Five Year Plan

Purple

2010-03-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

I found a cake on Flickr that I fell in love with and waited for the opportunity to copy it. A friend was hosting a personal shower for a friend she grew up with. She liked the cake so I tried it.

My flower and dots are a little different than the original cake. I wish I had better lighting in my kitchen because the picture just doesn't do this cake justice.

Originally I had iced the cake in buttercream, but because of a change in the shortening formula I use I couldn't get the cake smooth. I was really disappointed so at the last minute I decided to cover the cake in fondant. The dots are white royal icing. Once they dried I painted them with silver airbrush color.

The flower is purple gumpaste. I used a circle cutter, cutting 6 circles for the bottom layer and 5 for the top layer. I used bits of parchment paper to prop the petals until they dried. I let the flower dry a few days then steamed* it and brushed it with violet luster dust. It turned out really well, looking like purple metal.

*I don't have a tea kettle, so I boiled a pot of water with the lid on. I left the lid just a little crooked so that steam would come out in a stream and then waved the flower through it a few seconds at a time. I learned that the luster dust won't stick as well if you don't steam the gumpaste first.

Boy birthdays

2010-03-15T19:09:00.001-07:00

Handy Manny chocolate cake with buttercream icing. Fondant and gumpaste accents.
Star Wars yellow cake with buttercream icing. Fondant and gumpaste accents.
The mom purchased figurines to go on each cake.

I put shortening in my buttercream icing so that it is more stable than just using butter. However, the formula of the shortening changed recently so I had trouble getting my buttercream smooth. I guess I'm on the search for a new buttercream recipe.

Larry, Bob, and Junior

2010-02-20T17:21:00.000-08:00

My best friend's daughter asked me very sweetly one night if I would make her birthday cake. She wanted three cakes, Larry the Cucumber, Bob the Tomato, and Junior from Veggie Tales. I agreed and then wondered how to do it.

Larry & Junior are vanilla pound cakes I baked in loaf pans. Larry is one and a half cakes, Junior is one cake and his hat is part of another. Bob is chocolate, He is a 7" round and half the Wilton Sports Ball pan. For each cake I baked them and filled them before wrapping in plastic wrap and freezing for an hour. Then using a coloring page as a reference I carved the shapes, iced in a thick layer of buttercream and refrigerated them for about an hour. Then I covered them in fondant and worked on the details.

For the eyes I used fondant with a bit of tylose powder mixed in so that it would harden, it is similar to using gumpaste. I covered a plastic Easter egg with the white fondant and allowed it to harden. All the other details are fondant.

I think the eyes especially on Bob look a little evil, like they are about to get in trouble, but I don't know how to fix that other than to keep playing around with the angle. I do wish I had a bigger cake board so that I could have put a hat on Larry too. Maybe next time.

The birthday girl loved her cake and I had a whole lot of fun making it for her.

67-72 Chevy Pickup Cake

2010-02-16T12:25:00.000-08:00

Family birthdays are when I experiment with new recipes. My husband and I have very different tastes in desserts. I prefer chocolate, he likes fruit or caramel. So for his birthday I came across a butterscotch cake with caramel icing.

He is also really into old trucks so I decided to make a cartoony version of his truck, a 71 Chevy pickup.

I took a picture of my husband's truck from the front end to help me figure out the proportions. Then I made a large circle out of fondant to cover the top of the cake. I cut out basic shapes of the truck's details from fondant. I used a small amount of water to hold the pieces in place on the circle. I did paint all the gray pieces silver with airbrush color, but it doesn't really show up in the picture.

Ingredients:

2 cups self-rising flour
1-1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup milk
5 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup butterscotch chips
Caramel Frosting (below)

CARAMEL FROSTING

1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 cups confectioners' sugar

Directions:

Cake:

Preheat oven to 350F.
Spray a 10-inch tube pan with non-stick spray.
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, shortening, and 2/3 cup milk; beat until smooth.
Add remaining milk, eggs, and vanilla; beat until smooth.
Fold in butterscotch pieces.
Pour into prepared tube pan.
Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.
Remove from pan; cool completely.
Spread Caramel Frosting over the top and sides of the cake.

Frosting:

In a small heavy saucepan, melt butter over low heat.
Add brown sugar; boil, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes.
Stir in milk until mixture returns to boiling.
Remove from heat; cool.
Beat in confectioner's sugar until thick enough to spread.

*I baked in two 9" round pans instead of a tube pan. Reduce the time to 25 minutes.

This is kind of a crumbly cake and the icing is not easy to spread once it has cooled. You will need to work quickly or drizzle the icing over the cake instead.

The icing didn't really taste like caramel to me, but it was really good.

Happy Valentines Day!

2010-02-14T12:10:00.000-08:00

For the past 3 years I have been trying to make cookies, decorate them, and get them in the mail to my nieces and nephews for Valentine's Day. For various reasons it just hasn't happened. This year I got the cookies made and mailed, but I don't think they arrived in time.

I also ended up making cookies for all the kids in my son's Sunday school class. Cookies are a great way to practice piping skills. I also played around with sprinkles and colored sugar to see what the effect would be.

I outlined the cookies with royal icing and allowed it to set up a few minutes before flooding the cookies with thinned icing. I used the sprinkles and colored sugars while still wet. I allowed them to dry for about 24 hours before doing any additional decorating. I then let all the cookies dry for another 24 hours before placing them in bags.

When doing the lettering or lines a damp art brush can be used to move the line or flatten peaks if your piping doesn't come out perfectly. I'm not always great at remembering to do that, but it does work really well.

Royal icing:

1/4 c. meringue powder

1/3 c. water

1 lb. confectioner's sugar

Beat on medium speed 5-7 minutes until still peaks form.

I added a small amount of vanilla to the royal icing to give it some flavor. Additional water can be added in very small amounts (a few drops at a time) to thin enough to flood the cookies.

There are probably better tasting royal recipes out there, but this one is very simple.

I'm back!

2010-01-29T17:39:00.001-08:00

After a 2 month break from cakes, I am back at it. On December 23rd, my daughter was born. We are still trying to get her on a schedule, but she is doing really well.

I thought I was going into preterm labor and had to cancel my son's 2nd birthday party. 2 weeks later we celebrated just the 3 of us with a cake he "designed" and help make.

I did this in about 30 minutes so it isn't my best work ever. My son chose all the colors which is why it is an orange and yellow monkey. It was a banana cake from The Cake Bible with chocolate ganache icing. All the decorations are fondant.
I was itching to get back in the kitchen this past week, so I threw this "slice of cake" together. I tried a new recipe for red velvet cake off the cake flour box, it was awful!

Using 1 layer of a 9" cake, I cut it into sixths and stacked the pieces, icing between layers. I then iced the entire stack and refrigerated it for about 2 hours. I covered the cake in 3 pieces of fondant, then decorated with fondant accents. It was a lot of fun to make!

Catching Up

2009-11-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

At the end of October, I thought with the exception of my son's birthday, I was done with cakes until spring. Instead I have been staying pretty busy with cakes. Here is what I have done so far this month.

Almond sugar cookies with fondant decorations. I used texture mats, letter presses, and a knife to create the designs in the fondant.

This was a strawberry cake in the same design as the blue & white bridal shower cake I did a while back. The 8 year old it was for was very specific about how she wanted the colors to be done. I thought it was really sweet and funny how specific she was.

This was for a Hollywood birthday party for a 10 year old. It didn't quite turn out how I envisioned it, but the little girl loved it.

This is the "sushi" the mom made for the party. It is fruit Twizzlers, rolled up in rice kripsy bars and then the whole thing is rolled up in fruit leather. I thought the idea was great.
These were for a baby shower. Almond sugar cookies with buttercream icing and then a very thin layer of fondant.
The bears, ducks and bottles had additional decoration of colored sugar. I used a size 2 tip to outline the shapes with piping gel, then I sprinkled colored sugar over the shape. I allowed the sugar to set about 30 minutes and then shook off the excess sugar.
Lastly, a yellow cake carved into the number 40, iced in buttercream. The stripes were made out of fondant using my clay extruder.

Next weekend I am making a cake for my son but then I am taking a break until at least January. The last couple cakes I did I felt so tired I just didn't feel like I was doing my best work.

Rach's October Challenge: Spooky Cookies

2009-10-31T16:58:00.000-07:00

For the October challenge I planned sugar cookies and had big plans. Then I ran out of time so I ended up doing basic decorations. I rolled out fondant very thinly and cut out shapes the same as the cookies. As soon as the cookies came out of the oven, I placed the fondant cut outs on the cookies.

I had plans to add more detail but was out of time, but they were still pretty cute!

Please visit the other participants in the challenge:

Lisaloo

Monica

With Thanksgiving and my son's birthday falling at the end of November and with my baby due in December, I am taking a hiatus from the challenge until January. I really appreciate everyone who has participated and I enjoy doing it. I am just not certain I'm going to have the time or energy to get something done and posted during the next couple months. I'll post a new challenge at the beginning of January.

Cake Class

2009-10-26T18:17:00.001-07:00

This past week I got to take a class from the Sweet Southern Ladies from Louisiana and recent winners of the Ultimate Cake Off on TLC. This was my first class outside of the Wilton classes and I was amazed by how much I learned.

I was a bit intimidated as I was by far the most novice person taking the class. Most of the other participants had at least 10 years experience. About half of the 21 participants came from outside the state. The "cakes" we decorated were styrofoam and then covered in fondant and decorated with fondant and royal icing. I did not finish the cake during class so once I got home I finished the cake and added some fresh roses.
This cake was created by the Sweet Southern Ladies. This was a real cake although the vase on top is styrofoam.
This cake was created by Geraldine Kidwell. She is probably one of the most respected cake artists in Kentucky. She owns her own business and has written a book, Cakes for All Occasions.
This cake was created by Angela Luttrell. She has been decorating cakes for over 50 years, although she did create her first tiered cake as a child. Instead of owning a shop, she travels around the country and bakes and decorated wedding cakes on site. Her cakes match the bride's dress. She recently did Miss Kentucky's wedding cake. She was sitting at the table next to me and helped me a ton. I was very glad she was near me.

This cake was created by Sandy Guthrie of Michigan. It was probably my favorite out of all the cakes, I wish I had taken a picture with a backdrop. This picture doesn't show the detail, plus it was taken before the cake was finished.

When I got home from class I wouldn't let my husband see the pictures of the other cakes until I had showed him my cake. I feel like my cake was pretty impressive but not compared to some of the others in the class. I can't wait to take another class!

Pretty in Pink

2009-10-07T18:22:00.000-07:00

One of my best friends is expecting a little girl 3 weeks before me. Her shower was this weekend and I got to make the cakes. I used a design from Peggy Porschen's Pretty Party Cakes. Her design was for mini-cakes, instead I made 3, 3-layer 6" cakes.

One cake was toffee with white chocolate icing, one was vanilla with raspberry buttercream filling and vanilla icing, one was peppermint with peppermint icing. I labeled each of the plates with the flavor. The stripes are royal icing. The roses are gumpaste, my first.

An hour and a half before I needed to leave for the shower I thought I was only going to show up with 2 cakes. I attempted to make a white chocolate ganache using the same ratios of chocolate and whipping cream as I would with milk chocolate. I ended up with a soupy mess! After a last minute run to the store for more white chocolate I managed to save the icing. I melted more white icing, stirred it into the soup, then added that to some creamed butter. I then added powdered sugar until the consistency was correct. It resulted in a delicious icing. Usually I like to follow recipes to the letter so I was pretty happy with the results.

This past weekend I made 4 cakes (the purple bridal shower cake and these), I was worn out! I don't have any more cakes on my calendar until next May, but I always seem to end up with one or two a month.

Bridal Shower Cake

2009-10-05T18:05:00.001-07:00

A lady who is like a grandmother to me was hosting a bridal shower this weekend. She asked me several months ago if I would do the cake, but until 2 weeks ago I didn't have any details. I was told that the bride's color was purple and that she is "out there". The hostess wanted something elegant.

Flour Confections decorating shop was featured in American Cake Decorating recently. The top tier of one of the wedding cakes was this design in different colors. I felt like it would be a nice compromise for the bride and the hostess.

The cake was vanilla with raspberry buttercream filling and vanilla buttercream icing. The rose and leaves are gumpaste. The stripes are fondant. I used my clay extruder to make them even.

Circles, flowers, & bow

2009-10-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

This was a birthday cake for a 20-something girl. It was a last minute order and I was told to do whatever I wanted. Those designs seem to be the most difficult! I like having a little guidance.

I ended up making a vanilla cake with raspberry buttercream filling and regular buttercream icing. The bows, circles, and flowers are fondant. The bow is actually sparkley but it doesn't really show in the picture.

Rach's October Challenge

2009-10-01T09:26:00.001-07:00

The theme for October will be Halloween.

You can bake anything that reminds you of Halloween whether it be a decorated cake, or using pumpkin as an ingredient. Be creative and have fun!

Here's the rules if you would like to participate:http://rachescakes.blogspot.com/2009/02/challenge.html

Rach's Challenge-September, Chocolate

2009-09-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

Sorry I am running behind! So you would think it would be easy to come up with something chocolate for a chocoholic. It wasn't! I planned to make brownies in the car pan my mother-in-law got for me. However the only recipe I had for brownies didn't have any chocolate.

Instead I am using the groom's cake I made. It is a yellow half sheet cake with 3 pounds of chocolate and about 1.5 pounds of butter. It is the best icing I've ever made. The logo is made from fondant mixed with a small amount of Tylose.

Please visit the other participants in the challenge:

1. Jennifer

2. Lissalou

3. Monica

4. Carla

Baby shower cake

2009-09-15T07:16:00.000-07:00

I didn't do all the food for the shower, I have some very talented friends, but isn't the table beautiful!

With permission from Alana Hodgson, I used her design for this cake. I didn't get a chance to photograph it at home, so the lighting is a bit off. The pink is actually a little darker. I also had a bit of trouble with the top tier sliding during transportation. I need to learn how to secure my tiers better.

I purchased a great tool to make the ropes. It is the Makin's Clay Ultimate Clay Extruder. I wish I had bought one of these before. I had a playdough factory which uses the same idea, but the plastic has difficulty holding up to the fondant. This worked perfectly. I found it at Hobby Lobby for $25, but used a 40% off coupon and it was worth every penny. There are a couple other versions of extruders out there, I like this one because the handle twists down instead of having to push or squeeze the fondant out. I have carpal tunnel so the twist version doesn't bother my wrists at all.

The cake is Ghirardelli Ultimate Fudge Cake. I filled it with a raspberry ganache from the Cake Bible (recipe to follow later in the week). The icing is buttercream with fondant accents.

I used a tutorial from the Cake Boss website for help making the bow on top. I would love to get a pasta maker attachment for my KitchenAid to help roll the fondant out thinner, maybe for Christmas.

Rach's Baking Challenge

2009-09-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

The theme for September will be chocolate.

Here's the rules if you would like to participate:http://rachescakes.blogspot.com/2009/02/challenge.html

Rach's August Challenge: Lemon

2009-08-31T05:34:00.001-07:00

This month I made my brother's favorite dessert, lemon bars. I had never made them before, but they sounded great. Our camera crashed, so even though I took pictures, I don't have any to upload. I'm hoping it is a bad box of batteries and that we don't have to replace the whole camera.

Lemon Bars

Betty Crocker's Cookbook, 2000

Ingredients:

1 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 c. butter or margarine, softened

1/4 c. powdered sugar

1 c. granulated sugar

2 tsp. grated lemon peel

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

2 large eggs

Powdered sugar (for dusting)

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees

2. Mix flour, butter, and 1.4 c. powdered sugar. Press into ungreased 8"x8"x2" or 9"x9"x2" pan, building up 1/2 inch edges.

3. Bake crust 20 minutes, remove from oven.

4. Beat remaining ingredients except powdered sugar with electric mixer on high speed about 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Pour over hot crust.

5. Bake 25-30 minutes or until no indentation remains when lightly touched in the center. Cool in the pan on wire rack. Dust with powdered sugar. For bars into 5 rows by 5 rows.

***

The crust was great, it would be good for a fruit pizza. Although I would probably add just a little more powdered sugar.

The actual bars needed just a little more lemon flavor. I used fresh lemon juice. Next time I may add just a bit of lemon extract. Also, I double the recipe, so it took a lot longer to bake, but it still turned out well. I really can't wait to try this again.

***

Please visit the other participants in my challenge:

Monica

Lisaloo

Brandy L

Monster Mutt

2009-08-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

You guys are going to think I'm incapable of creating a cake without some sort of disaster happening. This cake was quite the deal. Then it didn't photograph well at all so I considered not posting the pictures, but I finally changed my mind today.

For this cake I used the Grandmother's Pound Cake II recipe from Cakecentral.com. It was great for working with, but the flavor was just OK. I was a bit bummed because it came with a 5/5 star rating from over 1000 people, but that's OK. It wasn't horrible but just not my favorite cake ever.

I torted and filled each layer with buttercream and then froze them for about an hour. I turned two of the layers into crushed cars. I carved the third layer into Monster Mutt, a monster truck. I iced each cake layer with buttercream. On Monster Mutt's layer, I used fondant and gumpaste to add accents. The wheels are rice krispy treats covered in fondant.

I put a blob of icing on a cake board and then place Mutt on it. There is a BBQ skewer between the wheels as an axle and then I duct taped (it was the only thing I could find) the axles to the cake board. This worked really well all day, I was so proud of how the cake turned out. I added the tongue and ears right before taking pictures and delivering the cake.

That was about the same time the afternoon sun warmed up my kitchen and the whole cake began to slide off the board. I was almost in tears while trying to think quickly. The graham crackers helped prop the back of the truck up a little bit.

The cake kept sliding though on the whole way to the party. The client saw the way the cake was supposed to be, but I ended up having to set the truck next to the crushed cars because I didn't think it would stay until the party started.

So this went from being a cake I was extremely happy with (like my favorite ever) to one I didn't like at all. The mouth is supposed to be going around the tire, as part of the fender, but it slid and the fondant started to melt so I had to leave it where it ended up. I want to do it again and try to figure out a different way to keep it at an angle.

Italian Cream Cake

2009-08-17T05:55:00.000-07:00

I received a call early last week to do an Italian Cream Cake, without decorations, for a coworker of my husband's. I'd never heard of Italian Cream Cake prior to moving to Kentucky, but they are quite popular here. For those of you not familiar with this cake, it reminds me of a rich butter cake with walnuts and coconut, it is quite delicious.

I know two people who make them, and wasn't able to get the recipe from either in time, so I used one I found on Pioneer Woman Cooks.

This recipe, although simple, made me question my ability to bake at all. I am not sure if it is my cheap 9" pans (Wal-mart cheapies instead of Fat Daddios like the rest of my pans), or my inability to properly fold in beaten egg whites that caused me problems.

I made the first batch and out of three cakes, only one cake came out of the pan in one piece, two cakes were usable, but even stacked there wasn't enough cake to send to the customer. The third cake crumbled, was cooked in the middle but the edges were a gooey mess. Usually the opposite is a problem.

I woke up early the next morning (an hour before my alarm was set) to start a second batch, only to realize I was one egg short. I sent my sleepy husband to Wal-mart for eggs at 5:30 in the morning. This time instead of using cooking spray, I actually greased and floured 3 pans and sprayed the fourth. I also used 4 pans instead of three.

These cakes looked better while cooking, but when I turned them out later, the cakes in the floured pans fell apart and the 4th cake turned out mostly usable. I wanted the cake to be tall, and was hoping I could use one of the cakes that fell apart.

I made the cream cheese icing, and was about to start stacking. About that time my husband was checking our son's oatmeal to see if it was too hot for him to eat. The bowl shattered, turning back into sand sized crystals all over the cakes I was hoping to piece together. Luckily I happened to have a towel covering the "good" cakes, so I ended up with three thin layers instead of four or five like I had hoped.

When I finished the cake, it actually looked pretty good but I'm not sure if I will ever attempt another Italian Cream Cake.

Ghirardeli Grand Fudge Cake

2009-08-15T06:39:00.001-07:00

This may be my new go-to chocolate cake.

Ghirardeli Grand Fudge Cake

2 c. all purpose flour

3/4 c. Ghirardeli unsweetened cocoa

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. butter, softened

1 3/4 c. sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

2 large eggs

1 1/3 c. milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease & flour 2 (I used 3) 9.5"x1.5" round pans.

In medium bowl combine: flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, & salt. Set aside.

In large bowl, cream butter & sugar on medium-high speed until light & fluffy, about 4 minutes.

Reduce speed to low, add vanilla and eggs, one at a time, scraping bowl after each addition.

Alternately add flour mixture & milk, starting and ending with flour mixture, while mixing on low speed.

Continue to mix until smooth.

Pour into prepared pans.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until tester comes out clean.

Hannah Montana

2009-08-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

I should have known eventually I would do a Hannah Montana cake. It was a lot of fun, but the logo was a lot of work.

I printed the logo online, cut out each letter for a pattern, colored and rolled out gumpaste, then cut each letter individually with a craft knife. It was difficult getting the centers out of the 'a' and 'o'! Instead of red & yellow for the Hannah like the actual logo, I used shades of pink because I thought it would look better on the cake.

Once all the letters were dry, I rolled out black gumpaste, placed the letters and secured them in place with a dab of water. Then I carefully cut the black as close as I could to the letters. The dots are royal icing. My hand hurt after squeezing all those dots!

I painted the stars and guitar with luster dust to give it a little shimmer, you can't really see that in the photos though.

The stars and guitar are 50/50 gumpaste and fondant. The stars are on floral wire, which should have been slightly thicker. The guitar has a popcicle stick stuck in the bottom so it would stay at an angle.

The cake is chocolate (Ghirardelli's Chocolate Fudge recipe) with buttercream icing. I may have found my permanent chocolate cake recipe. I'll post it later, I can't find it online.

Chocolate Cake

2009-08-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

I have been having issues finding a chocolate cake recipe I love. I have tried at least 6 or 7 different ones now and come across a few that are OK, but none that I love. I am looking for a really moist rich chocolate cake.

I love the moisture in Duncan Hines Fudge Cake mix and I used to love the flavor. Now that I have been making my own cakes so often, the flavor seems off. I never used to notice it, but now I can taste when a cake is from a mix quite easily.

The last chocolate cake I tried was dry, partially because the recipe said to bake it at 400 degrees. Even though that seemed high, I ignored my intuition, and baked it at 400. I suspect had I cooked it at a lower temperature, it would have turned out better. I have another chocolate cake due this Friday, so I'm going to try the recipe once again.

Anyhow, independent of each other both my husband and I noted that the problem I have been having with chocolate cakes is that we can taste the cocoa in them. Cocoa has a bitter taste when you try it plain, and that has been coming through in my cakes.

I did some googling tonight and it appears that there are two different types of cocoa, my problem may be that I am using the wrong type of cocoa. The explanation is at joyofcooking.com

This week I'm going to go to Whole Foods and Fresh Market and see if they have the Dutch process cocoa. Maybe that will solve my problem.

Rach's August Challenge

2009-08-02T18:01:00.000-07:00

I'm using a different computer, so I will post the logo later.

The theme for August will be lemon.

Here's the rules if you would like to participate: http://rachescakes.blogspot.com/2009/02/challenge.html

Sorry I didn't post sooner, it seems my head is in the clouds lately.

Go Sox!

2009-08-01T18:02:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday a lady I know sent me a message on Facebook asking if I could make a Red Sox cake for this weekend. I already had a cake for Friday so I wasn't sure, but decided I could get it done as long as she was flexible with the delivery time.

I debated between carving the cake and buying the Wilton Sports Ball pan, I decided to go with the pan. I think I'll get plenty of use out of it to justify the cost. Besides it was much easier to start with a ball than to carve a ball.

I used a new chocolate cake recipe, which I didn't like. I'm still in search of a moist and rich chocolate cake recipe. I am also looking for new cocoa powder to use, all I can find locally is Nestle and Hershey's, it seems the taste is always overpowering in my chocolate cakes. I am hoping a new brand will take care of that.

This cake was all vanilla buttercream icing and filled with ganache.

PS I'm not really a Red Sox fan, but the family who requested the cake is.

Pink & Orange

2009-07-31T17:27:00.000-07:00

This is a pink lemonade cake with strawberry buttercream icing. The decorations are all fondant.

My loopy bow was a disaster. I have done one once before that looked great, but I had help. Ever since I just can't get it to work right. I stuck a dot in the center of this one and vowed to practice it again.

Rach's July Challenge: Almond Sugar Cookies

2009-07-31T10:25:00.000-07:00

I had grand plans of trying something with hazelnuts this month, but exhaustion won out. I kind of cheated and made sugar cookies flavored with almond instead. They were delicious though.

I use Peggy Porschen's recipe, which is quite simple. The recipe is on page 6 of the link. Instead of the suggested flavoring, I add 1 tsp. almond extract.

The ingredients for those in the US:

1 3/4 sticks unsalted butter

1 c. sugar

1 extra large egg, lightly beaten

3 c. all purpose flour

Sorry I am not comfortable printing the entire recipe, I don't want to get in trouble for violating any copyright laws.

***

Please visit the other people participating in the challenge:

Monica

Birthday Cupcakes!

2009-07-29T14:37:00.001-07:00

The girl I watch turned 2 today, so I have to make something for her. When I saw baby shower cupcakes that Hannah from Baby Bath Cakes created, I really wanted to do something similar.

It was fun planning the scene, and then seeing it all come together.
I used the Lemon Blueberry Cake recipe that Monica posted last week. While the cupcakes smelled awesome, this was not the best recipe to use for cupcakes. I was bummed, but I'll be trying the recipe as a cake another time.

Camo Cake

2009-07-19T14:13:00.001-07:00

This cake was kind of a pain, nothing worked the way it was supposed to. I did learn a valuable lesson though.

Lesson: if the customer wants the cake to be half & half (ie chocolate & vanilla) charge a premium. As I was mixing the second cake at 10:00 at night I realized I was doing nearly twice the work for the same price. If the cake had been all the same flavor, I would have only had to do one round of mixing and baking. I'm thinking $10 extra would be fair.

The dog tags and beads are 50/50 gumpaste and fondant. I learned from previous experience that buttercream causes fondant to break down. With gumpaste in the mixture, everything held it's shape. They are supposed to silver, but I had trouble with my metallic color. I used silver airbrush color and while everything was wet it looked great, but once it dried, the shimmer was gone.

I bought the letters to write the name and date near the area at Michael's where they sell kits to make stepping stones. I think with a coupon I paid $3 for the set. It looks so much neater than my own handwriting.

For the camo design, I colored buttercream icing various shade of green and tan, then using a large round tip, outlined the areas and filled them in. I used an angled spatula to smooth the lines. For the dark brown I used chocolate buttercream since it works better than coloring white icing brown. I couldn't figure out how to get a glass smooth surface without the colors running together.

All in all, each cake is a learning experience. I am pretty happy with how the cake turned out considering my troubles.

I used the Magnolia vanilla cupcake and Martha Stewart Ultimate Chocolate Cake recipes. Links to the recipes are on the sidebar.

Happy birthday to me!

2009-07-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

Last week it was my 31st birthday. For some reason last year I never really did anything to celebrate turning 30, so I

wanted to do something special this year. My good friend and former college

roommate's birthday is the day after mine, so we decided to have a cookout and invite all our friends.

I have been fretting over the design and flavor of the cake

for weeks. I wanted something that I had never done before

and that was unique, but I kept coming up blank. When looking through my cookie cutters, I

rediscovered the crab cookie cutter I bought last year since it reminded me of my son's favorite bath toy. I had never

used it, and couldn't think of a reason why I might use it.

So I decided I needed a summer theme, but was coming up blank. About that time my son carried his beach bucket through the kitchen, bingo I had an idea.

The weeks before my birthday was crazy. First the oven had to be fixed, again, then we were really busy just like normal. I didn't get my cookies made in time to do royal icing, so they didn't end up being as fancy as I had hoped. They were tasty though and very cute.

I made my gumpaste handle and the flowers decorating the buckets ahead of time, but my handle broke before I got it on the cake. I learned that when working with gumpaste, always have a back up. Then messed up the icing on the front when putting the broken handle on the cake. I smoothed it best I could and declared the cake done.

Later that night we had several friends over for a cookout. The cake was sitting on the table when they came in. Everyone noticed the cookies, but thought the cake was a real bucket at first. That made my day.

I ended up making an orange cake with orange marmalade filling, it was delicious!

Rach's July Challenge

2009-07-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

Somehow I forgot to post July's Challenge. Sorry!!!!! Since an ingredient seemed to go over better than a theme, I am going to try that again. The challenge for July will be nuts, and just to make it easier you can use peanuts too even though they aren't technically a nut.

This is just for fun and you can make anything you want, just bake it, and then post what you made on the last day of the month. Leave a comment here or on my July 31st posting that you are participating and I will put a link to your blog. Click here if you would like to see the rules, really it is simple.

Blue & White

2009-07-06T09:57:00.001-07:00

I did this last weekend for a bridal shower. I was told I could do whatever I wanted and I found out from the bride her colors were Kentucky blue and white. I didn't have time to make gumpaste flowers since I only found out about the cake on Thursday afternoon and already had cupcakes due Saturday that were time consuming. I decided to try my hand at scroll work.

The sharp contrast was really pretty and the dots helps cover a couple crumbs I couldn't get out of the base icing. I tried a new chocolate recipe which was delicious! It was Martha Stewart's Ultimate Chocolate Cake.

Rach's June Challenge: Strawberries

2009-06-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

This month's theme was strawberries. Right after I chose it, I thought "I don't have any strawberries, but I have tons of rhubarb, what am I going to do?"

It all worked out OK though. I ended up making Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes for a friend's birthday.

The cupcakes were pink lemonade and the icing was strawberry buttercream. They were delicious!

I originally found this on the "Never Bashful with Butter" blog, but it is no longer active. I substituted pink lemonade for the limeade and made my own buttercream flavored with strawberry extract.

I'll warn you that these need to stay refrigerated and if you use too much syrup in the cupcakes they get really sticky.

Cherry Limeade Cupcakes
Yield: 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
3 cups cake flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp. limeade concentrate
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk (I used whole)

For the lime syrup:
3/4 cup limeade concentrate
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

For the frosting:
3 3/4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/2 cup butter, softened
4 tbsp. (or more) maraschino cherry juice
red food coloring (optional)
For decorating (optional):
fresh lime slices
maraschino cherries

Please stop by the follow blogs to see what everyone else is cooking:

Dr Pepper Cupcakes

2009-06-28T18:56:00.000-07:00

A friend of a friend recently finished dental school, she became Dr. Pepper. For her 30th birthday, her friends threw a Dr Pepper themed party. I was given creative liberty to make any type of cupcake that fit with the theme.

I found these adorable cupcake toppers at heyyoyo.etsy.com along with some maroon polka-dotted cupcake liners and knew I had a start. I talked to the seller about just selling me the Dr Pepper picks instead of an assortment, which she agreed to.

For the remainder of the cupcakes I had planned to do 1/3 "30" and 1/3 the Dr Pepper logo. After I had purchased the picks I found out they didn't want to play up the 30 part because the girl was self conscious about turning 30. I ended up having an uneven number of each style of cupcakes, but it worked out in the end.

For the toppers I found an old-school Dr Pepper logo online, copied it to a Word document, adjusted the size and then created a page full of the logo. I printed out my page, covered it with parchment paper, then proceeded to pipe the white part of the logos with royal icing. I used a damp paint brush to help even things up and smooth out lines. I let those dry overnight. Then my plan was to flood each logo with maroon royal icing. When I did the first one, I lost the definition in my white.

Instead I created maroon ovals and then carefully placed the white lettering on top. The effect was really neat. The only problem is that as the maroon dried, the color started to seep through the white. I'm not sure how to prevent that problem. Once everything was dry, it became a crunchy edible cupcake topper. If you try this, you will want to make extras of everything, because it is likely you will have some breakage.

Unlike my fondant toppers, the royal icing did not melt when it came in contact with the buttercream icing on the cupcakes. I think I will use royal icing as the base for my toppers from now on.

At the last minute I decided to do the Happy Birthday Kristy toppers, even though they dried 4-5 hours before I moved them, it wasn't quite enough and the Birthday topper cracked. This method definitely requires planning ahead.

***

I learned that some recipes of royal icing contain lemon juice and some don't. The lemon juice prevents the royal icing from drying as hard so it is nice to use on cookies, people won't break their teeth. The recipe I used was 1/3 c. meringue powder, 1/4 c. water, and 1 lb. powdered sugar. This dried fairly hard.

Reviews

2009-06-24T09:39:00.000-07:00

For Christmas my husband gave me subscriptions to 2 cake decorating magazines. It is June and I FINALLY got them. I thought I would do a quick review for those of you who may be interested.

American Cake Decorating

I have seen 3 issues, each contains: tutorials (2-3), reader's cake pictures and a brief description, recipes (2-3), website addresses to cake suppliers, book reviews, nationwide event lists, lots of cake decorating ads, 2 issues have commentaries on being in the cake business.

A one-year subscription in the US is currently $28 which is 6 issues.

PROS

The tutorials are unique and most are done by well known cake artists such as Nicholas Lodge and Bronwen Weber.

I tend to dislike ads in newspapers and magazines, but there is no way I would be able to learn about some of the tools or companies out there without the ads in this magazine. They have been very helpful.

The book reviews are helpful in letting me know what is out there. Many cake books are published by smaller companies so you won't find them in your local bookstore.

The list of events is quite helpful. I haven't been able to attend any yet, but many don't have websites so there wouldn't be a way to learn about them without this list.

CONS

My issue arrived mid-June, after 4 of the coming events had already happened.

Many of the reader spotlight cakes look old fashioned or novice looking. Spending time on Flickr or Cake Central will give you much better ideas and challenge you to improve your skills much more. Now, there are quite a few impressive ones, it is just that overall they are not representative of the current quality of cakes out there.

Price

Writing quality: there are a lot of typos. Also it will say the templates can be found on "page XX" instead of "page 28", it's as if they never proof-read the magazine before they published it.

Customer service*

OVERALL

I have very mixed feelings about this magazine. If I had another one to choose from, I would probably get it instead. I really like the tutorials, they are unique and teach techniques that I would never think to try. Also, unlike in a book the tutorials are by many different people so there are many decorating styles. Over the course of a year I will learn a lot.

There are a lot of ads for the price of the magazine, even though they are helpful, it is still a distraction from the content I am paying to see.

Mailbox News

I have only seen one modern issue.

Price is $20 for a one-year subscription which is six issues.

PROS

It is mostly pictures and descriptions of cakes; think Flickr in print form

Tutorials: one the kids can help with and another kid friendly idea

CONS

Many of the pictures are novice or old-fashioned looking

Customer service*

OVERALL

I was really disappointed in this magazine. My grandmother gave me a decades worth from the 1960's and there were detailed instructions on how to recreate the cakes. Probably 75% of the cakes in the current issue look like there were done by people who only occasionally decorate cakes.

If you have access to the internet, skip the subscription to this magazine.

***

*Customer Service

Under both reviews I mentioned problems with customer service. When I contacted the company via the online form I did hear back within a day every time. When I phoned the company, the representatives were always polite. However, it took 4 months to get one magazine and 6 months to get the other. That is quite irritating, and much longer that the 2 months they list on their website.

My husband ordered my subscriptions online in mid-December. I received two identical postcards in the mail a couple weeks later stating I had received a gift subscription. They only had the publishers name on them and who my gift was from. Neither card said what the subscription was for, luckily my husband had already told me, so I knew.

In February I contacted the company because I still had not received a magazine. I was told I didn't have a subscription to Mailbox News, but that I did have a 2-year, instead of 1-year, subscription to American Cake Decorating. I got that changed to 1-year of each like it should have been originally.

In mid-March I still hadn't received anything, I was given a date that my magazine should arrive. A week after that date passed, it wasn't here, so I contacted them again. I was given another date, and my magazine did not arrive, a couple days later I contacted the company and they told me they would extend my subscription a month. It actually did arrive 2 weeks after my last phone call. I was actually contacting the company via their online system and phone and was given different dates by each so I always went with the latest date.

At the beginning of June I had not received my second issue of American Cake Decorating (the April/May issue) or any issues of Mailbox News so I contacted the company. I was told Mailbox News should be to my house on the 10th and American Cake Decorating on the 26th. They arrived in the same package on the 16th.

If you look at their website, it is not updated regularly, but every time I have checked it says an issue was mailed late. I am not sure if this is run out of someone's house or what, but they certainly have problems getting their magazine to the customers on a timely basis.

***

Now that my subscriptions are set up hopefully they will come regularly and I won't have any more problems.

Questions answered

2009-06-21T18:02:00.000-07:00

Monica- The cake is the Magnolia cupcake vanilla recipe with a thin layer of raspberry filling. The icing is regular buttercream. And yes they loved it. My husband said it was good but wasn't the best cake I've ever made, but he is partial to strawberry or peanut butter cake so he isn't a fair judge.

Michel-lee- I didn't end up using the Swiss meringue buttercream. The first time I made it, it turned out perfect. When I did my practice cake Monday, it wasn't as smooth as my regular buttercream, so I decided to chance buttercream in the 93 degree temperatures. I am happy to report the icing didn't melt.

Celeste- I use separator plates and wooden dowels for the support. It seems to work pretty well, if you get the dowels cut correctly the first time. I haven't decided which printer yet.

The Wedding Cake that Nearly Wasn't

2009-06-20T16:52:00.000-07:00

When a girl from church got engaged, I offered to do the wedding cake. This was several months ago. The design she chose was quite simple and she didn't care what flavor the cake would be. It was going to be a pretty easy cake.

I bought the appropriate sized pans well in advance so the proportions would look right for the number of expected guests, practiced piping pearls, and because of the expected high humidity and temperatures for this weekend, practiced Swiss meringue buttercream icing.

On Monday I made a practice cake and purchased all the ingredients for 7 batches of cake and 5 double batches of icing. Tuesday, I measured out all the dry ingredients so that I could save time on baking day and because I have a tendency to measure wrong when I get in a hurry. That was the end of where things went well.

Tuesday night my son started puking, he continued all night and into Wednesday.

Thursday I got my first batch of cake mixed and ready to go into the oven, when I noticed the temperature was 238 degrees instead of 325. I thought the thunder storm made the electricity blink and that had messed up the oven. When I reset it, the whole oven quit.

The repairman came but couldn't fix the oven because he didn't have the part. However, he was able to tell me that our computerized control panel was the problem and since we had just replaced it in April, it was still under warranty. We got in touch with Sears Parts Direct, only to find out that the expedited part would be to our house Monday at the earliest.

I spent Thursday afternoon organizing and moving half my kitchen into the Jeep to take to a friends's house. After 4 hours baking at their house, I reloaded the Jeep and headed back home. The smell of cake in the Jeep turned my stomach.

Now, since I'm pregnant, lots of smells bother me, but cake isn't normally one of the smells that get to me. By the time I got home I was wiped out, more than normal. I went to bed only to get up again 30 minutes later. I thought it was morning sickness, but by the 4th time I woke up, it was obvious I had caught my son's bug.

Friday morning I wasn't any better. I slept until 2. Once I woke up I couldn't stand up for more than 5 minutes without dry heaving. That lasted into the evening. When I finally was able to hold some food down, I put on a medical mask and made the icing.

About the time I mixed up the last batch of icing, I went to wash my hands and the water was off. We have had a horrible smell in the laundry room and my husband couldn't find the cause when he crawled under the house. So, he was going to clean all the drains. When he moved the dishwasher, he discovered a leak, which because of moving the dishwasher, was then spraying water everywhere. Lowe's was closed, so no more water for the rest of the night.

Thankfully this morning I woke up feeling normal and Lowe's opened at 7:00 so the water was turned back on by 7:30 and I was back in the cake decorating business.

Overall, the cake turned out pretty well, especially considering the week we have had.

The picture was taken under florescent light and my camera doesn't adjust for the type of lighting, so the colors are off a little, but you can still see the results. The flowers are silk, the rest of the cake is buttercream.

Graduation & Wedding Week

2009-06-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

This cake is a bit delayed. It was for a high school graduation 2 weeks ago. I printed the logo on rice paper then placed it on a buttercream iced cake. The hat is white chocolate and originally it was supposed to be on the cake with the emblem. When I printed the emblem smaller it didn't look right, so instead the customer just placed the hat next to the cake.

I really like rice paper and will be purchasing a new printer and edible ink so that I can use it more often. There are so many things you can do with rice paper and it is edible. Since I didn't use edible ink on this cake, the logo was removed before the cake was consumed. I did a test run to make sure the ink wouldn't bleed onto the cake, all was fine.
***

This upcoming weekend I am doing my second wedding cake. It is a very simple design, 4 round tiers iced in ivory Swiss meringue buttercream. Each tier will have piped pearls in watermelon pink around the bottom. Then silk flowers will be placed on the cake.

I'm not nervous about the actual cake, just nervous about figuring out how much time it will take. I bought all my ingredients last week. Today I figured out how many batches of cake to make and later will measure out all the dry ingredients to help speed up the process on baking day. I did a practice batch of the Swiss meringue buttercream so that I have a better idea of how long each batch takes and how far it will go.

I also had to request more silk flowers from the mother of the bride as she only gave me 4 roses for a 4 tiered cake. I could make it work, but it wouldn't fit with the cakes that the bride wants me to base her cake off of. I am glad I requested to receive the flowers ahead of time.

I have a girl from church set up to come over Friday to watch the kids so that I can concentrate on cakes. The wedding is 2:30 Saturday, so I will have a little time for finishing touches on wedding day. Wish me luck!

Christening and Bridal Shower Cakes

2009-06-03T10:08:00.001-07:00

This first cake was for my niece's baptism. I am really not happy with how it turned out, but it did taste wonderful. This was a true case of what could go wrong, did.

The problems that led to me to having trouble with the cake:

I decorated it in my sister's church kitchen, 1200 miles from my home
My son got sick on the way and it took an extra day to get there, giving me 2 hours to assemble and decorate
My son got sick right before we got to the church for me to decorate the cake, cutting into my 2 hours
I didn't have the needed ingredients to make my no-fail buttercream, so I used cream cheese icing, which slid off the cake
The motor on my hand mixer burned out while making the icing
The wings broke off my bees

I would really like to redo this cake, because I know I could make it look better. However, it was a very tasty strawberry cake and the cream cheese icing really complimented the cake.

This second cake was a sheet cake for a bridal shower. I hate to do sheet cakes, or any square cake because I have a lot of trouble icing them. However, I was very happy with the results of this cake.

I used a new vanilla cake recipe: Magnolia Bakery's Vanilla Cupcake recipe* it was delicious! I did double the vanilla, and since I made it in 9x13 pans instead of cupcakes, I discovered I needed to turn the temperature down to 325 degrees to keep the edges from browning before the center cooked. I'm not sure how long I baked it , but I think it was about 40 minutes. I will be making that recipe again.

I used daisy cutters to make the fondant daisies in various sizes. I used buttercream for the base icing, swirls, and writing. I am not great at writing on cakes, but I practiced on parchment several times before writing on the cake and ended up being happy with the results.

*I don't want to violate any copywrite laws, but you can click the link to go to the recipe I used.

Rach's June Challenge

2009-06-01T06:48:00.000-07:00

The June theme will be strawberries.

This is just for fun and you can make anything you want, just bake it, and then post what you made on the last day of the month. Thanks for participating. Click here if you would like to see the rules, really it is simple.

Rach's May Challenge: Mint Julep Cake

2009-05-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

For the May challenge theme of horses, I went with a Kentucky Derby theme and made a Mint Julep Cake, actually 3 of them. Only 2 were edible though.

I started the cakes way too late in the evening and they needed to cool in the pan. I only have one Bundt pan and messed up the first batch by forgetting cup of flour. It looked like cake and smelled like cake, but the texture was way off. Of course I didn't realize this until it was 5 minutes from being done baking.

So, I ended up getting up at 1:00 to bake the 3rd cake, which was actually the 2nd. Then went back to bed until 6 to allow it to cool. Then I got up at 6:00 and made the ganache. All day I was really tired! The cake was really good.

The only change I would make is that I would probably double the Bourbon butter sauce. I am not sure if I would double the Bourbon, maybe do 1.5 times the amount. Also, the ganache makes a lot one batch covered two cakes. I only added half the mint extract. It turned out to have just a touch on mint flavor which I liked. My husband would have enjoyed a stronger flavor though.

***

Kentucky Derby Mint Julep Cake

Ingredients:

Cake:
3 cups cake flour
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 eggs
.
Bourbon Butter Sauce:
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup butter
3 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons Bourbon whiskey
.
Mint Frosting:
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) white chocolate chips
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk)
1 teaspoon white creme de menthe liqueur or 1/2 tsp mint extract (see Note)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10-inch bundt pan.

Cake:
Whisk together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl. Make a well in the center.

In a separate smaller bowl, combine buttermilk, butter, vanilla extract, and eggs.
Add wet ingredients to flour mixture. Beat at low speed for 1 minute, then increase to medium speed for 3 more minutes. Pour into prepared pan and smooth evenly around bundt center.

Bake for 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Ten minutes before cake is done, prepare Bourbon Butter Sauce.

Bourbon Butter Sauce:
In a saucepan over medium heat, combine 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, 1/3 cup butter, and 3 tablespoons water. Stir until melted and combined. Do not boil. Remove from heat, continuing to stir for 2 minutes. Then stir in Bourbon.

When cake is done and still warm from the oven, use a skewer to poke holes around the top of the cake. Pour Bourbon butter sauce evenly over the top of the cake. Let cake cool to room temperature in the pan before removing.

Mint Frosting:
Melt chocolate chips with sweetened condensed milk in heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly until chips are melted. Remove from heat and stir in creme de menthe liqueur (or mint extract). Let cool for 10 minutes, then spread evenly over the cooled cake. Garnish with fresh mint leaves. Chill to set chocolate ganache. Take cake out of the refrigerator 30 minutes before cutting to serve.

Yield: 12 to 18 servings, depending on slice cut

Note: You may substitute green creme de menthe for the white, however the color may not be appealing. Just add a drop or two of green food coloring.

Please stop by the other participants to see what they fixed:

Monica

Giraffe Cake

2009-05-18T07:02:00.000-07:00

Our best friend's second daughter turned one on Saturday. I have been thinking about her cake since February.

I checked out Lindy Smiths "Party Animal Cakes" from my library, and have been dying to try this cake. The original is colored more like a real giraffe, but I wanted to make it more girlie. Also I covered it in buttercream with fondant accents instead of all fondant.

I love that book, I'll be ordering it online and making more of the designs. The only problem with the book is that it doesn't have serving sizes of the cakes listed. This cake maybe served 6. Luckily I made some cupcakes to go with it. The toppers were made using circle cutters and fondant. I accented them with tiny flowers, and individually placed sprinkles for the flower centers. It was tedious, but they were very cute.

Questions answered

2009-05-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

Fondant covered cake board

Yes, I covered the frog cake board in fondant. I rolled the fondant out flat, about 1/4" thick, then placed in on the board. I then elevated the covered board on a coffee can and using a palate knife carefully cut the excess off. I taped a ribbon around the edge.

I used two cake boards stacked and taped together. I would recommend using three boards as even a fairly thin ribbon was slightly too wide for 2 boards. I covered the boards 3 days ahead of time to allow it plenty of time to dry. I set the undecorated cake directly on the board, then used parchment tucked under the edges of the cake to protect the board while icing the cake.

The cake that I am posting today had a fondant covered cake drum, I just rolled the fondant out on the drum and then trimmed as before.

There are a couple videos on You Tube showing how to do this. I don't have the links bookmarked though, so just do a search.

Cake bites named

Monica asked awhile back if I ever got a name for my cake bites. Yes, Little Bits. I sold my first batch yesterday. I did 3 dozen for a baby shower. I did chocolate covered in white and milk chocolate and peppermint covered in milk chocolate. I used a tiny flower in 3 different colors to help distinguish the flavors. My camera batteries died before I had a chance to take a picture and didn't have back-up batteries, so you will have to imagine what they looked like.

2 cakes, 1 day.

2009-05-16T18:41:00.001-07:00

It has been a busy, busy week cake wise. I am exhausted! Today I had cakes due for two different parties. I'm only posting one of them today though.

A friend asked me back in March to do her daughter's 3rd birthday cake. As May approached she told me that she wanted a frog theme, I had no idea how to make a frog. She sent me pictures of how her daughter's room is decorated and I copied the frog in the design, which is why the frog is in a dress and holding an elephant. I redid the head of the frog 2 or 3 times, but it does look like the picture.

My 1 year old son was in love with the elephant. He wanted to play with it badly! This is a chocolate cake with buttercream icing. All the accents are fondant.

Next up was the cupcake for a Flickr group I am a member of. We had to do a cupcake with a Mother's Day theme.

I had a lot of trouble thinking of anything other than flowers. Then I read my son one of his favorite books, "Are You My Mother?" which is about a baby bird looking for his mom. I decided to do the nest with a mother and baby bird, in blue since I have a son.

I was extremely happy with the results. I was hoping to get a picture of my son with the cupcake. However he grabbed the head off the mom and lost the eye. I was going to make a new eye, when he grabbed the head off the baby and ate it. I decided the one picture I did get was good enough. The cupcake is vanilla, the birds and nest are fondant.

***

I'll post pictures of the other birthday cake in a day or so.

Another repeat

2009-05-10T17:29:00.001-07:00

The day I did my daffodil cake was the first day of work for a girl in my husband's office. The next week she asked me to make the same cake for her cousin's graduation. I delivered it yesterday and was very happy with the results. It seems doing a cake design a second time is much easier than the first, maybe because all the planning is done.

***

As a side note remember the WWE cake I did? It was for another girl my husband works with. On the day he delivered it, she asked it she could wait until payday to pay. We figured since they worked together it would be no big deal. Wrong! She ended up getting fired the day before pay day. I guess I learned my lesson about that.

A repeat

2009-05-07T11:01:00.000-07:00

April was a relatively slow month for me, I only did 3 cakes. A year ago that would have been a lot. It is exciting to get to do something I love and get paid.

I have been doing cakes long enough that I am beginning to get repeat requests. Back in January I made what I refer to as a rose mummy design. It is a design I copied from Sarah-Jane a baker and decorator in Australia.

Anyhow, I gave the original cake to a friend on her birthday. Last week was her mother's birthday and she happened to be in town. So, my friend requested the design again. I felt a little strange charging one of my best friends for a cake, so I offered to do it at a 25% discount from my regular prices. She ended up paying me double. So now I need to take her to lunch.

Rach's May Challenge

2009-04-30T07:17:00.000-07:00

For the month of May, Rach's Challenge theme will be horses.

I know that may seem like a strange theme, but I live in the heart of the bluegrass. The Kentucky Derby is this weekend. We get pretty excited around here about the Derby and the Triple Crown. Be creative and bake something to fit in with the theme of the Triple Crown race nearest you or anything else that reminds you of horses.

The rules are here: http://rachescakes.blogspot.com/2009/02/challenge.html

Please join me and have fun.

Rach's April Challenge: Spring has sprung

2009-04-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to make realistic daffodils ever since my 2nd Wilton course. The royal icing ones just looked weird.

These were a lot of fun although it took a few before they looked right. I used the tutorial that came with the Wilton Gumpaste Flower kit. The kit is good, but don't pay full price for it, it is $21. Use one of the 40% off coupons from Hobby Lobby or Michael's and save a little money.

This flavor of the cake was by request from my husband. The orange flavor wasn't very strong, so I would recommend adding some orange extract if you want a stronger flavor. The texture was perfect for cake decorating. Also, I am not usually a fan of curd, but this was great. I used my regular buttercream icing.

ORANGE LAYER CAKE

http://teriskitchen.com/cakes/orange.html

MAKES 1 8-INCH DOUBLE LAYER CAKE

INGREDIENTS

CAKE

1-1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
2-1/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup cold water
1/4 cup orange juice
4 egg whites

ORANGE CURD FILLING

1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1-1/2 teaspoons grated orange rind
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup water
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 tablespoons butter

ORANGE BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 pound confectioner's sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon grated orange rind
Dash of salt
4-6 tablespoons orange juice

For Cake: Preheat oven to 375° F. Grease and flour 2 8-inch round cake pans. Cream butter and sugar. Add orange peel. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Combine the water and orange juice. Add to creamed mixture, alternating with dry ingredients, beating well after each addition. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks. Fold into batter. Pour into prepared cake pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes on racks. Remove cakes from pans and cool completely. When cool, spread with filling and frosting.

For Filling: In medium saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, orange rind and salt. Gradually blend in orange juice, water and egg yolks. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until very thick and bubbly. Remove from heat; stir in butter until melted. Chill before spreading between cake layers. (Only spread to about 1-inch of edges. You might not need all of the filling.)

For Frosting: Cream the butter. Add the confectioner's sugar, orange rind, salt and 4 tablespoons of juice. Beat until spreading consistency, adding more juice if needed. Spread on sides and top of cake.

***

Please visit the other participants in Rach's April Challenge:

Monica

Recent Cakes

2009-04-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

We went on vacation so I hadn't had a chance to post my Red Fern Cake. It was supposed to be for a cake competition to raise money for the Children's Theatre. However, I had to make the cake 5 days ahead of time because the competition was while we were gone. Each cake was supposed to be the theme from a play the theatre had done in the past. My theme was "Where the Red Fern Grows".

I kept having difficulty with the fondant tearing, so before I finished the cake, I knew it wasn't going to be entered in the competition.

I had never painted on fondant before with a stencil. In my practice run it worked really well. Unfortunately, once I decided not to enter the cake, I needed my husband to deliver it to the Ronald McDonald House. He needed to leave before the paint dried, so I didn't get to see how it looked once dry. I believe the splotchy patches would have disappeared if I waited to take the pictures.

I modeled the puppies using a tutorial from Lorraine at Extra Icing on the Cake and pictures from Bev at Sugar Bloom Cupcakes. They still need some work but overall I was happy with the results. They are supposed to be laying the way that our two dogs used to lay together.

This cake was waiting for me when we got home from vacation. It is a WWE Championship Belt cake, which was a challenge for me. I don't know anything about professional wrestling and only had a couple small pictures to go off of. I ended up making a 9x13 rectangular cake and a 6" round cake and cutting them into the basic shape of the belt. I made the actual belt out of fondant and silver sugar then laid it over the cake. You can't tell from the picture, but the orange is actual gold.

I am learning a lot from all this cake making. I didn't charge enough for the WWE cake, I should have charged $10-$15 more than I did. I had no idea how time consuming the little patches would be. In the end though, it was a young single mom who ordered the cake and she may not have been able to afford a more expensive cake. I hope her son likes it.

Whipped Cream

2009-04-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

I had some strawberries that looked better than they tasted. So, I made some whipped cream to help sweeten the strawberries.

Homemade whipped cream is so easy, you will never buy Cool-Whip or canned whipped cream again.

Use heavy whipping cream, add sweetener (sugar, Splenda, Equal, etc.) to taste, mix with an electric mixer on high until desired consistancy is reached. The amount of cream you start with will double or triple once you whip it.

I prefer to use a handheld mixer for this.

Rach's April Challenge

2009-03-31T00:37:00.000-07:00

April challenge theme: spring

Rules:

Bake something that fits the monthly theme. I would prefer cakes, but you can do cupcakes, brownies, bread, etc.
Your entry should be edible.
Post your entry the last day of the month, include at least one picture.
Have fun!

Post your challenge on the last day of April and I will announce the next theme then.

If you would like to participate, leave me a comment or send an e-mail.

Rach's March Challenge

2009-03-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

My challenge, a 2 tiered chocolate cake filled with Bailey's Irish Creme mousse, then covered with a chocolate glaze.

I had never made mousse before and it really wasn't too bad. The glaze was simple and delicious.

I had this idea in my head, and it tasted wonderful, but the result wasn't as great as I had hoped. Normally if I want to smooth out the sides of a cake, I would freeze it, and then cut away the cake. I was nervous about freezing the cake because of the mousse, so I left the uneven edges alone.

The clover was made out of fondant. I cut 3 hearts, pinched them together in the center, and then added a stem.

***

I couldn't figure out how to do the Mr. Linky thing, so I am listing the other participants here. If you are participating too, please leave a note in the comments or send me an e-mail (rachescakes@gmail.com) and I will add you.

Monica

Donna

Baby in a Pea Pod

2009-03-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

Almost exactly a year ago I made this same cake. This is the first time I have done a design that I made before. It was kind of fun comparing the two cakes. This time it looks so much better!

Instead of painting the eyes, I used beads of fondant, and I knew from a tutorial to make a divot in the face before inserting the bead. I also learned how to make a decent looking nose, I don't think I put a nose on the first cake.

What a difference a year makes! Check out the smooth finish on my sides. I always assumed the buttercream cakes in magazines were airbrushed. Now I know that practice and the right consistency icing are key. My cake top was actually perfect too until I wrote on it. My lettering started out too large, so I had to scrape it off and start over. I ended up ruining my perfect top, but no one other than me would ever notice it.

In the past year I have also learned how to take nicer pictures. I'm not a professional by any means, but I now take 10-15 pictures of every cake and choose the best instead of 2 or 3. I think it helps.

Guess what? I have purchased my domain name and built a website. It isn't up yet, but will be soon. I am pretty excited about it.

Disaster averted

2009-03-18T08:17:00.000-07:00

The other day I mentioned the disaster that was my practice cake. Yes I took a couple pictures, but I'm not going to post them. It just wasn't a pretty cake. I know what I did wrong and that is why I am practicing, to learn.

Normally I take my practice cakes to the Ronald McDonald House for the families to enjoy, but this cake didn't seem worthy of that even. Instead I decided to try to make cake bites.

I peeled off the fondant, sliced up the cake, then threw it into my blender. Using a cookie dough scoop, I made balls which I froze for a couple days. Then, I dipped the balls in melted chocolate and sprinkled some sprinkles over the top.

They turned out very cute and taste awesome. They are so rich, that even with my sweet tooth, I could only handle one. Next time I may need to make them smaller.

Now, I need a name.

I'm soliciting names from family, my Facebook friends, and my blog. I'll choose my top 3 and let people vote. The winner will receive a 1/2 dozen. Hopefully, they will survive shipping OK.

Irish Soda Bread

2009-03-17T07:19:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Yes, I am a bit Irish, although not Catholic so we don't technically celebrate this holiday. However, I went to Ireland in 2006 and got in touch with my ever so slight Irish roots. While there, I fell in love with Soda Bread.

I love all types of bread, but this bread is quite simple. People who are scared to make bread can do this since there is no rising involved.

First of all, Soda Bread is simple. Although it is changing, the Irish are not known for their cooking skills. I used a recipe I found at www.sodabread.us. This website has history of the bread, check it out, it is interesting.

White Soda Bread

Ingredients:

4 c. All purpose flour.
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
14 oz buttermilk

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425 F. degrees. Lightly grease and flour a cake pan.

In a large bowl combine all the dry ingredients.

Add the buttermilk to form a sticky dough. Place on floured surface and lightly knead (too much allows the gas to escape)

Shape into a round flat shape in a round cake pan and cut a cross in the top of the dough.

Cover the pan with another pan and bake for 30 minutes (this simulates the bastible pot). Remove cover and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

The bottom of the bread will have a hollow sound when tapped to show it is done.

Cover the bread in a tea towel and lightly sprinkle water on the cloth to keep the bread moist.

Enjoy!

Swiss Meringue Buttercream & Practice

2009-03-15T18:33:00.001-07:00

I tried something new today, Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I used the recipe from Martha Stewart, but I think there are several versions out there.

It turned out a beautiful white, even though I used regular vanilla. It was very easy to smooth and work with. I have a huge sweet tooth though so I still prefer my buttercream. However, I know many people think buttercream icing is too sweet so this will be a great alternative to offer. Also, it is supposed to hold up well in hot and humid weather. I'm doing a wedding cake in June and the reception will be in a "barn". I need an icing that will hold up to poor air conditioning.

How to eat a cupcake suggests using 1/2 a stick of butter per egg white which is less than the recipe calls for. I used her method and was happy with the results. I don't think more butter would have added anything, except maybe expense.

***

I made a practice cake today, using leftover cakes and the Swiss meringue buttercream. The only thing that turned out was that I covered the cake perfectly in fondant, no draping, creases, or tearing. The design I had in my head was a disaster and my painting with luster dust is streaky. I guess that is why it was a practice cake. No pictures yet, I am letting the paint dry and taking pictures in the morning, if I take any.

Shamrock Cupcakes

2009-03-13T07:56:00.000-07:00

Don't worry these weren't for my challenge. You did remember my challenge, right? I hope you will participate.

I got a call on Tuesday while I was at the park with my son asking if I could make cupcakes for a little girl's party at school. The girl was quite specific about what she wanted: 36 cupcakes, 1/2 chocolate, 1/2 vanilla with white frosting. She wanted a green shamrock with the purple letter "F" on each one. Her name starts with "F".

I had no idea how to do the shamrock at first. I had made a large one out of hearts before, but that sounded like tedious work for cupcakes, plus I wasn't sure if it would hold together, so I added the purple disk. I used buttercream to pipe the letters onto the disks.

The last cupcake was an extra, I rolled it in sprinkles to see what would happen. I think it was quite pretty.

Gift Box Cake

2009-03-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

About a month ago my husband came home from work and told me the women wanted a cake just like the one in Father of the Bride 2 for a baby shower cake. I googled every thing I could think of and couldn't find a picture. Finally I rented the movie. The cake isn't that pretty, but I got the gist. They wanted a gift box cake. I was excited because that design is quite popular now, so I found lots of ideas.

I made Taste of Home's double peanut butter cake with peanut butter icing. The cake was so-so. The flavor was good, the the texture was strange, kind of chewy. I covered the whole cake in light blue fondant and made a light yellow ribbon.

I found directions for the ribbon from Francesca McGregor here: http://3cakertiers.zoomshare.com/files/gumpastebowinstructions.html

Instead of covering the whole cake, I covered each side individually and then covered the top. I wish I would have made the lip of the lid come down just a little more but overall I think the cake turned out well.

I am sorry about the quality of pictures. I still haven't figured out how to take pictures at midnight and the lighting in my kitchen is terrible.

Treasure Chest, Part 2

2009-03-07T17:41:00.000-08:00

I realized I didn't post a picture of the back side of the cake. You can't really see the bands in the other pictures I posted. So here, it is.

Treasure Chest Cake

2009-03-07T11:53:00.000-08:00

I got a call on Wednesday from a friend of the mom I did the Star Wars cake for. She had been planning to make her sons' cake, but did a practice round and didn't like it. She wanted to know if I could make matching treasure chest cakes for her sons for this Saturday.

I told her yes, and then freaked out. I had no idea how to do it. After a quick search online though I found that lots of people have made this cake because the idea had been in several parenting magazines. I flagged a few I liked and got started.

Even though the directions are online in several places, I found that many of the directions are missing bits of information that might frustrate beginners, or tired people like me. I took pictures as I went along so that you too can recreate this design.

For 1 cake:

Bake a 9x13 cake, in any flavor, but firmer flavors are better. I used yellow cake.

Cut about 1 inch off the long edge and cut the cake in half down the middle. This will make a small rectangle. Level, then split each half into 2 layers. Torte and fill 3 of the layers.

If you are using chocolate icing, then ice the cake. If you are using buttercream, crumb coat with white icing. I iced the top white and then used color mist to color it black.

Using one of the inch wide pieces, cut 2 wedges, ice with brown (or chocolate) icing and set it on top. I made mine about 2 inches shorter than the cake and set it about 1 inch from the edges. This will support the lid.Now ice the entire cake with brown. I set my lid on a piece of cardboard and iced it separately. The cardboard will keep the lid from sagging in the middle.

For the straps and lock I used black fondant rolled out thinly and cut into strips about one inch wide. To get the look of the nails, I used a Wilton fondant ribbon tool. If you have taken the Wilton fondant class, it comes in your kit, but you can buy it individually as well.

I laid the strips on the cake and used scissors to get a straight edge at the edges of the box. For the key hole, I used an exacto knife and cut the shape freehand.
To turn my fondant bronze, I mixed about 1/4 tsp. bronze luster dust with about 1/2 tsp. vanilla. I then used a paint brush and painted my bands.

Normally you would want to use a clear alcohol such as vodka or even a clear extract, but I wanted my bands to look aged so I used regular vanilla. Just make sure you don't use water, it won't evaporate.

Here is a shot of the cake before adding the decorations. I used brown sugar for the sand. Off to the side is a map I made with Happy Birthday written at the "X". It is just parchment colored fondant rolled out very thinly.

I then filled the box with necklaces and both plastic and chocolate gold coins.
The pictures don't really do it justice, it turned out awesome and almost looks real.

If you are a beginner, you can make this cake quite easily. I did both cakes in under 2 hours and that was with taking care of a one year old. If I would have focused I could have done it more quickly.

Big Day

2009-03-04T18:52:00.000-08:00

Today a girl I know asked me if she could pass on my name for a fundraiser the Junior League is helping with. It is a cake competition and display based on plays the Children's Theater has put on over the past 70 years. It will be free advertising for me. Either more people or a bakery will hire me, I hope.

The cakes will be displayed at the large local bookstore along with the book they represent. The only problem is I will be in Seattle on the day of the event. I think I am going to make my cake ahead of time and get a friend to deliver and take pictures for me.

There is a taste test too, but if I make the cake 4 or 5 days ahead of time it isn't going to win that part.

Secondly I got a call today from a co-worker of the person who had me do the Star Wars cake. She wants me to do two birthday cakes for this Saturday. At first I wasn't sure with the short notice, but I don't have any plans for the next couple days and she doesn't need it until Saturday evening so I said sure. It is my first cake for a stranger, I am pretty excited. I am doing matching treasure box cakes for her two sons. At first I wasn't too thrilled about the idea, but after looking on Flickr for ideas, I think it is going to be fun.

Throwdown

2009-03-01T19:26:00.000-08:00

I came across something today and wanted to share.

If you are like me and new at decorating cakes, check out this Flickr group. Basically this is a group that allows you to challenge someone of a similar level. You each have two weeks to make a cake with an agreed upon theme, then it is posted and everyone votes on their favorite. It is a really cool idea and a great way to learn new techniques or try new ideas. I'm not sure if I am quite ready to participate yet, but maybe soon.

A Challenge

2009-02-28T19:07:00.001-08:00

I have decided to create a challenge. I know I don't have a ton of readers, but maybe this would be a way to expand my readership. It would also be a way to expand my cake decorating skills.

Rach's March Challenge: St. Patrick's Day theme

Rules:

Bake and decorate something that fits the monthly theme. I would prefer cakes, but you can do cupcakes, brownies, bread, etc.
Your entry should be edible.
Post your entry the last day of the month, include at least one picture.
Have fun!

On March 31st write a post and include pictures of your baked good. I'll announce a new challenge for the month of April. I will try to figure out how to add a link list to my post that day, but for now, leave a comment or send me an e-mail, rachescakes (at) gmail (dot) com, if you would like to participate. On the 31st I will list your blog post so that everyone else can see your work.

Feel free to invite your readers to join this challenge.

Clone Trooper Cake

2009-02-26T20:19:00.000-08:00

Edited 2/27/09 to add additional pictures.

I know these pictures aren't the greatest, but I just finished the cake and want to show it off. I'll take more pictures in the morning.

This cake is for a birthday party tomorrow afternoon. I wanted to finish it tonight just in

case my son doesn't cooperate with his naps tomorrow, also I've never done a 3D cake of this magnitude.

The practice cake earlier this week turned out to be a disaster. It wasn't tall enough, my air brush in a can didn't work, and I didn't have a clue how to do the details.

I decided to change from my original plan of Darth Vader to a Clone Trooper. I have been

learning a lot about Star Wars characters this week. The cake is 4-6" rounds of chocolate,torted with chocolate buttercream icing between the layers. I carved the top and evened the sides to make it a nice round shape. I iced the whole thing in chocolate buttercream, and then got to work on the fondant.

I had some problems with the fondant tearing, but I was able to cover most of it with the accent pieces. There is a problem spot on one side that I couldn't cover, but it is fine for my first real fondant cake. I ended up buying Wilton fondant. I wanted Satin Ice, but I can't buy it locally, didn't have time to drive to the nearest decorating shop, and didn't want to pay a bunch in shipping costs. Next time I am in Cincinnati or Louisville I'll pick some up.

This cake will serve 16, I only charged $28, since I wanted the option to do a regular cake if it didn't work out. If I do another cake like this in the future, what do you think I should charge? I am thinking around $50 but I'm not sure. It wasn't a terribly time consuming cake, and once I know what I am doing I could do it pretty quickly. Of course once I know what I am doing I could add more detail too.

Recent and Upcoming Projects

2009-02-23T11:58:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday I received an e-mail from the receptionist at my husband's work asking if I could make cookies for their board meeting the next day. I love baking, I love cooking, but I really only enjoy doing cakes for other people. I like to save my cooking skills for family and close friends. But, I did it anyway.

Originally I said I'd do it and sent a choice of 4 different flavors thinking they would select one or two. Instead they asked for a dozen of each, and then 2 hours later changed it to a half-dozen of each. I'll require a minimum of a dozen of each next time, even with cutting the recipe in half, I still had to make 4 batches of cookies, it took my whole evening.

I have made cookies hundreds of times in my life, but my no-fail chocolate chip cookies failed. I know the oven temp was too low and I think I probably over beat the butter. I was tired so I'm not really sure what happened

I charged $9 per dozen which in the end I think was too cheap for my time. Oh well. Next time I'll either say no or put limits on it.

***

This Friday I am doing a StarWars cake for a soon to be six year old. I am hoping to do a 3-D Darth Vader, a practice cake is currently in progress. I only charged for a regular cake though in case my 3-D cake is a failure. I am pretty excited about this one.

March 11 I have an order for a gift box cake. I am really excited about that order. I have found several bow tutorials and an article out of an old issue of American Cake Decorating to tell me how to do this. I really hope it turns out. I can't wait to get started on this one.

At the beginning of the year I set a goal to sell 3 cake orders in addition to the 12 for my husband's work. It is only February and I have 2 down. I am thinking my goal was too low.

I am hoping to have a website and business cards done in the next 2-3 months. After that I will begin advertising more. We'll see how that goes.

Tutorials & Ideas

2009-02-19T07:01:00.000-08:00

One of the trends in cake decorating is fondant figurines. If you are having difficulty finding the right tutorial for your idea, check out Sculpey. I found a couple books at Hobby Lobby yesterday showing how to make several different animals and people. There are also projects on their website: http://www.sculpey.com/projects_figures.htm

I also recently discovered a new blog that gives project ideas and explains how to make them. The blog is written by people who have been in the business several years: http://sugarteachers.blogspot.com/

I get a lot of my ideas from Flickr. If I have a request for a certain type of cake, I go to Flickr and search for ideas. Since there are usually several pictures of each cake available I am usually able to figure out how to execute the cake style. If you post your finished cake to Flickr, make sure to give credit to those who inspired your design.

Buttermilk Cake Recipe

2009-02-17T06:57:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

3/4 c. butter
2 1/4 c. sugar
3 eggs

Sift together:
3 3/8 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 c. buttermilk
2 tsp. vanilla

Directions:
Cream the butter.

Add sugar and cream together until light and fluffy.

Blend in eggs, one at a time.

Alternately add the sifted ingredients with the buttermilk/vanilla. At this point be careful not to overmix. It is best just to fold in the ingredients.

Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

This recipe came from my friend Tara's family.

Football Cake

2009-02-15T13:19:00.000-08:00

My husband's birthday is today. Last year he requested a Redskins cake for this birthday, and for close to a year I planned to make a wonderful design I found on Flickr. As the date approached, I started searching for other helmet cakes, and noticed that even experienced decorators seemed to have difficulty getting the helmet shape correct. I love carved cakes, but I have never done one before. So I decided I needed to start with something a little smaller, and went with a football instead.

I tried two new techniques for his football cake, carving and chocolate plastic (recipe posted

below). I thought the chocolate plastic would be great alternative to fondant. It was pretty easy to roll out, but I misread the directions and mine was not quite flexible enough. That means that I had trouble filling in all the little cracks so my finish is pretty amatuer looking.

Chocolate plastic is a little chewy, much like fondant, but the flavor is better. It is also expensive compared to fondant. I am going to try it again, possibly with white chocolate.

Steps for a carved football cake:

1: Bake a cake, I made a Peanut Butter cake with crushed oreo cookies (click for recipe). I

baked mine in oval shaped pans, but any shape will do since you will be cutting the shape out anyway.

2: Torte the cakes and ice between each layer with buttercream icing

3: Freeze the cake. I froze mine for about 2 hours, but you could do this overnight.

4: Determine the dimentions of the cake if you are not making it lifesize. My real football was 6" wide and 10" long. 6 divided by 10 equals 0.6. My oval pan was 4.5" wide so, I took 4.5 divided by 0.6 and got 7.5 inches, that is how long I wanted my final cake to be.

5: Using a serated knife, I began carving the cake. First I did a rough cut of the shape, and then I fine tuned it. Search on You Tube for cake carving if you need some ideas how to do this.

6. I iced my carved cake with a thin layer of buttercream.

7. I rolled out my chocolate plastic as thinnly as possible and then draped it over my football shape.

8: I trimmed off the extra chocolate and then began smoothing it into place.

9. I used white chocolate to make the laces, if I do this cake again I will use fondant or gumpaste, the white chocolate didn't look realistic enough.

10: To finish is up, I used a grass tip (Marpol 333) and I used the frozen buttercream method to make the Redskins logo, a cursive R, and the number 31, the age my husband turned.

Overall I am happy with the way the cake turned out. I wanted the chocolate finish to be smoother, but making the recipe wrong led to that mistake. I know for next time now.

Matt loved the cake, and that is the important thing. Happy Birthday!

Peanut Butter Cake

2009-02-15T13:10:00.000-08:00

Original recipe in Betty Crocker's Cookbook, 2000.

Peanut Butter Cake (variation of Starlight Yellow Cake)

2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour

1 1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. peanut butter

1 1/4 c. milk

3 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla

3 large eggs

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottoms and sides of 9"x13" pan, or 2-9" round pans, or 3-8" round pans.

2. Beat all ingredients with electric mixer for 30 seconds on low. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour into pans.

3. Bake 9"x13" pan 35-40 minutes. 2-9" round pans 25-30 minutes, or 3-8" round pans 30-35 minutes. Toothpick inserted into center of cake should come out clean.

4. Cool rectangular pan on wire rack at least one hour. Cool round pans 10 minutes and then turn out of pans and cool completely at least one hour.

I made this recipe for the first time this weekend. I didn't use the correct pans called for and found the cake to be slightly dry. However, the taste was excellent. I also baked crushed Oreos into the batter. This didn't really add or take away from the cake, but it did look neat when cut.

Chocolate Plastic

2009-02-15T13:00:00.000-08:00

Original Recipe from About.com

White or milk chocolate:

1 pound white chocolate, cut into small pieces

1/2 c. light corn syrup (ie Karo)

Food coloring (Optional, make sure it is oil based, do not use Wilton gel paste for icing)

Semi-sweet, or dark chocolate:

1 pound chocolate, cut into small pieces

2/3 c. light corn syrup

Food coloring (Optional)

1. Microwave chocolate in a microwave safe bowl for 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each interval until melted.

2. Remove from microwave and stir until smooth

3. Add corn syrup and stir until completely combined

4. Spoon onto large sheet of plastic wrap, wrap securely and allow to set at room temperature for a minimum of 6 hours.

5. Dust work surface with powdered sugar for white chocolate or cocoa from regular chocolate.

6. Knead chocolate or microwave for 10 seconds to resoften.

7. It is now ready to roll out, cut, or mold into shapes.

8. Scraps can be remelted.

9. Use leftovers within 2-3 weeks.

Nemo Cake

2009-02-07T18:02:00.000-08:00

Our friend's daughter will turn 3 later this week but her party was today. I have made her cake every year and this year was no exception. Thanks to my fairly recent discovery of Flickr, I had lots of ideas to use. If you ever need ideas, just check out the cakes over there.

Here is the cake:

It is a

buttermilk cake on the top layer, chocolate buttermilk on the bottom layer. The icing is regular buttercream. The accents are fondant, the sand is brown sugar. A purchase Dorie and Nemo were placed on the cake at the party.

There is always something I would change on a cake. For this particular cake, I would have made the letter cut-outs smaller. I only had cookie cutters to use though, so I had to make due with what I had.

The accents were really easy to make. If I made this cake again in the summer I would probably need to mix the fondant with gumpaste or make them out of gumpaste though since fondant won't dry as well with high humidity.

For the coral pieces I rolled out fondant and used a round tip to cut holes all over it. I then draped it over a flower former to give it some shape. The grass is thin ribbons, I ran a cutting blade gently across the surface to make lines. The yellow balls of coral are balls, I poked a veining tool all over to create the rough surface. The green, orange, and yellow cups are balls that I created a divot in using a veining tool. The purple wavy things are three thinly rolled out circles. I bunched up the smallest one, laid it on top of the next size and bunched it up, then bunched up the third size and allowed it to dry.

This cake looks very involved, but all the pieces are really easy to make.

Flowers, Hearts, & Stripes

2009-02-04T05:55:00.000-08:00

When a novice attempts to decorate a cake in the style of a famous decorator, it can lead to disappointment. For my birthday last year, my husband gave me Pretty Party Cakes by Peggy Porschen.

She gives step by step directions and photographs of how to make several cake designs. Although a beginner should be able to make most of the cakes in the book, there is a certain amount of skill that comes from practice.

I chose to sort of modify one of her designs for this month's company cake. She made a heart

shaped cake with thin stripes down the sides and various flowers around the top edge of the

cake. Her flowers were in pinks, purples, yellows, and white.

I made a large round cake, and then set a small heart cake on top. Originally I planned to do stripes down the sides of the heart and round cake, but I had a lot of trouble getting my royal icing to cooperate. I think it was too thick, so the stripes ended up being only on the round part of the cake. The flowers went around the base of the heart cake.

My husband walked in the door from work to a very frustrated Rachel. My dog had been

whining for 45 minutes to go outside, but he wouldn't go due to the snow. My icing wasn't cooperating, and it was already 9:30. I was ready to give up, but didn't. It is so hard to remember that even the best decorators weren't perfect to begin with.

Anyway, things did come together. The cake ended up looking a bit like a pink explosion, but I was happy with the results. The pictures don't really do the cake justice.

I attempted to make a "zebra" cake out of strawberry and vanilla cake batters. It turned out more like a marble cake, but it was still pretty. The icing was strawberry buttercream. I made 4 and 5 petal flowers out of royal icing a few days ahead of time. The stripes are also royal icing.

My husband works in an engineering office where the men greatly outnumber the women, so it

may be more pink than the office has ever seen at one time. I think they will all enjoy the result though. Besides, the women are the ones who cake what the cake looks like.

Things I would change: (1) I would make the stripes thinner and closer together. (2) I will make my royal icing thinner next time. (3) I wouldn't put the raised heart on the round cake, I think it looks too homemade.

Onesie Cookies

2009-02-04T05:32:00.000-08:00

There is a girl on Flickr, Destini,who makes a lot of baby shower cookies. They look awesome! I finally discovered her trick, a cookie cutter texture set. I got mine as a Christmas present from Country Kitchen Sweetart. My first opportunity to use them was the birth of my niece.

Basically you make a cutout cookie as normal. Then you roll out some fondant, use and impression mat to create the texture, then use the same cookie cutter to cut out the shape. Using a hot glue gun, I created the "J" on some waxed paper. I placed the "J" under the impression mat before rolling over it. It worked pretty well. After baking the cookies, lay the fondant cutout on the cookie. Destini places her fondant on the cookies while they are still warm. The instructions say to cool the cookies and then use a light coating of buttercream to attach the cookies.

I made my fondant cutouts the night before baking and wrapped them in plastic wrap. The wrap unfortunately gave the fondant little crinkles, but since I was making onesies, I guess it gave them a more realistic look. I enjoyed using the texture mats, but it did take a couple tries to get used to using them.

Snowman Cake

2009-01-21T09:31:00.001-08:00

For my January EMS cake, I wanted to do a winter themed cake. I found my inspiration on Flickr.

I wanted to try new a new flavor, peppermint, but I had difficultly finding the type of recipe I was going for, so I improvised. I made a vanilla cake and stirred in about 1/2 c. of crushed soft peppermints into the batter. I tried several ways of crushing the mints and discovered the nut cracker to work the best. This resulted in tiny pieces that were not crumbs.

When it cooked it added a minty flavor and a little texture to the cake. Because I used the soft

mints no one had any trouble eating the cake. When I turned the cake out of the pans it did look a bit like the cake had acne, but the icing covered up the flaws.

I made my usual recipe of buttercream icing substituting 1 tsp. peppermint extract for the vanilla. I did not torte the cake, I only put icing between the two layers. Then I tinted the rest of the icing a pale blue, to look like a winter sky.

For the snowman I rolled out white fondant and cut out three circles in consecutive sizes. You can see that I used the smaller cutters to cut a piece out of the larger circles so that the pieces would fit together.

Eyes: Black fondant balls

Buttons: Red fondant balls

Arms: Brown fondant ropes. I used a knife to split the ends to make the "sticks" fork

Nose: Orange fondant cones. I scored the cone with a knife so that it would have a carrot texture

Mouth: Red fondant rope

Scarf: Red and purple fondant ropes that I twisted together and then rolled flat. It is two pieces. The piece coming over is lightly tucked under the first piece then I used a knife to cut the fringe.

I made the icing and decorating and decorated the cake in under an hour. If I had planned a little better I would have put a hat on the snowman too. I wish I had put a border on the cake, but I was worried that too much peppermint icing would be more than people could handle.

Out of all the cakes I have made for EMS, this was their second favorite. The favorite was the cappuccino cake.

2009-01-21T09:29:00.000-08:00

I orginally started my cake decorating blog on wordpress. However, I used all my free space up in less than a year, so I am moving it over here. Hopefully I will be able to move all the old posts over here too. For now, if you would like to see the old posts go to: http://rachescakes.wordpress.com

Buttercream Icing

2009-01-20T09:54:00.000-08:00

Adapted slightly from Wilton

Ingredients:

3/4 c. butter

1/4 c. shortening

1 Tbsp. water

1/2 Tbsp. vanilla

1 pound 10x confectioner's sugar

Directions:

Cream together butter, shortening, water, and vanilla. Slowly stir in powdered sugar until completely mixed in. For a thinner consistency, stir in a small amount of water until desired consistency is reached.

Rose Cake

2009-01-18T10:09:00.000-08:00

I am a big fan of Sarah-Jane from Cake That. She is an Australian baker and decorator who does beautiful designs. When I leave comments about her cakes or ask questions about techniques, she always gets back to me quite quickly. I find her designs to be unique and elegant.

One of her popular designs for weddings is a mummy cake although I think it also really looks like a rose.

I decided to try out the design for my friend's birthday awhile back. I

started with a 6 layered 6" strawberry cake. Between each layer I spread strawberry jam.

For the icing I made my usual buttercream substituting the vanilla with 1/2 tsp. of strawberry extract. I found the strawberry flavor a little fake and a little strong so I then added a little vanilla.

I iced a very thin layer on top of the cake and then filled a large pastry bag and using a large rose tip, began at the top center of the cake and slowly circled the cake until the whole cake was covered. It didn't take long at all to decorate the cake but you can see mine does not look near as neat as Sarah Jane's. I later learned that she uses fondant icing strips instead of buttercream. That explains a lot.

The cake turned out excellent. I have to say that the picture doesn't really do the cake justice. Part of that is my lack of photography skill, but in real life the cake did look impressive.

2008-04-23T18:39:00.000-07:00

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