Of course, it starts in the Kitchen-Aid. I love this thing and don't use it half as much as I'd like to. I did some math the other night- for the making of the cakes- I used over 14 POUNDS of powdered sugar! Some ended up in the trash, as you'll see, but that's still one heck of a sugar high!
The beginning, a few of the cakes set out and waiting to be hacked to peices, and the first few batches of frosting- a bit too stiff which drove me crazy.
The bottom cake. The plan was to make it look like stacked presents. I'd talked Brett into getting me some rolled fondant while he was down south- it wasn't near enough, but I wanted to give it a try. That's what ended up on this one- Looks pretty nice, even with the lumpy stiff frosting underneath it. I colored the leftover fondant a nice light purple and duded it up some later on. 
Then I tried out a homemade fondant recipe I found. The first few tries didn't turn out so hot as you can see. I'm not too fond of that color either, but each batch I mixed turned a decidedly pink color- this was the lighter of the 2.
I finally ran to the store and grabbed some marzipan. It worked well, and tastes better than the regular rolled fondant I think. See my purple present, I was very proud of that, though it tasted terrible and ended up in the circular file.
The final product- notice it's tilt. I couldn't fix it without ruining it, so I stuck an empty binky box under the drooping edge and some skewers in through all of the layers to try to keep it from collapsing completely. It held up ok. I added the green edging to take the kick in the face out of the pink/orange combination.
For the orange "ribbon" edging on the pink cake, I made another try at the homemade fondant... after a trip to the store for a bunch more powdered sugar. That did the trick and it turned out much much much better. Tastes great too. I think I'll stick to that from now on.
See my try at a bow?
Mom and Baby... I hope they like it.Austin's cake was kept simple- and was just the right size to feed th crowd we had over, with a bit extra for munching this week.
I colored the frosting the cool green color, then topped it with the homemade fondant- and forgot to color the fondant as well! What kid is interested in a white cake?! Luckily, the store had had a sale on the food coloring sprays (red and green) a while back and I'd been wanting to give those a try, so it all turned out way cool. Shane was facinated with the spray can colors.
I patterned the cake decor after a Scooby-doo cake in the 2004 Wilton yearbook. It's the only one I have, so if anyone's done with some others, I'd love to have them!
It's the same orange and white from the babyshower cake, I mixed the leftover green, with my green to mellow the color and added some copper swirls and edging. I really like how it turned out, though I need alot of practice still. 
The down-side is that the RS President is one of my friends, has young kids too, and gets invited to all our parties. She told me to get ready to do a little teaching of this for an Enrichment night sometime soon. I tried to tell her that I wasn't that good and didn't know a quarter of what's needed, but she was insistent. That's the second sister this weekend who wants to learn so I guess I'm stuck. Crystal, Angeline, and anyone else who knows...HELP! I still only have the 1st and 3rd instruction books, and that one Yearbook, so if there's any other books out there that can help me out that you have an extra of, please send it my way- I'll pay for them of course, so let me know! PLEASE!
Anyhow, I think I'm done doing cakes for a while... I have a bunch of extra frosting though. So much, that I don't dare let the boys eat it. What to do... what to do..
They were soooooo cute. Seeing the whole process makes me appreciate it a lot more. I took the easy route with Jared's and topped with pineapple, pudding and whip cream.
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