A Charlie Brown Christmas

Can you believe Christmas is already next week?? Precisely 7 days from today! I guarantee this week will be filled with all the Christmas classics on television like Miracle on 34th Street, Home Alone, and one of my faves A Christmas Story. Another classic that has been around for decades is A Charlie Brown Christmas. This animated special reminds me of a cake that I created last year for a little boy's first birthday.

In honor of Charlie Brown (the original chevron wearer), Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts Gang, I share with you this cake (and cupcakes) that was inspired by Charles M. Schulz's timeless characters who will always help us remember what the real meaning of Christmas is.

There was no doubt in my mind that I needed to create Snoopy with Woodstock on top of his iconic dog house for this order. The house would be the perfect volume for a decent sized cake and a perfect focal point for the cake table.

Of course I could not ignore the rest of the Peanuts Gang. I remember as a child, I used to get the comic section of the Sunday newspaper, cut out my favorites, and staple them together to make little booklets for me to carry around. Did anyone else do this? 

Charlie Brown and the gang was definitely part of my childhood, and I felt the need to pay homage to the beloved comic strip by Charles M. Schulz. This also meant staying true to the 2-dimensional quality for this order. So for the cupcakes, I decided to make cupcake toppers of our favorite Peanuts characters.

With rolled out colored fondant, I recreated the faces of each of these characters using a food writer. Once their heads were cut out, I placed them onto a pick and left them to harden for a couple days. This way, they would be stiff enough to stand straight up onto the cupcake.

For the rest of the cupcakes, I created a custom cupcake pick that was personal to the birthday boy's celebration. Of course these too were inspired by the comic strip.

 Unfortunately, I was not able to be at the party to set up the cake display that day. But with the help of my friend Keena, the cake table was completed and was able to get a few photos from the final product and party. Thanks Keena!

Before you know it, Christmas will be here...then New Year's Eve, and new memories to be had! Whether you were naughty or nice this year, I hope you were surrounded by loved ones to share those special moments, to celebrate your successes, to support you through the downs, to inspire you....just as Charlie Brown had with his gang.

You can catch A Charlie Brown Christmas on ABC tonight, 8/7c. 

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope it's filled with lots of cake!

~Abs of Cakes~

A Christmas cake for the Boys & Girls Club

Only a couple more hours until Santa and his reindeer jingle their bells for Christmas (here in LA at least). In honor of December 25th, I'm watching This Christmas as I write this post :) This week, I was asked to make a Christmas Cake for the Boys & Girl's Club of the South Bay.  A special thanks goes to Louella De Los Angeles and Ron Lodevico Jr. for coming to me for this cake request.  Here's what I came up with...

When I was asked to make a Christmas Cake, I instantly thought about doing a "Gingerbread House" made entirely out of cake....although there was nothing Ginger about it. Believe it or not, I've never made a Gingerbread House before, so this was is the closest I have ever come to making one.  I started with stacking the cakes and carving out the rooftop before I added the crumb coating.

 I even added a chimney so that Santa could climb down from it :)

For the "Gingerbread" covering, I used modeling chocolate...the same technique that I used in the Wine in a Box Cake. I used red and black fondant to cover the chimney.

Now that the basic form of the house was completed, all I needed to do was add the rest of the Gingerbread House details to make this a very Merry Christmas. I couldn't forget to include the Boys & Girls Club of the South Bay logo. To create it, I used a stencil and blue food coloring to paint the hands. I used black icing to pipe the words. It was the perfect size to place on the roof of the house. 

Like your typical gingerbread house, I used candies to help decorate and bring the house to life.  In particular I used red and green candy coated chocolates for the rooftop and colorful sugared spice drops as "Xmas lights".  I rolled some fondant for the windows and door. White icing was used to create the icicles on the eaves and the snow along the windowpanes.

Lastly, I added a couple snowmen, a Christmas tree, and a special greeting to the Staff of the Boys & Girls Clubs.  

They had their celebration at the Lucky Strike Bowling Alley in Torrance.  I also made some festive red velvet cupcakes to surround the house. Louella added some Hershey's Kisses to complete the cake table. What a wonderful way to celebrate the spirit of the Holidays.

I'd like to wish you all Feliz Navidad, Maligayang Pasko, Frohe Weihnachten, Joyeux Noel, Mele Kalikimaka...MERRY CHRISTMAS to you and your loved ones! Thank you for your continued support and once again for stopping by...

GO LAKERS!!!!!

~Abs of Cakes~