Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Happy Birthday Mom





I made my mother a coconut cake as a special request for her birthday. I found this recipe in a food magazine and every time I make it, it is a little different from the last time. It was pretty yummy, at least I thought so. Everyone said they liked it but they are family and might not want to make me feel bad if they didn't. I brought a piece to my daughter Samantha, so I will have to ask her. She has no filter and will say whatever she thinks, I can always count on her for the truth.
The icing is a seven minute wonder, so sweet, mmmmm. I covered it with angel flake coconut and added some sweet little hearts.
I would love to try another recipe, so if anyone has one, please step forward!


p.s. how do I delete an image?

Not For Smashing



Do you remember the "Smash Cake" I made for the twins? Well this cake is similar and was meant to be eaten in a civilized manner. It was made for the twins birthday party. The cake was an 8" vanilla layer with butter cream frosting, filled with chocolate butter cream. The dots are made from flow in royal icing. I do hope they enjoyed it.
See the twins, Gavin and Leah, enjoying their cake at, www.summerlifephotography.blogspot.com

Happy Chinese New Year





I had an incredibly busy time leading up to Valentines Day. My mixer was on overdrive!
When somebody asked me to make a cake for the Chinese New Year, I could not resist. I knew there would be no time to make the Chinese symbols out of sugar but I also knew they were important to the theme of the cake. So, I improvised! I found something in the party store that I could use. I cut up money bags and sealed them in plastic which I put on the sides of the cake. In between the symbols, I piped branches and placed plum blossoms, which represent good fortune, on them. When it was time to decorate the top of the cake I decided to cut the symbols out of the rectangles and place them in the center of the blossoms. I liked the way this looked and wish I had done it to the sides as well. Time was an issue, so I had to leave well enough alone.
This cake was a 10" vanilla layer cake with chocolate butter cream frosting.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Cake For Two





These little darlings are 4" vanilla layers cakes. They are both filled with butter cream as well as frosted with it. The dark one is chocolate (obviously) ganche which I spiked out with a spatula. The top of the white one is covered with white chocolate ganache. Okay, there is a story here. What a mess! First of all, I had cut the circles out of a sheet cake, stacked them and proceeded to frost them. They crumbled and stuck to the frosting, it was extremely messy. So I patched them and carefully applied the crumb coat and let it set in the frig. The second coat of frosting went on nicely, yay! But then, I applied the white chocolate ganache and it caused the butter cream to fall off. Maybe I did not let it cool enough. The dark chocolate ganache behaved so differently. So I removed it all, except from the top and reapplied the butter cream. I gave them to an old friend who thought they were beautiful. The third cake that is pictured is also a 4" vanilla layer cake with butter cream frosting. I covered it with a pourable fondant that was I tinted pink, VERY pink! I can't decide it I like it or not. what do you think?

oh, so sweet cake bites


I decided to try my hand at cake bites again since I had leftover cake pieces and butter cream. This is chocolate sourcream devils food cake mixed with buttercream frosting and shaped into little balls. They were then dipped into a dark chocolate glaze and since it is Valentines Day and they needed something pink, I covered them with pourable fondant (much tastier than the packaged fondant I had previously used) and I topped them with some darling little sugar hearts.
Donald brought some into work and so many people loved them. I will be making a ton of them this week :-0

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

SMASH CAKE





This Cake was made to be destroyed :( . It is a "Smash Cake" for the 1st Birthday of a set of twins. Their Mom is a professional photographer and she did a photo shoot of the twins, Leah and Gavin, having a blast with their cake. You can see them as soon as they are posted on www.summerlifephotography.blogspot.com. I can't wait to see the twins in action.
This is what the cake looked like when it left my kitchen.