Sunday, December 5, 2010

Cake Orders

I can't wait unti Christmas break! I already have one cake order and I am soo excited to do some baking. While I do not know what the person has in mind for that order  yet, I figured I'd show you an order from the past that I filled. The following cake was for Mother's Day. I really liked the colours I chose, the customer gave me quite a bit of freedom with this one. It was my first time making daisies from gum paste as well and they turned out great. I also cut the letters out of the same gum paste/fondant mixture i believe. The cake is covered with fondant, and the borders are done in buttercream.


I really think it turned out nice and clean looking, which isn't always easy with white fondant. I hope you find it pretty too.

Thanks for reading!

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Baaaa! Baaaa!



This was the cake I made for my family last Easter, I think it is adorable! I used Wilton's lamb mold and a pound cake recipe to make it. Using techniques I learned in class and some I figured out for myself, I decorated it. I also added some Cadbury mini eggs. I had a few issues with the icing not sticking ot one part of the neck and had to redo it a couple times. Other than that the worst part was having to cut it up and eat it! Haha it was weird.

Thanks for reading!


Thursday, December 2, 2010

Christmas Cake Ideas...

Christmas is coming up! Most importantly that means I will be home with my baking supplies haha. I finally get to have my cake baking/decorating fix. More good news, I already have an order to fill in the new year, yay! But before Christmas I would like to bake Christmas themed cakes and I am trying to think up some ideas...

Here is one idea, making present cakes like I have before but in Christmas colours.

I think that is a good and fairly simple idea, probably what I will go with and the only one I have any sort of picture of to show you. Other possibilities: some sort of Christmas tree, a snowman maybe, a Santa hat or maybe Santa himself if you are feeling confident, there are endless possibilities I'm sure. Oh maybe pointsettas! I know how to make those from royal icing.
Can't wait to get back to baking! Thanks for reading!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Wish I was living on this cake right now...

Despite being the start of a new month today, it is yet again another cold, rainy, windy day...
I wish I could go to a sunny, warm, paradise. If you are in the same boat hopefully looking at this next cake will transport your mind to such a place at least for a minute.
Oh how I wish I could be one one of those beach towels...

I made this cake for a woman's birthday, she wanted a "Hawaii" cake. I stacked cakes and carve them to get the shape... that ended up very messy but it looked good eventually. I iced the cake with a sandy coloured buttercream and sprinkled it with a bit of  brown sugar for a sand like effect. The water was made by mixing blue dye and piping gel (I learned the technique from watching Cake Boss <3). I piped the white border to look like waves crashing against the shore and I piped some grass up top. The umbrella and trees are unfortunately not edible, I was pressed for time. The beach towels and shells however are edible, with the beach towels being made of fondant and the shells being made of chocolate (I used molds for the shells).
It's a nice cake to look at on such a gloomy day.

Hope you enjoyed the mini-vacation :)

Saturday, November 27, 2010

My Favourite Cake :)

So a friend of mine's (now ex) boyfriend and his twin sister's 23rd birthday was coming up and they live out in the country. My friend decided to order them a country appropriate cake and asked me to make a "cow cake." I made a boy and a girl cow to put on the top made of modeling chocolate (chocolate and corn syrup) so they were edible. The cake itself received cow hide patterned fondant with some icing grass on top for the cows to sit on. The inside was 3 layers and went chocolate, vanilla, chocolate I believe (or vice versa). Everyone really loved the cake.

This is deffinately my favourite cake that I have made I think because I put a lot of effort into it and got creative with using modeling chocolate for the first time.

Thanks for reading as always!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Bob Marley & Media

Seeing as this blog is for my media studies class, I thought I would do a post related to another one of my media studies assignments. We are currently working on a group project about someone or something who had a major impact on media. My group chose Bob Marley as he majorly effected not only music but also drug culture, a religion, and a country. In today's post, however, I have chosen to focus on the drug aspect rather than the music aspect.
Today's cake is decorated with an icing marijuana leaf. Don't worry there are no illegal substances actually in the cake! I made this cake for someone's birthday and it was a big hit. I thought it was quite well done and have had many requests for more, though I have not accepted any more orders so far.
The cake itself was chocolate and I used techniques learned in my Wilton classes for all of the decorating, from getting the purple icing smooth, to piping the borders, to stenciling the image. Here is a picture:


I am quite proud of this cake despite the subject matter because it turned out really well :)

As always, thanks for reading!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Remembrance Day

Since it is November 11 - Rememberance Day - I thought it would be appropriate to blog about a cake that I made as a birthday/farewell cake for a friend in the military who was just about to head back overseas.




That is the cake. It was half chocolate, half vanilla. It is covered in fondant which was tricky to do. I had no idea how to do it so I did what I thought might work and hoped for the best and I think it turned out quite nicely. I dyed chunks of my fondant various colours, then i would take pieces of it, roll it into blobby shapes, and then stick them together. After I had done what I though would be enough I got out the rolling pin and carefully rolled out the fondant. The writing and border on the cake are done with buttercream.

Thank you Christian and everyone else serving our country.

Lest We Forget

Thursday, October 28, 2010

HALLOWEEN!!!

Happy (early) Halloween everyone! My absolute favouriteee day of the year by far. Normally I throw a Halloween party and organize tons of fun activities plus make deliscious treats, sadly last year's party wasn't much of a success so this year I don't think that's happening. 
However, when I do have Halloween parties I love making treats. I get many of my ideas from all the magazine and cook books near the grocery store checkout counters this time of year. Amazing! They have the best cupcake ideas especially. So I made many treats last year including the cake in the pictures.
That was before I had take my Wilton classes so I didn't no any quick tricks, like good icing dye to use, or anything. Pain in the but. Either way I think it turned out quite well. Sadly, I doubt I'll have time for baking this year but there's always next year I guess.


Thanks for reading, hope you all have a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!
 

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Wilton Cake Decorating Classes

If you are interested in learning to decorate cakes yourself, I would highly reccoment the Wilton courses. When I took them there were 4 but they recently comressed them to 3, took out some old stuff, added some fresh new stuff. You can sign up and attend the courses at many Michael's craft stores or even some Bulk Barn's.
Worried about money? Maybe now isn't the time to get into cake decorating then. I'd suggest just ordering a cake (from someone like me for example... if I weren't trapped in rez). Don't get me wrong, the courses themselves are cheap, about 50$ each I'd say, except that at Michael's they are almost always 50% of or something close to that so I think mine were about 25$ each. That's not bad at all you might say, and you'd be right...IF the tools for cake decorating were provided. And there are tons of things you'll need. Now you could just buy the kit for each class... that's about 50$/kit on average if I had to guess. So you have what now maximum 100$/ class x 3 = 300$ at most and you could be a cake whiz too. Ha! If only it were that easy. Trust me when you are taking a cake decorating class in a store that sells cake supplies you will not be walking out with only a 50$ kit of the absolute essentials. You will want and feel you need more so you can do the best job possible, your peers in your class will be buying more and encouraging you to do the same, and you can bet that the Wilton hired instructor will be pushing extra Wilton brand supplies too. Let's just say I walked out of my first class with a tool kit that had "everything I'd need" for a mere $200... I went on to spend probably $500-$1000 more over the rest of the classes.
If money isn't a problem or you have reeaally good self restraint then I say DO IT!!! Wilton cake decorating classes are sooo fun, and you learn tons! More than even some college pastry programs I've heard.

So there's something to think about if you've always wanted to try your hand at cake decorating. Here is a picture of one of my projects for a Wilton course. Enjoy!

(it was supposed to have more flowers, I was busy haha)

Cya!

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Gluten Free Chocolate Heaven!

Q: What do you do when you have celiac disease and are craving chocolate?
A: Make this gluten-free chocolate heaven cake of course!


I'm drooling over a picture of my own cake, that's when you know it's good. Over the summer I attended a monthly party called "Yuka Flux"... long story short it involves an alcoholic beverage called a "Yuka". I later discovered I shouldn't have taken part because the brand of vodka used was made from grain NOT potatoes, but that's another story. Anyway, I often brought treats to the parties since I had become known for my cakes. The bad part was I could never eat my own cakes so finally I got fed up and decided I would bring something gluten free so I could snack, but also so delicious that no one would complain.
I'll be the first to say that combing amazing flavour (not to mention texture) with gluten-free is not an easy feat. However, I managed and this is how I did it:

- I used a gluten free chocolate cake recipe that I found on the internet (though we have also made the same cake with packaged mixes and it turned out well) though it has more of a brownie consistency rather than cake
- I made two layers of that and cut each layer in half so I could fill between each one
- I also figured out how to make chocolate ganache from the internet and made two recipes
  • one whipped - which i used to fill between the layers and ice the entire cake with
  • one liquid - which i poured over the cake after it had set a while (watch out, it can overflow as you can see in the picture)
- Between each layer I also placed sliced strawberries on the icing filling
- I bought some nice looking strawberries, melted some white chocolate wafers, dipped in the strawberries and let them harden in the fridge
- I melted some regular chocolate wafers as well and drizzled that across the white chocolate on the strawberries
- Lastly i placed the chocolate covered strawberries on the cake

Everyone at the party LOVED the cake and could not believe it was gluten-free... mission accomplished!

Thanks for reading

Monday, September 27, 2010

"Party Cakes"


So the other day my mom was in town and decided to take me out shopping. We had to stop at Chapters to buy bird books (she's a bird watcher) and while she looked for those I browsed the magazine section. First I was looking at the wedding magazines because I find them fascinating, until I stumbled upon the magazines about a subject I obviously find more fascinating, CAKE! Yes there were lots of wedding cake ones, but honestly I don't do a whole lot of wedding cakes. Instead I picked up one called "party cakes." It looked great and one of the step-by-step projects in the issue is how to make a high heeled shoe and shoe box cake, which ive always wanted to do. I aked my mom if she would buy it until I saw that it was 15.99! Unbelievable, but my loving mother insisted on buying it for me anyway. I got around to reading through it the other day. I love the picutres, absolutely amazing and even though most don't come with instructions, it still provides excellent ideas. Then i decided to read through some of the instructions. The downside to this magazine as it turns out is that it is British. I should have realized by the main price on the magazine being in pounds, but I did not until I started reading the instructions. It calls for 'Regalice'... um what? I think it must be fondant judging by what they use it for. Let's google that right now.......... ah okay yes it is a brand name. Anyhow, I haven't read in too much detail yet or tried any of the recipes or instructions because I am stuck in this useless residence room. Despite being unable to try their projects and the British aspect, I really like this magazine so far. If you love looking at beautiful cakes and/or have always wanted to make a high heeled shoe like I have, then go buy this magazine! Remember the price though, haha.

Thanks for reading!

Friday, September 17, 2010

Welcome!

Hello all,
Welcome to my new blog! First off, thanks for following my blog :)
I'd like to start off expanding on the about me section. Like it says I've become obsessed with cake decorating. It's so fun and creative I just love it! I like watching shows about cake too, my favourites being Cake Boss and Fabulous Cakes. I started decorating cakes of my own near the beginning of 2010 I believe, and quickly began receiving requests from friends and family to make cakes for various events. I soon began selling my cakes and enjoyed doing so until moving away to school. I live in residence and do not have access to an oven, which is heart breaking for me.
Another important fact about me, as I mentioned in my about me section, is I have celiac disease and am vegetarian. For those who don't know, celiac disease is an allergy to the gluten protein. Gluten is found in barley, wheat, etc. I therefore cannot eat/drink things such as beer, grain vodka, anything with flour: bagels, muffins, cookies, bread, etc. and also CAKE! You may see that this could be a problem for an avid cake decorator...
However, it is not as bad as you think. After making many many cakes you eventually get sick of the idea of eating one. Also, it keeps me from gaining weight since I can't nibble while I bake. If i need a taste tester I just ask my dad (when I'm at home) because my mom and brother also adhere to a mostly gluten free diet. For "normal" cakes I usually just use cake mixes anyway.
But suppose I want to make my cake and eat it to. What then? Well then I must get even more creative!
In this blog I plan for my posts to cover topics including:
- Pictures and explanations of cakes I've decorated
- Explanations and possibly pictures of gluten free recipes I've tried (whether they have failed or succeeded)
- Possibly reviews of gluten free products, restaruants, bakeries, cook books, etc.
- Possibly discussions about shows like Cake Boss if I have nothing better to talk about haha
- Who knows what else!

Thanks again for taking the time to read this :)