Making your own cake pan

People have asked how I made some of my shaped cakes. There are two ways to do it, you can bake a cake, freeze it and cut it the way you want. Or you can do it my way... just make the pan, bake it and done. It's more prep work but you know you'll get the shape you want. This is how I made my football, duck, strawberry, Elmo, frog, and others. So here we go!

First- I didn't get a picture of this but you want to draw your cake outline on a piece of cardboard and cut it out- I usually use an old diaper box or something I have lying around. Just make sure your outline doesn't have too many sharp corner indents as they don't turn out that great in cake.

Second- Get some HEAVY DUTY tinfoil that will be big enough to cover your cake base. For my size I needed the big size roll.








Third- Tape a layer of tin foil on each side of your cake base leaving at least 1 in around the outline.









 Fourth- cut snips along the extra tinfoil making sure not to cut all the way to the cardboard (I'll explain why in a minute!) Also snip at each indent so you can maneuver  your pan sides when attaching.







Fifth- Now for the complicated part- I'm sorry there are great pictures for this. Roll out your tinfoil, take your base and (on it's side) roll it 1 full turn until you have enough tinfoil to wrap around to create the sides. Always add at least 5 inches for indents and go bigger as cutting off excess is easier then adding more. Take that super long piece and fold in half, then half again. Fold again leaving the open side about 1 1/2 inches. (See pic) This will be your cake side so make sure it's as tall as you want- folding accordingly. Then snip about 1 in apart all the way down on the open side.

Sixth- Attach your side to your base by folding the side snips on top and with the base snips. (See pic) Try to be careful as the tinfoil will rip off and you'll be left with holes. Overlap the side a few inches and tape together with masking tape. This kind of tape does best in the oven so please don't try anything else.





Seventh- Take your cake and examine all sides taping where small holes may have occured to ensure your cake batter doesn't leak out. Now make your batter, fill and bake according to directions.






After your cake has cooled you can simply pull the sides off and you already have your cake on a cake board!

 Here's my finished cake, I had to fill it and I'll tell you that cutting and moving this huge cake was very stressful. I needed help when splitting the cake but we were able to do it without it breaking! I hope your cake works out!

A's Frog Cake & Fly Cupcake

I had the opportunity to make my nephew's first birthday cake. They had a frog themed party and invited a bunch of people! So to make sure there was enough cake to go around I decided to make a big Frog cake with lots of fly cupcakes.

Of course he needed his own smash cake for the best part of any party... letting the 1 year old go at it with all camera's flashing! So I made a 6" round cake and made it reflect the big frog's face.


They asked for a banana cake because he LOVES bananas but I didn't like the idea of making a cake with bananas and letting it sit out... I had nightmares of brown goo oozing out when I cut it- yuck. So instead I made a white cake with banana icing filling and buttercream frosting. It tasted like a banana cream pie in cake form! I made the large cake by making the cake pan so I had an exact outline of what I wanted, but the middle was a little too moist so I think next time I won't go that big.

I didn't fill the cupcakes so the people who didn't want banana flavor could still have cake. I think it turned out great and they ended up with alot of cake, but I didn't hear any complaints!

My favorite part of making a cake for someone is seeing their face light up when they see it for the first time and the "ummm... hummm" as they take the first bite and it's just what they wanted. Of course the b-day boy didn't say anything, but he ate alot of his cake so I'm assuming he thought it was good!

J Dragon Cake

My nephew J turned 4 and I got to make him a dragon cake because he is obsessed with all things dragon. I decided about 1 week before to make the cake so I couldn't put my usual prep into it. It started as a small cake with 1 dragon on top, then turned into 1 dragon on top with dinosaurs on the side. It ended up with a dragon cave, dragon shadow, and dinosaur shadows on the side. After I finished I realized how similar it looked to T's cake, but J still loved it!


I made a chocolate cake mix cake with buttercream frosting on top. But my sis wanted something oreo involved so I found an oreo filling that was delicious! We had leftover that we ate on graham crackers for a week!

 I made the cave look great with crushed oreo cookies and chocolate fondant for the front. All of the shadows were chocolate fondant cut with my cricut cake machine but these were just outlines that could be cut with cookie cutters as well.
So a pretty simple cake, but he loved it and at the end of the day that's what matters most.

50's Cake

I was asked to make my Father-in-law a birthday cake in the 50's style. So I made a double layer 9 in. and double layer 6 in. strawberry cake with buttercream frosting and fondant and chocolate fondant decorations on top. I chose to do a strawberry cake instead of a filling because I knew it would be sitting out while being decorated and had a long drive in the car and I didn't want it to get too warm. I made the cake and decorated most of it before going to Logan and took a picture. I'm glad I did because it fell on the way up! Half of the bottom layer was completely destroyed along with all of the fondant decorations on that side. I didn't take any cake supplies or leftover fondant so I had to get more frosting and just work with what I had. Luckly I was able to save some decorations and fix the layer so we could take pictures only on the front side.

 I've learned my lesson- never transport a cake on a cake stand... in a box... on the backseat... out of view. It sounds like common sense, but in my hurry to get us packed and up there I wasn't thinking very clearly. I put the top decorations on when we got there so they were ok. I made the curliques by wrapping strips of fondant around lollipop sticks and letting them dry. Even after drying they were still a little flexible so I could position them how I wanted on the cake. I also made a record player but you can't really see it in these pictures. 

Leftovers are so fun!

Here's the cake I made with the leftover cake mix I had from the 50's cake. So it was strawberry cake with buttercream frosting. Theran helped me frost and decorate it and we enjoyed it for family night. We believe in this house that "Boys r cool!"

Marie's Cake

I made this green 9 inch round cake for my cousin Marie's birthday. We've only been in our new house a week so it was kind of a rushed job so I'm proud of how it turned out even though it's not my best work.

 I used a chocolate box cake with store bought chocolate frosting for the filling. I used my bosch to make the buttercream frosting and I think I'll do that from now on because it was much easier and creamier. The only problem with making that way was it was hard to tell how thin or thick it was until I started working with it. I was going to do green roses in the middle but ran out of time so it ended up being some sort of swirly flower. I used a #18 star tip for the swirls on top and star boarder. The lines on top were melted chocolate that I had extra of so I decided to throw it on top. The best thing about cakes is that even when they don't quite look the way you invisioned it still tastes delicious!

My 1st Cakes!

Many people have wanted me to post my cakes here & explain how I create them. So I've made a slideshow of all of my cakes thus far and then I'll post each cake going forward on individual posts. If you have any questions comment and I'll explain them further. Also keep in mind most of these I did before taking any classes on cake decorating so some of them are pretty... interesting. Enjoy!