Palette knife painting with buttercream.

It’s the Great Deku Tree! Zelda fans will recognize him instantly, but for everyone else: He’s a grizzled old cherry blossom tree with a grumpy face that shares wisdom passed through generations. And there are friendly little leaf critters called Koroks hanging out around him (including in his belly-cave).

The bark is sculpted buttercream and the grass is dyed coconut. The korok is gum paste. The branches were the most time-consuming part of this one, made from wafer paper that I painted and hole-punched, then glued the individual dots together into wired leafy shapes.

Happy lunar new year 2024—year of the dragon!

This cake was inspired by the dragon drawings coming out of the art room in our neighborhood elementary school. The kids were making great art, inspired by our fab art teacher, Mr. Ryan.

Happy birthday to my youngest, who is somehow 7!! He requested a rainbow geode, so a rainbow geode is what he got. 🌈

I made this for my son’s 6th birthday, modeled after his favorite stuffy, “Octi”. The hat is a sugar cone, frosted over, and the inside layers are rainbow-colored. Octi ate the little cake, and then we ate Octi!

This was a special one, made for a young man who loves snails. I’d done a snail-themed birthday cake for his previous birthday, so this time around I made a party of snails gathered around a miniature version of the previous year’s cake. Add the tree stump and leaves for a natural effect, and some gold balloons for festivity, and poof!—snail cake!

The knitted exterior of this hat is made entirely of hand-piped buttercream. It took me 6 or 7 hours to do! The top pom pom is a hollow ball of tempered chocolate, piped over in buttercream.

Coyote Central is an incredible Seattle organization that develops creative skills in youth with an equity-first approach. I created these cakes for their 2024 fundraiser, playing on the themes of the event (black, white, and sparkly brights!) and CC’s coyote logo.

There are no sprinkles on either of these cakes—it’s all hand-piped buttercream dots!

This was for an 11-year old who recently completed his SCUBA certification, in Seattle, and also has a long-running joke related to Elmo birthday cakes. Truly an opportunity for a custom cake to shine, no? The fun challenge for me on this one was to capture the vibrant, varied greens that characterize the underwater landscapes around here.

I made this for a couple with split tastes: he prefers pie, she prefers cake. But she was in charge of their anniversary dessert, so this—which is entirely cake, no actual pie involved—is the result!

Most of the exterior is buttercream, including the silver pan. I crafted the napkin, fork, and pie crust/lattice from fondant. The blueberry bowl is candy melts, and the blueberries themselves are from mother nature.

This was part of a duo, alongside Year of the Dragon. Happy 2024!

My first spherical cake! The structural secret is rice krispy treats, which make up the bottom third of the sphere and provide a solid base for the classic chocolate layers and vanilla buttercream above.

This sweet little sushi bite is a three-layer, six-inch chocolate cake wrapped in black buttercream and topped with rice krispies coated in white candy melts. The sushi is hand-painted buttercream, nestled with green apple slices standing in for cucumber. The wasabi is buttercream as well.

Inspired by the Zoom Ocean baby book, this was for a one-year-old’s birthday. The submarine being launched by the whale’s spout is a huge image in the book, and it was so much fun to re-create it in edible 3D! Not to mention all the underwater life on the reef.

This was such a fun cake to create, for the birthday of a young pineapple enthusiast. I made the crown & flower from gum paste, and the facial features from candy melts.

This is my upright version of a yule log, made for someone with a birthday over the winter holiday break. It’s festive and wintry and I love it!

Meringue mushrooms & sugared rosemary and cranberries finish off the look.

I made this for an ADWAS fundraiser with the theme of “purple touch.” The geode is made from home grown rock candy, as usual!

I made this fairly early in my baking journey, to practice piping buttercream flowers & plants. I decorated many overturned pots in the week leading up to this cake!

This was my take on jewel corn, and also an early experiment in color mixing—I’ve learned so much since then! The husks on top are edible wafer paper.

This was for my son’s 8th birthday. He requested an exploding volcano that “is not too cheerful.” The bitty blue flowers were the most cheer he would allow. 🤣

Everythin is edible: the palm trees are made from modeling chocolate and wafer paper, the ground greenery is dyed coconut shreds, and the exploding lava is Vietnamese wafer paper.

This design was requested by my son for his 9th birthday, and he was very specific about what he wanted spilling out of the gap: peanut butter cookies, Reese’s cups, chocolate cookies, and bits of chocolate. The kid knew what he wanted! The peanut-crusted chocolate sails on top were my addition, to give some height & dimension.

This one was for my eldest’s 11th birthday. I love you to the stars and beyond, kiddo!

The most satisfying part of making this yule log was the little details: meringue mushrooms, sugared cranberries, and chocolate buttercream pinecones!

This is my third or fourth geode cake, but my first blue one! It’s made from home grown rock candy, as always.

A friend requested a baby shower cake reflecting her family’s love for Pacific Northwest outdoor adventures. I made this woodland-style cake, and represented the growing family on top as snails, including a bitty golden baby snail.

I made this for a Seattle Kraken fan’s 11th birthday. The cake is entirely buttercream, with white sprinkle accents. The anchors are crafted from white candy melts, brushed with silver luster dust.

A football field for a football fan’s 12th birthday! The decorations are buttercream, with the exception of the field goals (plastic) and football candles. I copied the ‘play’ on the side from an internet photo, and I still have no idea if it’s a real play or not!

Simple. Spherical. Soccer!

I made this for my son’s fifth birthday, modeled after the centerpiece cake drawn in his then-favorite, book, Pat-a-Cake Baby by Joyce and Polly Dunbar. The jelly diamonds are scratch-made jell-o, with various sprinkles as accents and a single maraschino cherry on top.

I made this for a friend’s late October baby shower. The ghosts are made from candy melts. I can’t wait to meet her baby boo!

I made this trio of Halloween-themed cakes as an experiment in buttercream carving. The cakes are frosted in multiple layers of colored buttercream, then carved to reveal the coloring underneath.

I mixed blueberry jam into my vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream to create the purplish blueberry frosting here (no dyes!) The ghosts are Vietnamese rice paper, shaped and dried on wax paper draped over toy balls. With three little boys in my house, toy balls are easy to come by!

This margarita-themed cake is full of fun and flavor! It has lime cake layers brushed with tequila, lime curd filling, and lime buttercream. The top decorations are scratch-made lime jell-o, and candied lime slices.

This Minecraft cake was for my boys, just for fun. It has a creeper face in every slice! It’s made using the same techniques as a checkerboard cake, but with a more complicated pattern. I drew up diagrams on graph paper to work out the engineering before I even started in the kitchen!

Made for a St. Patrick’s day celebration, this surprise-inside cake had rainbow-colored vanilla layers and a golden four-leaf clover on the outside. You can’t get luckier than that!

This was the first geode cake I ever made. They’re easier than you’d think! I grew my own rock candy for this (and for every geode cake since).

I made this for an 18th birthday party with a blue-and-gray color scheme. I was aiming for something that would warm up, tonally, when lit with birthday candles. That’s how I ended up making sugar glass mountains!

I made this carved batman by frosting the cake in yellow, then in black, then carving away the black layer in the right areas to create a raised batman logo. The ears are edible wafer paper.

This was for a Star Wars enthusiast’s birthday. The light sabers are scratch-made jell-o. I had to think long and hard about how to shape them. In the end, I plugged the ends of drinking straws with gum paste, set the jell-o liquid in the straws, and then cut the straws away. It worked!

I made this for a young Rivian enthusiast’s birthday. It’s entirely buttercream, with edible glitter inside the lightning bolts.

I made this for an Easter celebration, inspired by a Joanne Chang recipe, with malt-flavored blue frosting and ganache speckles to imitate a robin’s egg. The nests are crafted from spun sugar, with store bought chocolate eggs nestled inside.

Geode cakes are so popular, and so stunning. And so sparkly!