Yellow roses...

I've been working on this latest cake for a few days, just a little at a time. And now everything is baked, the filling is made and the flowers are almost done drying. So tomorrow I have to level, fill and frost the cakes, Stack and decorate them. And of course get them to the location in one piece and on time. Since I don't have my husband around to help like the other times I've done all this (he was on Christmas break from school when I did my other wedding cakes) it's been interesting getting it all done. So I promised some play by play. Here is the latest, blow by blow of making a cake.

Here are the royal icing roses I've been slowing getting done. I did 3 different colors and 2 sizes each. I did over 130 roses! The first batch took longer than I would have liked, I guess I'm a little out of practise. By the next 2 batches I wizzed through! A couple bit the dust (actually the mouth, my 3rd child ate them!), but 128 are keepers.

The cakes I did over 2 days in 3 inch pans. It creates a much taller cake that way, very elegant. *trick alert* to get an amazingly moist cake you let them cool for 10 mins in the pan- upside down- and then when they cooled enough to touch them- but still very warm, about another 10 mins- you wrap them twice in plastic wrap and freeze them. It freezes all the moisture in, instead of the steam leaving the cake as it cools. Then that them out of the freezer and let them thaw, cut and decorate. Make sure you let them thaw all the way, you don't want condensing on the side of a cake that's been frosted. Then this is the filling, a great mousse recipe that you can adapt to any flavor thanks to the use of pudding! I also have been known to use the extra for a pie!

And last is my 3rd child, the helper, look at the size of that tongue! We get it from my dad!

Another GINOMOUS cake

December 06,

This one was the biggest, tallest heaviest cake yet. Each pillar is 5 inches so you can see that the layers are ALSO 6 inches. I just loved how elegant and regal the extra height make the cake look! From the table to the top of the roses was 32 inches! This bride didn't want fondant so icing the cake smooth was really important. *trick alert* to ice butter cream smooth you boil a big pot of water, stick in 2 of your metal frosting spatulas. Then take one out, quickly wipe it dry, smooth it over the icing- once- and put it back in the boiling water and grab the next one. It's like "ironing" your cake. And works like a charm. In the end I thought it looked as good as a fondant cake, but tasted better, was cheaper and slightly easier to do! Even though fondant is really popular (it's what I had) unless it's an outdoor wedding I'll always suggest doing just the butter cream! This was my first pillar cake, and I was nervous about it falling over, it just doesn't seem as secure as the stacking cakes, but it made it through the wedding just fine, and that's really all that matters! Unlike the 3 days it took me to make a wedding cake a year ago this one only took 1 1/2 days! The decorating WAS simple, otherwise it still would have taken longer, but the baking is the most time consuming part! No short cuts there!

Sweet 16

October 06,

Again, another favorite cake. I got to do a lot of fun ones in a row this year. This was a "wonky" or "crazy" cake. *trick alert* to create the "wonky" look I made extra tall cake layers (3 inches each, instead of the usual 2) and then froze each layer, then I "carved them" while frozen and then let them thaw before frosting. My husband and kids loved the extra cake chunks. I made this one for my cousins sweet 16! It was so much fun to design and decorate for her. I learned a lot from this cake (of course, each one is still such a learning experience). I put too much frosting under the fondant, and it kind of ruined the shape a bit. But I was really pleased with how it turned out, and of course the birthday girl loved it, and that made it even better! Of course we forgot the candles! I hadn't done a birthday cake in so long that that it hadn't once entered my brain to bring candles!

Wacky

July 06
This was for a Cake teachers annual meeting. We were all supposed to bring decorated cake dummies. I actually forgot about it and didn't start work on my dummies until 11 pm the night before. I , thankfully, had it all planned out though. The finished product looked a little messier than I origianlly invisioned, but mostly followed the plan well. And still lots of fun! Next time I'll start much sooner! It was my first time using a dummy and it was interesting. *trick alert* to soften the corner on a cake dummy cover it with a sheet of parchement paper and softly iron over the corner. The parchement paper won't stick but the hot iron with melt the styrofom dummy and voila, a softer edge.

Just for fun

April 06
This chocolate one was just for fun! I saw the design and wanted to try it. Each of the 80 Chocolate roses are buttercream and not royal icing. SO I didn't make them in advance. I made them right then and there! My arm was pretty sore after that. But it was fun to put together the cake while gabbing with my Sister in Law. I used milk and dark chocolate to create the different colors and *trick alert*hershey kisses in the center (carmel kisses). The hersheys kiss is the perfect mound shape for buttercream roses! But don't use the chocolate if your going with lighter colored icing, use the Hugs.

The rattle cake was for a baby shower I threw. I did a pink/brown polka-dot theme and I just loved how cute the rattle turned out! Not a difficult design, but SO cute (and tasted amazing- pound cake with cream cheese frosting! MMMMmmmmmm!). I, of course, made a TON of other treats, but since this is my CAKE site I didn't show the rest...

Birthday time again

January 06
We have 2 birthday's this month. These 2 ball cakes are a lot nicer and cooler than last year's ball cake! They were really different but both fun to make! The Soccer Ball was pretty easy, but time consuming. *trick alert* when trying to achieve black frosting start with chocolate, then add the icing GEL. Also, only work with a little bit of icing at a time. A little goes a long way.

The Fondant inlay cake was much more time consuming. For this one I covered it with a thin layer of fondant first, then rolled out different colors, used cookie cutters to get the shape of the ball and start laying then on the cake. When 2 would over lap I'd decide which part I wanted to show and cut the other one off. And to stick it to the cake you use CLEAR vanilla. It makes the fondant tacky and evaporates, leaving a pretty good glue. *trick alert* for the black and red on the balls I mixes a bit of coloring in with some clear vanilla and painted it on. The vanilla waters down the thick gell enough to paint with it, but since it evaporates, it doesn't water down the color.

First wedding cake

December 05

This month I got to do my first wedding cake. It took about 3 days and I learned a lot doing it. Each layer was a different flavor and color. I baked one day, frosted the next and did the fondant the 3rd day. Then I transported the cake and put it together and did the final decorations. The bride designed the cake and said it was perfect. We used real flowers that matched her bouquet and center pieces. *trick alert* when using white on white adding a little ivory keeps the cake from looking flat and washed out. Here I used a bit in the fondant ribbon.

Thanksgiving and Christmas

Holiday's 05

We got to Host Thanksgiving at my house this year! It was so much fun having my parents and siblings and cousins at MY house. I ended up making about 4 desserts, and of course one HAD to be a cake. This Turkey (with cookie tail) was SO much fun! Although if you look closely you can see where my 3rd child go to some of the cookies (bottom right).

And then for Christmas Eve with My husbands family we took the wreath cake. I can do alot with cakes, and I think I'm pretty good, but I CAN NOT write on cake's I feel bad I even tried. It would have looked better without my scribbles. Oh well, live and learn. The poinsetta is still one of my favorite royal icing flowers! And since you can'd do ready, this dark pink is the closest I could do. I've since learned a few more tricks. *trick alert* when trying to do red on your own use burgundy first, and get it as dark as possible, then use red. You still won't achieve RED, but it will be much closer than this.