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 :)