must. eat. cake.

Gumpaste Thomas the Tank Engine

Two tier topsy turvy chocolate cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, covered in fondant. The Thomas is made completely out of 100% edible sugar paste.

rainbow cake, originally uploaded by tashistation.

Delicious vanilla cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, decorated with edible bunnies, butterflies, flowers and mushrooms. Topped with a gumpaste rainbow. A big hit with the kids!

jungle themed 1st birthday cake, originally uploaded by tashistation.

A fun first birthday cake with a jungle theme. The cake topper is made of chocolate fondant mixed with gum paste to help it hold up in the humidity. Luckily Saturday wasn’t a particularly hot and humid day, but lately you never know!

The animal and plant silhouettes on the bottom tier were inspired by Alexander Henry’s zoo fabric. A classic!

Yellow cake layers with chocolate frosting, chocolate fondant (bottom tier) and vanilla fondant (top tier).

This would also make a very cute baby shower cake.

play-doh cake, originally uploaded by tashistation.

The birthday boy LOVES play-doh, hence this giant homage to the fun paste. The cake was 8 inches tall, consisted of 6 layers of cake and 5 layers of vanilla swiss meringue buttercream. the chocolate layers came from elisa strauss’ confetti cakes book. The play-doh lid was made out of gumpaste, the animals are fondant.

monkey cake for gil, originally uploaded by tashistation.

Another cute cake from Kate Sullivan’s book. This was for a boy’s 2nd birthday party. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

lovebirds cake for natalie — smooooch!, originally uploaded by tashistation.

This vegan chocolate cake with vegan “buttercream” icing stands at a diminutive 5 inches across and three inches tall (not counting the birds). It’s the perfect cake for a small gathering, feeding 6-8 people. Design from Kate Sullivan’s amazing cake book.

cakes, originally uploaded by tashistation.

Maybe I was too caked out from recent orders, because when it came time to make my own son’s first birthday cake (and his friend’s) I decided to go with simple and homemade-looking instead of an over the top, multi-tiered, fondant and gumpaste creation.

I love coconut cake, especially when covered in nice large flakes of unsweetened, organic coconut. It looks so much prettier than the finely shredded stuff (which I find just too sweet, especially on top of cake and frosting, which are pretty sweet already!)

The yellow cake with chocolate frosting ended up having a sort of mottled appearance, and after dotting it with little silver dragees, it sort of looked like a leather ottoman. Not exactly what we were going for but it did taste wonderful.

Happy first birthday son!!

yellow dots cake for kai, originally uploaded by tashistation.

Custom cake designed for a one year old’s birthday party. The mom, who is an art director, asked for yellow dots. We ended up baking coconut layers and frosting them in lemon buttercream. The bottom tier served about 15 people and the top layer was saved for later.

This is Hana’s first birthday cake. It’s yellow cake with chocolate buttercream. Marshmallow fondant on the top, chocolate fondant on the bottom tier.

I started out by making the little decorations a week in advance… the mushrooms, fiddleheads, ferns, acorns and oak leaves.  I made a tree in advance but it was way too tall for the bottom tier and had to be scrapped.

The day before the party I baked the cake layers and crumb-coated them.  The night before the party I stacked the tiers covered everything in fondant, then started finding a home for each little decoration.  Finishing touches applied day of event.  It was a very fun cake to make

The cake topper is a vintage Japanese porcelain figurine found on eBay.

Birthday Cake, originally uploaded by tashistation.

This was the most fun I’ve had making a cake! It took a few evenings of prep work but, as I stood in my tiny kitchen, making ladybugs and snails out of fondant, I felt like a kid playing with play-doh. Good times.

The inside is yellow cake with a chocolate buttercream frosting.