Using Four Letter Words!!

For my latest cake, I wanted to try a recipe for fondant.  Let's just say that I flowed through my four-letter vocabulary quite frequently yesterday.  I measured to the tee, because I knew that this would be a tricky recipe. It looked great in my mixing bowl and I was so excited when I started kneading the fondant.  My hope was high, and then it plummeted into the depths of darkness that is fondant hell.  Instead of beautiful, smooth and workable fondant, I ended up with a sticky, shiny mountain of goop that looks like the skin of an elephant when rolled out.  So frustrating.  I am not quitting!  I will try a new recipe until I get it right, but for this cake I resorted to store bought fondant.  The only fondant that is not store bought is the flesh colored fondant on the baby butt and the feet.  

This was my first "hired" cake.  So fun!  I can't take 100% credit for the idea.  I have seen several baby butt cakes, so I used the concept and made it my own.  I think it's my favorite cake so far! 

While looking through my pictures, I found one of my first non-specialty cakes.  Banana Lemon Raspberry Cake.  Also delicious.      

Come Sail Away...

Just finished a birthday cake for one of my mom's co-workers.  Bet you can't tell what her favorite hobby is!  I attempted to carve the deck, which proved to be a little bit more difficult than I expected.  I covered the cake in a brown fondant, since she has a teak sailboat.  The sails are made of gum paste and are really, really, really fragile.  

Happy Birthday Joyce!

Carved and Crumb Coated
Waiting for Fondant 

Ready to set sail!

Yummy Yummy

Held my first cake tasting this past weekend.  I am making my first wedding cake in July for my beautiful sister-in-law.  She and her fiance joined me this weekend for a cake tasting.  It was fun pretending to be professional!  I made a chocolate cake and a white cake, and I filled them with four different mousses.  So much cake!  I also had practice making the pink gerber daisies that will be part of the cake.

Each type of cake was sampled with the four different mousse flavors.
Strawberry Mousse, White Chocolate Raspberry Mousse, Mango Mousse, Chocolate Almond Mousse

My Practice Gerber Daisy 

Flip Flopping into Summer

As a way of welcoming summer for some of my fellow teachers, I made individual flip flop cakes!  The cakes, which are white cakes   with strawberry mousse, are the size of a small flip flop.  The tye-dye fondant was made by rolling multiple colors of fondant together.  

60 Cake

Covering cakes in fondant has gotten easier with all the practice, but curved numbers are horrible!  This cake was made for my mother-in-law, Kathy's, 60th birthday.  One good thing about this cake...I found my go to chocolate cake recipe.  Delicious!

Crumb Coating Before the Fondant

White Fondant with Orange and Pink Flowers

Wine Bottle Cake

The second cake I made was trickery than I anticipated.  For my mother's birthday, I really wanted to surprise her with a wine bottle cake.  What a process!  This cake was a total learning experience.

Things I now know...
1.  Dyeing fondant is very very messy, especially if you don't wear gloves.
2.  Gum paste sticks to things...lots of things.
3.  Chocolate melts quickly, which makes it difficult to shave it.

The cake was a chocolate cake with a raspberry filling.  The wine bottle, made of gum paste, was shaped and painted with icing dye.  The cake is framed with dyed fondant and topped with white chocolate shavings.

Oops!  Definitely should wear glove next time!

Wine Bottle Molds

Wine Bottle Cake 

  

It all started...

...when my brother proposed to his girlfriend.  I was watching the Food Network Channel and staring in awe at the amazing cakes being produced on the show.  Naturally I thought, "Hmmm...I wonder if I can do that."  I have never been much of a baker, considering the first time I tried to make my grandmother's chocolate jumbles I used coffee grounds because it called for a cup of coffee, but I was up for the challenge.  I made a simple vanilla cake with a blackberry filling, but I designed the cake in the shape of a ring box for the special occasion.  The process took far longer than I imagined.  I guess I'm truly an optimist or I'm just really really horrible at estimating time.  The cake was delicious and the design, though flawed, wasn't half bad.  I decided that practice might actually make perfect, and I knew that this wouldn't be the last cake I made.  

French Vanilla Cake with Blackberry Filling

    

Ring Box