More and more cakes!

Time for an update…it’s been awhile!  Quite excited with how this cake biz is going. I get to do what I love, I’m learning everyday and I get to spend time with my kiddies whenever I want to.  Words cannot describe how grateful I am for all that everyone has done for me.  I am blessed.

I want to share some of my latest creations within the last few months.

This one of Lightning McQueen was a recent request for a boy named Ethan.  It was a Tuesday when the customer called me and asked if he could order a cake for the coming Saturday.  At first, I didn’t know how to reply as I always ask for at least a month in advance.  I was brave enough to ask him to send over a picture of what he was looking for and that I would take a look at it and see if it was doable.  He did just that, and I received the picture.  I kept pondering and pondering, wondering if I should do it.  Now, with me, I am always up for the challenge cause that’s what makes this whole cake venture exciting!  But, at the same time, I don’t like to rush just to get a cake done for the sake of having a cake done.  For me, each cake is a piece of art and I want to make sure everything is as close to perfect as it can be.  I rather lose out on the business than produce a cake that’s not done properly.  As I sat there pondering and pondering, I finally decided to take on the order (only because I HAVE done a Lightning McQueen before).  Crazy?  Yes, at that moment I thought I was crazy, but I have to admit, I was totally thrilled!  I couldn’t’ believe that it was done in two and a half days.  There were some bumps along the way while I was putting McQueen together, but I managed to get through it!  I was quite happy with the end result and I am happy that the customer and his family/friends enjoyed it as well.

 

This Minnie Mouse one was one of my favourites.  It was really fun to make.  In the beginning I wasn’t quite sure if I would be able to make the Minnie Mouse.  But after playing around with the fondant for the first few days, I eventually worked out the face and then the rest just came together naturally.   I loved the colours and how there’s contrast.  It was a matcha mousse cake.  The mousse took me two weeks of trail and error to get the right taste and texture.  I am so happy the little girl’s family enjoyed it!

Another cake I truly enjoyed making.  In the beginning, I had planned for a closed box. But because the recipient really liked jewellery, I decided to make an open box and have a pearl necklace hanging out from it along with some earrings and diamonds on the side.  I did a bit of research to see what most people did with the lid part.  Some used cardboards, but I wanted something different so I decided to make the lid a cake too.  Everything was edible!  I’m so happy that she loved the cake!

One last cake to share for the night.  This was done last week for a boy turning one.  Mom wanted the animals to loo exactly like the ones on the decorations she had for the birthday party.  In the beginning I suggested printing them on sugar sheets so for sure they would look exactly like it.  But then I think cutting it out actually was better.  The colours are more vibrant (than they would be printed out), and I got to do layers, making them stand out more.  It was really fun (not to mention) lots of work, to cut them out and glue them together individually LOL!  I did the giraffe pattern last.  That part was the hardest part of the cake for me.  It took me a long time to figure out how I wanted the pattern to look and nothing looked right.  I was starting to get frustrated as time was running out.  Eventually it started to come together, but in the end, I still wasn’t 100% content with the result of the giraffe pattern.  But none the less, it didn’t look too bad (just wasn’t what I had envisioned in my head).  Yes…sometimes I just have to get over the “perfectionist” side of me.  Anyways, that’s all I’m sharing for now.  Time for bed…more work ahead.  May is fully booked already…lots to prepare in advance!  Good night everyone!

 

 

Working hard everyday!

Been awhile since I update my blog.  So what’s new?   Well, aside from making cakes and taking care of my kiddies, I’ve been doing a lot of research to improve on recipes and trying out different cupcake toppings.  I think I’ve finally worked out out a  better chocolate cake recipe, so this will remain in my books for the next little bit! 🙂  As well, I’ve been working with matcha green tea powder.  I’ve made a few cakes and buttercream with matcha powder and they’ve turned out quite well.  Still need a bit of tweaking around.  Got some feedbacks from the test cakes I made.   Here they are… 1) add more matcha (for a stronger taste) 2) maybe put in bits of white chocolate on top to balance (which would work out if I do put in more matcha) and 3) make the buttercream less buttery.  However, my concern with putting in more matcha is that it would be too bitter.   It’s definitely a good suggestion as I have tried it with white chocolate buttercream before and it is simply devine!  With my first attempt at the matcha cake, I scooped out a bit of buttercream before mixing the matcha in it to make some white chocolate buttercream to try with the cake and it was yummy!   I made one for my brother in law’s bday and he liked the cake texture and the azuki beans I put in with the matcha cake.  Yes azuki beans!  I was inspired from the bbt drink I had at Chatime. I didn’t put in a lot in case it didn’t go too well with it, but he liked it.  Here’s the cake I made him…

I have no experience with matcha powder and wasn’t sure where to get it.  As well, had no idea it was so expensive!  I bought my first tin at Teavana, a high quality matcha powder.  I asked the girl there if it was good for baking and she said she wasn’t sure, and to try a small tin first as it’s not cheap.  A tin that was 1.7oz was $20!  She advised me not to get too much and to go look for cheaper matcha powder elsewhere.  But I was too eager to try it out so I just bought it anyways LOL!

Yesterday I was at Jtown in search different matcha tea powder.  There were a few different brands so I asked the girl who worked there what the difference was and which one was better for baking.  She said for baking, it really didn’t matter and that any brand would work.  Lucky me, she told me that there was a brand on sale so I bought a few bags to try out.  Let’s see how it will turn out in comparison to Teavana’s!

Besides working on cake recipes, I have also been doing some more research on other cake recipes to better suit the matcha.  My husband thinks my sponge cake is good enough, but somehow I feel it’s still missing something.  I found a Japanese sponge cake recipe called Castella.  The ingredients are quite different as it calls for bread flour instead.  Will be trying it soon as I’m curious to see how different it is (from my sponge cake) using bread flour.  Will keep you all updated!

Here’s a few cakes and cupcakes that I’ve been working on…

Learning, discovering, improving!

I finally finished the stacked book cake!  For weeks I’ve been fretting over it.  I’ve never made such a cake, but I was excited at the same time because it was a big challenge for me and I LOVE challenges.  That’s the only way I’ll learn to be better.  But don’t be asking for crazy cakes like the ones you see from Cake Boss.  I’m not that good…yet!  Maybe one day LOL!  I was very nervous about it cause I needed to really plan ahead and there were many specifics for this cake and I really want to make it right.

I started with the board and turtles (as I posted in one of my previous posts).  I wanted the turtles and the board to be hard and sturdy.  The thing with fondant is that you have to give it enough time to harden and dry out (which in some cases, may take weeks).  After that was done, I began to measure out the sizes of the books so that I could plan how to include all the text and illustrations on them.  Not easy when you have to estimate.  Once I figured out the sizes of the books, I began to brainstorm on how I would decorate each one.  Luckily, there were specifics so I didn’t have to pick at my brain too much.  One of the books that had to be included was a book the person wrote.  The illustrations on the cover wasn’t something I could just squeeze in with fondant so I had to figure out another way.  My husband and I began to look into printers for the edible sugar sheets.  I’ figured I’ve had to do many cakes that required edible printing so we might as well look into one.  We found some printers but none of the ink were sold in Canada yet.  To order it at that time, the ink wouldn’t have arrived in time so I had to go research and look for a place to print it out for me.  After days of research and pondering, I finally found a place.  Check marked that off the list.

Now the time finally arrived.  It was time to bake the cakes and start putting it all together.  Nervous?  Yes, very.  I began to feel stressed as the clock ticked away.  The problem with me is that I tend to strive for perfection.  Sometimes I don’t know if it’s actually a good thing or bad thing LOL!  When things don’t turn out the way I hoped it would, I get stressed and I start to hesitate.  To me I needed it to be perfect.  Thank goodness my husbands always around to remind me to strive for progress and not perfection.  Funny thing.  That’s something we always teach children, yet I forget to apply it to myself hahaha.  Anyways, as I was nit picking at little things here and there, he reminded me that it was okay and wasn’t anything big, so I tried to let go of the small things.

I enjoyed making this cake.  Besides trying to make it perfect, I learned a lot of new thing

I was actually glad when my friend came to pick up the cake, cause the longer it sat there in front of me, the more I was tempted to find things wrong with it and fix.  When I took it out of the fridge today, I accidentally broke a piece of the cover off.  I was sooooo upset, but I managed to fix it up with the leftover pieces of sugar.  But it looked funny and was driving me nuts.  Didn’t look natural.

The good, bad and the tasty: quick fondant review

I have a bit of time to write a quick blog while my little one is napping.

So I’ve been bust with my cakes once again.  I’m learning more with each cake I make and I’m feeling more inspired each time.  Recently I made a cake for my friends 30th birthday.  She wanted something different so I decided to make a hot pink zebra patterned cake fore her with some bling.  Time to get my stuff together!  Now, I usually buy Satin Ice for fondant as it’s been the best one I could find that’s available at most stores.  However, they don’t have much of the crazy, sassy, bright colors, so I had to look elsewhere.  Thankfully, one of the stores where I do most of my purchases carried another brand that had bright pink and best part was…it was on sale.  I decided to try the brand Fondx.  I purchased a tub of baby yellow and a tub of hot pink.  When I first opened it, the smell didn’t really appeal to me.  It had this bubble gum smell which reminded me of something from childhood that always made me nauseous.  Anyhow, there wasn’t much I could do…had to use it for the cake 😛  To my surprise, I ended up loving the fondant.  Here are some of the reasons why I can say I LOVE IT.

First off, rolling out the Fondx fondant was much easier and it came out smoother.  I could roll it really thin and it wouldn’t tear at all.  With Satin Ice, sometimes if I roll it out too thin, I start getting pock marks and tears.  I was quite surprised with how stretchy and pliable Fondx fondant was.  My next test was to see how well it covered the cake.  The moment I laid the fondant on the cake, I was sold on this fondant.  Never had I had such an easy time covering the cake.  After I placed it on top, I began to smooth out the sides and it happened so nicely and so quickly.  With Satin Ice, at times, I find I have to  cut the bottom part quickly before it starts to weigh down the top and start tearing.  No issues with Fondx.  It went on smootly and gave a crisp, clean look.   Another pro…the fondant has a pleasant taste.  Not as sweet as many of the other ones I’ve tried (which is something I always look for in fondant).  I was very impressed and fell in love with it.

Now with all that pros of Fondx, there are cons as well.  As I mentioned before, I wasn’t a big fan of the smell, but that’s just my own personal opinion.  Most people seem to be fine with it.  Another con is the pricing.  As good as it taste and as easy as it is to work with,  it is a bit on the pricier side compared to many other fondant.  😦  Ah well, its not that Satin Ice is that bad, but why settle for something that’s just okay when theres something better (and much easier to work with)?  😛  Definitely no Wilton though. That is one fondant I advise to stay away from. Hard to work with, dries quickly and bad tasting.  I also use The Mat to cover my cakes with fondant.  In one of my previous posts, I had reviewed it and I can still say that it’s a life savour for me.  It has definitely made covering cakes so much easier.  Anyways, here’s a few pics of my cake for Jamille’s 30th bday!

So proud of myself…I couldn’t’ purchase the rhinestone ribbons sold at the cake store in time so I made my own! 😛

The calm before the storm

It’s been a quiet two weeks.  Got to spend a nice New Years with the family and spend time with my boys.  I’ve also been getting things prepared for upcoming cakes, placing all my orders in for ingredients and gathering all the equipment and materials I will need.   It’s going to be busy, busy for the next few weeks.  To be honest, I’m feeling anxious but excited at the same time.  Some nights when we have the boys down early, I spend time working on some of the cake decors.  It’s nice and relaxing.   (I also like to plan ahead so I’m not rushing and panicking when the time comes…that would drive me insane).

First cake will be the Backyardigans cake for Casey who is turning one!  Hopefully my fondant skills are good enough haha.  Ethan was able to name the characters I made when he saw them so I guess they’re not THAT bad LOL!  Must remember to make a cupcake on the side.  I know and have this feeling I’m going to forget.  This will be my first attempt at a coffee flavoured cake.  Tried out the buttercream two weeks ago and I think I finally got the flavor right (hopefully).  I worked it out so that the cake itself will have just a hint of coffee and the buttercream will have most of the coffee taste.  *Cross fingers they’ll like it.*

After Casey’s cake, I’ll have 4 cakes to make in one week!  Yikes!  It’s okay, (I think), I’ve got everything planned out.   Just hoping for no unexpected surprises!

Another cake I’ve also been working on is a stacked book cake.  Now I’m really nervous about this one.  So many details …  I just hope I get everything right!  It will definitely be interesting though as it’s my first attempt and I’m looking forward to seeing how it’ll turn out.  The top book will be a book that the person wrote herself.  I got the cover page printed on sugar sheet.  First time using sugar sheet.  My husband and I actually wanted to get a printer for it, but none of the printers selling now has edible ink sold in Canada 😦  So that’s going to have to be put on hold for now.   In the meantime, I had to pay someone to print it out for me.

I had some concerns about the sugar sheets.  I was bombarding the poor lady (who printed it for me) with lots and lots of questions LOL!  But she said there shouldn’t be any problems if I follow the instructions closely, so lets hope it’ll all work out well.  Just trying to decide whether I want to take a risk and put it on the cake the night before.  The cake will have to go in the fridge, and my concern is that when I take the cake out, the fondant usually sweats a bit, and the colors might run?  OR, should I just wait till the day of and then put it on?  But I want to get it done the night before so I can take pictures as well.  Hmm…what to do?!?!  Anyone have any experience/advice?

Alright, going to stop here for now.  My little boy has woken up from his nap.  Here’s a little peek at what I’ve been working on with the book cake.  I’ve got the board covered and made it into hardwood flooring.  The two turtles are still work in progress.   Yes, one has bulging eyes, but that’s because I’m not done with him yet LOL!  They’re sunbathing a bit.  Enjoy today’s nice sunny weather!!!

The craziness continues!

Thought the holiday was crazy busy already.  The craziness is carrying on and again, I am not complaining.  I love keeping myself busy with my boys and baking.  I’m happy that everyone is enjoying my cakes and coming back for more!!!  This month I’ve been busy with baby shower and birthday cakes.  Next month I have more!  So lets take a look at what I’ve achieved this month.  First off was a cake for one of our closest family friends.  Finally got to try out my flower petal pan and it worked out wonderfully.  I made a flower cake with coconut filling and coconut shavings spread around.  Everyone enjoyed it!  Once again, Happy Birthday Auntie Katy!

Next one required lots of planning.  But it was a really fun project and I enjoyed every moment.  I had to pre make some of the decorations and figure out what I wanted to do with the cake.  My friend had sent me a picture of what she wanted, but I could tweak around a bit with the decors.  It was definitely a great challenge for me!  I’m so sorry the bow didn’t really stay on.  I think with it being a big bow and the room temperature, it just wouldn’t hold up.  Note to self: make the bow thinner next time!  I’m so glad my friends Lian and Vinh liked it.  We’re so happy for you guys!  Can’t wait to meet your two little peas in a pod!

This past week I’ve been busy working on two cakes.  Thank goodness they’re the same theme so it was easier to make back to back.  First minion cake was for a boy named Issac.  The minion itself is a chocolate cake with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream filling.  The bottom tier is vanilla sponge with custard (for the adults).   I got a funny email from the mommy last night and the email heading was “Mouthless minion.”  I was confused and as I opened the email, a big picture of the minion cake opened up…without the mouth.  Mommy told me Issac couldn’t wait to eat it so as she was making room in the fridge for the cake, he ripped the mouth off and ate it.  LOL!  She was frantically trying to find something to fill it back in.  Ended up buying chocolate syrup and just smearing a bit on.  Never imagined that would happen.  But all is good.  Mommy just texted me saying everyone loved the cake.  The best reward for me is knowing people enjoy my cakes and appreciate my work!

I had just finished the second minion cake an hour ago.  Decided to change the mouth a bit so that not all my minion cakes look the same hahaha.  The goggles are always the most difficult part for me.  The silver paint doesn’t really stay on well and makes blotches.  The ring around it always has a slit somewhere.  Gotta find some better techniques for that next time.  Overall, everything went well.  Here is the final pic.  Now I gotta start working on the coffee birthday cake!

What a busy holiday season!

Everyone knows Christmas time is a time for baking lots of yummies, but I don’t recall ever baking so much in a just a span of two weeks!!!  But I am really happy everyone enjoyed my yummies!  Now let me recap on what I made the past few weeks.  I made two dozen Christmas cupcakes, both red velvet, but one with cream cheese frosting and another with white chocolate buttercream.  The white chocolate buttercream was really yummy. You can just let it melt in your mouth.  😛

For my husband’s development team, I made a non dairy holiday custard cake.  (One of his team members is allergic to milk).  Everyone gave positive feedbacks so I was delighted.  Nothing gives me a better feeling than knowing that people enjoy the treats I make.

I was thrilled when two friends asked me if I could make a cake for their moms bday.  I love it when I am put to the challenge!  They requested a Candy Crush cake because their mom loves to play Candy Crush.  For a moment I thought to myself, how am I going to do this?  Can I pull this one off?  I started to plan things in my head and draw out sketches.  Because I, myself play the game as well, I had a better picture of what I needed and wanted to do with the cake in terms of decorations.  It was really fun to make.  I have to admit, I wish I had a bit more time to work on the finer details of the candies, but overall, I think it worked out nicely.

Finally, the last cake of the year!  This was my favourite.  It was a bit challenging, but was really fun to make.  My friend wanted a cake for her husband’s bday so she gave me  two theme choices.  One was something to do with his occupation (being a chef) and the other had to do with his favourite football team.  It was difficult for me to decide on what I wanted to do.  For the longest time, I had told her I would do the chef theme.  But somehow, someway, I couldn’t get enough ideas for that theme so I went with the football theme.  I’m glad I decided on that last minute.  It was so much fun to make and I couldn’t believe it turned out so well (considering it was my first time making a football cake).  I was really happy it worked out and that they loved the cake!  Great way to end the year!  Happy New Year everyone!

Superhero cake: Spiderman!

I was very excited to work on this cake.  (Well…I’m always excited to work on any cake LOL!).  Our friends wanted a Spiderman cake for their son’s bday cause he loves Spiderman.  Time to get my creative juices flowing.  What do I want to do with the cake?  I had many ideas….too many actually.  I didn’t know which one to use.  In the beginning I wanted to make a small Spiderman figurine and have it lay down on top of the cake with a big spider web around and  with a big number three standing up beside him.  I started making his head, which turned out quite nice.  However, the body just wasn’t working for me.  I tried and tried, but the body always looked deformed.  Finally I gave up on that design and went on to the next one.  I had actually saw something cool on the net before and decided to try and incorporate it into the cake.  It’s called the explosion effect.  I was dying to try it out cause I thought it looked pretty cool.  So what I thought was, I could use that effect and and make Spiderman’s head pop out.  Alright!  That’s what I want to do so let’s get started.

I started on Spiderman’s head which was moulded out of rice krispies.  Instead of covering it with buttercream, I covered it with melted white chocolate.  Once the chocolate hardened, I covered the head with red fondant and set it aside to dry.  As I was waiting, I started to work on the eyes and his mask.  Instead of painting the lines on, I wanted to make thin lines and give it a more 3D look.  However, I only got part of the lines on.  The ones running horizontally didn’t work out as it was too thin and small to handle and kept breaking.  So frustrating.     For those ones, I painted them on instead.  Still worked out nicely.  When all was done, I set it aside to dry.

So now that I got that part done, it’s time to work on the cake.  Because their daughter is allergic to milk, I had to find alternative substitutes.  I was a bit hesitant as I’ve never had to and wasn’t sure how it would turn out.  I read up on some forums and most people seem to substitute with soy milk and was fine with it.  Soy milk was one of the last things I wanted to use because I usually like to have a bit of the cake to taste and make sure it’s good.  But because I’m allergic to soy, I would not be able to try this one out.  I decided to try  almond and rice milk, but they were too thin and didn’t really work well so in the end I ended up using soy milk.  For the filling I wanted to try something different.  It was either going to be whipped coconut cream or coconut custard.  I took the challenge and tried coconut custard.  Wasn’t sure how it was going to work out as I usually use milk to make custard.  For a few days, that was what I was working on. My husband would come home to bowls and bowls of custard LOL!  I mean to make it easy, I could have used soy milk and then added coconut extract, but I rather use real coconut milk.  The taste would be so much better than extract.  My first two batches were very liquidy and the custard just kept sliding off the spatula.  I couldn’t figure out why.    Then someone suggested using custard powder.  Now I’m always hesitant to use instant stuff.  I like to make everything from scratch, but since I tried that and it didn’t work, I thought I’d give the custard powder a go.  No luck, same thing happened.  It’s gotta be something with the coconut milk?  Then it dawned on me…duhhh.  When I made whipped coconut cream, I separated the coconut cream and the coconut water.  Maybe that’s what I need to do with the custard too.  So I tried that method and it worked!!!  It was just like the regular custard I made, only with the smell and taste of coconut…love it!  Everything worked out in the end!  Except that the cake was slightly slanted in the end and that bothered me a lot. Yes, I’m a perfectionist and when one slight thing goes wrong, I get irritated.  It was my fault tho, I was putting the fondant on and didn’t realize that the bottom part was touching the cake and pushed it forward.  Argh!  But I managed to sorta balance it out with the buildings around the cake so that the slant wasn’t as obvious.  Here it is…

So with all the cakes I have made so far, I ask for feed back because I really want to improve and make cakes that my friends and family can enjoy.  As I said before, I don’t want to just make nice looking cakes, but I want them to taste as good as they look.  I’m open to criticism because that’s the only way I’ll learn.  So far they’ve all been positive feedbacks, which is good.  But then I start to wonder if people are just being nice.  My husband thinks I’m just being too hard on myself.  Am I?

I’ve been doing lots of research to see how bakeries get their cakes so nice and sturdy.   I found on forums that some places make cakes with shortening and cake mix.  I was actually surprise.  I personally prefer using healthy ingredients, which is probably why I struggle sometimes to make my cakes work and taste good?  I dunno.  I can’t imagine baking from scratch can taste that bad LOL!  Nonetheless, I have worked out a good recipe and it seems like everyone enjoys it.  I’ve mastered the italian meringue buttercream.  Even though it’s a lot more work, it’s definitely worth it.  I just love how it  melts in the mouth and not crazy sweet like american buttercream.  Next up is a batch of red velvet Christmas cupcakes!

The Dexter challenge!

Sooooo…this was definitely a cake different from all other cakes I have made!  My friend wanted  a cake for her sister’s birthday and I had the privilege of making her that one of a kind cake LOL!  Never in a million years would I think of making such a cake.  I’m too used to the cutesy kiddie ones or ones with flowery decorations.  However, I must say it was challenging, yet fun at the same time.  I have heard of Dexter but never watched it so I had to do some research online and learn some things about Dexter to get some inspirations.  Well, rather then go to the show’s website first, I googled Dexter cakes and wow…that certainly wasn’t what I had in mind.  I was stumped for awhile.  Didn’t know where to start.  All I knew was that it was going to be a bloody cake LOL!

I took a few days to draw out some designs and look through my supplies to see what I could use.  The knife was easy to make, but had to be made in advance so that there was time for it to harden.  I actually made three knives before I was happy with the final one.  I used 1/2 gum paste and 1/2 fondant so that it would harden up quicker.  Then I airbrushed the handle part black and the blade silver.  That was the fun part…love airbrushing.  Once the knife was done, I set it aside to let it sit and dry, then began thinking what to use for the blood part.  Many suggested corn syrup with food colouring, but somehow it looked too messy and I think it would make the fondant too soggy after awhile and that’s the last thing I want… for the cake to sog up and look messy.  I was stumped on it for awhile so I decided to start on the blood slides instead.  I melted some isolmalt and made a few slides and then dripped a drop or two of food colouring on it.  It actually worked out really well.  As I was working on the blood slides, I thought to myself, “Would I be able to make blood with the isomalt?”  Then I decided to experiment with the isomalt and some food colouring.  I had to reheat the isomalt a couple of times before getting the look I wanted for the cake.  I was able to make splattered patterns, but without looking too messy.  I actually liked the idea more than just pouring syrup over the cake.

When everything was done, I had placed the slides, knife and blood on top of the cake (as I had pictured it in my head).  However, something looked off.  I had everything on the top, but what was I going to put on the sides?  Looked too plain.  I was stumped once again.  I asked my husband for some advice and together, we looked at some cake examples again.  I wanted to put some broken glasses around but then it didn’t seem to really flow with the rest of the idea.  Then my brilliant husband suggested I break the slides into pieces and stick them around the cake so that I can get that broken glass effect AND make it fit in with the Dexter theme.  Thank goodness!  I was running out of ideas and time!  In the end it all worked out and I was happy.  More importantly the bday girl liked it!  Was really funny when her friend came to pick up the cake.  Her friend had no idea what the theme was and when she saw the cake, she was speechless.  LOL!   This cake’s filling was whipped coconut cream.  It was my first time making it and I loved the taste of it!

The final product…

‘Tis the season!

Christmas is coming up and I’m feeling really excited!  Lots of goodies baking in the oven!  I had just sent out an order for fondant and other cake materials/ingredients to make more cakes!  As well, I just recently received my airbrush system and “the mat”.   So what’s “the mat”?  It’s the ultimate fondant mat and life saviour!!!  I’m loving it!  It’s a vinyl mat with measurements for rolling out fondant.  It helps me keep track of the measurements (for cake coverage) and keeps the fondant from drying up!  No more elephant skin, tears and whatever!  Best thing about it is that it is food safe!  I’ve used it twice and it does what it says it’ll do!   I’m very happy with the purchase.  Also got my airbrush system and it’s the best thing…I LOVE IT!  However, when I airbrushed the cakes, some spots were darker than other parts, so that’s gonna have to take some practice.

Here’s a toy box cake I made using my two new toys!  The ‘A’ block went a bit soggy. When I poured in the pink shimmer paint, I forgot I had just rinsed the last colour I used, so it mixed in with the water and became runny.  Water with fondant can get messy.  Nevertheless, looks okay. 😛

After this cake I had some time to rest and of course, there’s no such thing for me haha.  I usually like to take my “resting time” to either spend with my boys or work on improving my cake recipes.  Yesterday I made a chocolate cake and some chocolate cupcakes.  It was really yummy and moist.  Not a strong chocolate taste which I liked, but at the same time I felt it could have used a bit more flavour?  But couldn’t figure out what.  So I’m going to try adding some coffee to it next time and we’ll see how that turns out.  For the topping, I didn’t want to use buttercream and tried whipped cream cheese.  I love whipped cream cheese, but never tried it with chocolate.  Mmmm….loved it!

The chocolate cake recipe might still need some tweaking but overall it’s still delicious.  My next few cakes are gonna be a bit of a challenge, but I don’t mind that.  It gives me an opportunity to explore my creativity!  Dexter and Spiderman coming up!