. Right away I knew I wanted to design her cake in that direction.

There were two tiers, both iced in buttercream. The bottom was a Tres Leches cake and the top was a chocolate cake with milk chocolate ganache and german coconut. I have to mention that my mom baked the cakes. She really wanted to get involved and so I told her to bake the cake and I would decorate them. So my job was a little easier this time, it still took me about 4 hours to crumb coat and finish the cake. Why so long you ask? Well I had to pipe the grass skirt with a #2 round tip because I didn't have the grass tip. So I piped the grass one strand at a time. My hand hurts just thinking about it! But in a good fun way:) Okay, on to the details, the cake is iced the grass "skirt" is piped. I made the tropical flowers ahead of time so they have time to harden and hold their shape. I also made the seashells using a mold and painted it to give it a more realistic effect. I used copper gel paint mixed with vodka to taint the seashell slightly. So the cake was stacked tiny flowers and details added and voila! Here's the final cake! My cousin told me she loved it and she didn't want to cut it! How cute is she?!

U of A Graduation cake

I've been cranking out cakes this month again. Not on a full on bakery scale, but on a one woman operation scale:) So my next mission was a graduation cake. It doesn't look as large in the picture as it actually was in real life.

The bottom tier was a 16" round, for those of you who aren't familiar with pan sizes, this ginormous cake feeds about 90 people! That's just the bottom tier, next two tiers where 12" and 8". All in all this cake feeds over 150 people easily.

I have to admit the flavor requests were a little different for me. The bottom tier was chocolate with chocolate ganache and german coconut filling. The middle tier was pecan cake with cream cheese filling and the top cake was banana cake with coconut cream cheese filling.

The Top tier is covered in black fondant, and the bottom two tiers were iced in buttercream. This cake took me four days to complete from beginning to end. I had to make all the little gold beads that are in the center tier by hand, then brush them with gold luster dust and paint gold disco dust on top of that to get a glittery effect. I also had to color the gold stripes one by one after I added them to the cake with gold luster dust.

The maroon color took me almost an hour to knead and deepen to a richer color. Then I created the square on top fo the graduation cake by cutting a cake board and covering with black fondant. The tassle on the top was painted with gold luster dust and gold disco dust as well. Then I made pearl beads to add to the bottom of each tier. Also, the diploma in the center was fondant and the edges were painted with gold luster dust and gold disco dust. By the way, disco dust is my new best friend:) If you would like to purchase some try this link http://www.nycake.com/ .

Below is the finished cake!

Banana Cake Recipe

My previous post touched a little bit upon cakes from scratch versus box caked mixes. Well let me talk a little bit more about that. I'm a big believer in perfecting a cake recipe from scratch. If you're going to make a large tiered cake and you want to avoid a disaster you should throw in a cake from scratch in the lower tiers somewhere. They almost never break apart or crumble.
Good scratch cakes are hard to find, I will agree. I've tried so many recipes and my poor family has had to endure some not so good recipes:) hee hee
But one that I really like and always tastes good is a banana cake that I make every so often. Try it with the coconut cream cheese recipe and I think you will enjoy the combination. It's not hard to put together but it is a longer process than using a cake mix of course. I like to bake early in the morning or late at night, especially in the summer!

Banana Cake Recipe

2 sticks of butter softened
2 cups of packed brown sugar
3 ripe bananas equal to 2 cups
3 large eggs
2 1/2 cups of cake flour plus 2 Tablespoons
6 tablespoons cornflour
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp of real banana extract (optional)

Prepare the bottom of two 9" baking pans with nonstick spray then cut a waxed paper to fit the bottom of the pan and spray again.
Heat your oven to 350 F.
Sift the cake flour, cornflour, salt and baking powder in a bowl or over a piece of waxed paper. Then using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment on, cream the butter at high speed until it is light and fluffy.
Add the brown sugar and mix slowly until well incorporated.
Add the eggs one by one on slow speed, until it is well incorporated.
Add the banana extract if desired.
Add the mashed bananas on slow speed until well blended.
Slowly add the dry ingredients a little at a time, turn off the mixer if you're not adding dry ingredients or you will overmix your batter.
Stop mixing once all of the dry ingredients are folded in.
Add batter to prepared pans and bake for 30-35 or until a toothpick in the center of the cake comes out clean.
If not ready bake in 5 minute increments.
Once it's done let it cool, then loosen the sides of the cake by running a knife around the edge of the cake pan. Turn over and let it cool completely.

Goes well with coconut cream cheese filling.

For the source of the banana cake and coconut cream cheese filling click http://www.easy-cake-ideas.com

3D Thomas the Tank Engine Cake

My son turned 2 years old and one of the things he really likes is Thomas the Tank Engine. Since it was a small kids party I decided to be brave and attempt a version of Thomas in 3D!! **gulp** I was nervous for about a week. So nervous that I didn't even want to start baking it! I knew I needed to make a very stable cake that would carve well. The best thing I could think of was a chocolate cake from scratch. They are always more dense and never break apart. Their are a lot of people who say that a cake from scratch is better than a boxed cake mix, then you give them a cake from scratch and guess what? They don't like it!! They say it's too hard, too dry or "not the same". This was my dilemna, I knew a scratch chocolate cake would not go over well, so I had to compromise the taste for structural integrity of the cake. I started by making the face out of fondant. I used a circle cutout and made it about 3 1/2 inches in diameter. Then I made the chocolate cake. It was resting on a full sheet of cake. 1/2 was Tres Leches (Three Milks) and the other half was white pecan cake with coconut cream cheese filling...duh. LOL

I used my sons little Thomas to copy the facial features. Then I stacked and filled the chocolate cake with cookies and cream buttercream filling.

I really needed to concentrate so I put the kids to bed, then I grabbed my big serrated knife and started chopping off the front of the cake and trying to copy the shape of the train. Then funny enough I ran out of chocolate cake. All I had left was a box mix so I stuck it in the oven and then froze it for an hour so it would be firm. Nope, I could barely carve that sucker, it was not sturdy enough at all! Buttercream icing to the rescue!! I crumb coated my cake and stuck it in the fridge. The next morning I finished decorating the details on the tank and also on the full sheet cake. Well, my son saw the cake and screamed "Thomaaaaaaaassss!" Mission accomplished! :)

Playing Catchup!!

I have been getting cake orders every week for the last couple months. I know this doesn't seem like a lot, but most of them are cakes which require a lot of details. Such as edible flowers, handmade decorations, hand painting, fondant covering, fondant cutouts. All of these things can take hours maybe even a couple of days to complete. I have to plan early in the week with materials and recipes. Plus making sure the structure of the cake is strong enought to travel up to an hour. I have a lot of patience with these things and enjoy the planning and organizing the whole process requires. Otherwise, I would have stopped making cakes immediately. There are many more posts to come. I'm trying to catch up with my blog, so be patient. I don't know that anyone even reads this but if you do I will be back soon. I'm going to try posting recipes and maybe even a tutorial on how to make a fondant or gumpaste lily!!! So if you do read this blog check back soon and you may find something you may like:)
Also, if you live in Riverside County spread the word on my facebook page- Contempo Cakes by
Angela Cabral!

Thank you!!

May Religious Cakes

The month of May is filled with a lot of religious celebrations. There all once in a lifetime events for most people so they deserve a unique and tasty cake creation! :) Below are some of the cakes I created for these unique occasions!

The Pink Bow Cake!

This cake was for my cousins little girl. She wanted a pink and brown cake with stripes and polka dots. I had a similar creation in mind, however, my cousin sent me a cake image which is very similar to the one below. It had chocolate fondant accens, and pink and white fondant accents. The pink bow is made out of Sugarveil, it was the first time I got to play with my sugarveil and I was quite excited about that. Of course, everytime you try something new you find new challenges along the way. The Sugarveil is similar to royal icing only once it starts to set it becomes flexible and fabric-like. It took a lot longer than to set than the instructions stated. That put me a little behind schedule. Once it was done, I was able to cut the sugarveil with scissors and make a bow, just like I would make a fabric bow. The bottom tier was red velvet with cream cheese filling and the top tier was chocolate with strawberry swirl and strawberry bavarian cream. The cake doesn't have a topper because my cousing purchased her own and added it to the top of the cake.

Open Bible Cake

The Bible cake was made for a confirmation. It was chocolate cake with whipped cream and fresh strawberries and bananas, topped off with buttercream icing. The rosary, cross and dove are made with fondant.

Hello Kitty Communion Cake

I had two Hello Kitty cake requests. The first was for a birthday/first communion. It was red velvet with cream cheese and half caramel mousse topped with whipped icing. I drew a Hello Kitty by hand on fondant for the birthday side and the other side is a handmade edible Hello Kitty in a first communion dress. I added fondant accents, such as handmade sugar roses, cross, and chalice.

Hello Kitty Communion Cake Part II

The next cake is a half sheet cake similar to the one I made for the birthday/communion cake above. I made another Hello Kitty out of fondant and dressed her in a first communion dress. This time the color of choice was in lavender and I really like how this looked. It was a vanilla flavored cake with strawberry filling and iced in a vanilla whipped topping.

Baptism Church Cake

The final cake I had was a baptism cake for my two nieces. It was three tiers, the bottom tres leches, the middle was banana cake with coconut cream cheese filling. (You should know that I LOVE coconut cream cheese filling:)) The top tier was strawberry cake with raspberry mousse filling. There was a fourth cake on the side but that one didn't make it to the cake! By the way I must mention that this cake barely made it to the event! Whipped topping on a cake over two tiers is a big NO-NO!! It made for a very unstable cake and the chocolate cake slid off. Two things happened that avoided this disaster, first, the tier above was made out of banana cake, which is ALWAYS made from SCRATCH and is very stable and dense. Second, my husband was standing right next to the cake and was able to catch the cake before it tumbled to the ground!! The topping was ruined so I had to quickly make more whipped topping and RE-decorate the entire cake!!! I made it to the party with about 30 minutes to spare!!! But the end result was not bad for a quick redo:)

Happy Easter from Contempo Cakes

Well all the stress from the past months past and I'm taking time off Easter to relax and have fun with my family at the park! Phew, but what would Easter be without a cake? LOL I made this for the family to enjoy on Easter. The bottom tier is tres leches and the top tier is white cake with coconut cream cheese. By the way ask me what my favorite filling is and I will say coconut cream cheese every time:) I make it from scratch and the recipe never fails me. So I thought I share it with all of you today!

Coconut cream chese filling recipe:
3/4 lbs of powder sugar
1 lb of cream cheese softened (2 -8.oz packages)
3 sticks of butter softened
1 TBSP lemon juice (fresh squeezed is best but bottled works well too)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp imitation coconut extract

To soften the cream cheese and butter leave on countertop 1-2 hrs until softened. I use a kitchen aid mixer with the paddle attachment, but I'm sure you can use a hand mixer as well. Add all the ingredients in the order listed to the bowl, then on the lowest possible speed, blend together for 2-3 minutes or until well blended. That's it! You're ready to fill your cake. Or you can store it in an air tight container in the refrigerator for about a week if you need to make it ahead of time, let it come back to room temperature before filling the cake layers. This goes really well with banana cake, white cake, or spice cake.

Black, White and Red 15th Birthday Cake

This cake is an example of the type of cakes I enjoy making. It is very simplistic and modern in the details. However, although it appears simple it is very time consuming. I spent several hours a day for about two weeks making the fondant roses. Each one would take up to 30 minutes to complete. My niece asked for a cake that was black and white with red roses flowing down the cake in a curve. I believe I was able to accomodate her request. The cake was made up of five different cake flavors. The bottom tier was marble cake with chocolate and coconut filling. The next tier was red velvet cake with cream cheese filling. The next tier was chocolate with cream cheese filling. It was followed by a strawberry cake with strawberry mousse filling and white cake with caramel cream cheese filling. Aside from these five tiers there was a 16 inch round cake made of yellow cake with tres leches and strawberries. What can I say it was delectable:O!!!

Curious George Cake!

My son loves Curious George, so naturally he wanted a Curious George themed party! Once I bought the decorations for his birthday, my son knew he wanted the colors to be, blue, green, red and yellow! The bottom tier was a devil's food cake with vanilla pudding and milk chocolate ganache filling. The top tier was banana cake with coconut cream cheese filling. Wow! This cake was a huge success. The colors matched the party theme and it tasted absolutely deeee-lish!!! This is the final result! :)

Prada Purse Cake

This past week I had two cakes to make and a party to plan and prep for. I was asked by a co-worker of my sister's to make a cake for my sister's birthday. The wanted to celebrate for her at the office on Friday. So of course I wanted to try something new, something that people don't usually thnk to ask for. I wanted to try to make a purse cake and it was very fun to make! Not to mention fashionably-edible:) I loved the colors and how everything turned out. I got to use my new stencil and quilting tool! Below is the end result! By the way, it was a devil's food cake with bavarian cream filling. The cake is buttercream, with black fondant accents. Thanks for looking!

The end of Cakes

The heart cake above is the Valentine's Day cake I made for my husband and sons. It was a red velvet cake with cream cheese filling and it was soooo tasty!
I hand painted the Betty Boop above. I took this picture in my dark garage fridge, because I had to deliver it late at night. I ended up leaving early to San Diego to celebrate Valentine's Day. It was my husband's idea to spend the day. So here I am at 7 pm trying to photograph the cake with my iphone...lol

The halo cake was for my godson who is a huge fan of the Halo video games. He wanted it black with the Halo logo. My husband made the stencil for me! He is so amazing and fabulous. I think it turned out almost exactly like the original Halo logo. Everyone loved it and so did I!!

Cake-o-rama

The cake above is a cake I made for a woman who's birthday lands on Valentine's Day. Her sister asked me to make her a cake that looked like a box of chocolates.
This Hello Kitty cake was for my niecess 1st birthday. The bottom tier was a marble cake with chocolate ganache filling. My nieces was thrilled and all of the guests raved about the cake.
Ahhhh! The Bratz cake was for my niece as well. It was for my nieces 6th birthday and totally last minute. I hand painted and cut out the Bratz doll out of fondant. I used a coloring page that I googled. It came out so much better than I expected. This is my new favorite method of doing cartoon cakes! It was sooo cool! She looks so pretty and sparkly!
Ha! This is my birthday cake! My husband bought it at the grocery store for me and it was really cute. He always gets me Christmas themed cakes because my birthday is exactly one week before Christmas. It was very thoughtful of him:O

More Contempo Cakes

These little bears were made for a baby shower cake. I made them out of fondant.

I made this castle for my nieces 4th birthday. It was a princess themed party and she LOVED it!

This was a birthday cake for a huge I love lucy fan. It has an edible image made from rice paper.

This was a three tiered cake made for a surprise anniversary party. I was told to make it simple and elegant so this is how I interpreted the request, by making it white on white with royal blue and silver ribbon. It's buttercream frosting with fondant accents.