Walleye!

My wife's uncle Bob is a big hunter and fisherman who is turning 70 this weekend.  His wife asked me to make a cake based around hunting or fishing.  Knowing that he is a big walleye fisherman, as am I, I decided to make a walleye.  

The fish is made of rolled fondant, as are the rocks.  The leaves and cattails are made of gumpaste.  The cake is yellow cake, filled and covered with vanilla buttercream.  

Pretty in pink

My mother in law was in charge of getting a cake for a baby shower in her office this week.  She didn't want the cake to be covered in fondant, and instead wanted just buttercream.  Other than that, she had no requests.   So I decided to go a little more elegant, and less cutesy for this cake.  Since we know that the baby is a little girl, I went with pink buttercream covering a yellow cake.  

I tried a new recipe of buttercream, which turned out to have great flavor and mouthfeel.  The problem was that the buttercream was way too soft, and it was difficult to cover the cake.  Even more importantly, when filled, the buttercream could not support the weight of the other layers on top, so the cake kept shifting.  

After several failed attempts, I started over from scratch the night before the cake was needed.  I used my old buttercream recipe, which holds up well and is very firm.  When left at room temperature, the buttercream is very smooth and rich, but not overly sweet.  

I decieded to dress up the cake with some fresh roses, and the end result looked really good.  If I have more time next time, I'd make the roses (or other flowers) out of gumpaste.  But this was still an overall gorgeous cake and a big success.  

This is a 3-tiered cake, with the bottom tier 8", then 6", topped with a 4" cake.  My suggestion was to send the top tier home with the mommy-to-be so she can freeze it and enjoy it after the baby is born!