So this month has been pretty busy with classes, concrete canoe, and cakes.  Sometimes it's hard to balance everything, but I manage.  I have had 4 cake and 2 cupcake orders so far this month, as well as pouring the concrete for ISU's concrete canoe.  It took 7 hours from start to finish to complete the pouring of the canoe.  I have included a picture of the canoe below.  In my 4 years of being on the team, this is one of the best looking canoes and the concrete placement went really well.

  The first cake I have to show is a Nightmare Before Christmas cake I made for a client for their 2-year anniversary.  The cake is red velvet with cream cheese frosting.  The hill is shaped from rice crispy treats.  The cake is covered in fondant and air brushed.  The figures of Jack and Sally and jack-o-lanterns are molded from fondant. 

Next are red velvet cupcakes I made for valentines day.  The first cupcakes are simply decorated with cake crumbs.  The second cupcakes are decorated with fondant roses and hearts.

The next cake I made for a 5-year old's birthday.  The theme of the cake was mickey mouse.  I made the head, arms, legs, and feet from rice crispy treats.  The body of mickey is chocolate cake and the present is marble with buttercream frosting.  The bow and hands are made of fondant.

This next cake I made for my grandmother for her 80th birthday.  She loves chickens and roosters, so I made her a cake to look like a rooster.  I started the cake with the building of an internal structure, shown below.  I built up the underside of the cake with rice crispy treats, and formed the rest of the cake with chocolate cake.  After the cake was dirty iced, I placed hundreds of fondant feathers, then air brushed the color on.  I finished off the cake with finishing the face and adding crumbled graham crackers to the bottom of the stand.

The last cake is a cake I donated to the Iowa 4-H foundation to be auction off for their annual gala.  It is a chocolate cake with buttercream frosting.  I used a wood impression mat to imprint the wood pattern onto the fondant.  I air brushed the cake red and added windows and trim.  I then cut small rectangles for the shingles on the roof and air brushed a light gray color onto the shingles.  I then made fondant animals and hay to finish off the cake.

Well that's all the cakes that I have made since the beginning of February, I'll post later when I have new cakes.
~Mary Burroughs

Well this month marks the one-year anniversary this website.  I have come a long way in just one year, and I can't wait to see what 2012 will bring.  Well so far I have made two cakes this year, a Call of Cuty cake, and a snowman cake.

The first cake is a Call of Duty sheet cake.  I made this for a client who's son was turning 11 and loved to play the video game Call of Duty.  The cake was half chocolate cake, and half confetti cake.  This was the first time I made confetti cake from scratch, and I was really happy with the results.  The frosting on the cake was buttercream and made to look like a camouflage pattern.  The top boarder is fondant made to look like barb wire.  I also made rice krispy treat tank and grenade to go on top along with fondant dog tags.  I hand-cut the lettering for the cake as well.

The next cake I made was a snowman with snowflake cupcakes.  The client I made this cake for had a son who was turning 1 and she wanted a snowman cake for his birthday.  The cake was chocolate with buttercream icing.  The icing was textured using a paintbrush and lightly tapping the icing.  The nose, button eyes, scarf and snow flakes were all made out of fondant with a light dusting of pearl dust to give it a shine.  The stick arms were made from wire wrapped in floral tape.

Well that's all the new cakes for now.  I will post some more cakes when I have new orders.  Until then, I will be diving head first into my endless pile of homework and group projects.
~Mary

p.s....The back surgery I had for my ruptured disk went really well and I am back to being pain-free!!!

So the past month has been pretty busy with final exams, cakes, interviews, and surgery.  I had the joy of taking 6 final exams, which is not fun at all, but I'm glad the semester is over.  The last month I have had several interviews about me and Cake Engineering.  Below are links to all the articles and tv/radio interviews:
Iowa State College of Engineering
Sioux City Journal
Sioux City Chanel 9
Des Moines Register
Des Moines Chanel 5
Ames Tribune
Iowa State Daily
National Academy of Engineering
In August I noticed a slight pain whenever I sat down, and decided to get it checked out.  Well after several months of physical therapy and pain therapy, I was diagnosed with a ruptured disk and it was determined that surgery was the only answer to fix the pain.  I'm doing well and will hopefully be back to baking cakes as usual, pain free.

So below are the cakes that I worked on this past month.  The first cake is a Nike shoe cake I made for a client who loves to run.  The cake is vanilla with buttercream frosting and fondant accents.  To make this cake, I made two 8 inch square cakes, cut and filled the cake to form two blocks of cake, then carved the cake to look like a shoe.  After the cake was carved and covered in buttercream, I covered the cake in fondant and added the accent colors and details.

The next cake I made for an Australian class mate who wanted me to try a new cake flavor.  They wanted me to make Australian mud cake, which is like a mix between a brownie and a cake and is very rich and chocolaty.  The cake is a simple two tier wedding cake with black vines and red roses.  Since fondant dries out when trying to dye it black, I painted the vines black after attaching them, thus leaving the fondant pliable and easy to work with.  The roses are made with red gumpaste.  This was also the first time working with satin ribbon for a cake.  The bride gave me the ribbon, but it was too large to use for the cake.  Instead of buying new ribbon, I decided to re-size it by folding it in half and then attach it to the cake.

The next cake I made for a classmate for his graduation.  He had tried some of my chocolate cake before, so he wanted that for his cake.  I choose a simple design for this cake.

The next cake I made for my dad for his holiday party.  He removes snow a lot at his work, so he wanted me to make him a salt truck cake.  The cake is chocolate with chocolate frosting.  The "salt" is round sprinkles.  The cake is covered in fondant and the details are painted with edible food paint.  For the wheels I used Oreo cookies and added a bit of fondant for the hub cap.

Well that's all the new cakes from the last month.  I do have a few cakes coming up and will post about them as soon as they are done.  Until next time, enjoy looking at my past cakes.

So I haven't made too many cakes the past few months mainly because I've been swamped with school work.  I did have an article written about me though and that was pretty cool.  This is the link.  The university communications department saw that article and recommended  me for a story to several news affiliates in Ames and Sioux City, which is really cool.  Here is a news story from channel 9 news in Sioux City.  Who knew cake artistry was popular enough to write a story about?

So anyway here are a few of the cakes I made the last few months.

First off is a cupcake order I got from one of my professors.  What is interesting about this order is that she requested gluten-free cupcakes because she is gluten intolerant.  This was a great opportunity for me to expand my selection of cake flavors and cater to those who are gluten intolerant.  Gluten-free products are those without wheat based flour because wheat contains gluten.  So other flours like rice flour and sorghum flour and xanthan gum are used instead.

The next cake I made was for a long-time friend and Green Bay Packers fan for his groom's cake.  I tried to incorporate all the recognizable aspects of the Green Bay Packers into this cake.  The cake was red velvet with cream cheese frosting.  I have included the sketch of the cake as well.

The last cake is my own birthday cake.  I never really get a fancy cake for my own birthday, so this year I decided to make myself a cake.  I made a castle tower with a dragon because I love castles and dragons.  

Well that's all I have for now.  Hopefully the next few weeks go smoothly and final exams are easy (probably not going to happen, but here's to wishful thinking).
~Mary

So the past few weeks have been crazy busy with school and getting re-adjusted to the academic life, but that hasn't stopped me from making cakes.  Here are a few cakes from the last few weeks that I have made.

First is a cake I made for my cousin's 21st birthday.  It is a chocolate cake with chocolate and buttercream layers in the middle and covered in fondant.  The figure is my cousin and I spent around an hour to get his face just right.

The next cake is a simple sheet cake I made for my professor's son.  He is an avid fan of the Captain Underpants comic books.  Captain underpants is made out of fondant with hand-painted details.  The cake is chocolate with chocolate frosting and buttercream coat on the outside.

Well that's all the new cakes I have right now.  Look forward to an awesome cake for next week when I try to replicate Pascal from Tangled.  I will be attempting a complete 3D free-standing cake that looks like this image below:  (note I do not claim ownership of the following image)

~Mary Burroughs

So the last month has been crazy busy with 6 Iowa State Fair cakes, 2 cake orders, a Threadcake entry, and moving back to school.  I had lots of fun letting my creativity flow and I would like to show you the results of my creativity.

First up is the first of six State Fair cakes.  It is a upside down square wedding cake with a hand-painted emblem on the top tier, 300 piece diamond middle tier, a simple banded tier, and white gumpaste magnolias.  This was the first time attempting an upside down cake and I think I pulled it off.  It was also the first time making magnolias.  I placed second in the square wedding cakes category.

Next is a topsy turvy frog wedding cake.  I was inspired to create this cake when one day I was checking flood water elevations and saw all these cattails and frogs by the water and I thought that would make a cool looking cake.  The cattails were created by wrapping floral tape around a wire, sticking a piece of brown fondant onto the end, and creating texture in the fondant.  I placed second in the mixed shape category.

Up next we have a round wedding cake with ivory fondant, gumpaste gerberia daisies and calla lilies.  This got fourth place in the round wedding cake category.

Next is a replica of a car from an iconic movie...  I give you Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!  I was inspired to create this cake after seeing Chitty on the tv show Hollywood Treasures and remembering watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as a little kid.  I hope I have done Chitty proud.  I got second place in the shaped cakes category after an amazing golf bag cake that won grand prize overall.

The next cake I would like to show you is from one of my favorite movie series, Harry Potter.  This is The Monster Book of Monsters from the Prizoner of Azkaban (3rd in the series).  I loved the Monster book in the book series and in the movie, and since it is the last year for Harry Potter, I just had to make a cake with a Harry Potter theme.  This received first place in the single tier category.

The last cake I made for the Iowa State Fair is a Butter cow.  This year marked the 100th anniversary of the Butter Cow at the Iowa State Fair and there was a cake category to honor this special occasion.  The cake is covered in modeling chocolate to give the appearance of butter.  This received first place in the butter cow category.

While making the state fair cakes, I also had two cake orders.  The first was made to celebrate the one year anniversary of a heating and cooling business.  I made an air conditioner with a working fan.  My dad figured out the electronics portion of the fan, and I created the cake housing.  I was really excited to try electronics in a cake, and I think it turned out awesome.  Besides the fan, the cake features a hand-painted logo, air brushed coils, fondant cage, and a gumpaste fan cover.

The second cake I made is a replica of Lightening McQueen from the movie Cars.  The cake features hand-painted logos and detailing as well as fondant tires.

And last but not least is my last threadcake entry for 2011.  It is based off the Threadless design, Rainbow Pasta.  It isn't as detailed as I would have liked, but I ran out of time and had to finish quickly.  I made this for my last day at my internship and my co-workers loved it.

Well that's all for now.  I'm not sure when my next cake will be since I'm back at school and have limited decorating time.  For now I leave you with these cakes.  Enjoy!
~Mary

So the past couple of weeks have been crazy busy for me with cake orders, which is awesome!  I just wanted to share a few of these cakes with you.

The first cake was made for a wedding and it was my first time making stargazer lilies.

The next cake was made for a little girl who loves Snow White.  The challenge for this cake was that the parents also wanted to include a star in the design.  I wasn't sure how to include a star with snow white, but I came up with the idea of making the cake into a star shape.  They loved the cake.

So my friend loves frogs and tie-dye, so I came up with these rainbow cupcakes for her birthday.

This next cake I made for my dad for father's day.  The design for this cake is based of a threadless.com t-shirt and entered into the threadcakes.com contest.  To view my entry, click here.

So I've been telling my co-workers about all my cakes, and they asked me to prove my skills to them.  So I decided to make a cake based off another threadless.com t-shirt design to enter into the threadcakes.com contest.  To view my entry, click here.

The last cake I have to show you was made for someone's 65th birthday.  The person loves to go to Vegas, so a slot machine was a must.  The slot machine was made out of rice krispy treats and was carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

Well that's all the new cakes I have for you.
~Mary Burroughs

So this week is pretty busy.  I making 3 cakes, I'm starting a new job, and I made a threadcake.  I'm really excited for one of my cakes, it's a design I have wanted to make for a long time.  It's going to be a storybook with a castle, dragon, and roses.  Here is a sneak peak of the castle and dragon.

So I wanted to try a new carrot cake recipe and decided to make the cake into a threadcake.  I found out that carrot cake doesn't make the best shaped cake, so my design became a little lopsided.  Here is a picture of the cake:

Well this week I am going to start my summer internship with the Woodbury County Secondary Roads department.  I get to practice my surveying skills, inspect projects, help out with maintenance and anything else they want me to do.  I'm really excited to start work and hope I learn a lot.

Well that's all for now

So this week is crazy busy.  I have a huge cake order, 100 cupcakes to make, and my usual homework assignments.  I will definitely not have a lot of sleep this week.  Besides my crazy week, I had an awesome spring break and read a lot of cake decorating books, one of which inspired my huge cake this week.  Other than that, I have some awesome cakes coming up in the next couple of months that I'm excited for.  Well anyway that's all I have for now.
~Mary