Cake Decorating from Start to Finish!

So I love to do cake decorating and I just recently did a 1st Communion Cake and thought it would be fun to document the process.

First you gotta bake the cakes (duh...)

In order for the cakes to stick, you have to put something between the layers if you're doing a multi layer cake. The people I did the cake for wanted a pineapple filling, so after the cakes were completely cooled, I added the pineapple filling:

After the cakes are layered, they're ready for icing! That's really probably the hardest part. Fortunately, these cakes weren't crumbly really at all, so the icing turned out pretty good. In order to get the icing true white, you can only use shortening in the recipe. Butter tastes better but causes the icing to have a yellow tint. Here I used shortening with almond flavoring:

Now the fun part: Decorating! This cake was for a boy, so I tried to avoid flowers & used all hues of blue. The dove & communion cup were actually cookie cutters I pressed into the icing so I could outline the shapes. I am no artist and I don't trust myself free hand! The swirls were all free hand, so there's a few spots, if you look close enough, that are a little choppy. But you're always more critical of your own work, right? =) With both layers, this cake was heavy!

Here's another angle that shows how big it is! Let me know what you think!

I think it turned out good, if you ever need a cake let me know! I love doing it! =)