More Practice

I went back to Mom’s this Friday and we decided to practice again.  After our last “practice” that ended up in disaster…this as MUCH better!  We had a lot of fun with this one and Mom did all of the kneading of fondant since my fingers and hands were sore from kneading fondant all week at the bakery.  I love how the colors turned out and the kids next door that we gave it to loved it.  We still need to work on our bows, but I guess it wasn’t too bad 🙂

Another Birthday

Today is Blake’s little brother’s birthday. When I asked Joshua what kind of cake he wanted he said white cake with chocolate icing. Since I wasn’t completely pleased with the last chocolate buttercream that I experimented with, I decided to try a different recipe. This recipe tastes amazing, but is not worth a darn thing when it comes to decorating a cake. I struggled with this icing for hours! The cake however was also a new recipe I’ve been wanting to try. It comes from the book, Confetti Cakes by Elisa Strauss. Blake helped me make the cake and it was a unanimous decision, this cake is AWESOME! It tastes wonderful and was very easy to make. It’s also sturdy enough to make multi-layer cakes. I will definitely be using this vanilla cake recipe again.

Also, it has been determined by my oldest cat Zoe that my new photo background makes a very good bed…now I’m going to have to wash it again!

New Job!

Some of you already know, but I thought I would post it here also. I’ve recently accepted a new job at a bakery in Fort Worth. I am so excited! I will be working 4 days a week doing the “detail work” like roses, bows, etc. I will be working with a lot of materials I have never used before but I am there to learn and will soak it all in like a sponge and come home to teach Mom everything 🙂

Here’s the link for the bakery…

http://www.cremedelacremecatering.com/index.htm

Happy Birthday Dami

My nephew’s 6th birthday was last weekend so Mom and I went down to see him and all 4 of his siblings this weekend. When we asked him what kind of cake he wanted, he automatically responded that he wanted a skateboard cake just like his brother Dylan’s except that he wanted yellow cake with chocolate icing. I saw this as my opportunity to try new recipes that I had seen lately. Both the cake and icing were made from scratch and both recipes were REALLY easy to make with my mixer. I even had Alexis (big sister to Dami) over to help. The cake is a basic yellow cake recipe and the icing is a chocolate swiss meringue buttercream. It tasted great and everyone seemed to love it. I’ve also posted a picture of the newest nephew, Xander (I know this isn’t a great picture, but I had just finished rocking him to sleep and he doesn’t open his eyes often yet at 2 months old).

Pooh Bear!

Mom and I were asked to do a Winnie The Pooh baby shower cake. We were really excited about this one because we’d never done a baby shower cake before. After narrowing the choices down, the customer decided on a very pretty “classic pooh” cake. We wanted to try out our new hexagon shaped pans so it was a two-tier, hexagon shape cake. The top tier is chocolate and the bottom white cake all covered and piped with buttercream. I LOVE the way this cake turned out and I know the grandmother-to-be loved it as well when it was delivered.

Practice, Practice, Practice…

Two weeks ago Mom and I decided that we needed to practice some of the more difficult and new types of cakes whenever we didn’t have one to make for customers.  I went over there on Friday night and we decided to do a stacked giftbox cake.  When we picked out this cake I thought it wouldn’t be too difficult.  Boy, was I wrong!  While the design itself wasn’t what was hard, we ran into quite a few snags in some of the more routine things that we should be used to.  First we had a problem icing the cake because it was too moist and it started tearing apart.  Then when putting the fondant on I guess I rolled it too thin because it was ripping and not laying smooth at all.  Last but not least, we messed up the bow and ended up putting an actual gift bow on top.  Thank goodness the cake wasn’t for a customer!  We ended up giving the cake to my mom’s neighbors because they’ve always enjoyed getting her practice cakes.  I guess it doesn’t look too bad, but we will definitely continue to practice the basics…

Scones!

A couple of weeks ago I decided I would try to make Cranberry Orange Scones.  I usually get these at Starbucks but I thought that maybe this would save me some money if I was able to make them myself.  They turned out VERY good and almost as good as the Starbucks version.  Although there were a few things I would change the next time I made them, they were very easy and very quick to make.

Pineapple Upside Down

Pineapple Upside Down Cake is one of Blake’s favorite cakes. One weekend back in March I decided out of boredom to try to make a version of this cake that did not come out of a box. It was very easy, however I might try to find a different recipe because the cake itself was bland but the toppings were really good.

Wow…I’ve been slacking…

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this and so much has been going on…

I’ll start with something that I forgot to put in my blog in March.  I participated in a gift exchange as part of the What’s Cooking message board on The Nest.  When I got my package I was thrilled!  I got an apron I had been eyeing for a while, a pink spatula, and a Sweet Foods cookbook!  So…Thank you “Bunney”!