Camden's Circus Cake

Today I completed what will be my last cake for a while. It tired me out more than I expected - heck, you try rolling out enough fondant to cover a cake in between bouts of nausea! But apart from a few air bubbles, the cake actually didn't give me a lot of trouble.

The cake was a circus theme and apart from flavors, I was given free reign so I decided to make the cake a show ring and featured 3 acts - a Dumbo-type elephant, a tiger and seal. Honestly, I loved the little elephant and I so did not want to put him on the cake. I mean, look at him! He is obviously too young to be in the circus because he can't even do his act yet, the poor little guy! He's probably just nervous and he'll be better next time. The tiger and the seal were able to do their acts just fine - they're pros, you know.


For the cake itself I went with bright primary colors. Originally I thought about doing swags of red fondant but having never actually done swags I thought it might be a tad too ambitious and we definitely didn't want it to fall off of the cake so I went with crescent moons, green stars and some sugar animal lay-ons.


You see that big space in the front there? It's still missing a little something. What's a circus without some snacks?? I took a cupcake and piled on some white chocolate ganache and then added some popcorn that I had made out of fondant and then brushed with colored powder. I also made a cupcake wrapper and a popcorn sticker...you know, just in case no one could figure it out.


After everything was put together I think it came out pretty cute. Of course I would have loved to do so much more like a smaller tier for a ring master and maybe some peanuts but I ran out of time and energy. Oh well, maybe I can give it another try later. Or not.

Well, it's time for the circus to head on out of town. They have to get ready for the next gig.

Easter Round Up

Whew! Easter is over, thank goodness. Did the Easter Bunny visit you? I know he was at my friend's home this afternoon. I didn't have my phone on me so I couldn't take a picture but there was an actual photographer there (my husband and I had to take photos with good old EB,) so I may be able to provide some evidence of his existence. In case you are wondering, he wears a purple vest that has eggs embroidered on it.

I have been so busy this past month that it really isn't funny, and I'm not ready for a break yet. I still have 2, possibly 3 projects to complete before mid-May and then I should finally be able to rest my poor Breville for a while. My poor stand mixer (the 2nd mixer in 3 years thanks to my Kitchen Aid Pro Series breaking on me!) has been busy churning out cookie dough, cake batter, frostings, fillings and icing! But, once everything was baked and frosted we had an Easter that made the kids, both young and old, happy.

Cookie pop pot - one of the easiest projects of the week! Bake cookies on a stick, decorate. Buy a pot kit, cover with scrapbook paper. Insert cookies, done!

This Easter Bunny got a little too excited about the candy and fell head first into the barrel!

Bunny ear cookies - these are missing the photo of the finished project. They were bunny cupcakes a la Sugarbelle. Very cute. May have to ask the photographer for that picture.

Decorated chocolate dipped Oreos.

My second foray into disco dust. Still a little unsure about this element.

The Peep family! I don't know about you but mainstream Peeps are not my favorite. Last year I made my own out of homemade marshmallow, this year the cookie version, next year...still unsure.

Let's just ignore these bunnies. They're a little upset right now. I think someone stole their eggs and I'm pretty it's the dude in the candy barrel.

"Please don't decorate me! I'm ready to come out now!"

That's it for now. I'm exhausted and headed to bed. Thank goodness my hubby took pity on me and washed the dishes. Tomorrow we embark on the next project. Wish me luck!

Bridal Shower

I did my first bridal shower cake today! I was pleasantly surprised by how it all turned out since the fondant and the stacking didn't give me a bit of trouble (could this mean that I'm *gasp* learning?) and there was only a minor incident with a fallen decoration that was easily remedied with a bit of RI. How did this cake come about? Read on...

Last month the other half and I went out to a birthday dinner for a good friend whose daughter is getting married next weekend. As she and I were talking, I asked if she wanted me to do a cake and/or favors and she said yes. As Aunty started telling me what she was thinking, I immediately said "oh good, I've got it all planned out and this is what we (read: I) are doing."

My husband scolded me for that. Apparently, since it isn't a cake for me I'm supposed to listen to what the other person wants. Ooookay. I listened. And it's wasn't so bad (shhh, don't tell him that he was right.) I said chocolate, she asked for lemon so what the heck, make it 2 tiers and we're both happy. Easy, peasy and here's the plan.



Bottom: chocolate cake, but not just any old chocolate. This cake had another flavor that you had to think about for a bit. What was it? I'm not saying so if you weren't at this shower then we'll just say it was plain Jane (PJ) chocolate.
Top: Lemon.
Filling: Buttercream. But if you know anything about me, then you will know this wasn't a PJ BC. Nope. This was a lemon buttercream with fresh lemon curd that I made specifically for this cake.
Design: Fondant (of course) with butterflies flying up the cake.

Notice the embossing on the ribbon and cake board? The invite had an embossed frame around the invite panel so I did a play off of that.

Aunty also asked for 2 small giveaway cakes for the bridal shower games which weren't a problem. Since the top tier was an 8" cake there was still enough batter to make 2 4" cakes and more then enough buttercream to fill them. I found 2 clear plastic boxes at a local hardware store (who knew I could find stuff in there while waiting for the husband to buy lumber??) and decided they would make the perfect boxes for what I had in mind.

Doesn't it look like someone caught the butterflies?

Ready for the final product?




In case it's eating at you and you need to know, yes, I did favors too but it was just plain old macarons with ganache. Nothing special but they are still so dang temperamental! I was ready to cry. And yet, I'm still willing to whip up more almond flour and keep trying. Go figure! And yes, the colors are off. 2 different cameras, oops. If anyone who was at the shower has better (or any!) pics of the cake, please send them my way.)

Baby Shower Cake and Onesie Cookies!

We finally got to have the baby shower for a couple of CWs after the original date was canceled due to a sick mommy-to-be. Lucky for everyone, she's much better and eagerly awaiting the arrival of their little one who should be coming next week. For me, this meant a busy week, first making up a whole new batch of cookies for favors, then making the cake.

Now, I had a design in mind and let me tell you, in my mind, it was great. 3 tiers, edible image, fondant perfectly done....what I did wasn't even close. Thank goodness for CWs who let you practice your caking skillls on them!

Note to self: when people (especially those taking photography courses,) with actual (good quality) cameras are taking photos of your wares, remember that all of your mistakes will come through bright and clear. Must either get better at cake, cover up mistakes better, or do not allow photos....





Not the I prefer one colored cookie over another or anything but they yellow onesies were the cutest, IMO. C'mon, can you picture a little baby boy wearing a onesie that said "Chicks dig me." How cute is that? The Hula Girlz onesie is a nod to my friend, Hula Muvz who produces the original shirt.

Baby, keys, and shoes are all made out of gumpaste.

Now if you're asking what happened to the 3rd tier, I could say that it exploded into cupcakes but the reality is that the edible image I ordered was not what I was expecting. Oh, the image was correct...it's the way that it looked once it was applied to the fondant that I didn't like. I assumed the background of the image would be sheer but nope. It was very noticeable, like a bandage and not quite the image I was going for. Oh well. I'll figure it out.

Next up, a break! At least for a few days. Heck, maybe I'll even take the weekend of from anything baking related. Yeah, right!

Thank you, Shan, for sharing your great pics!

I'm seeing spots!

Polka dots are back! Well honestly, I don't think they ever left. They just fade into the solid color from which they came until they are ready to stand out again. What am I talking about? I have no clue. It's been a long week and I'm pretty sure my brain is broken and I am just talking bubbles. Oh no. Bubbles - spots - I really do think I broke my brain. Thanks goodness the weekend is almost here!

First I have to get through Friday. The good thing about Friday? It's a CW's birthday and that means cake! More specifically, it means cake that I made. My inspiration cake was this:

(Photo and cake by lara3teach)

I love the bright colors on it - it's a very happy cake. If this were your cake, you wouldn't even care what was on the inside. Okay, I'm lying. I would care what was on the inside. I knew that with my limited experience my hope of recreating this cake was slim to none. Sure, the circles are fondant and heck, even I can do that! But the cake isn't covered in white fondant. Nope. That is buttercream all the way.

Let's start by saying that I've never covered a cake in buttercream. Sure, I've used SMBC as filling and under fondant, but I haven't tried to cover an entire cake with a crusting BC. Oh, well, time to learn and it was harder than I thought! Smoothing buttercream is hard. Try it sometime and we can compare notes. Luckily I had already ordered the funky letter tappits and they came in on time. After playing with everything tonight and altering some recipes along the way I ended up with my own polka dot cake.

I don't know why the name looks blue. I really isn't, I swear and you can see the pic below. No blue. Go figure!

I ended up with butter vanilla yellow cake (boy that's a mouthful!) with a nutella mousse-y filling and of course, the buttercream...that didn't really crust but I did alter the recipe a tad so who know what sort of chemistry I created or deleted. I tasted each component separately and I liked it but we'll see how it all works together tomorrow for breakfast.

Breakfast?! Um, yeah. I had some spare parts so I put together another cake. But it's not really for me. It's quality control. ;o) Then maybe I'll be up for practicing smoothing again.

A cake, a milestone, and lessons learned

It's been an interesting week filled with baking and (apparently much needed) lesson learned. In addition to the Cinco de Boy's Day fish cookies there were also mojito cupcakes (which will make it here eventually,) and a last minute cake order.

Order?? Yes, order. Someone actually paid me to make a cake for them which was the milestone. Get it? A CAKE, A MILESTONE? If you don't, got back and read the title again please and if you still don't get it, get some ice cream. That fixes just about everything.

The cake request came from a woman whose daughter was having a Sweet 16 tonight with a bit of an Alice in Wonderland theme. While I had some great ideas - okay 1 idea - tumbling around my head, 2 days was not enough time for a novice like me to try it out. I ended up compromising and offered a blue fondant cake with white diamonds. I don't know why but diamonds seem to go with Alice. As you can tell, it's been quite some time since I watched the cartoon version and I sure didn't watch Johnny Depp's.

A couple of late nights resulted in a cake that I was "eh" about but I had no time to go back and start over and several lessons learned.

1. When committing to a design, make sure you have the right dang cutters - both size and shape. I suggested diamonds. Did I have a diamond cutter? Nope. Had to bend a couple of squares. Where they the right size? No, AGAIN They were too big for the cake so I had to cut everything down with a ruler and a knife. But I do like how the tips of the diamonds are higher than the cake, giving it a slight rabbit ear look.
   
2. Remember drastic temperature changes! I tried left the top tier out too long after I covered it and it developed a huge bubble that I couldn't get rid of. I had to cut the fondant off, re-frost, chill and cover again which brought me back to cutting the diamonds.
3. Allow yourself creative liberties. When asked about design, the client basically left it up to me and while searching for diamonds I found a heart shape that wasn't a typical rounded heart but instead more narrow. I tried it out and decided that I liked it. It still had an "Alice" feel to it.
4. Don't take an order 2 days before the cake needs to be done. Especially if you have a full time job and you know the next 2 weeks are going to be busy and stressful. It's not fun to go to work on about 4 hours of sleep. Even more so when your boss is having a bad day.
5. Remember that you do this because you enjoy it and your next cake will be better.
   
6. When all else fails, remember that you have a mojito cupcake hiding in the fridge!
7. The most important lesson of all - find a cleaning fairy! Then send her/him over here!
   

Kung Hee Fat Choy!

Happy New Year!

Yes, I am aware that it is February and no, I am not late on this. In addition to being Valentine's Day, February 14 is also Chinese New Year this year and brings with it the year of the Tiger. I myself am a Horse but you didn't ask my sign, so let's move on, shall we? Here in Honolulu the festivities have already begun. Yesterday the husband and I went to Chinatown to watch the parade and to feed the lions hong pao (minus the envelopes) for good luck. We also saw a spectacular dragon who was 150 ft long that I had never seen before. Sorry, no pics. I was too busy watching all of the lions.

What does this have to do with food? I had to attempt a cake for the occasion. If you know me then you know that my caking skills leave a lot to be desired but hey, I'm still trying! In my attempts to teach myself to cake, I purchased Confetti Cakes by Elisa Strauss. Elisa was the mastermind behind Charlotte's wedding cake on Sex in the City and in her first book, she features a Chinese Take Out Box cake. Seems simple enough in theory. How hard is it carve a take-out box and cover it? Answer: harder than you think. Here are my clumsy attempts:


You are supposed to see the seams of the box but I obviously didn't cut my pieces to the correct length. The overlay on the sides and top of the box are gum-paste over fondant and I hand painted the pagoda and the wording with gel color thinned with vodka. Definitely not my best work, but I do have high hope for Valentine's Day. Hmmm, maybe I should rename this blog "Clumsy Cakes?"

The inside was good though - yellow cake with a praline buttercream with a crumb coat of cream cheese frosting. Don't ask where I came up with that combo. I just went with what was around. Now back to the cookies drying on the counter. Hopefully they work out better than this cake!

BTW, never let it be said that I don't show you the screws up I make along that way! =o) Oh, and no one tell Elisa about this. I think she'd sent me a cease and desist letter post haste!

Wedding Favors

A couple of months ago a good friend of my husband's asked me if I knew of anything she could do bake and make herself as a wedding favor. Since she is the bride, I couldn't very well just let her make all of these cookies herself when she also had a new baby at home. She is having an Asian inspired wedding and asked for a cookie with 3 tiers and flowers. Simple, yes? I drew up a design and scanned it over and we settled on a cookie with different sized flowers scattered across the cake and "ribbons" at the base of each tier. I didn't really want to pipe and flood all the cookies (hey, it takes FOREVER...and I'm not very good at it yet) so we also decided on MMF instead of royal icing and the accents would be made out of Fondarific. Good? Good! So this is what we came up with:


This was the size comparison - the left is a 3" cookie, and the right is 4". I like the tiers better on the larger cookie myself but the bride likes the 3" cutter, though so that is what we are using. It's by Wilton if you are interested and comes as a set of 4 wedding themed cutters.

However, genius that I am (this is being typed with a hugely exaggerated eyeroll,) while shopping recently I found something that I like better and have now pretty much scrapped this entire plan only to replace it with a much more time consuming cookie. Ugh. Someone shoot me. I need to know when to just leave it alone. I mean, these cookies are cute, right? Of course, these were just playing around so the actual favors would have been much neater and more consistent. I am now going back to the drawing board to figure out how long these new cookies are going to take me. BTW, yes, I do have issues but the new ones really look good!

To be continued...