Shoes and Bowtie Buttercream Cake–Tutorials included.

My friend Mark asked if I would make a birthday cake for two and make it girly.  The other requirement was chocolate and that yellow be incorporated.  Okey dokey. 

I wanted to try the large bow that crushed my spirit after the last cake I made (it broke when I put it on the cake).  This time I used Lesley’s of Royal Bakery’s tutorial on how she makes her bows and victory!  It didn’t break and looks actually like a bow.  Yay me!

I also tried Laura’s of Krazy Kool Cakes tried and true how to get the buttercream flat and crisp edges.  I’m 90% there and feeling groovy.

I would recommend both theses tutorials. They are fabulous.

Finally I made those tiny shoes out of fondant.  I used Cakes by Lynz’s how to make mini gumpaste shoes.  You can find it here.  The template is available in Lynsey’s tutorial.

I hope these tutorials help in your attempts in the world of cakes and I hope you enjoyed my creation!

Thanks for looking!

Recent Cakes II

For this second installment of cakes, I made these for the caterer I help out occasionally.

This applique cake I made for the owner’s own birthday.

I made this Lady Gaga Pop Art cake for a staff’s birthday.

These two cakes were made for a charity event.

I gotta say, this one tormented me and I’m still not sure about it.  It’s suppose to be a Sombrero Hat cake.

These two buttercream flower beauties were made for Mark’s mom’s 85th.

And this was my most recent.  I’m still not 100% buttercream smooth, but I’m getting there.  And then topped it with a few sugar flowers.

                       

So there you have it, my cakes!

Thanks for looking

Recent Cakes I

Not only do I made cookies, but I sometime dabble in cakes too!  Here’s a few that I’ve made for family and friends.

This fun cake I made for a friend’s son who loves Cars.  Buttercream with cookies.

This one I made for my daughter’s friend Maiah.  Buttercream with fondant details.

I made these guys for a friend’s daughter’s birthday.  I’m mad at myself because I took awful pictures of the cake.  But these guys turned out awesome.

I made this Monster High cake for my daughter Abby.  It’s a 6” buttercream with fondant details.

This Buzz Lightyear cookie cake I made for a friend’s one who was turning 3!

I had fun surprising my husband with his favourite movie in cake form.  This was an 8’ black forest cake!

This adorable 4” cake I made for a baby shower.  Vanilla bean with chocolate ganache filling.

And this was for the office party.

Thanks for looking!

Happy Birthday to Me and My Rowan!!!

The joke in our house is that I gave Rob and I children for our birthdays.  Abby is 6 days after Rob’s birthday in July and Rowan is 4 days after mine.  I’m January 28th and Rowan is February the first!  So as you can imagine lots of cake goes down at our house at least two times a year :)

My birthday is pretty standard.  Dinner with the family and then carrot cake (recipe below too)  I get to play with ideas I’ve not yet tried.  This year I decided I wanted to try the buttercream rosette cake.  Now the only issue is that I prefer my carrot cake naked, however there are others in my house who prefer icing.  This seemed like an appropriate compromise.

I didn’t get to rest on my laurels for very long because next up was Rowan’s Lavagirl cake.  First off, I hate making characters on cookies and figurines out of gumpaste.  Less so of the latter.   But when this face asks, you say yes.

Now she did give me free reign on the design but it had to look like lava; there had to be a volcano; Lavagirl had to be on it and oh yes, flowers, lots of flowers.  Right!

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of Sharkboy and Lavagirl this is the movie poster.  And yes, that is Taylor Lautner of Twilight fame.  His acting was just as bad.  But she loves it and that’s really all that matters.

First I had to make the cake look like lava.  So I used red food colouring in the cake to give it a lava look.  Filled it with chocolate butercream and covered it in marbled fondant.  So far so good.

Then I made the volcano out of rice krispie treats and covered it in black and red marbled fondant.  Then I placed it on top, added some lava fondant beads, some flowers and of course Lavagirl herself.  As requested!

I have to admit I was pretty proud of my first hibiscus.  It may not be a traditional colour, but it worked!

My Lavagirl had a great little party at Monkey Joe’s with her friends.  The bounced for an hour, ate pizza and cake and then back to bouncing.  Tired kids are happy kids or maybe that’s happy mommies.

Now I normally make cookies for goodie bags but this year I was fortunate that my friend Laurie of Cookie Bliss made them.  We got Rowan a logo for her birthday, as she wants to own her own restaurant when she’s grown up. Rowan’s Food Never Fails. 

I sent it to Laurie and these are the cookies she came up with.  They are brilliant!

We have several left and I can’t bring myself to eat them as they are so awesome.  Don’t worry, Rowan doesn’t have such an issue.  A cookie is a cookie, especially when it’s a really tasty cookie :)

Now I can rest until July for the next set of birthday cakes in this family.  I’d also like to take a moment to thank everyone who wished Rowan and I a happy birthday on my Facebook page.  The love was overwhelming.

Thanks for looking!

Carrot Cake Recipe:

• 4 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups apple sauce
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 cups grated carrots

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, apple sauce, white sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots. 
3. Pour into prepared pan.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
5. Ice cake with favourite icing.  I used lemon buttercream.
6. Enjoy!

January is for birthday!

At least for me!  My birthday is tomorrow and oh yes there will be cake.  But you’ll have to come back to find out what I whip up.

I also know of 15 others born in this great month plus my Rowan’s birthday is February 1st, so lots of cakes to be done.  No I don’t make them all, just for a select few.  I also had the opportunity of making a cake this year for a new friend, Mark.  Mark is the owner of Mark Day Company, Caterer.  He emailed me before Christmas to ask if I would make some cookies for the holiday rush and I said sure!  Then he went through my portfolio on Flickr and saw a cake in my feed plus some day of the dead cookies and asked if I would make them for his birthday. UMMMMM…OK.

It also happened to be on the same weekend as our next door neighbour’s son’s birthday and I usually do his cake too.  I don’t do a lot of cakes and two in one week is certainly extraordinary but what the heck.

I started by making some cookies and by some I mean one hundred Day of the Dead cookies.  Now when Mark went through my Flickr he ordered based on this picture.  I’m embarrassed now but at the time I made them three years ago I was uber proud.  The picture is bloody aweful too.

I told his that they were a while ago and my piping on cookies was definitely at a different caliber now, so I could probably make them nicer.  So I made him these…actually 100 of these. And yes my hand did cramp.

The cake he wanted was a replica of the cake I did at a course I did at Swank Cake Design here in Raleigh.  It’s been two years but sure I can do that, at least I hope I can :)  But man I have to make a flower too and I haven’t done one of those in over 5 years, especially one on a wire.  I guess I better practice and so I did.

It turned out better than I expected on the first go, it ended up being the one I used.  That was a good sign. I then made the recommended gumpaste from scratch and practiced on the applique cutters and they seemed to work, so I decided I was ready.  After the cookies were complete, I moved on to the cake.  The cake was a dark chocolate sponge with fudge buttercream filling and coated with chocolate ganache.  I really like working with ganache, it smooths so beautifully. 

Add a fondant coat and it’s ready for the applique and voila…looked pretty good.  The words are an inside joke, I think :)

Now Mark also wanted some simple rosette cupcakes for which I forgot to take a picture, so lets use our imaginations, shall we.  They were vanilla bean cupcakes with a simple syrup and a vanilla bean buttercream peach rosette on top.

I dropped them all off in the swanky location, got to finally meet Mark and then I was off back into the kitchen to make cake number two!  This one was slightly less stressfull.  Tyler turned four and he wanted cookies but his mum wanted cake, so I combined the two.  He’s also all about the movie Cars and Cars 2, so I made some cookies.  I made all the big names and added Guido “pit-stop” because he’s my favourite.  Sorry about the bad picture, I forgot to take a good one.

Then I used the same vanilla bean cake as in the cupcakes and made a simple 8” cake covered in buttercream.  I tried the Viva towel method for smoothing and for the first time it worked.  I added the cookies and now cake two was done and I can take a very short break.

This week I’m making my cake and my daughter’s 6th birthday cake.  You’ll have to wait until next week to see what I made us :)

Thanks Mark for taking a chance on me for your birthday party and as always Tyler, I love making you smile!

Thanks for looking!

Recipes used this week:

• Chocolate Cake
• Vanilla Cake and cupcakes by Glorious Treats
• Buttercream
• Fondant
• Royal Icing by Bake at 350

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Firemen Themed Cake–An Adventure for Icing Smiles

Around this time last year I was asked to make a cake for Icing Smiles, the charity who puts together families who have a sick child and volunteer bakers, so these sick kids and their siblings can have a cake for their birthday.  I mean who needs to worry about a cake when their baby is sick.  Here enters Icing Smiles!  So when I got the call to duty, I jumped (very gingerly as it was the start of all my back issues but didn’t know it) and said yes and then ended up in the hospital myself.  I felt awful as I had to cancel just a week before the cake was due.

Now fast forward to this past October and again I received another call to duty.  I wasn’t going to say no.  I was so excited and nervous.  I haven’t made a cake in forever.  My back felt pretty strong and was ready to get started.  I got a wonderful email from the parents of the soon-to-be three year old boy, Jordon,  who would be receiving my cake.  His theme was a fire truck, so the colours were black, red, yellow and white and he also wanted buttercream not fondant…damn.

Buttercream cakes and I have never gotten along.  I prefer them to fondant too, but I’ve never successfully been able to give it that uber smooth look that some cake decorators can do. I also don’t have the skills to give it the look of a professional uber expensive baker and then realized I don’t have too. I can make pretty awesome cookies, so I decided I would combine the two!

Another request was for chocolate cake and chocolate ganache filling.  I used our family favourite chocolate cake recipe and a simple chocolate ganache recipe.

I baked them off on the first day.  Sadly two of my cakes cratered in the middle so we got testers.  The girls were super excited and I got to do quality control. The perks :)

Day two I made ganache then filled and crumb coated all three tiers.  Gotta say I love ganache.  So easy to spread and make “smooth”.  Not knife edge smooth but pretty darn close.  I also decorated the cookies I was going to use on the cake and the topper cookie.

Day three I buttercreamed the three layers and then stacked them whilst holding my breath.  My heart was beating pretty strong, I could hear it in my head.  Once assembled and standing straight I added the cookies and some buttercream accents.  I wanted to take a picture outside for the good lighting and walked very slowly as I carried it out the back door.  No I didn’t drop it.

I then packaged it up and waited for it to be picked up.  So stressful. Plus I got a picture of the ladders going up the side of the cake. I don’t normally do cakes for other people outside family and friend, so delivery boxes aren’t something I have lying around.  So I had to make-shift a box to allow for three tiers.

And here it is all complete and ready for it’s party.

I’d like to tell you there’s an awesome happy ending at this point.  About 3 hours after dad picked up the cake I got an email from mom telling me that the cake had shifted and collapsed in the fridge.  I was devastated.  I felt hopeless because at this point there wasn’t much I could do for them.  I responded with my absolute apologies and didn’t know how it could have happened.  When placed in the their car it was a bit off level but nothing to be concerned about but I guess I was wrong.  I’m no professional, clearly, but sadly accidents happened.  In my response I also asked if all the tiers were ruined or if it had just crushed the bottom level.  If so, then remove it and use the top two. I also offered to whip up some cupcakes and deliver them myself before the party started.  She emailed me back and thanked me for all my help and upon a second look the suggestions I made would work and she could save the cake.  Relief poured over me but was still sad that the cake wouldn’t be exactly as I had intended for him, at least there will be cake.  Maybe when the Raleigh Fire Department arrives with an actual truck he won’t care that the cake wasn’t perfect or at least as intended.

So, would I do this again?  Absolutely!  I will, however, never NOT deliver it myself.

Thank you Icing Smiles for letting me take part. If you are interested in volunteering, click here and find out how!

Happy Birthday Jordan, I hope your day was amazing!

Thanks for looking!

Treat Day Wednesday–Rainbow Swirl Red Velvet Cupcakes

Well welcome back to another school year.  What with so much travelling and goings on here at the Bond/Bissett house, I decided to take the summer off from Treat Days.  But now that school is officially in, both kids are now full time, I’ve started it back up again.

Abby is now in 3rd grade and Rowan started kindergarten.  Honestly I’m happy and sad and I have no idea what to do with myself.  I don’t have to entertain every afternoon or watch either Disney Channel or Cartoon Network anymore during the day.  I get to do whatever I want (she’s says like there isn’t a ton of laundry, cleaning and grocery shopping to be done).  Anyway, it’s a big day here!

I’ve been so off of the baking kick lately that I didn’t have any ideas of what to make for the first 2013-2014 Treat Day Wednesday.  So I cheated.  I used a mix (please don’t take away my baker card) and then I used what I had in the pantry and gave them a wee bit of a makeover.

I used this mix I got at BJs:

Instead of water I used milk in the cake mix and in the icing I used 3 tbsp of milk instead of water,  added a cup of extra icing sugar (confectioners sugar) and used a combination of cream cheese and butter.  If you are dead set against using the oil, use applesauce or pumpkin puree in its place in the same amounts (I didn’t have any).  For making the cake extra moist, add an additional egg.

Then I went all fancy and pulled out the Americolor gel colours and made me a rainbow.  I divided the icing into 6 bowls evenly (I used a large ice cream scoop).  I then coloured them red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.  I put half of each amount in stripes next to each on top of some plastic wrap. Then I folded it over and made it into one pouch for an icing bag.  I then inserted into the tip and piped onto the cupcake.  It gives it a really pretty rainbow look.

Then I took a dragonfly cutter and cut a few out of some left over rolled fondant and painted them, again with Americolor gels.  I let them dry and added them to the tops.  Why dragonflies you ask? Well that is the mascot of the girl’s elementary school.

As for the taste?  DELISH!!!  (As quoted by Abby and Rowan in unison)  So never feel bad for using a box, lots of people do or they wouldn’t keep making them.

I hope you enjoyed our first treat day back and I hope you come back every Wednesday for fun treat ideas.

Thanks for looking!

*****

For those of you who are new, I started this Wednesday Treat Day when we moved out of the apartment complex we were living when we first moved to the USA.  The business office did treats for the kids getting off the bus every Wednesday and the girls loved it, so I kept it going.  Except now, instead of treats in the form of store bought cookies and chocolate bars, they get homemade treats with love from me!