Category: cakes

Birthday Cake Challenge

My Aunt is having a surprise birthday party tomorrow. Her Boyfriend put me in charge of the cake and bar tending. As usual,I’m overly ambitious. I was inspired by a Libra Cake in Colette Peters book on Birthday Cakes.A cake featuring the scales of justice is perfectly fitting, as shes a Libra and attorney. I chose a variation of the blues and teals from my inspiration. I’m just a beginner and had to take the idea and turn it into a full sheet cake feeding around 75 people. And I had no airbrush equipment, so I was totally reliant on piping, dragges,colors, and shimmer gels. I searched high and low for affordable sheet cake pans. I lucked out a hotel”going out of business sale”. They ended up costing $2 a pop. I baked the 2 pineapple flavored butter cakes on Sunday to be frozen. That took all day. Tonight I prepped my board and piped butter cream on the first layer to ‘damn” the pineapple filling.

Then I added the top layers,and crumb coated the entire sheet cake.Now the tricky part….
I’m a total novice with fondant . And to cover a entire full sheet cake was daunting. Needless to say I had some tears, and decided to roll it out in halves. I figured my piping and ornate design would cover most of the flaws..
I etched my design with a toothpick and went to town piping and overlaying the designs. The silver dragges made the design much brighter. I fear the cake is a little over the top for my staid aunt. The cake looks better in person than in my picture. I plan to use those tall thin candles from the new Martha Stewart collection at Macy’s. I hope the friends and family enjoy it. Its not perfect, but I learned so much in the process.

Final Class and Birthday Bouquets

Tonight I finished Wilton Course 1. Our final project was to make a cake with the famous Wilton Rose. Its the cake you see on the cover of their text book. I baked an almond sour cream pound cake ( courtesy of Paula Deen) with coconut butter cream. The roses are hard, but I practiced. I finished rather quickly. In hindsight you always find flaws. Considering my icing smudged in the car ,the heat,etc. ,I’m pleased with my final project. When I got home I quickly set out to make cookie bouquets for a some co workers Birthdays. Vicky will get the cake and cookie bouquet. I’m sure her family will help her finish. This all gets rather fun and addictive. I think even Certain Someone was somewhat impressed with the turnout. Cant wait to go onto Course 2 next week. I face another challenge next week for an aunts birthday cake. Ive been mapping it out and getting inspiration from Colette’s Birthday Cakes. It will be a sheet cake to feed 50. I will post pics.

Buttercream and Dreams


buttercream
Originally uploaded by tooknap press

My homework for class tomorrow is to bring three tubs of butter cream.I’m using the frozen leftovers from last weeks class, as it wont actually go onto a cake.I love this stuff, although when you really think about the contents of a longer shelf life butter cream it makes you queasy .Of course it tastes so much better with real butter, cream cheese, or whipped cream added.After incorporating the flavors and colors you cant help but lick a finger, the bowl, etc. I thought I’d get sick of it ,but not yet. I used a yummy pineapple flavoring with this batch . I got so hooked on that I ordered about 12 drams of other flavorings from the same company. Loranne Oils. I cant wait to use them all. Brandy, coconut,vanilla butternut,eggnog….

I signed up for this blog society Daring Bakers the other day. I get to start next month. Its a amazing group who do monthly challenges. I love their blogs index as it leads to all their members food blogs. Its a very interesting and talented group. http://daringbakersblogroll.blogspot.com/