It's a Jungle Out There...Don't be affraid to roll the dice!

Time to recount my latest greatest journey through cakedom. I began my last two cakes last Sunday. My first was for the lovely Kim who gave me a chance to show my stuff to all of her Bunco chicas. I made her the dark chocolate Cabernet sauvignon because, well, I'm a huge fan and she gave me free reign. I baked it in a rectangular cake pan, cut it into six squares, and made 3 dice. I had no idea what bunco was before making these cakes (note to self: you got lucky this time with dice...next time make sure you are certain what the background of the theme is...who knows what I could have gotten into!) I used black fondant and white gum paste to turn the three squares into some pretty awesome dice. I got a text that night letting me know it was a hit...phew!

My second task to tackle was a Jungle Book themed baby shower cake. My first task was to tackle making a red velvet cake which I do not typically prefer to eat and, in turn, do not make many of them. I debated on using boxed. After all, that is the great question is it not? To box or not to box, that my friends is a debate all in itself. After some serious contemplation...(mainly because the box was a sure bet and my recipe well...who knew!) I tested out making it from scratch because, as Don reminded me of my mantra...go BIG or go home! It turned out amazing...for red velvet haha. It was very moist and the cream cheese frosting I used on it was so good I may or may not have saved a little in the bottom of the bag for nail polish. Nail Polish: when my parents owned a bakery way back when my father used to "paint" my fingernails with the frosting using the pastry bag.

I baked 9" and 6" rounds for the cake. My plan was to make the characters and place them around the bottom cake which would be green fondant (think the jungle floor) the top layer would be blue (partly cloudy with a chance of vultures) for the sky. I started out thinking that I would make the characters by molding them, but It wasn't giving me the realistic neat look that I wanted. Instead I ended up rolling out bits of gum paste and cutting with an exacto knife. I used different icing colors to color the gum paste/fondant to exactly the right shades, and then free handed a bit where I needed some extra detail. As I said before I had baked this cake on Sunday. I frosted it on Tuesday and started on these characters last night right after work at 6. I was up until apx. 1:30am finishing those stinkers but I couldn't stop...partly because I was on a roll and, well, partly because I have to deliver it tonight (Thursday)! Soooo I was able to finish them all and get them on the cakes before my spine popped through my flesh from being bent over for so long. At some point Chinese food magically appeared in front of me (thank you honey) and I must have eaten some because there's left overs in the fridge but it's really all a blur. Tonight after getting home from work I did the finishing touches by adding some trees, waterfall, clouds, etc. Don is going to help me to deliver it shortly and I can't wait to see it put together! I'm not butting the second tier on until we get it to the house because I'm paranoid so that's the last step!

The baby shower isn't until Sunday but we're leaving for Detroit tomorrow directly after work and will be gone until Monday so I had to have it delivered and ready to be devoured before that. Once this is done I will be able to heave a nice sigh of relief!

P.S. for some reason I'm not able to upload photos at this time but you can check them out on my Facebook under my album Cakes!

UCF Graduation Cake

Don's cousin graduated from UCF this weekend and I thought that that would give me a great opportunity to try out another cake! I love crooked cakes and really wanted to try one out...so I did. I was originally going to do a three tier cake (12", 9", and 6"). I chose to do the yummy dark chocolate cab sauv cake with the black cherry filling that I did for the wine bottle cake, and I also did a champagne cake with strawberry cream cheese frosting and fresh strawberry filling.

I baked 5 of the 6 cakes that I was going to need on Wednesday. Thursday after work I stopped at Michaels to get fondant, stencil plastic, an exacto knife, and boxes. I also had a quick trip to Publix to get some powdered sugar and butter. When I got home I made the executive decision to skip on the 12" and just do a 2 tier cake with a 9" and 6". Partly because I had forgotten to get more chocolate to make the batter, and partly because, well, I just didn't want to! Thursday was a busy night to say the least. Don ordered pizza's and I began making the icings. For the top tier which was the chocolate I did a dark chocolate butter cream frosting, iced the cake, and put it in the fridge. For the bottom tier I did a frosting with fresh strawberries, and it turned out awful! So back to Publix we went for some more ingredients and a change in plans to use cream cheese to add some thickness because the other was entirely too runny. The new frosting was still a bit more runny than I liked, but it tasted amazing and ended up working pretty well. I had two cakes for each tier, and when I iced them I cut each cake in half so there ended up being 3 layers of filling. I put the strawberry cake in the freezer because we were going to be taking it on a 2 hr drive to Orlando after work on Friday and I wanted the frosting to stay cold enough.

After putting the filling in the cakes I carved them to make them crooked and iced them. I also cut out the "Golden Knight" figure with the stencil plastic as well as the UCF letters. I finally finished everything a little after midnight...ugh.

Friday I left work after the last patient checked in and we got on the road shortly after 6. The cakes made the trip very well. I started out by sanitizing the coffee table at the hotel and rolling out the white fondant for the bottom tier. It worked really well and turned out great! I measured out the placement for the top tier on the bottom tier and cut out the cake into the last layer of filling. I put four wooden dowels in (which Don did an amazing job cutting for me) and the cake cardboard into the hole I had cut out. After making sure that the top tier would fit in the cut out hole I mixed a gold gel color with vodka and painted the bottom tier. It took a couple of tries to get it not too orange or yellow, but it turned out pretty well. For the top tier I used a fondant which was already colored black. Using gold luster dust and the stencil I had already made I brushed the Golden Knights onto the cake. I used the UCF stencil and cut out all of the little "U"'s, "C"'s, and "F"'s and attached them to the cake with the chocolate butter cream.

After all was said and done it was around 1am and we hadn't had dinner yet because I got right into decorating when we got to the hotel which was now a disaster area...I'm pretty sure the cleaning people were so confused when they dumped the garbage! I cleaned up my sugary mess and we walked to a Perkins for a quick hunger fix.

We were supposed to meet Don's family at his cousin's apartment about 40min away at 10:00. Timing was going great in the morning I was out of the shower and getting ready before 9 until everything hit the fan. It was a slow motion disaster that I could not avoid...while putting on my makeup in my dress which had a white bust and was navy blue on the bottom, I dropped a glob of foundation off of my brush! Don ran to Walgreens to get some stain remover and I continued getting ready while trying to figure out what to do if it didn't work because that was the only thing I had brought to wear for the graduation. Unfortunately the stain stick didn't work and my cardigan didn't match sooooo plan B we searched for a Kohls. When we got there I saw a Ross and ran in there instead. I was so lucky I saw a dress that I had loved just the last week but couldn't justify spending $40 on...and it was $12! I did a quick try on and it looked great so off we went. We had the directions in the iPhone and got completely lost because they were giving names of roads and exits which weren't listed, but we finally made it. The cake turned out great and was oh so yummy!

Now it's off for a nap because I'm exhausted!!!

What a winer!

Oh my goodness....I did it...the wine bottle cake is completed! It's now 4:48 leaving me a little over an hour to get ready but, of course, I had to blog about it first! I put the neck of the bottle on last night and kept it in the fridge. I sculpted it out of gum paste and it worked really well. There were a couple of melt downs while working on it today with the fondant. It was a little too warm in the house and when I put it on it had a melt down...so the air got turned down waaaay low and it worked much better! There were a couple of problem spots where it was still too warm, but I managed to smooth them out pretty well. I made the label out of gum paste as well. I curved it around the same coffee can that I used to bake the cakes while I hand painted it. I used a gell mixed with vodka as paint and just got it to the right consistency. After getting the fondant as smooth as I could I applied the label with left over butter cream frosting as glue. To make it shiney I used spray pam on my hands and smoothed it over and....Ta Stinkin Da! This is short and to the point because I must go beautify!!

Iced and ready to go!

Oh hey there! Tonight after the gym I completed step 2 of my wine bottle cake...the icing. As I said before I decided to use a dark chocolate butter cream frosting. I made the two cakes in the coffee can last night which took a while, but it was worth the out come, they turned out great. I kept them refrigerated all night so that they were nice and cool for the icing. I prepped ed the cakes by cutting an even top on my bottom layer. I decided to use a black cherry filling. Of course, I wasn't thinking and put the filling in without an icing dam so it oozed a bit, but I was able to fix that up after a minor panic attack. The problem is that if the fruit filling oozes out, the butter cream frosting doesn't adhere to the cake. Once I got the top layer on I carved the top to get the right shape of the wine bottle. After icing the cake and making it mostly smooth it began to get too warm from working with it so I put it in the fridge to avoid a total catastrophe....which created a problem of itself. Note to self, next cake be absolutely sure that it will fit in the fridge!! There was not enough room between the middle and top shelf, or any other one for that matter for the cake! Ugh!!! So, luckily Don heard me huffing an puffing in annoyance...I think it may have gone something like "Are you kidding me?? Why is it any time I try to do something it has to be difficult?" And then Don "Don't worry all we have to do is take the shelf out and rearrange the stuff...deep breath, if we work together we'll work it out." After a little moving around we got it in there...phew!!

The cake sat in the fridge while we made some yummy dolphin and green beans on the grill, and I also used some of the leftover batter from yesterday to throw a small 6" in the oven so people could have a taste....on this one I used the dam before the filling and it worked great. We had a little taste and oh my goodness it is AWESOME!! Even better than the one I made before as a tester...success!

I took the cake out of the fridge to smooth the icing out one final time and it looks really good. I'm going to stop at a cute little baking store I found on my way home from work tomorrow to pick up the fondant and modeling chocolate. I will be using the modeling chocolate to make the neck of the bottle. Tomorrow is break day and on Saturday I'll be putting the fondant on the cake and finishing everything up for the party at 7.

The picture on the left is of the cake of course, but also the yummy Cheap Date wine that I found, and the Toasted Head bottle that I like to use as a rolling pin.

Today I learned the hard way to slow down and think things through clearly and logically before rushing though something! On the bright side, tomorrow is Friday fun day! Have a wonderful evening...sit back, kick your feet up, and enjoy a glass on me while contemplating what adventures are ahead of you for the weekend! Slainte!

P.S. Don just sat down from doing the dishes and what does he have...another piece of cake!! haha good thing we're sticking to the gym!

Wine Tasting

Good evening fellow lovers of sweets and spirits! My cake is now in the oven and smelling delicious! I may or may not have snuck a spoon of the yummy batter...and it tastes even better than the tester I did last week. This evening I am baking a cake for a wine tasting party that I'll be attending on Saturday...it is rather ambitious but, well, GO BIG OR GO HOME!

I began the cake shortly after Don and I got back from the gym...yes the gym. If someone is eating all these tester cakes he's got to kick things up a notch, and well, I might as well support it! The cake that I'm baking for the tasting is a dark chocolate Cabernet Sauvignon. It will have a bittersweet chocolate butter cream frosting under the fondant and I will be mixing some black cherry filling into it for the layers...more on that later.

The cake itself I am baking in a coffee can to get the desired diamater and height, and its sides and bottoms are lined with parchment paper to make it easier to slide out. It also helps so that there really arent any ridges that show up on the cake. The recipe is a simple chocolate cake recipe using Ghiradeli dark chocolate, bitter sweet cocoa powder, and 1 cup of wine. I really enjoy the Toasted Head Cabernet Sauvignon. Don got it for me once when I asked him to pick me up a good bottle of wine to roll out the fondant for his birthday cake (he thought I was nuts). He picked the Toasted Head which is a great bottle for rolling, and as it turns out was equally as delicious after I was finished. You may be asking "why in the world don't you just buy a rolling pin?" Well, that's simple...I would rather spend $9 on a bottle of wine that I can enjoy a glass or two of afterwards...what else does your rolling pin do for you??? I had just under a cup left so I added a bit of another wine I decided to try...It's called Cheap Date and was roughly $6 o $7. I have never tried it before, just liked the lable...but after adding a smidge to get to a cup for the cake I took a little sip and yummy yummy!

The first cake is about done, it takes a while longer to bake them in the coffee cans as they are much taller, but it really works great. I'll be putting the other one in after giving this one a few minutes to cool down before sliding it out. Hopefully sometime between then Don will be back with the Hawian pizza....I may just ocupy the oven every day!! haha. I will be keeping the cake in the fridge over night so that it is well cooled and you shall hear from me tomorrow when I make the frosting!

In honor of this cake go ahead....pop a cork, pour yourself a glass, or two....and slainte!!

Let them have wine!

As you will come to find in my blogs to follow I am a lover of food and wine. It can only be made better when enjoyed with friends and family. A few weeks ago while reminiscing with my boyfriend Don about his Black Jack themed birthday cake that I had made him I decided that cake baking would be a great hobby for me to pick up. It is something that I truly enjoy doing, and I find it to be a great stress reliever! I like playing with different flavor combinations and enjoying the finished project.

And so the project began...
I went to the store and bought the essentials. Wilson baking pans, pastry bags and tips, fondant, and various ingredients. The second cake that I made turned out like crap. I decided that to try different recipes I would cut them down and just make little 6" cakes in case they weren't all that great...good thing, because this one went straight in the trash! It was supposed to be a rich chocolate but I think the person that posted the recipe had no taste buds, or perhaps a very different idea as to what rich chocolate is. I decided to test out my creative skills by making a Detroit Tigers cake (Don's baseball team). It was covered in white fondant and had a Detroit Old English "D" on the top which I carved out of blue fondant. The "D" looked amazing and, like I said the inside was, well, crap.

My next adventure is to make a standing wine bottle cake for a wine tasting at a friends house on the 31st. I did a test run on this one and it is mmm good! The cake I chose is a dark chocolate Cabernet Sauvignon with chocolate butter cream and grape filling. I did a 6" tester and it is delicious! Last night I used the remainder of the batter to test baking it in a coffee can to get my desired size and shape (thanks for that idea Mom!) I lined the sides and bottom with parchment paper and it came out great. I will be making the real cake this Wednesday so check back to see how that goes!

I feel like giving you some insight into my love for baking, so your going to get it! My parents owned a bakery when I was a baby. My Aunt Susie has so many home videos of us in there and I'm glad because there is the hard evidence that my thunder thighs are all my fathers fault! He used to paint my nails with icing and I licked it off as fast as he put it on. My parents house always smelled like a home...something was always being cooked or baked. I loved that we usually always had home made cookies and if mom hadn't made them there were always ingredients to make your own. In my family we love friends, family, food, and good wine....Slainte :)