Bookclub Birthday

It was our Bookclub's third birthday yesterday, so of course I had to make a cake!  It took me a while to get the right orange - red and yellow food colouring make an odd pink coral colour.  B's suggestion to add more yellow worked.. eventually. He also drew the cute little penguin and wrote on the cake for me.  By the way, a tip that you might already know - it is much easier to write on dry fondant with food-safe pens.  Once it had dried over-night, the pen worked well.  I have tried before without letting the fondant set, and the pen just dragged through the icing.

I also spent this afternoon on the search for pirate ship related items for my nephew's 7th birthday - I found a couple of pirates and pirate flags.  I haven't quite decided on the final look - I'm a bit concerned about the candles setting the paper sails alight!  I might try an anchored ship with the sails down... cheating, I know.  I think it would be good to make a little island too, but I'm not sure how to get the scaling right.  I have two more nights to work it out, so any suggestions appreciated!

-N-

57 cakes in 3 days

It's been a busy few days.  I made... 

 

20 Popcorn Cakes (aka 'The Cornies') for my hubby's film festival.  These were lots of fun to make - it's just one whole mud cake cut into 4cm chunks, covered with white fondant.  Next the red stripes were added and then popcorn stuck on top with icing.  These were given out as awards for the Media students' films.

 

36 Mini Christmas mudcakes for my 17 staff - these were reaaallllly time consuming.  I find squares much harder to cover than rounds.  I found some great gift boxes at Art Riot, which meant that the cakes didn't get squished.

And tonight I made a Baby Shower Cake for my manager who is having a baby boy.  Her afternoon tea is tomorrow, so I thought that I would make something a bit brighter than usual.  Buttercream is much quicker to use than fondant!

Next week is a retirement cake and then a pirate ship for my nephew.  I think after that I will be done for at least a few weeks.  I've had a few dreams about making cakes this week, so I think that I should have a bit of time off before I become obsessive.  Because I'm not quite obsessive.... yet.

-N-

Where has November gone?

As it's the last day of November, I thought that I should hurry up and post my second cake for the month (remember my goal of two cakes per month??)  I made this one a couple of weeks ago for my sister who held a lunch for her volunteers.  It was my first attempt at piping, and I was pretty happy that the writing was legible!

This month has flown by.  Actually, the last decade has - I celebrated (?) 10 years at the same workplace on Monday.  Man, I'm getting old.  At least that means that my next long service leave isn't far away.

-N-

Leaning Tower of TARDIS

TARDIS cake

It seems like ages since I have posted on my blog, but here is my latest cake creation.  Friends of ours from London are in Perth, and so I made them a TARDIS cake and we ate it at Book Club.  I'm not quite sure what happened, but the TARDIS developed a serious lean overnight.  Must have warped while it was traveling through the dimensions of space and time.  Unfortunately the cake wasn't bigger on the inside (I can't believe that I actually like Doctor Who - a year or so ago I wouldn't have had a clue what that last sentence meant. I'm such a nerd).

-N-

Popcorn Cake

Popcorn Cake

My husband is running a film festival at his school later this year.  He asked if I could make cakes that could be used instead of trophies, and that looked like a box of popcorn.  I got to use some new square cutters that I bought yesterday - they made covering this little cake a whole lot quicker.  It only stands about 7cm high and yes, I just used actual popcorn on top. I could say that it was to add to the realism, but really I'm just being lazy!

There's something therapeutic about making cakes.  Unless things start going wrong.  Last night I made some little mudcakes for a present. I was really tired, but needed to have them sorted for today, and so kept going until they were done.  Only problem was that the icing kept tearing and I kept on cutting the icing the wrong size, so then it wouldn't fit.  Nothing therapeutic about having to re-do something that should be easy in the first place.  But making the popcorn cake this morning was fun.  Just as well, seeing as though I'll be making at least 20 of them!

-N-

Present Cakes and Door Handles

Here is the present cake that I finished on the weekend.  I hope that Ann liked it!  

Present Cake

With all of this cake-making, I usually end up with some leftover cake - either when I cut the top off to make it flat or chop the side off to make another shape (like the hand-bag).  Now, my cake is tasty, but there is such a thing as too much mud-cake.  So I end up either giving it to friends or taking it into work for others to eat.  This week I gave some to my neighbour, who then gave us some olives that he had bottled (using a sea-water recipe).  Maybe I should start a barter system :)

Also, I started watching a new cake show today - Ace of Cakes.  I'm not convinced yet. I don't really buy the main guy who acts like he's super cool.  Maybe I'll change my mind after I watch a few more episodes.  I get that it would be frustrating when you don't have enough fondant from your suppliers, but do you really need to go on about it on tv?  Seems like a big act at the moment.  Fabulous Cakes is a much better show.

And just a little rant about a non-cake related thing... we have been having hassles with our front door handle over the past week.  'Hassle' meaning that I couldn't open the door without some brute force.  We got the door guy to come out last week. Of course, when he came, it didn't get stuck, and he said that it was some screw loose on the plate which he tightened.  The handle was still a problem over the weekend, and then today it happened - I got stuck outside for 5 minutes trying to open the door just after I had come home from the pools and was dripping wet.  When I finally got inside, I rang the door guy. He sounded all annoyed, and almost as though I was making it up.  After some 'but who do I call if I get stuck outside' debate on my part, he agreed to send someone out to look at it. When the guy came, I couldn't open the door.  What a surprise - there was a faulty bit inside the lock mechanism. See.... I'm not just some paranoid chick.  Not usually anyway.   Unless it's about how my cake is going to turn out.

-N-

Purple Cakes

Work has been getting to me lately, and so around this time last week I decided that I would like to make about two cakes per month - not heading for a career change, but frequent enough to practise and maybe make a little pocket money (to pay for more cake decorating classes!).

This week I had four cakes to make in ten days.

The icecream scoop cake was first on the list.  Since that documented disasterous process, I have also decided to only try out one new technique per cake if possible.

Mum's birthday cake was my first to make for the weekend.  I had planned to make her a handbag cake but changed my mind - she loves flowers and craft, and so I tried out a quilting pattern and some new flowers, both of which were surprisingly easy to do.  My initial plan was for the top and sides of the cake to be purple, but a mishap with the quilting tool meant that I re-did the top in pink.  I think that it turned out better this way.

Mum's Flower Cake

I finished the purple handbag mudcake this morning, for a friend's birthday.  It was the first time that I have tried this shape of cake - I had a few hassles trying to get the strap right, but the rest of the cake turned out ok.  I think that it would look nice in black.

Purple Handbag Mudcake

 

Next on the list is Ann's 60th Birthday Cake for Sunday, and then I have one cake to make for November at this stage.  I wonder how my plans will go for two cakes per month?

-N-

This week's lesson - a cake made using a ring tin is not structurally sound.  

I decided to make a cake for friends who have become co-owners in an ice-cream shop.  My idea was to make a cake that looked like a bowl of ice-cream, with scoops of ice-cream on top.  I made a marble cake for the bowl (in the dreaded ring tin), and then three different flavoured cakes for the ice-cream - lemon, coffee and rum & raisin.  Coffee and rum & raisin were our favourite flavours at Milk Mo's opening on Friday night, so they seemed like a good idea.

All the cakes cooked well and didn't stick to the tin or anything.  So far so good.

Attempt number 1 - failed

The general idea was to shape the marble cake so that it looked like a bowl.  I managed this with a little help from my hubby.  Once it was nicely shaped, I covered it in chocolate buttercream.  At this stage the cake started to flatten a little. (Not structurally sound, remember?).  I thought that I could rescue it once I put the fondant icing on - surely it would help hold the shape.  I was wrong.  My 'bowl' ended up looking more like a squashed white apple pie- not a pretty sight.

So, I made another cake at 9.30pm last night.  I didn't quite learn my lesson the first time, and used the ring tin again.  The other problem was that I ran out of milk (and so went to the local petrol station at 9.45pm), and only just managed to find enough flour in the cupboard.  I gave up on the marble cake idea, and just went with a chocolate cake.

I had to wait for the cake to cool before I could cover it with fondant, and so made the buttercream icing for the ice-cream scoops.  While I was doing that, I used the last of my icing sugar (and so didn't have enough to make more buttercream to ice the main cake).

I live across the road from an IGA and so could have bought more icing sugar this morning, but as I woke up bright and early (at 6am) it wasn't open.  So I improvised and just skipped the buttercream and covered it with fondant.  So far so good - it starting squishing a little, but it wasn't too flat this time (I gave up on the bowl idea and just went with the round cake).

Attempt number 2 finished

Anyway, it all turned out ok, after a few more mishaps like running out of green fondant (thus the multi-coloured icing on the board).  I also wanted to have the Milk Mo's logo on the side of the cake, but after a number of attempts, I gave up!

So.. after an eventful evening and morning, I finished the cake at 9am to take to the guys at media engine at 10am.  At least it tasted good!  I vow to never use a ring tin for these types of cakes again.

Squashed white apple pie, anyone?

-N-

Handbags

My friend from work has asked me to make her twin daughters' 21st birthday cakes next year.  She wants a handbag cake and football cake, so I have been spending time looking at lots of different versions of both.

I made this handbag cake a few months ago (that's supposed to be leopard print on the side!), but I want to try something different - something that looks a little more realistic.  I have a while to try out a few versions, so mum is getting a handbag cake for her birthday, and so is another friend.  Anyone else need a cake that looks like a handbag?

I had a look on youtube for ideas about how to make them, but their way has confused me (using templates.. cutting panels.. all sounds a bit hard to me!).  I think that I might stick with my plan and try to make it how I think it will work.  Stay tuned for the photos that will either prove or disprove my theory! 

  

-N-

A day off

I love only working 4 days and having a day off in the middle of the week.  I have spent it sleeping, going for a swim, and watching multiple episodes of Cake Boss.  I have only just started watching this show, and I am hooked.  I knew during the first episode that I would get sucked into watching it all. It's terrible, but I love it.  I spend the whole time thinking about which cakes I think I could make (like the zombie cake) and the ones I definitely couldn't (like the rhino).  Did you know that corn syrup and red food colouring make a good substitute for blood on cakes?  I'll have to try it out some time.  

The thing that I don't like about Cake Boss is that they spend the whole time yelling at each other.  That was until one of the 5-tier cakes got dropped down the stairs - no one said a word about that as they all just worked on re-creating the cake in a hour and a half so that they could get it to the party on time.  Maybe they work together as a family after all.

Oh - and I just tried to book into another cake class, but it has been cancelled :(  Guess I'll just have to find another one!  

-N-

Spider-man Cake

My husband is an avid blogger, and has been trying to get me to blog about something for ages.  So here it is.  I'm new to the world of cake decorating and cake shows and all things involving buttercream, and have decided to blog about my adventures.

I made a spider-man cake on the weekend for my husband's birthday.  I scoured the internet for ideas (and there are some great ideas out there!), but as I have no idea how to sculpt cakes, some of them were beyond me.  When I saw Wilton's 3D skull pan for hire at My Delicious, I came up with a plan.

 

I filled in the skull cavities with buttercream before covering in red fondant.  It took me ages to do the piping, but it was heaps of fun and worth the effort!

And my final thought for the day - what is the fascination with Red Velvet Cake?  Isn't it just chocolate cake with a whole lot of red food colouring??  If anyone can tell me the difference, please let me know :)

-N-