Tag Archives: skull
The perfect Halloween decorations for your truck (but not my car)
(Reprinted from 11/22/09)
At first, I thought the truck in front of me had large skull stickers on the back of the cab until I got close enough to see that they were large plastic skulls. That was kinda cool, if a little late for Halloween, but then he started braking and they moved beyond cool and into the world of I want…
Apologies for the photo quality. It was dusk and I have an older iPhone with a sucky camera.
UPDATED 10/13/12: I can just imaging what my little Honda Fit would like like with a set of matching headlights…
…and as soon as I finished photoshopping my car – I realized just how much time I wasted with it today. I really need to do something a bit more constructive with my time…
The Bitter Teeth
I have so many things that I’ve wanted to post over the past year and I was just too worn down from pain to keep up with them all. I’m trying to put some of the more interesting ones together in multiple link dump posts, but this one is just too good to wait while I sort through over a hundred old drafts before posting.
It’s a cake.
Well, of course it’s a cake if it’s showing up here. In fact it’s a cake covered in chocolate. The best part is that it’s the most amazing chocolate coated skull cake that I’ve ever seen.
I know!
I am so insanely jealous of Chloe Bird’s skill. She made this cake as an entry for Threadless’s annual cake competition and she even posted photos of the process on their site. Check it out. NOW!
2011 Cake Show: Adult Professional Division, part one
Adult Professional
High level of skill. More than 6 years decorating experience. More than 90 hours of hours of cake decorating or sugar art instruction. May be decorating for profit or working as a decorator. Open to all styles.
***As with most of the divisions and categories, I didn’t photograph every entry. These are ones I liked or that caught my eye for some reason.***
Special Occasion/Novelty One Tier: Any non-tiered cake with a theme such a Birthday, Holiday, Wedding, etc. Any sugar mediums or techniques may be used.
(No photos of first place for this category.)
2nd Place
Title: Floral Birthday
by Carol Philips
I wish I could make a cake that looks this clean and precise. I mean take a closer look. It’s flawless.
3rd Place
Title: Surf Shack
by Sylvia Wilson
Title: Spring is here
by Mandy Popejoy
Business Name: Sweet Insanity
This is a Lambeth style cake with lots of rings and extensions/stringwork. I took the picture because it reminded me of the inside of the people mover in front of Bally’s in Las Vegas.
Sculpted Cakes: Shaped or carved cakes, 2-D or 3-D cakes and sculptures. Entries must be real cake. Minimal use of Styrofoam allowed to complete entry. Any sugar mediums may be used. Must submit 3 in-progress pictures with NO identification as to the entrant.
1st Place
Title: Hawaiian Lava Dragon
Dragon climbing lava rock mountain of Kauai
by Sylvia Wilson
Normally I don’t like my dragons to be adorable, but he’s SO CUTE!!!
2nd Place
Title: The Thing
The Thing – Superhero from the Fantastic Four Cake
by Earl Vallery
I was fascinated by this cake. It looked like a squat, orange demonic frog was rising from the smashed pavement.
3rd Place
Title: Carousel
A whimsical cake suspended above the board.
Made in honor of the Cake Carousle for all their support since I started taking classes there 1 1/2 years ago 
by Joy Longberg
Am I the only person who thinks that this looks kinda like a snake/horse hybrid?
Special Occasion/Novelty Tiered Cakes: Cakes with two or more tiers. Can be stacked or tiered. Novelty/ special occasion cakes does not include wedding or anniversary cakes. Any sugar mediums or techniques may be used.
1st Place
Title: Day of the Dead
by Ashlee Trotter
Business Name: Ruth’s Sweete Justice, Oklahoma City
Beautifully done cake. Even my Mom, who dislikes Day of the Dead themes or even skulls, thought this was a striking cake. Too bad I wasn’t able to get a very good photo of it. The flash reflected off the blank fondant too much and made the red rather garish, and not using a flash washed out all the color.
(No photos of second place for this category.)
3rd Place
Title: Swan Lake
by Joy Longberg
While this cake is busy and way too much like something my Grandmother would have enjoyed – there was something about it that I liked. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s there.
Title: Flowers
by Marcy Rongel
Business Name: Baby Cakes by Marcy
Another one I liked, though I can’t tell you why….
Title: The cake that has an incredible hand-painted mural and one small octopus that caused me to become good friends with Ketel One, the vodka and not the company
That really is the title. The description says “see entry title”.
Oh, and it gets better. Here’s the explanation for the techniques used:
“Hand pointed cocoa butter mural, hand molded modeling chocolate octopus, and a 3 colored buttercream starrry night that came about one night that I was so drunk that I started eating the dragees.”
by Stephanie Funky George
Business Name: Ruth’s Sweete Justice Bakery
Now I really want to meet the people who work at Ruth’s Sweete Justice Bakery.
The Adult Professional wedding cakes, buttercream only, special technique, and confection are coming up next.
2011 Cake Show: Adult Intermediate Division, part three
Adult Intermediate
Developing skills. 2 to 4 years cake decorating experience; 30 to 60 hours of cake decorating or sugar art instruction. Open to all styles.
And finally it’s time for the one category that I actually entered this year (I was supposed to also enter the Buttercream Only category and the Tasting Division/Soda Category–my recipe for rootbeer cake turned out fabulous–but there just wasn’t enough time to finish either one).
Confections Not-On-A-Cake: Cupcakes, cookies, candy, chocolate, etc. An individual entry, not on a cake.
This year, there were seven entries in the Confections Not-On-A-Cake category.
Title: Butterfly Garden
by Leah Tackitt
Title: Truth, Justice, and the Cupcake Way
by Irma Arenivar
Title: Spring has blommed [sic]
by Irma Arenivar
Title: Jungle Babies
by Rachel O’Kon
3rd Place
Title: Dia de los Muertos Cookies
by Kelly Guerra
Blog Name: Billa Cakes
Another Day of the Dead entry, and it’s one of the better ones too. She was the one I was worried about since everyone already knew who would place first.
2nd Place
Title: The Crimson Chin Multi-verse
The comic book superhero from Nickelodeon’s Fairly Oddparents’ cartoon–voiced by Jay Leno.
“Let’s get mandibular!”
by Somara Maggi
That’s me! Last year they awarded third place to Maggie Somara, so this year I made sure to label which part of my name was the first name and which part was the last name on my entry form. It worked.
I had originally planned on doing a time-line of Wonder Woman’s design changes in cookie form until I watched a Fairly Oddparents’ episode that had quite a few different versions of the Crimson Chin (each one was a parody of standard comic book character designs throughout the decades). I couldn’t resist. Steve was worried that Crimson Chin cookies would be too obscure for the judges, but they really didn’t care. Besides, there were already way too many Wonder Woman entries at the show this year.
1st Place
Title: From a Fairy’s Perspective
by Peggy Higgins
I will be perfectly honest here. My first thought about this entry was that this should have been in the Special Techniques category, because it looked like the only cookie used was the white and green base. So here was a gorgeous entry that was going to kick my entry’s ass and it shouldn’t even be competing against me to begin with. But you know what? I was so very, very wrong.
If you take a closer look, you’ll see that the leaves are cookies. So are the mushroom caps and stepping stones. I don’t know about the fairy house, but after all the rest, it really doesn’t matter.
So yeah, Peggy definitely deserved first place, and I didn’t mind losing to her at all.
Now for more photos of my work…
Piped cookies, but not flooded yet.
Crimson Chins packed up for transport.
Close up of the current version of Crimson Chin.
2011 Cake Show: Culinary Student Division
Culinary Student
Current culinary school students. Open to all styles.
***As with most of the divisions and categories, I didn’t photograph every entry. These are ones I liked or that caught my eye for some reason.***
Sculpted Cakes: Shaped or carved cakes, 2-D or 3-D cakes and sculptures. Entries must be real cake. Minimal use of Styrofoam allowed to complete entry. Any sugar mediums may be used. Must submit 3 in-progress pictures with NO identification as to the entrant.
1st Place
Title: Woven Purse
by Galyna Goeson
2nd Place
Title: Ironman Sculpted Cake
by Sabrina Hunt
“White cake buttercream sculpted cace after battle w/Captain America.”
Special Occasion/Novelty Tiered Cakes: Cakes with two or more tiers. Can be stacked or tiered. Novelty/ special occasion cakes does not include wedding or anniversary cakes. Any sugar mediums or techniques may be used.
1st Place
Title: She’s Got a Secret
by Amanda Majors
2nd Place
Title: Ghost Rider
by Gina Marie Rios
The flames look more like orange dreads, but I love it anyway.
I didn’t get a photo of third place, but it was made by Neisha Harendt
Title: Cherry Blossom
by Whitney Mitchel
Title: Lace Debutant Cake
by Sabrina Hunt
Wedding Tiered Cakes: Cakes with two or more tiers decorated specifically for weddings or anniversaries. Any techniques or sugar mediums may be used.
2nd Place
Title: Harlequin Romance
by Russell Murphy
I didn’t get photos of the first or third place winners because there wasn’t anything about them that caught my eye. Actually, that’s not true about the first place winner – I really hated that entry. Why can’t anyone create a shell-themed cake that doesn’t look like it belongs in an old lady’s bathroom? I probably should have used that as a reason to take a picture of it anyway. That’s something to remember for next year.
Special Techniques Not-On-A-Cake: Entries of fondant, gumpaste, sugar molding, color flow, royal icing, etc. Displayed as an individual technique and NOT as a decoration on a cake. A combination of techniques and mediums may be used, but it must be presented alone and not as part of a cake.
1st Place
Title: Calla Lily Shoe
by Galyna Goeson
This is a perfect example of missing something the first time through. This piece was displayed so that it looked like two partial blossoms with a long leaf. The second day, it was turned around so that I could tell it was supposed to be a shoe. A very nice shoe.
2nd Place
Title: Flowers of our Lady of Guadalupe
by Yolanda Segovia Jones
3rd Place
Title: Dead of the Day Sugar Skull
by Gina Marie Rios
She seems to have a thing for skulls…
