The Day the Penguins Waited for the Train

We had a request to make a custom birthday cake for two gentlemen, one loves trains and watches, the other one loves the outdoors, but both have the love for the penguins. Nothing excites me more than making those sugar penguins, after all, that's how we started! The challenge was that this is a "male" cake, so nothing flowery and pastel colors on the cake. The thing that came to mind was silhouttes. I ended creating designs based on silhouttes with monochromatic colors. I chose the shades of brown while I kept all the gumpaste penguins and the train crossing light in colors and let them be the center of the attention.
Bonnae helped me painstakingly cut and attached the train tracks out of chocolate fondant on the cake and cutting all details on the trees, bushes, and the billowing smokes.
Great job, Bonnae!!!
Here are the penguins: one looking at his watch for time, and the other one looking over the horizon wondering if the train ever arrives....

Happy Birthday, Little One (Pocoyo cake)

I was reminded once again of how time flies. My baby, who's not so little anymore, just turned two last week. I had "Teddy Bears picnic" in mind for his birthday cake, but after watching him enjoying Pocoyo on daily basis, I decided to make him a Pocoyo-themed cake. Pocoyo is a animated series about this young lad's life adventure with his buddies: Ely, the pink elephant; Pato, the duck; Loula, the dog; and sleepy bird.

It's the first time for me to make fondant/gumpaste figurines based on actual characters. It took me lots of try to get Pocoyo right, even then I am not 100% happy with how he's turned out, he's more like a lego character than Pocoyo. The second character was Ely, the elephant. She's not THAT hard to make, but she is larger than the rests, and of course, I have to pick an awkward pose for her.... yes, that's me, always up for a challenge. The gumpaste figurine was heavy on top, so I have to use a lot of supports (read: cocktail sticks and spaghetti sticks).
Though I wasn't completely happy with those two gumpaste figurines, my dearest son recognized the two characters in an instant, it gives you such a gratifying experience.

I hand cut the "trees" made of chocolate fondant, I pre-cut the tiny flowers (for the flower bushes--and boy aren't they so tiny!) and just place the rests of the guys on top of the cake. I also made small colorful balloons made of gumpaste.

Here's the scene that I have to make the adaptation from:

And here's the finished cake!

Happy Birthday, my dearest Son...

Sugar Penguin Cakery is born!

First, it was out of curiosity, then it turned into an obsession, and finally it settled into passion. That's how Sugar Penguin was born. I was very much obsessed with cake decorating and how those simple fondant can turn into something quite magical since last year. I was very much impressed by a talented friend from Chicago (owner of My Itty Bitty Cake)--until today-- with all of her creation without formal training. After endless researches over the net for countless of numbers of videos, tutorials, and ideas, I finally got the guts to buy my first fondant and transformed them into cute bears and bunnies. As then, the holiday season was approaching, I created the penguins out of gumpaste/fondant. The penguins, reindeer, and the Christmas bears were a massive success, that lead into an encouragement to expand it into a business from a dear friend of mine, Bonnae! What can be more brilliant than having your dear friend to be your partner in business?
I like the motivational quote that I found over the net a while back by Belva Davies
"Don't be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality. If you can dream it, you can make it so." So there... I am going to make my dream into a reality!