Happy Sugar Baking Land

Reva's Reviews: Debbie Brown's "Baby Cakes"

If you're making cakes and you don't know who Debbie Brown is, we cannot be friends.  Seriously.  I love Debbie's work and I would feel safe in saying that her cakes are one of the reasons I really wanted to start up my own business and do this for a living.  Yes, I'm saying it: Debbie is one of my inspirations.

Most of you should at least have seen her "Naughty Cakes" book of which she has multiple sequels.  Simply put, Debbie is a saucy lass;)  The fireman cake still makes giggle every time I see it!  I was lucky enough to take a class with Debbie at Cake Camp in Vegas this summer and get to hang out at the banquet and she is just as cool a person as I thought she'd be!  During our conversations, we discussed her books and the process of getting them published (being as we are trying to get our own done soon) and she gave me a lot of great advice.  She also talked about her latest book, "Baby Cakes."

Order "Baby Cakes" here!!

As if the first 20 plus books weren't enough for the U.K.'s most prolific cake author, this September Debbie releases "Baby Cakes," a collection of adorable cake and mini cakes for the littlest of little ones.  Perfectly cute sculpted cakes of bears and babies that are just the thing for baby showers or 1st birthdays etc.  I consider it a direct assault on my pocketbook.

Debbie was nice enough to send over some sneak peak pictures.

Adorable is an understatement!  She is so talented with her sculpting.  Read as "jealous."  I love to see her designs and Debbie's books are so worth it.  I am a cake book collector and I have a lot of books that I look through once and then they sit up on the shelf collecting dust, but Debbie's get pulled down again and again for inspiration.  I cannot wait to add "Baby Cakes" to the library.

If you haven't seen Debbie's work yet, check out her website here and give her ye olde "like" on Facebook.   Be sure to tell her the super adorable and amazing Reva sent ya;)

 

Reva's Reviews: Duff Airbrush Machine

The Stats

Product: Duff Airbrush Machine

Purchased: Michael's

Retail Price: $129.99

Final Grade: B -

For a long time I have wanted a small airbrush that would be both easier to pull out and set up for very small applications and to have in my "to go" kit when I am out on deliveries.  But it took a destination wedding in Georgia to finally motivate my purchase!  The old Kopykake wasn't going to fit in my carry on after all!!

Originally I had my eye on the Pegasus model (seen to the left) because James Roselle always recommended it to me, but recently it was always sold out!  Now I know why, Duff Goldman.  His recent line of cake supplies is largely repackaged product already on the market (a common practice in branded lines like this) and his airbrush is no different.  Side by side, you can see it is the same machine as the Pegasus and costs the same too.  The size, controls, all identical and I knew I could always slap a Merci Beaucoup sticker over the Duff logo!!  Michael's in Conyers, GA had it, so I whipped out the business card.

 The Pros

• Portability
• Easy to Clean
• Small Color Applications (solids)
• The Gun Box

First of all, and probably most of all, this is a small, portable machine that is light in weight and takes up minimal space in my travel kit.  Measuring less than 5" in length and 2" in depth, the ability for me to take this where I need it is its biggest pro.  That same portability makes it easier to clean than the bulkier professional machines.

As a tool, it is more butter knife than Swiss Army knife but for this particular wedding, it made the production of my sugar flowers a lot easier.  I made roughly 170 sugar flowers and they all needed to be painted purple.  If I'd done it by hand, I would've gone crazy!  I don't know if I could cover a whole cake with the Duff airbrush, but for covering smaller surfaces like flower petals, it performed quite well.

The machine and power supply have no case, but I'm sure there's something out there you could use.  It does come with a nice hard plastic box for the actual spray gun which I appreciate for the price.  Be nice if it wasn't etched with Duff's logo, but I'll get over it ;)

The Cons

• It Gets Dirty Quick!
• Not Detail Oriented
• Lackluster Instruction Manual
• The White Hose 

I had to list easy to clean as a "pro" because a "con" is how quickly it gets dirty!  The white color attracts the color in the air like a magnet and within a few minutes of work, it was an ever deepening shade of purple.  One solution might be to cover it in cling film, just don't cover the bottom as that is where the air intake is located.

The basic controls are a bit of a negative.  There are only three modes; low, medium and high.  That regulates the maximum 15 psi available.  Mic thinks that means you can have 5, 10 or 15.  A higher end machine will have a more precise dial to control your airflow.  My Kopykake Airmaster is controllable from 0 to 30 psi.  It's all technical, but what I do know is with only three settings, my ability on the Duff machine to do fine detail work or to use it to write on a cake is limited.

                            "My Work Space in Georgia"

The instruction manual is basically useless.  Of course, most are these days!  You need to have experience with an airbrush to be able to use it out of the box or else you'll be going online to find some lessons on airbrushing.  There's also a mystery eyedropper in the box that I have no idea what you'd use for and isn't described in the instructions!

The hose is white, which threw me off, because it also gets dirty real quick!  The hose itself is sturdy enough, but after one use, you can already see it permanently stained with the colors I used.  I can imagine over time that getting darker and darker.  Will it look bad?  We'll see!

Conclusion

Overall, for what I got it for and for the applications I will use it for in the future, I am happy I picked it up.  It is great for small stuff, accents and highlights, but not for covering a large cake and not fine details or writing.  It's a little quieter than my large Kopykake machine, but it will never replace that as my main airbrush.  A good purchase though and I'll rest easy knowing it's in the delivery tool kit if I need it.