Two Cakes, Two Parties, Two Different Cities, Same Afternoon.

Quite a while ago a friend asked me to do a baby shower cake for her daughter at the end of March.  A couple of weeks later I had a request to do a Birthday Cake also for the end of March. Then a week after that I realized that the end of March meant the same day (Today) for both cakes, in two different cities. Luckily for me the lady that ordered the latter cake was willing to drive to the location of the baby shower to pick it up. Now I just needed to get all the cakes, my gift and the kids in the car and to that location in one piece. I found great boxes for all of my cakes this time. I packed the cakes in the boxes and then packed the boxes all up in the car. (Ahead of schedule I might add) Nice and safe! Everything had a place and as long as nothing slid as I made the 30 minute car ride to our destination I would be in good shape. For extra insurance I grabbed as many bath towels as I could find and tucked them in between the boxes.

Next, kids. They are never quite as easy to pack in the car neatly! One needs a blanket to keep warm the other has to take off his shoes because he is too hot. (Honestly, too hot!? The thermometre in the car says the outside temperature is -3 today), there needs to be drinks and snacks within reach but not on thier laps so they can spill everywhere. My seat has to be just far enough forward to be out of reach that I don't get kicked in the back during the entire trip but close enough to the back that if something drops I can very skillfully reach to the back seat pick it up hand it to the oldest one to hand back to the one that dropped it and is now screaming in my ear for it.

Everyone is now in the car, I start the car and realize I haven't opened the garage door yet. (I wonder sometimes if there is a subliminal message in that). I quickly open the garage door, take a deep breath (then think that wasn't smart) and put the car in gear. I back out and the backup alarm goes off. I stop. Get out of the car, I remove the tricycle from the middle of the driveway that no one knows how it got there. I get back in the car, another deep breath and off we go. 30 minutes later we arrive at the destination,  it has been a pretty quiet ride and except for being told to Please!Stop Singing! there has not been any incident. A Miracle really.

The cake has been delivered to the first party and the lady that is to meet me has arrived, we have made the exchange and her cake is now on it's second journey to it's final destination. (Not my worry anymore!)

All in All, so far is has been a good day.

Now I will make my kids stay for a portion of the baby shower and when they can take it no more, I will sneak out the back door of the shower and take them to Cheeky Monkey's (an indoor playland)  to play out the rest of the afternoon.

I do tease about them being naughty but in the end they are very good when I have things to do and drag them all over the countryside with me.

This is the birthday cake, it was an "Over the Hill" party, everything I looked at online while researching ideas all seemed a little creepy or tacky. The lady the party was for is far too lovely for that so I thought I would make a hill, with a boulder on top of it and tie a rope to it. Then I put a knot at the other end and draped it over the edge of the hill. I liked the way it turned out.

This next one is the baby shower cake. I didn't research this one online at all. I woke up in the middle of the night with this one on my mind. I dreamed it would look exactly like this. Everything was edible except the cradle. I think the cradle would be awesome in chocolate. I need to think on that design a little longer.

Anyways, this was the end result this time. And I would like to note that "Dreams Do Come True"

 (Sorry, I spent a lot of days at Disney World, not that long ago.)

Buttercream......my eye!!

As I mentioned in my first post, I took a Cake Decorating Class at the local craft store. Mostly because it was winter and I live in the country with only one neighbour across the road from us. And I live in Canada, so winter can be very cold, very long and in my casea very lonely experience. Did I mention I have two small children also, 5 and 3. Back then they were only 3 and one. I really needed something else to do and think about until spring came and we could go outside again.

Okay, so onto my Cake Decorating Course.

The first class consisted of how to properly bake a cake, grease the pan, and level the cake. Levelling a cake is essentially cutting the top off of the cake to make it perfectly flat. Not difficult if you have a good eye, but I wear bifocals!! The task of levelling a cake for me falls right into that section of my glasses where I am looking up and looking down to try to find the perfect angle of my lenses to look through.

 It never worked out. My cakes were crooked every time. I have since fixed the problem. Now I fill the cake pan a little too full. The cake always bakes higher than the edge of the pan. Then I take my favourite serated knife and lay it on the lip of the cake pan. The knife is long enough that it spans to the other side. I carefully drag the knife along the edge and voila, I have a very level cake. I then tip the cake out of the pan and there you have it...perfection! Unless of course, I haven't greased and floured the pan properly and then I have a very level jigsaw puzzle. That has happened on more occasions than I am presently willing to admit.

The second class was a demonstration on how to properly put filling in a double layer cake and how to crumb coat or dirty ice a cake. Pretty simple.

The third class showed us how to fill a piping bag, hold the bag, change the tips and practice making different little patterns and borders with the piping bag.

The final class we would bring all of our newly developed skills together. As homework we would make a cake, level it, fill it and crumb coat it. We brought that to our final class along with all of the supplies we would need to ice it with decorative icing.
Our teacher gave us the Buttercream Icing recipe to make the icing ourselves and she gave us additional instructions how to get the icing to the right consistancy so that it would pipe easily. I started to worry, there was not any butter, in this "buttercream" recipe. Oh well, I pressed on. We could colour the icing any colour we wanted or make multiple colours if we would like and bring all of our little containers of icing to class.

Before I show you my final project I should explain. I can never just do anything the way I am told to do it.

My daughter really wanted a fairy cake. Well, I didn't learn that in class. How would I incorporate what I had learned into a fairy cake?  Here's what happened. I made a round cake, I levelled it (almost) this cake was crooked!! But I used the angle to my advantage. I filled it and then crumb coated it. Just like I was supposed to. Then I took the picture of the fairy that my daughter liked and I traced it with a stylus into the crumb coat of icing. When I got to class I piped along all of the impression lines that I had made at home. Finally I started to fill all of the sections with icing stars in the colour I had predetermined at home. One more thing before you see the project. Have you ever done something, really up close and think everything is looking good and then you step back and it looks completely different or maybe out of proportion?

Well, when I got home I put the cake on the table. I was very proud of my newly aquired skill. For the first time I stepped back a looked at the finished product. Uh oh!  She wasn't quite right.  My confidence wained a little as I showed it to my husband. This was his reaction:

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WOW, it's a little trampy!! Why would you choose to do that?

He completely missed her wings or that she was one of the fairies in Emma's favourite book and favourite puzzle and favourite movie. But it gets worse, I showed Emma. She hated it. That fairy should have a red dress and orangy wings and the flowers should be roses because of her name and on and on and on. Well to save myself from any more criticism I decided that we would just quit looking at it and eat it instead. I took one bite and to my horror, I had made the very icing that I had detested all my life. My first creation was a disaster and it was all I could do to repress the gagging sensation from that terrible icing I remebered from my childhood. My family was in complete agreement and the cake found a new home in the compost pile.

Here is the best part. Our only neighbor I told you about earlier has two dogs, they found the cake in the compost pile, ate it, and had the runs for two days.

So this is my point, no one should eat that awful shortening based icing. It is nasty!!

 I also believe that if a recipe has the word Butter in the name of it then the recipe should have some Butter in it!!

Sam's Birthday Cake

This was my Brother in Law's 40th Birthday Cake. It is another one of my favourites. It was so fun to do. All of the shells were made by hand, I had a jar of shells that my Mother in Law had collected on her favourite florida beach. I shaped and painted each one in tones that matched the real shells. The Corona bottles are made out of rice crispie square mixture and pressed into forms that my brilliant husband made for me. The ice cubes are also fondant covered rice crispie squares. Sand....you guessed it, brown sugar. And my favourite part of all, the tiny fondant star fish. My daughter loved those too. The thing about using Rice Crispie squares in a cake design is trying to keep them for the cake design. Everyone in my house kept stealing them!

Petit Four - Another French label but I'm not bothered how you pronounce it

The name Petit Four translates as Little Oven

Back in the day, when ever that day was, at the end of the day, when the bakery oven was cooling, the bakery staff would place the left over batter in small pans and cook it in very small amounts so as not to waste anything. The ovens would not need to be really hot to cook these little delights. Then once cooked they would be cut into very small bite size shapes were filled with some kind of preserve and iced with a poured fondant, the were bite sized treats that were very popular and in end are quite easy to do.

I wish I knew that when I was first asked to make Petit fours for my friends 65th Birthday party.

So here is the truth. Confidentially, I agreed to make 3 dozen petit fours, all the time thinking they were small cakes covered in "rolled fondant" - WRONG.
It was quite funny watching me try to shape the fondant over these very tiny cakes and having the cake crumble all over the place. Well my husband thought so anyways, I was so mad at one point I dumped the entire batch in the garbage. Then ever so calmly  I sat down on the couch with a drink and my laptop and googled "petit four". Then I youtubed the same inquiry and before long I knew what to do. Luckily I already had another cake ready to go.

Here is what you do. Bake your cake, square or rectangle work the best, and I used pound cake so it would be more dense. Cool your cake. With a sharp knife cut off all of the brown cooked edges. Just pretend you are feeding my kids lunch, they never eat the crust or anything that is remotely close to the colour of the crust. Now slice the cake horizontally through the middle. Take approx 1/3 cup of jam, (I used raspberry but your choice) and microwave it just for a few seconds until it is runny. Then spread it between the two cakes like a jam sandwich. Now it really looks like my kids lunch. Large jelly sandwich with no crust! Okay here is the secret part, put it in the freezer and freeze it solid. Overnight is good. Take it out of the freezer and immediately slice it into 1 inch by 1 inch squares with a really sharp knife. Originally I thought 2x2 would be small enough but by the time they are iced, they are not petit at all. Or if you are adventurous you can cut diamonds or other shapes just keep them little. Pretty simple so far. Put them back in the freezer.

Now make your poured icing. Here is the recipe I use...now

Poured Fondant

6 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

1/2 cup water

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1 teaspoon almond extract

(My secret addition - I added Belgium white chocolate wafers and melted them with the mixture on the stove. I used probably 1/2 c)

In a saucepan, combine confectioners' sugar, water, corn syrup (white chocolate wafers). Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until it reaches a temperature of 92 degrees F (33 degrees C). Mixture should be thin enough to pour, but thick enough to coat the cake. Stir in the almond extract.

You will need a rimmed cookie sheet and a cooling rack for the next part.

Place your cut petit fours on the cooling rack far enough apart to be able to pour icing over each one without touching the one next too it. Place your cooling rack on the cookie sheet. Pour your warm icing over your frozen little cakes. The hot, cold works wonderfully to set the icing smoothly over the cakes. As you pour the icing the cookie sheet will catch all of the extra that falls between each little cake. It takes a little practice to get the right amount and right coverage but once you figure it out it actually goes very quickly.


Let the icing cool and harden, then with a sharp knife remove the cakes from the cooling rack. You can decorate the top with something pretty or drizzle some chocolate over them.

I like adding the chocolate wafers to the icing, it makes it a little more decadent and adds gloss to the finished product. These little morsels are very sweet, I think that is why they are so small. Now that I have finished this post, I have a craving for them. I will have to make some this weekend. Oh no wait, I have a birthday cake and a shower cake to do for this weekend. Petit fours will have to wait until........Monday.

40 Years of Growth, Anniversary Cake

I know you can do it - Just take a picture and figure it out

That is what my husband said to me after we decided that we couldn't afford to take the course that was being offered by "The Two Southern Ladies" on thier famous "Spherical Wedding Cake". This cake was named one of the top 50 most beautiful wedding cakes a couple of years ago and now they teach the techniques in classes that they travel across country making guest appearances. Below is their cake.

My husband, held tightly onto his wallet as he encouraged me with all his confidence in me. "Honey, do you really need a class. I know you can do it - just take a picture and figure it out" So that is what I did. I had already been asked to do a wedding cake for a friend but this cake was on my mind. I sent her a picture and asked her if I could do this cake as her wedding cake and as my test dummy. She agreed, on the condition that if it turned out terrible we would go back to the original design. Agreed. So I set out to make my own version of the most beautiful wedding cake. I printed the picture and set myself to work. It was very nerve wracking and took a lot of patience (which I lack, in abundance)  Below is the outcome.

I don't have a better picture of it than this which makes me sad because it turned out to be my favourite cake of all time. I am going to have to ask my famous photographer friend to tweak this picture for me. Honestly, how many of you want to see the calendar on my fridge?

Edith

Baby Shower Tower

Spooky Tower

Jessica

Krista

Birthday Party Extravaganza

My daughter's birthday is in the middle of June, my son's the first week of July and in 2009 I was acting as the volunteer camp director for approximately 120 teenage girls and leaders the second week of July. I was swamped and decided to combine 2  birthday parties into one. So we had the ever so clever, Princess and Knights in Shining Armour Party. The girls all came in thier finest royal apparel and the boys......  well they came in whatever they wanted but when they arrived they each got a "FOAM" sword and they were all knighted to the royal court. We rented a bouncy house that looked like a fairy tale castle and we had a pinata that looked like a princess. The girls loved it because it was a princess and the boys loved whacking it with thier swords. I designed the cake and guess what I iced it with........that's right.....French Vanilla Icing!!!

We put sparkler's in each of the towers, I thought it would be a "Magic Kingdom" effect. Great idea right? Wrong, there were too many sparklers which terrified the kids and instead of singing Happy Birthday they were all screaming and running away from the cake!!!! I only ever claimed to have a lot of ideas, I can't really say that they are always good ones.