Andrea's cake once again :)

I was asked by Andrea to do a different type of cake; this time to have a fruit inspired cake. So I thought about it for awhile, and came up with a great idea. All of the cake was all new techniques that I never did before so it was very fun. I did a yellow cake with tropical fusion jello mix in it. Next the icing I used a whipped chocolate icing which I never made before. The key with that is to have everything cold so use a wire whisk and a metal bowl. The next is to do a basket weave on the cake side with a fork since my baking stuff is at home. The last thing is to do a basket handle with melted chocolate without a mold. This all came out great, until the basket handles are too big, so I used chocolate twizzlers for the rim and the handles. Since it is late in the season for fruit I could only found strawberries and grapes. I worked with I found and came out with an awesome cake.

Down the rabbit hole

 My friend is moving over to France for about a year and had a great idea for a going away party.  A themed garden party for Alice in wonderland.  She asked me to make a cake that is suited for this event.  Of course I was excited, and after much planning and long days to make it the cake came out beautiful.  The hat was 5 layers of Yellow cake with cinnamon frosting.  The bottom layer was 2 layers of screwball cake with vanilla frosting and raspberry jam in the middle. The Mad Hatter's hat and a bottom layer with diamonds, with Alice feet as she fell into the hat as the kicker, this cake came out awesome. I sculpted the hat shape which was my first time sculpting a cake, and also first time in a cake that high.  I was so nervous all week to do it.

 

Graduation party for a friend

My first big order, one cake with three dozen cupcakes.  They came out great.

Father's day cake part two

Sorry for the late posting of this.  My life has been very busy latley.  I made a screwball cake for my father.  I crumbed covered it with vanilla frosting. Then covered in layers with green and brown frosting to model a forest floor.  I made homemade peanut butter cups to model rocks.  I placed the turkey and deer on rocks.  I then wrote, "We're are safe again" to pick on my father for his misses this hunting season.  He loved it!!!

Brownie cups

My little sister Victoria graduated yesterday. I totally forgot to make her anything, and I didn't want to make a cake since I will make a big on for sunday, so I decided to make some brownie cups with reeses peanut butter cups.  Well I wanted hershey kisses but I couldn't find any.  One reason I chose brownies is because when I made the fudge, Victoria made a comment on how good the brownies were.  I told her that brownies and fudge taste different.  She couldn't really taste the difference oh well.  This came out good, just make sure to use foil cupcake liners (which i didnt).

Chocolate Fudge

I made fudge from a recipe on the back of a Fluff container.  Which when finished was very sweet, very good but too sweet for my taste. I put it on the list of stuff to research recipes on and try again.  My mother likes it but she wont have a very big piece.  I guess that has its perks on the healthy side.

Wow such a BLONDE

I did all of the work for my Father's day cake for this weekend, then I just realized today that Father's day is not this Sunday but next Sunday.  So I am so glad that fondant can stay for awhile out of the fridge.  The only problem that I will have is having the temperature staying the same not too high or too low. 

Question for all Please respond

I received a opinion from a friend and I wanted to see if there are a lot more people agree with it.  The opinion was to have a facebook account having everything I do, on the page.  I guess this will be easier for people to view and follow what I do, on facebook.  Please respond if I should or shouldn't do it.

Father's day cake part one

For my dad I am going to make a cake covered in cameo fondant and have a laughing deer and a laughing turkey sitting on top of the cake.  There is a story behind that, my dad this year didn't get a buck or a turkey doing hunting season, so I am going to pipe on, "Another safe season!" with frosting. 

I still have a lot of work to do on these pieces but I wanted to post this up. 

slow weekend

I was told that this I would be babysitting my little sister and her friend.  I wanted to try a recipe for apple turnovers.  I was looking for a recipe and many different sites used a similar recipe for a flaky turnover, unfortunately it came out horrible, since even my sister and her friend didn't like it.  P.S. they eat mainly anything ;).  Since that didn't come out I decided to make an easy dessert; Rice Krispies.  Again unfortunately it came out horrible, apparently the marshmallows were stale so I covered up the taste with a chocolate drizzle on top.  I don't know what was wrong with me this weekend, I was in a funk I guess.  So after yesterday's disasters I decided to do A LOT more research.  I found a baking cook book that belongs to my older sister (she never uses) and found out that one calls for puff pastry and another recipe calls for phyllo dough.  I didn't know the difference so I looked them up and what I want to use is the puff pastry.  This is the website that I looked at to decide: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Cooking-Tips/Ask-the-Test-Kitchen/Puff-Pastry-Vs--Phyllo-Dough of course I haven't made both to make a decision on but I will.  So after that I found a puff pastry recipe and it is very similar to the croissant recipe that I used before, so I will try using some of both recipes and try making turnovers and croissants again this summer. 

Summer

What I plan on doing for this summer, is try some new recipies and make a portfolio of what I did in the past, also make my own recipe book so I wouldn't have to look at all of the different cook books that I have.  This is also helpful when I would like to change the recipe a little bit I dont have to write on a book but in my own book.

Jo's surprise :)

Stressing over finals on friday so I decided to bake a cake, with what was left in the cabinets.  I made a screwball cake, which is chocolate cake with no eggs but vinegar, yes I said vinegar.  I had some chocolate squares so I made a fudge frosting to ice it with.  Then since my friend Jo is going back to France in the fall, so I traced a fleur de lis on it with buttercream using a star tip.  I wanted to use a smaller star tip but since I was packing to go home for the summer, I couldn't find it.  The middle layer of the cake was filled with buttercream icing also.  Jo loved it, I could only have a small piece since I can't have chocolate, It was delish though.  To decorate this cake was a little difficult since it was so hot in my apartment the frosting kept melting off the cake so I could do one side at a time, which was sorta okay since I was stressing over my final on saturday so I decorated and studying on and off.  It worked out okay, wish tho I had went to bed before midnight. 

Mother's Day cake :)

I made a cake nothing fancy besides the roses I made out of fondant.  My mother loved it.

Baby shower :)

I made the decision to make the cake a one tier cake since there was going to be more cakes there.  I made the cake on friday night when I came home and let it cool overnight.  I woke up early on saturday and iced, placed the fondant on and decorated the cake.  Here are some of the pictures :)

Flowers :)

This weekend I am making two different cakes one for saturday and one for sunday.  The one on saturday is for my sister's baby shower, and sunday's is for my mom for mother's day.  The calla lilies came out amazing well the 7 that I made, I have to make at least 24 in total so I have to work tonight on packing and making some more calla lilies.  I also made for my mom some purple roses and the first two looked that something sat on them but I started to get it right after that.  I will put pictures after just in case the two look at this blog before this weekend I want it a secret how awesome they look. 

Baby shower cake part 1

This weekend is my oldest sister's baby shower. I am one of the people making a cake for her.  I found one online but I redesigned it to fit my sister's personality and request.  I am making a two story cake with pink and white backgrounds.  The top of the smaller cake is going to have a pink and white ribbon.  The bottom one will have calla lilies all around it, the top one will have them around the base.  The cakes will have baby stuff around the middle with hearts.  The baby stuff is made out of fondant.  The calla lilies are going to take forever since I only have one calla lily maker.  I made one so far, if anyone wants to know I will put up the steps and pictures of how to make a calla lily.  The middles of the calla lilies I will make probably tuesday since I can make them all at once with the yellow sugar to enhance the middle parts.  

Tonight's class

I wont be posting tonight too much to do.  Sorry, I will put up pictures of the cookies when I am done tomorrow and the surprise for my friend I can't post til Sunday since she might peek :).

Dream

I had a wonderful dream last night, it was me and my own bakery :).  I wonder if it was because in class on Wednesday we talked about how the teacher makes cakes out of her home and pricing.  So I did some research on pricing and baking out of the home.  I found out there are many ways to figure out the prices, and that to bake out of the home I have to have no pets, which in my family we have lots, so I have to look into that more.  It doesn't matter at the present moment, since I don't have orders knocking at my door, other than family.  I have a long way before I can start a bakery, I need to find recipes for cakes that I like (right now I am basically using boxed cake mix) and work on my fondant and icing skills but that is why friends and family are around.  This summer is going to be lots of work trying to figure out this questions and recipes while working and going to college in Oneonta.  When I get better and more confident and find out more about baking out of the home I want to make a website and spread the word by mouth to get some orders in.  Next year I will be back on campus for a semester so I could do it out of that kitchen since no pets are allowed but have to check if that is allowed.

Easter

For Easter I am going to my friend's house, this year I am making some Easter sugar cookies, and a surprise.  Can not say since I know she reads this blog :), if the attempt of this surprise is to my liking I will post it before Easter.  I planned for next week, my sister's baby shower cake, and my little sister's birthday cake (which is in July) and a cake I am making for my Marine seminar class.  I am very thorough when I am asked to make baked goods are it is for a group of people.  Why can't I be like this when it comes to school work.  With all of these cakes I am making in the future, none of them include flowers, so I can not try the flowers that I am making in my class.  Tomorrow there are no classes so I am going to redo my bow, since it collapsed.  This time I am going to use color and a decorative edge, I just don't know what color yet.  This weekend I am going shopping to get what I need for next week's class.  I talked with my teacher about buttercream icing since I cannot seem to make it the right consistency.   She gave me a recipe and talked about what to use and not to use.  So I am going to pick some of the materials up and make it on Saturday.  So if the icing doesn't work out I can go on Sunday to pick up a store brand type to crumb coat my cake for Wednesday.  In the long haul the homemade icing is supposed to be cheaper since the recipe makes about 2 pounds at a time.

Cake class 2

Flowers and more Flowers.  This week we did roses, calli lily, carnation, and mums.  Carnations are hard to make.  I couldn't find certain items when I went shopping and to find out they were what I needed this week.  I am glad that the teacher is very nice also the other students are really nice too.  Here are the flowers, if you want I will post how to make them but its too much to do every flower, and I do not have step by step pictures to add.  Maybe when I make them for the final cake I will post them.
The three are roses they didn't really dry so the last few petals are flimsy

 The next three pink flowers are called mums

 Caly lilies

 Carnations, hard to photograph I guess due to it being white.  Don't mind the tissues it is holding the petals in place until the fondant dries

studying...not!

Today I should be studying for a physics exam but I am relaxing which I am told is something I need to do more often.  I am looking at the classes ahead for the cake decorating class and I am so excited.  The ribbon I made last night collapsed due to I made the loops to thick.  Before week 5 I am going to remake the bow.  This time I am going to make it colored and thinner with a fancy border.  I just dont know what color and when I am going to make it.  Next week we will finish the flowers.  The week after we will learn how to cover a square cake, which I have done but not at all nicely.  So that will be good to help me understand what I am doing wrong.  I am going to go study I guess.

Cake decorating class :)

Today was the first day of the fondant class that I got for xmas as a present.  Tonight we learned how to make a bow, and the bases for three flowers, carnation, rose, and mums.  I also learned that when making bows and flowers its best to mix half and half of fondant with gum paste since the gum paste will help it hardened a little more.  The cone shaped balls on the speg. is for the rose flowers and the balls are for the mums the cone shape frilly thing is for the carnations.  I am making three of each of the flowers next week. The bow took about 15 loops once started just filling the holes, to make it look right.  The bow is for week three to place on top of the cake.  I love this class, it helps refine my talent.  I started cake decorating out of a book and making mistakes now I can learn before I make the mistakes.  I cant wait til next week. :)

Croissants

Ok so I cannot put up any pics until I find my camera, but I made some croissants they came out nice and flaky, the only problem, it tasted very buttery so next time I am going to cut back on the butter a little and buy the non salted ones. 

Long since last post

Sorry for the long wait between posts, I went to Belize for two weeks and came back to go straight back into classes.  Finally got some time to decide what I am going to do next.  I am going to attempt to make a flaky croissant.  These take a few days to prepare and let poof and everything but hopefully I will keep up with my blog so everyone can see the process.  Also this past weekend I made a cake with some friends that went to Belize with me for a reunion.  This cake was awesome. 

Another try

So I have tried and tried to make petit fours.  Each time I made them, they didn't come out right.  I was searching the internet for something else related to baking and found a totally different approach to petit fours.  So I read the recipe and how they did it, and this sounded so much easier then what I was trying to do.  So for Valentine's day I am going to use this recipe to make them and see how they come out.  Hopefully I will have volunteers to eat them.

new outlook on life

Thanks to my friend's way of thinking, she is working everyday on her goal in life of writing a book to get published.  I am setting a goal for at least one hour a day working on either baking or researching what I need.  And with the awesome gift that I received from her and some of my other friends I can concentrate on the skills of making wonderful cakes.