Cake Susan: 2011

Saturday, October 15, 2011

It's time for fall baking!

This time of year always seems to draw me into the kitchen and baking. I'm not sure if it's the warmth of the oven or the delicious smells, but it always makes me smile. This is the time of year that I start thinking about our bake sale and decorating contest at work....and what in the world I am going to make; and also Thanksgiving with all the wonderful desserts.

I do have to say that I usually go overboard for the bake sale. I can never make up my mind what I want to do, so I do a little of everything (cake, cupcakes, cookies, brownies and candy)! This does make my hubby a little crazy as this means many hours in the kitchen and more than a few late nights and frantic runs to Michael's and the grocery store. Then the huge task of transporting it all to work and hoping that no one hits me because I'm driving so slow. LOL

This year I made two cakes. One choclocate with buttercream icing and covered in fondant and one pumpkin cake with buttercream icing and also covered in fondant. I did my usual brownies and also some adorable ghost s'mores and some candy filled mummies.

For the Boo Cake, I used cookie cutters for cut outs in white fondant of the "Boo", ghosts and headstones. The large ghost and "Boo" went on top and the smaller ghosts and headstones went on the sides. The ghost eyes, mouth and the "RIP" on on the headstones were written with edible markers. To finish out the cake a shell border using a tip 18.

For the Day of the Dead Cake, I covered it in hot pink fondant. I cut a separate piece of fondant the the skull. All of the designs are hand painted using luster dust (diluted with vodka...the vodka evaporates and leaves just the color). The border is rosettes piped with at tip 18 and a gold dragees place in the center of each rosette.

The candy filled mummies were made using the center cardboard from a roll of toilet paper. I filled them with candy and then wrapped them with strips of cheese cloth and added googly eyes.

Now these were so adorable. Ghost S'mores were made using 2 squares of graham crackers, a miniature Hershey bar and a ghost peep all placed in a treat bag and secured with a ribbon.

What's your favorite fall baking project?

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Wow, What a YEAR!!!

A lot has changed since my last blog post. Did you know it is now legal to bake from your home in the state of Texas? A lot of work and 4 years went into this effort and I think the biggest thank you goes to Kelly Masters, if you know her please tell her "Thank You". For information and details on the Baker's Bill please visit the website: http://www.texascottagefoodlaw.com/.

Now, let's get to baking!!

The cake I'd like to feature for this posting is my very first Topsy Turvy cake. Thank you to my friend Kim for trusting me to make this cake. I had always wanted to try one, but it is a lot of cake. This cake is three tiers of cake each with their own style. The bottom tier is 12 inches, covered in fondant with sparkled zebra print. The zebra print were hand cut then brushed with piping gel on one side and covered in black sugar. The second tier is 10 inches covered in teal fondant with a black fondant/gumpaste bow. The third tier is a 6 inch covered in white fondant and covered with fondant polka dots.

I was concerned about the cake falling over but once the process was figured out, it was a very stable cake. Each tier has the top cut at an angle and a small well is cut into to the top of the tier below. The well that the tier sets in is level. It is such a neat cake to make and I stressed over it the entire time (like I do for all of my cakes!). As much as it stresses me to try a new technique, I do love the challenge of doing something new and have such a sense of accomplishment when it works out. So, here is what the final product looked like!

Since I'm never sure what topics you guys are interested in seeing, feel free to comment and tell me what technique you'd like to see me blog about next!