Sunday, February 27, 2011
elements, molecules, atoms....
A friend of mine, who is the Childrens Pastor at our church, and I were having breakfast one day. We were discussing a variety of different topics, and got on the topic of what we enjoy doing outside of work. I was mentioning my love for baking and decorating cakes. That week she emailed me and asked if I could make a cake for a meeting she was having for the volunteers as church. It needed to be a science themed. I was super excited, cause it was technically my first order. I had to go back to school for this one. Science was never a strong subject for me, so I was extremely thankful for google. Not sure if I wanted to make a specific shape or just have a tiered cake with many different items on it. So I opted for the the latter. I found a cool cake online and used it as a template. Instead of making regular pearls to surround the bottom I made it look like molecules. Added a few atoms, an explosion with green slim spilling on top, and a few beakers around the bottom. It was a fun one to make.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Dum Dum Da Dum :)
A good friend of mine got married in January 2010, in the Dominican. It was a beautiful wedding with some of the best food and hands down the BEST fruit punch I have ever tasted! Anyhow because it was such a large trip and a small venue, not everyone was able to attend. So on their first anniversary, they had an anniversary/wedding reception. Another small gathering but an opportunity for those who didn't attend the wedding to celebrate.
On new years eve she approached me to help her make a wedding cake for the reception. She wasn't able to have one in the Dominican, and she wanted to have one. This was my very first wedding cake I have ever attempted; but since I was making my brother's wedding cake in July I needed the practice. So I said yes. I was super excited and super scared. What do I know about making wedding cakes. I haven't covered cakes that big with fondant yet. But she had faith in me, and I had to learn somewhere.She wanted to have a hand in it as well, so she baked all the cakes and I just covered them.
It was a very simple design that she found on a Martha Stewart website. There were many little glitches so it didn't look much like it at all, but it was our inspiration and I think the finished product was pretty decent. (If I was being totally honest I personally though it was awful. It's hard to see past all the imperfections that you know are there, but in the end I felt better about the whole thing.)
It was just four tiers covered in white fondant, with fondant pearls. Then we used the silk flowers from her bouquet to accent it. I'm definitely glad that pictures easily hid the imperfections.
I now have a better idea of what to expect for my next one.
On new years eve she approached me to help her make a wedding cake for the reception. She wasn't able to have one in the Dominican, and she wanted to have one. This was my very first wedding cake I have ever attempted; but since I was making my brother's wedding cake in July I needed the practice. So I said yes. I was super excited and super scared. What do I know about making wedding cakes. I haven't covered cakes that big with fondant yet. But she had faith in me, and I had to learn somewhere.She wanted to have a hand in it as well, so she baked all the cakes and I just covered them.
It was a very simple design that she found on a Martha Stewart website. There were many little glitches so it didn't look much like it at all, but it was our inspiration and I think the finished product was pretty decent. (If I was being totally honest I personally though it was awful. It's hard to see past all the imperfections that you know are there, but in the end I felt better about the whole thing.)
It was just four tiers covered in white fondant, with fondant pearls. Then we used the silk flowers from her bouquet to accent it. I'm definitely glad that pictures easily hid the imperfections.
I now have a better idea of what to expect for my next one.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Homemade Fondant #3
My husband Corey is the youth pastor at our church, and I help lead along side him during our Thursday night program. At the beginning of the year we had a leader meeting, to plan out the next few weeks. We were gonna have a large sub delivered from Subway and we needed some dessert. So my husband suggested I make a cake. This is the first cake I've made since June, but it was the start of hopefully a ton of cakes. We wanted to experiment once again with homemade fondant. So Corey found a better recipe online and got to work making it. It's hard cause I think homemade fondant tastes so much better than some of the pre-made stuff I've tasted but it is definitely harder to work with. It is a lot stickier, and tears really easy. But it did end up working out in the end. All we did was google fondant recipes and used one that was relatively simple and that used ingredients we had in our cupboard.
I made two tiers, one chocolate, one vanilla and I tried to mimic our youth logo on the top. I accidently put the bottom arrow backwards, and when I put the white on the top tier, it started to crack on the one side, so since it's not a suppose to be a perfect uniform logo according to the picture, I just added more cracks to the other side.
I made two tiers, one chocolate, one vanilla and I tried to mimic our youth logo on the top. I accidently put the bottom arrow backwards, and when I put the white on the top tier, it started to crack on the one side, so since it's not a suppose to be a perfect uniform logo according to the picture, I just added more cracks to the other side.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Fondant, Gumpaste, and Tiers....Oh MY!
June-2010
I come from a family of four kids. I am the second oldest. I have an older brother, and a younger brother and sister. We are all pretty close in age, and are all good friends too.
2010 marked the last high school graduation our family would be a part of. My baby sister was finally graduating! After the ceremony we were all going back to my parents house to have a little post grad party. My sister had asked me if I could make her a special cake.
So I decided to try a few things that I've haven't tried before, and hope they turn out.
Like I mentioned in the previous post, I am not too familiar with fondant. I've tried making my own, but it hadn't turned out well, and since this was suppose to be special I wanted it to be perfect. So I tried one more experiment. Wilton has dry fondant mix, were it has all the ingredients in the package and you can make it yourself. But when I made it, it came out super oily, and then as I added icing sugar it dried right out. Only to find out that the mix is not good to use for rolled fondant. Go figure.
So I finally just went and bought the pre-made stuff. The only reason why I have been hesitant up until this point is that it's quite pricey. I've only found it at one store, so it could be cheaper elsewhere, I'm definitely gonna keep on looking.
Another first for me, was that I was going to attempt to make it two tiered.
My plan was to make the top tier look like a graduation cap. The only tricky thing was making the top part, which I tried to cover cardboard with fondant. It worked, but just looked a little sloppy. Over all it looked pretty decent. I will say using fondant gets easier every time you use it.
I come from a family of four kids. I am the second oldest. I have an older brother, and a younger brother and sister. We are all pretty close in age, and are all good friends too.
2010 marked the last high school graduation our family would be a part of. My baby sister was finally graduating! After the ceremony we were all going back to my parents house to have a little post grad party. My sister had asked me if I could make her a special cake.
So I decided to try a few things that I've haven't tried before, and hope they turn out.
Like I mentioned in the previous post, I am not too familiar with fondant. I've tried making my own, but it hadn't turned out well, and since this was suppose to be special I wanted it to be perfect. So I tried one more experiment. Wilton has dry fondant mix, were it has all the ingredients in the package and you can make it yourself. But when I made it, it came out super oily, and then as I added icing sugar it dried right out. Only to find out that the mix is not good to use for rolled fondant. Go figure.
So I finally just went and bought the pre-made stuff. The only reason why I have been hesitant up until this point is that it's quite pricey. I've only found it at one store, so it could be cheaper elsewhere, I'm definitely gonna keep on looking.
Another first for me, was that I was going to attempt to make it two tiered.
My plan was to make the top tier look like a graduation cap. The only tricky thing was making the top part, which I tried to cover cardboard with fondant. It worked, but just looked a little sloppy. Over all it looked pretty decent. I will say using fondant gets easier every time you use it.
Superbowl XLIV-Jan. 2010
Besides Christmas, Easter, our birthdays there is one other day that is my most favorite of the year....Superbowl Sunday! Doesn't even matter who's playing, it's best if it's the Colts but I can't always have it my way.
I just love the game. Not exactly sure what draws me, but I am mesmerized with every game. My favorite team of all time is obviously Peyton Manning and his Indianapolis Colts! I'll never forget years ago when they beat the Bears. It was such a joyous occasion. And I was hoping for the very same outcome last year against the Saints...well didn't go exactly as planned. I remember standing there with my jaw on the floor as i watched bad play after bad play and then the dreaded interception! I always have hope right up to the end, but this time there was none. We lost. I was devastated. At least New Orleans got their win to give the city a boost...but I was still crushed.
But before everything started I wanted to celebrate with a special cake. So I decided it would be cool to try a fondant cake. I haven't had much experience with fondant before this. I had tried to make my own fondant once before, and it turned out ok, not fantastic by any means but it was fine. So I wanted to try it again. So I found the recipe from before, which was super basic, icing sugar, butter, corn syrup and lemon juice. So I tried it again. It wasn't a great recipe, and was super difficult to use. It came out ok in the end, with the help of my husband. But it was really oily and hard to roll out without it sticking to everything, no matter how much icing sugar I used. So needless to say, that was the last time I used that recipe. But the cake turned out pretty good, and everyone seem to enjoy it.
Good Luck next season Colts.
I just love the game. Not exactly sure what draws me, but I am mesmerized with every game. My favorite team of all time is obviously Peyton Manning and his Indianapolis Colts! I'll never forget years ago when they beat the Bears. It was such a joyous occasion. And I was hoping for the very same outcome last year against the Saints...well didn't go exactly as planned. I remember standing there with my jaw on the floor as i watched bad play after bad play and then the dreaded interception! I always have hope right up to the end, but this time there was none. We lost. I was devastated. At least New Orleans got their win to give the city a boost...but I was still crushed.
But before everything started I wanted to celebrate with a special cake. So I decided it would be cool to try a fondant cake. I haven't had much experience with fondant before this. I had tried to make my own fondant once before, and it turned out ok, not fantastic by any means but it was fine. So I wanted to try it again. So I found the recipe from before, which was super basic, icing sugar, butter, corn syrup and lemon juice. So I tried it again. It wasn't a great recipe, and was super difficult to use. It came out ok in the end, with the help of my husband. But it was really oily and hard to roll out without it sticking to everything, no matter how much icing sugar I used. So needless to say, that was the last time I used that recipe. But the cake turned out pretty good, and everyone seem to enjoy it.
Good Luck next season Colts.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Ace of cakes?? not quite...maybe one day
Hey There
Welcome to my new adventure. This is something that has been on my mind for a few years now and am finally having the chance to live it out. What you may ask? cakes...yes, fluffy, delicious and pretty cakes. It all started a couple years ago when I first moved out of my parents house. I just graduated from college and decided to more out and try life on my own. Very scary might I add, but no worries I literally moved down the street. Anyhow, when I finally moved in I started to realize how easy I had, had it and how I now had to make some sacrifices. At home I didn't have to worry about many bills, or grocery shopping. I had free satellite T.V and a fridge full of delicious food. In my cute little apt. it was scorching hot and food-less. So I now was in charge of grocery shopping and paying hydro bills. So indeed sacrifices needed to be made. No satellite T.V for me. But low and behold I was loved and somehow I received...get this FREE Cable!! So pumped! Life was grand. So on those nights when I couldn't sleep there I was glued in front of the television watching none other than the Food Network. May I add that if I had only one channel ever and it was the Food Network, I would be one happy chick. Anyway, I discovered that at midnight every night they had this show called Food Network Challenge. The have 8 hours to create the most intense cakes possible, some even shoot fire! Pretty impressive. And then my favorite show of all was Ace of Cakes. So this has started an itch in me. I was currently working at a dead end job and trying to figure out what i could do to make a living in this world. But what would I do?
Christmas was coming up so I decided to make a cake for my co-workers and this is what came out of that experiment with little to no supplies..
My boss at the time, who rarely showed emotion toward her employees was pretty excited about it. So I kept treking on, what else could I do. But with limited supplies not much. But my very observant boyfriend, who is now my wonderful husband, picked up on this new hobby and spoiled me a little on my birthday with new tools to keep practicing. This was cake number two...
I made a few over the next few months. It was difficult to try much more, only because money was tight and I couldn't really afford to continue. So it came to a halt. But here is a few others before that happened.
This last picture was one a did for a superbowl kickoff...ya i lost because my super talented husband who did this for the first time kicked my but..and also the judges hate coconut...who knew?
So it's only fair to show the winning cake ;)
not bad for an amateur eh? hahaha
Well this comes to the end of the first chapter. But just recently after my husband and I got hitched have I had the opportunity to venture into the world of cakes again. More blogs to come with more recent work, and my journey with fondant. Hopefully these are too annoying to read, I'm new at this ;)
Welcome to my new adventure. This is something that has been on my mind for a few years now and am finally having the chance to live it out. What you may ask? cakes...yes, fluffy, delicious and pretty cakes. It all started a couple years ago when I first moved out of my parents house. I just graduated from college and decided to more out and try life on my own. Very scary might I add, but no worries I literally moved down the street. Anyhow, when I finally moved in I started to realize how easy I had, had it and how I now had to make some sacrifices. At home I didn't have to worry about many bills, or grocery shopping. I had free satellite T.V and a fridge full of delicious food. In my cute little apt. it was scorching hot and food-less. So I now was in charge of grocery shopping and paying hydro bills. So indeed sacrifices needed to be made. No satellite T.V for me. But low and behold I was loved and somehow I received...get this FREE Cable!! So pumped! Life was grand. So on those nights when I couldn't sleep there I was glued in front of the television watching none other than the Food Network. May I add that if I had only one channel ever and it was the Food Network, I would be one happy chick. Anyway, I discovered that at midnight every night they had this show called Food Network Challenge. The have 8 hours to create the most intense cakes possible, some even shoot fire! Pretty impressive. And then my favorite show of all was Ace of Cakes. So this has started an itch in me. I was currently working at a dead end job and trying to figure out what i could do to make a living in this world. But what would I do?
Christmas was coming up so I decided to make a cake for my co-workers and this is what came out of that experiment with little to no supplies..
My boss at the time, who rarely showed emotion toward her employees was pretty excited about it. So I kept treking on, what else could I do. But with limited supplies not much. But my very observant boyfriend, who is now my wonderful husband, picked up on this new hobby and spoiled me a little on my birthday with new tools to keep practicing. This was cake number two...
I made a few over the next few months. It was difficult to try much more, only because money was tight and I couldn't really afford to continue. So it came to a halt. But here is a few others before that happened.
This last picture was one a did for a superbowl kickoff...ya i lost because my super talented husband who did this for the first time kicked my but..and also the judges hate coconut...who knew?
So it's only fair to show the winning cake ;)
not bad for an amateur eh? hahaha
Well this comes to the end of the first chapter. But just recently after my husband and I got hitched have I had the opportunity to venture into the world of cakes again. More blogs to come with more recent work, and my journey with fondant. Hopefully these are too annoying to read, I'm new at this ;)
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