Amy Bakes: A month?

I didn't realize an entire month has passed since I blogged. I was never very good about keeping a diary, and this sort of underlines that, doesn't it?

I've spent the last few weeks experimenting with different baking vessels. Guess what? I have an oven-proof bowl set (still in the box) in the very back of my cabinets that I got for a wedding present. They're oven proof! Perfect size to help me make this:

Kaylee turned 7 and had a tea party for her birthday. What's a tea party without a teapot?

I'm very new to cake sculpting, and toyed with the idea of stacking a bunch of round cakes, then carving out the shape. I decided it would be easier to bake the cake in the shape: less carving, less crumbs, neater finish. Hello, oven-proof Bowl Set! Boy, am I glad my relative-but-I'm-not-sure-how-we're-related picked that out for my wedding day!

I used the oven proof bowl twice, turned one right side up, frosted the top, then turned the other upside down on top of the other one. Miracle of all miracles, it didn't smoosh the bottom cake. I decided to use a denser pound cake-like recipe...did I mention it's all chocolate?

The handle, spout, lid and covering is Marshmallow fondant...basically, you take a bag of marshmallows, melt them down to soup, then knead in 2lbs of powdered sugar. Much better than that store-bought fondant...which, to me, kinda tastes like what would happen in Windex decided to make bubblegum.

Brimming with confidence after this cake (heck, I was ready to enter a Food Network Cake Challenge), my cousin Sarah wanted a cake for her daughter Audrey's 5th birthday. Audrey wanted what I call "The Girl's Rite of Passage Cake". The Barbie Cake.

Yeah, I had one. You had one. Your sisters and cousins all had one. Now Audrey has had her's, and, thanks to my oven-proof bowls, it was pretty awesome.

She's saying, "Step back, haters. This is MY cake dress."

I always knew my costume design degree would come in handy. When I least expected.

Did you know Barbie's foot-to-waist measurement is almost 8"? I didn't know that either. I found out when I stuck her into the bowl-shaped cake and didn't even get to her plastic engraved underwear. I baked 2 8" round cakes, stacked them on the cake tray, then put the bowl cake upside down on the rounds. Then we had enough for a skirt. Same cake as the teapot: dense pound cake. Oh, yeah...and chocolate.