Saturday, April 16, 2011

Alexa's Dairy Free GLOBE Birthday Cake

Welcome to end of Winter - early Spring!

Alexa wanted a GLOBE birthday cake this year - to match her birthday theme of  "The world". She spent weeks thinking up ideas of what the cake should look like -   and with some clever ideas, we pulled it off! Since we figured it would take a lot of time to decorate the cake, we used a package cake mix. It just happens to not have dairy in it.. So we recommend it. 

We are so excited to share this post with you! So here it is - Enjoy!



Happy Birthday Alexa!
Enjoy!


Emma and Alexa
The Dairy Free Girls
The Final GLOBE cake. WOW!

We use Duncan Hines cake mix. It's Dairy Free.

Same with the frosting. We then used a Wilton food coloring product to get the blue color for the Oceans and green for the continents.

Here is the green one we used for the fondant. It comes in many colors. We used green and blue for this project.

Satin Ice Rolled Fondant doesn't have dairy - so it's perfect for our projects.

We used a Silipat to roll the fondant and a rolling pin - so no sticky mess on the counter - our rolling pins happen to be pink :)
We made a large sheet cake earlier so it could cool before frosting 
While the cake cooled, we started with the decorations and details.
These are fondant letter cutouts (probably too small for cookies)
We rolled white fondant (before using it up and turning it all green for the continents) and cut out letters for the cake's decorations (and made Antarctica). We cut out Happy Birthday Alexa, the number 8, and a peace sign
We then printed out a map of the world to help guide us in cutting out fondant continents
 our grandmother made edible dairy free sugar seashells and fish for additional decorations! How cool are these!?
 Alexa started working on the continents after rolling green fondant (using the green food coloring)
 The Globe would have been too tricky to make out of cake. So we bought a round ball made of Styrofoam (you can google these online and purchase on several cake supply web sites) - we began frosting the globe in a beautiful ocean blue and added 3 long wood skewers that would hold the globe to the sheet cake below. Clever, right?? :)
 Alexa took a break and started on frosting the sheet cake.
 Woah, that's a lot of blue frosting! It's coming together. Ocean everywhere!
 So now we placed the white fondant letters on the sheet cake. The globe is sitting tight on the sheet cake thanks to those wood skewers (cleverly hidden)
 It's coming together - adding in the green continents - can you find Italy?? 
 So fun! We added the sugar shells, fish and some plastic sharks and palm trees
 We cant forget Antarctica!
 We printed some fun images online that represent Alexa in the world, her favorite foods, her favorite trips to add a more personalized feeling to this globe cake. Now it's truly Alexa's World!
 Can you see the pizza? NO cheese on this pizza for Alexa :)
So there you go! It turned out HUGE and AWESOME
and most importantly it was delicious! 

OK, now can you guess how many of us at the party had blue tongues???

:) Thanks for visiting!
See you next time
Alexa & Emma






























Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Emma's Dairy Free Birthday! Ace of Cakes / Cake Boss Showdown!

Happy 11th birthday Emma!
For Emma's birthday she chose an Ace of Cakes / Cake Boss theme. With her best friends and Alexa, they all spent the day making amazing cakes!

All items are dairy free so Alexa could enjoy the fun!

We hope you enjoy looking at the photos and our cakes as much as we enjoyed this super special day!

Enjoy!

Emma & Alexa
The Dairy Free Girls

Our mom put theme ideas for the cakes in a hat so we could all pick from. Emma got to choose all the themes since it was her birthday!
We all picked themes that fit really well with our personalities!
"D" got A Day at the Beach
Emma got Screen Time
"R" got Fun with Sports
"K" got I Love New York
Alexa got Talk About Pop Music
You can see from Emma's smile - this was going to be fun!
Our mom prebaked a bunch of cakes and cupcakes - all different sizes for us to use. This way we could concentrate on decorating and creating! 
"K" came up with a Hamburger theme! Genius!
Emma was going to make an Ipod Nano cake - so cool!
"R" Deep in thought - so many ideas!
Our mom made a ton of cakes to use - doesn't that already look like a hamburger! :)
This was our first time playing with fondant. We used a Sil Pat - a great tool from France. Fondant doesnt stick on this liner. 
"R" ready with her super cool idea!
Rolling fondant!
Alexa rolling away! So far so good!
"K" and "R" watching Alexa roll, almost their turn!
So... We decided to go "professional" and use food coloring - things got super messy!
Wow! Look how pretty the fondant is with the blue coloring! 
"D" rolling!
Emma starting her Ipod Nano!
We begin covering Alexa's cake with fondant. So cool!
Alexa is a perfectionist and is monitoring our mom.
Perfect!
"K" working on her hamburger. Adding red fondant tomatoes. Seriously so cool..
That looks just like a real hamburger!
Alexa using a fondant smoother for her cake. Looking perfectly smooth!
Wow! That's really blue! "D" rolling out her "ocean" for her ocean cake
We all have blue hands! :)
Here we go - covering the cake with the fondant...
Slowly but surely...
Now to smooth it out - 
Smooth and cut around the sides
It worked! 
Covering all sides
An ocean it is!
 Blue seems to be one of the choice colors here!
Green fondant? "K" is making lettuce for her burger!
Wow! Tie Dye fondant. Genius!
So pretty as it rolls out.
Alexa with her first part done! A purple fondant music note on a white cake. So pretty!
"R"'s sports theme cake with a hole in the middle!
The burger taking shape - we have lettuce and we have tomatoes
Emma covering her Ipod Nano cake with the tie dye fondant
Alexa piping frosting around her musical note. Pretty details..
"R" admiring her pretty cake :)
Wow! "K" added yellow fondant for cheese. That looks like a real burger!
Footballs and Lacrosse Sticks!
We loved how "D" make a swimmer with a surf board for her ocean cake. 
Looks like the swimmer is waste up in the water - clever "D"!
We love this burger!
Alexa's beautiful music note cake. Such pretty colors.
We see a bicycle...
Mashing up cake pieces to make sand for "D"'s ocean cake. So cool!
Rolling is hard work!
Mashing up that cake. It's hard work too!
A burger isn's a burger without KETCHUP!
Piping red frosting for ketchup look
"K" is very detailed with her piping
Yum!
Alexa's 2nd white cake. 
Emma's Ipod Nano cake is taking form
Details, details, details
"D"'s surfer girl!
"D" piping a wet suit on her surfer girl

Surfers and swimmers!
Emma is such a perfectionist! 
So concentrated!
Ipod Nano cake - awesome start!
Alexa is working on her 2nd musical note cake. 
Loving this project!
More tie dye fondant - it's just so cool looking
"R"'s cake is taking shape - it's a sportsmania cake!
"K" added NYC on her burger in tie dye fondant. Nice touch!
Alexa loves to pipe!
Emma and her cake. Almost done!
"D" rolling - lots of rolling for this project!
Dairy Free Ingredients: Pillsbury frosting.
Dairy Free Ingredients: Wilton food coloring.

Dairy Free Ingredients: Satin Ice fondant.

Wilton decorating bags and tips
Wilton decorating pens
Alexa begins to pipe even more colors on her cakes
Blog pause: super messy blue hands!
YUM! tastes great...
We told her not to hug us with those hands!
Blue mouth!
Silly Alexa!
"K" is done! Wow - we love her cake!
NYC Hamburger!
Alexa had time to make a special surprise cake for Emma. Thank you Alexa!
Alexa's music cakes. So pretty!
Team shot! Emma, "R", "D", and "K"
Emma finalizing her Ipod Nano cake
Very detailed!
Perfectly cutting
Looking good Emma!

Wow - so here they are!
Alexa is very proud of her music-themed cakes
Emma's Ipod Nano cake is finished!
Our mom gave each of us award certificates for jobs well done
Emma's birthday lunch table
Dairy free Ingredients: Betty Crocker sprinkles
Dairy free Ingredients: Pillsbury chocolate frosting

Key tool: A ruler!
Well, here are all the cakes with our prizes and certificates. This was a super fun project - very rewarding for each of us to make a cake with so many cool decorating tools.

Happy Birthday Emma!