Happy Sunday! This weekend brought two birthdays and two very different cakes! Today I'm going to share Kali's 8th Birthday cake! Little Miss picked an "Under the Sea" theme this year. Not really Ariel, not really Nemo...but with that same flavor. I couldn't wait to make the cake!

 First things first...all of the little critters that go on the side of the cake have to be made a little bit ahead of time. I wanted them to still be soft yet firm so I made most of them the day before I worked on the actual cake. When making a "cartoon" cake you don't have to be all so careful about the real natural details about the animal but rather just enough detail that people will know "oh yeah, that's a jellyfish" . All of the little guys on this cake are hand moulded from fondant.

 I started out with two layers in a hexagon shape of vanilla cake filled with apricot filling. Then I covered the entire cake in vanilla buttercream. I made two fondant panels to go on the sides of the cake and leave the top open for the "water" buttercream. I then added a trim strip of fondant for the "sand". I piped on buttercream over the strip and used a paintbrush to swirl the frosting around the cake. Then I used graham cracker crumbs pressed into the buttercream for the seabed.

 After I finished prepping the sides of the cake I piped on the "water". To make the water look more realistic I mixed in blue gel color but didn't mix it very well. I wanted white bits along with the blue. I then used the paintbrush again to swirl and make the water choppy looking.

 Then it was time to add the details. I added the seaweed, the island and the fish on the sides as well as the tube coral then the last touches were placing the starfish and crabs. The eyes on all of the critters are just white fondant with a black food dye dot painted in the center.

Finally I made the umbrella for the island. To do this you just cut a circle out of scrapbook paper, then cut a slit into the center and fold the paper around to create the cone. I put a ball of fondant into the inside center of the cone and pushed a skewer thru it so the tip stuck out of the top. I then secured it into place with a red ball of fondant for the final color touch. Super easy to do.

I was thrilled to, once again, be part of Kali's special day! Happy Birthday Kali!!

Next week I'll share with you my husbands birthday cake since his birthday was also this weekend!

Cat

Happy Sunday! Hope November is treating you just fine and that you are enjoying the Fall colors and not suffering from it's many storms. I do know of lots of people last week who got slammed by Hurricane Sandy and just as they got power back got slammed by the Nor'easter snow storm. So I hope that you are doing well, even if you fit into that unfortunate group who has had to weather two storms in two weeks.

This week I get to present to you a Wedding Cake that I'm particularly proud of. This cake proves, again, that you don't have to be big to be gorgeous. The bottom tier is an 8x4 inch round and the top tier is a 6x4 inch round. Just enough to feed 50 people. The theme was an Art Deco black and white with touches of red here or there and I figured a Tuxedo along with an Art Deco designed Wedding Dress would help set the mood of the party. And, yes, that is Mickey and Minnie up there on top in that delicate crystal and blown glass cake topper.

The cake was lemon chiffon with an orange creamsicle filling and covered in vanilla flavored fondant. As always, the black fondant is Duff's brand. I love the way it tastes. The white fondant is freshly made so it tastes wonderfully too. 

The Tuxedo is all angles and not as hard as you would think to do when you break it all down to it's geometric shapes. First I covered the entire cake in the black and then cut out a triangle of white. I scored the white in vertical lines and then applied it to the front of the cake. At that same time I made the little collar triangles and set them aside to dry a bit. Then I made a big rectangle of black and cut it diagonally. I then tipped one of those triangles over onto the other so "fronts" were face to face and then made the angle a bit more severe to create the lapels. After placing those onto the cake I made the little bow tie and placed it at the top of the white "shirt". I backed away at this point and let everything dry for a bit so the sugars could adhere. When that was done I just took little black candy and pressed them into the white. Then, using a damp brush, moistened the indention's with water and placed the candy into them to secure them to the shirt. Then it was time to set the collar on top with a bit more water. Finally I made the tiny Calla Lily boutonniere and placed that onto the lapel with a bit more water. At last I was ready to move the cake over to the stand and add the trim. The trim is just a strip of black fondant that I have scored every 1/8th of an inch or so from end to end. I set all of that to the side and began work on the white tier.

As with all Wedding Dresses, the construction of one out of fondant is complicated. This is actually a lot of little pieces that have been carefully put together like a puzzle. I started off with covering the entire cake with a thin sheet of white fondant. Then, using 1/2 inch strips, I laid on the draping one strip at a time so that it created a pleated look. Finally I used rounded end strips to create the Art Deco styled emblem on the front. All of these are adhered to the cake with a light brushing of water. I added the trim to match the black trim and then came the real work, the pearls. I have a pair of bead tweezers that are angled just for putting small candies on cakes like these candy pearls. I brushed the surface with water first and laid down a whole bunch of pearls onto the moist surface so they could adhere and then, one by one, filled out the edge and trim. This is tedious work because you have to dip the edge of the pearl into water and then place it onto the cake. This is complicated by the fact that they want to pop right off again if you don't hold it into place long enough for the sugars to adhere. But the effect is stunning, like complicated bead work on a real wedding dress. I let this set up until I knew the pearls were solid onto the cake and then stacked the Wedding Dress onto the Tuxedo. 

When transporting a cake like this always have back up pieces for the candy. The vibration of travel can knock the pearls or candy "studs" right off of the cake and you may have to replace them when you reach the venue. Fortunately that didn't happen with this cake until it came time to cut it and then pearls were rolling everywhere!

So no matter the size of the wedding you are having you can have a stunning cake. This little work of art was $4 a slice and the talk of the event. Even the Groom was Wow'd by it and loved the fact that "he" was part of the cake as well as his wife. 

Next week we begin the Birthday Cakes for this month! Can't wait to share with you next Sunday!

Cat

Happy Sunday and Happy November! This month is a hectic one in our family. Lots of birthdays and Anniversaries along with Thanksgiving thrown in there just for fun! This means lots of Pumpkin flavored items so you will see quite a few items featured in the November blogs this month!

But today we focus on a Birthday. Since this is our Anniversary week, I took the week off, but this is a cake I did a couple of weeks ago. It has a bit of an inside joke to it. The client loves boats. Ok, to be clear, the client loves Tall Ships. He turns 40 in a few years and wants an all out cake with masts and rigging, the whole 9 yards. Well, he will wait till he's 40 but really wanted a ship cake this year. His wife and I came up with this kids sail boat for a laugh this year. He got a really good laugh out of it too!

It's really a simple cake to make. Just start out with a square cake. This one is a 10x10x2. Cut it diagonally and then cut off the point of one of those halves. Now you have the big sail, the little sail and the base of the boat. I used vanilla buttercream for the sails and whipped chocolate ganache for the boat. 

Whipped ganache is really really easy. Just make regular ganache and let it sit, covered, overnight in the fridge. Then put that into your mixer and whip. It spreads easily and pipes easily and it just SO good! I used a basketweave tip for the wood "planks" and then a round tip to trim. The "life preserver" is a gummy lifesaver candy with some fondant wrapped over it and then attached with a dot of the ganache.

The sails were just smooth iced. I didn't want to make it too smooth since there is supposed to be wind in those sails. Finally I used the ganache to pipe the mast and stuck a paper flag into the top. The lettering/numbering refers to the clients and their birthdays. A way of personalizing the cake for them both.

So if you have a little one, or a big one, who is in love with ships or you are having a Sailing or Sailor themed party then maybe you could make this cake for your group to enjoy!

See you next week with a new wedding cake!

Cat

Happy Sunday! This week brought our 25th Wedding Anniversary Party! It is tons of fun to be able to work on your own cake as a cake artist. You get to choose everything that YOU like. Since this is our party we also did all the planning work on it as well. We picked a "World Travelers" theme since we both love to travel and have, together and separately, traveled a good part of the world for either business or vacation. 

The mans Valise is modeled after a real one that sells on Amazon for $1200...yup, someone out there is actually buying this beat up looking valise for that kind of money. We know that they are buying them because there is a big "Only 2 left" sign on the post as well! LOL! Anyway, I wanted a small masculine looking case that looked like it had traveled the world, been bumped and beaten along it's way. 

I started with a 6x10 shallow cake pan and baked two layers of chocolate cake. I filled that with chocolate brownie buttercream and then, because I knew the covering fondant was going to be dark, I also crumbcoated the cake in the same buttercream. When it came to the fondant I tinted it a medium brown and then "paneled" the cake using long strips of fondant rather than a full covering. I find I get sharper corners this way and wanted to construct the case more like the real case would have been constructed. Once I had all the base panels on the cake I started working on all the little details from the little leather "posts" to the straps to the lock I let it sit up for about an hour to let the sugars bond before I started painting it. 

When it was time to paint I knew I wanted a very very dark brown with black overtones so I mixed up some vanilla flavoring with a bit of water and brown gell color. I then added a "hunk" of black gell into the container and stirred it up just a little bit. I wanted to pick up the almost pure gell so that there would be really dark patches here or there on the cake. I didn't want a uniform look to the finish since it's supposed to be well weathered leather. When mimicking wood you want to make a "grain" so you paint all in one direction, but with leather you want to paint in all different directions, let it dry a short bit and then paint it in all different directions again. This gives you layers of color and patterns rather than a flat or grained surface.

The last things to do is to make the handle, which I painted and let sit overnight before attaching it to the case, and the lock. The lock was painted with some bronze luster dust mixed with vanilla. I then went over that with the other brown/black color to make it look worn.

Now onto the Train Case. Much easier than the valise the train case is just a 6 x 3 inch cake that has had a bit cut off one side to make the "bottom" of the case. With it lying on it's side I then cut the cake into vertical thirds, not horizontal like you would normally. I then stood that up on the flat edge, with a cake board under it, and filled it with vanilla buttercream so that the filled and crumbcoated cake was a standing round. Just like with the valise I paneled this cake. I put on the rounds first and then added the strips for the sides. Once those were in place I added the white strips. These were punched with a pronged tool to make it look like stitching before application and then applied with water. The last pieces were the lock and the handle. All of that was made from the light blue fondant and then the handle and lock were painted silver, let dry and then placed on the cake. The handle was then inserted into the button and the final piece of fondant panel was placed on the base where the handle meets the button and painted on the cake. 

The final step was the banner. This strip was a 14 inch long piece of fondant rolled out really thin. Then I gently stretched out the sides here or there before I handpainted the wording on. The saying "No Matter Where In The World I Travel, The Best Part Is Coming Home To You!" is because, even after 25 years, we still miss each other greatly while we are apart. I handpainted the saying to match the seating cards which are in a similar font. Piping it would have given too clean of lines and not matched the concept as well. I just used a fine tip brush and black gell paint that has not been watered down at all. If you use clear alcohol to thin it then it's going to spread into any cracks or pits that are part of the fondant surface so you need to use it in pure gell form.

The only non edible parts on this cake are the keys and tags. The keys are part of the overall party concept and the tags match the Seating Cards and Favor Tags. To see the entire party plan just hop on over to the Party Blog: http://thecherryontopevents.blogspot.com/ where I have posted the entire event.

Next week is Halloween so you know that there will be treats to share!

Cat

Good Morning! Happy Monday! I know, I know, I'm a day late but I have a great excuse! I was out celebrating up my 50th Birthday with family in San Jose. Two full days of fun that landed me so tired back home late last night. I figured I could give myself a break...and bring you all a special cake.

Now, as a caker, and I'm sure there are others out there that can relate, I often take on projects that I think "sure I can do that" and then when it comes time TO do that I start to wonder what in the world I was thinking. This Mahjong cake was one of those times. Now creating the "box" wasn't the hard part. I could figure out exactly what I needed to do to make it look right. But, here's the thing...I don't speak Chinese. I don't write Chinese. And all I have ever heard about writing either Japanese or Chinese is that it is really really easy to write something completely different from what you intended just because you put a blunt point on one end and a pointed end on the other when it's supposed to be the other way around.  So when it came to hand painting the tiles I was really stressed that I wasn't doing it right and might insult the client rather than overjoy her. At that point I was seriously wondering why I didn't have the characters made out of edible transfer paper and just smooth them onto the fondant with a bit of buttercream! But it was too late for that so I just dove in. 

The client loves exotic cake and filling flavors so this year we went with coconut cake with lemon filling. The combination was heavenly! The trick is to not go too heavily with the flavoring. You want a lightly flavored cake, not one that overwhelms you with coconut. Recently I went to Hawaii and while there found a small bottle of coconut flavoring that ended up being perfect for this process. Fortunately I have found that I can order it online so I can use it again and again if I need this wonderful tasting cake again. I used 2 teaspoons per cake layer and that seemed to be just right. 

Basically you start off with a square, cover it in buttercream and then I rolled up "snakes" of fondant to go around the top edges of the square. This was to create an inset area on the top of the cake for the "felt" board. I then rolled out a thin layer of green fondant and put that on the top so that it draped a bit over those fondant rolls and then gently pushed it down into the well and smoothed it out. After that I started paneling. I cut out 8x4 inch panels for each side and then 1x8 inch panels for the trim. The trim covered the green rolls at the top to create a rounded lip on the box. Then I painted the box. Normally I use vodka with gell food colors but this time I mixed a bit of the coconut flavoring into that as well so the cake smelled divine when I was done painting! Two coats of that and the "wood" was done. I swear it feels magical how quickly the fondant looks like wood!

Now came the tiles. I rolled out a thick piece of white fondant and then turned that over so the smooth side was facing down. Then, on another mat, I rolled out a thinner layer of lighter green fondant. I brushed the white with a thin mist of water and then laid the green on top. You have to walk away at this point because the sugars need to melt together to form a bond. I waited an hour but two would have been better. Then I used a rectangular cookie cutter to cut out the tiles. I cut out 36 because I knew I needed some for the top, some for the "Dragon hand" and then some for the Happy Birthday lettering. 

I let these set for another 30 minutes and then picked out the tiles I knew would face white side up. These needed to be the most perfect and smooth of the group so I picked them out carefully. Now here is where I get honest. I actually picked out more than I needed because I knew I'd mess up on the lettering. And, sure enough I did. 3 or 4 of those stacked tiles on top of the cake have failed paintings on the white side! LOL! So give yourself a little wiggle room when it comes to this part of the process. 

The "Dragon Hand" is supposed to be the perfect Mahjong hand that you can get. Now I only play the online version which is basically matching things up so I know nothing of what the real game entails. I looked up several different photos of these tiles so I could stand a chance of getting them right for the cake. The "window pane" tiles are my favorites. I thought they would be really hard but they turned out looking right almost immediately! The only ones I felt confident in were the rose plant tiles on the top. So, no, as a caker, you don't feel like you are doing anything perfectly all of the time and there is a little stress, as well as excitement, when you are making a cake like this.

The Happy Birthday tiles are just piped letters so as long as you practice your piping this should be the easiest part of this cake! I decided to use a blue piping because it was a totally different color than any I had used on the cake and I wanted to try to coordinate it with the little light blue chips and the light blue "window pane" tiles. The chips are just colored fondant that have been cut out with a small circle cutter then stacked. I did use a drop of buttercream between each chip to make them sturdy. The dice are also just cubes of fondant and I used a food color marker to make the dots.

I delivered the cake to the client who was out at a Chinese restaurant celebrating with family and was SO relieved that I managed to thrill and not insult everyone there. Even the servers were thrilled with the cake. For an artist that is a bigger payoff than the price of the cake. To know that you got everything right on it and that the client as well as the Birthday Guy was very happy with your creation is a wonderful feeling.

The client this upcoming week is ME! We are celebrating our 25th Wedding Anniversary on Saturday so I am making a stacked cake for us. We are gathering with lots of family for this celebration and making it quite the event. I will share all sorts of photos with you all here and over at our Party Blog site next Sunday!

See you then!
Cat

Happy Sunday! Today brings an "out of the box" type of Wedding Cake. This one was for a small family occasion with only 11 people in attendance. The theme was Mexican Fiesta but the cake was a nod to the Southern background of the family as well. 

For some a white buttercream or fondant covered cake just isn't what they had in mind for their wedding day. In this instance, the Boston Creme Pie, is a family favorite and a treat that is not had too often so it was the perfect choice for this day. 

I had to do some research to find out why this dessert, which is clearly a cake, is called a pie. Turns out that in the mid Nineteenth Century there were a whole lot more pie tins than cake pans around so many cakes were baked in pie tins instead. The Parker House Hotel in Boston is credited with the creation of this amazing dessert and still makes and serves it to this day, even though the hotel is now part of the Omni line. 

Somehow this became one of those Southern Desserts that is so popular along with "Ice Box Cake" but it's not so well known out here in California. I have had Boston Creme Pies several times in my life because it was my Dad's favorite. Raised in Tennessee it was something his Aunt made from time to time. So over the years this yellow cake filled with vanilla pudding and topped off with ganache appeared from time to time on our table but I had never made one, until now. 

It's a standard vanilla cake recipe but with an extra egg added to firm up the texture a bit. Even if you don't make homemade vanilla pudding you can use the box instant kind. It doesn't taste as rich but it works in a pinch. Homemade vanilla pudding isn't the easiest thing for a beginning cook to make but it's worth the hassle. Lastly is ganache. That is a 2 parts chocolate to 1 part cream recipe. Just break up the chocolate, I like to use dark chocolate, and then pour over the heated cream. Let that melt for about 30 seconds and then stir till smooth and glossy. It will be too runny to pour over the cake at this point. You will need to let it cool down and thicken up for at least 20 minutes before you can pour it over. The recipe I have literally says: bake a cake, split and fill with vanilla pudding and top with a chocolate sauce like ganache. Yup, that simple. 

Now traveling with this is dicey. I only had about a 40 minute drive but I decided to put a skewer down the middle of the top to hold this cake together for the trip. With the filling being such a soft filling it would be natural for the cake to start to slide. Using the skewer holds the top to the bottom until you arrive at the venue. When you pull the skewer out just swirl the ganache to make a little point on top for decoration.

The soft filling also makes this cake a challenge to cut. This is what I do. I cut the first slice and then insert the guests fork on one side as I cut the other side to form a wedge shape. Then the fork makes a good reinforcement for laying the cake onto the plate. The fork ends up under the cake slice and the slice is all in one piece. Keep working your way around the cake in this fashion until the very last slice. As you cut that last wedge into two pieces another hand with a fork is a handy thing to have. So you end up with a fork on each side of the big wedge and then when you cut in between them you just let the two slices fall onto the forks for serving.

After a spicy dinner of chile rellenos, beans, rice, salsa, quesadillas and Mexican casserole, the Boston Creme Pie was a cooling creamy treat at the end of the night. It was a fun celebration and we are very happy to have been included.

Next week is a fun cake...a Game Box Birthday Cake! I'm keeping which game it is a secret until next Sunday!

Cat

Happy Sunday! This week brings Dinner Party Cupcakes! This client is a huge fan of chocolate with caramel but since the last few orders have been dark chocolate cake she wanted to mix it up a bit. So I suggested yellow cupcakes with chocolate and caramel accent flavors instead. She loved the idea!

Adding filling inside a cupcake is pretty easy to do but adding candy to the inside is a bit tricky. Yup, there are actual tricks to this process. First of all you need to make your batter a bit more dense than normal. This means you can either add another egg, giving your cupcake a poundcake type of consistancy, or you can add less water or milk to make the batter thicker. I always add the extra egg to mine. The reason this is so important is that if the batter is of normal consistancy the candy is going to drop right to the bottom of the cupcake instead of being in the center. I have used Hershey kisses, mini Reeses cups and now I can say I've used ROLO's.

After you have put the batter into the cups take the candy and submerge it about 3/4 of the way into the batter. You will still be able to see about 1/3 of the candy sticking up out of the top. Now as the batter cooks and rises it will cover the candy and the weight of the candy will also help it to sink down into the middle.

ROLO's are a bit heavier than any candy I have worked with to date so I had no idea how far they would actually sink. Turns out they ended up about 3/4 down the center of the cupcake, not half way like I wanted. So next time I use them I will know to only put the candy in so that half of it is sticking up out of the batter.

But you can see that it leaves a yummy gooey caramel and chocolate surprise for the guest to discover! Really YUMMY!

The topper is also a ROLO. I just sprinkled graham cracker crumbs onto a baking sheet and then placed the candy on top. Into the oven at the same time as the cupcakes except that these only bake for 5 minutes. Once they came out I used an offset spatula sprayed with cooking spray to flatten them out over the graham cracker crumbs. Then, while still warm, sprinkled them with gold colored sugar. Then I took them off the tray and put them in the freezer to set up while the cupcakes finished baking and cooling.

I used a soft buttercream recipe so the top would be soft and creamy, drizzled it with chocolate sauce and added the rounds of melted ROLO's to the top. The hostess and her guests were very happy to see these arrive and, of course, I saved a few for my own family so we can have a treat as well!

Next week I get to share with you a special family treat! See you then!

Cat