GO GAMECOCKS!!!

This cake was a LOT of fun to make largely because...well, I'm a South Carolina Gamecocks fan!

This cake was actually a birthday cake, made for a guy that loves Gamecocks and Ralph Lauren Polo.
His daughter requested that I find a way to mix the two.
At first I thought it might be a bit of a challenge, but I was actually very pleased with how it turned out!

Here's a little peek into the "before" process of a cake:

Cocky (the Gamecocks mascot) was hand sculpted out of RK's, fondant and gum paste.

Cocky is always holding up the #1 sign! So this mini replica was no exception.

The polo images were actually hand painted on gum paste discs that I cut out and then allowed to air dry before drawing the images on. I actually looked at the image on a polo shirt that I own and just free handed it with edible markers (a very cool tool by the way!).

I used a toothpick to hand carve each of the feathers.

Birthday Bugs!

The birthday boy that received this cake is a bug fanatic!
He loves his insects (knows them all too).
So what better cake to make than one covered in bugs?
The bottom layer was yellow cake and actually my first attempt at a square cake! (Shocking, I know).
The tree stump layer was chocolate cake.
All of the bugs were made out of fondant.
The "ant hill" was crushed vanilla wafers and the spider web was gum paste.

My Little Pony Birthday Cake

I do not typically use any plastic toys on any of my cakes, in fact, this was the first time.

However, this cake was for my goddaughter and I wanted her to have the ability to keep the ponies after her cake was gone. Kind of a way to have her cake and her birthday present too.

The cake was chocolate and all decorations were fondant, royal icing and disco dust (besides the ponies of course).