Beaker Cake Pops

Christmas is over but the celebrations haven't quite ceased at our house, Boxing Day is my husband's birthday!  I usually make him a cake but when I saw these done by Bakerella I couldn't resist trying them.  According to my hubby his nickname in high school was Beaker so I thought that these would be a great surprise for him.  He was definitely surprised and he loved them!  Bakerella did a much better job  than I could ever do so if you want to check hers out along with the tutorial click here.
Happy Boxing Day!

Christmas Cake Pops and Christmas Cake

I just wanted to share a few of the projects I worked on for the Christmas season.  I love being able to try new and fun ideas! I think my favourite is the Christmas Tree cake pop!

Pumpkin Muffins

Every year we host Christmas breakfast at our house for the family.  Usually we do a hot breakfast but this year I decided to make it a little bit simpler by making a cold breakfast instead.  We are having yogurt/fruit/granola parfaits, quiche and muffins.  By request of my husband I made pumpkin muffins that turned out fantastic so I thought I would share.  To get the recipe click here.  Merry Christmas everyone!

Bliss Bridal Sample Display

Today I was lucky enough to be able to display samples for brides at Bliss Bridal in Kelowna.  I chose to do four different cupcakes and cake pops.  The cupcakes are chocolate with vanilla bean swiss meringue buttercream, vanilla with strawberry buttercream, vanilla with mango buttercream and caramel apple.  The cake pops are red velvet covered in milk chocolate.  In case you are wondering I got the table from a local lady, her business is called "Found Vintage" and she has all sorts of beautiful furniture.  I can't wait to acquire another piece from her.  Have a good weekend everyone!

Christmas Cupcakes!

Happy holidays!  Here are a few of the Christmas treats I have been working on this season.  Twenty one days until Christmas!

My Vintage Table!

I bit the bullet and rented my first table at a bridal show (Okanagan Bridal Expo) for this coming January.  The pressure is on to create a great booth so I wanted to find something fantastic to display my cakes and cupcakes on...this is what I found!  It's about 4 feet long with beautiful glass knobs, I can't wait to use it!

Roses and Butterflies

I first saw this rose technique months ago and I finally had a chance to try it for myself!  For a tutorial on how to do this super easy technique go to the "I Am Baker" blog here.

This cake was a donation I made to the Boys and Girls Club for a charity event so I thought I would go basic (and delicious!) and do a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream.  A few days ahead I made the butterflies out of gum paste.  This was my first attempt at these but I think they turned out ok.  I used small butterfly cutters and the ends of various Wilton piping tips to make the small details in the wings.  After cutting them out I laid them over top of a piece of bended cardboard so that they would dry with the wings up.  After they were completely dry I airbrushed them with a pink and yellow sheen food colour and sprinkled on disco dust for a little more sparkle.  I hope you like it!  Happy Tuesday everyone!

Fireman Cake

I made this cake this past weekend for a little boy's second birthday.  The hose was made using a 10 inch round 2 layer cake.  I covered it in fondant and then used another long yellow piece of fondant to drape around the entire cake to look like an unwound portion of the hose.  I used RKT's to make the nozzle and covered it in fondant as well, the silver portion was painted with silver airbrush paint.  Someone on Cake Central had "water" coming out of the hose which I thought was a really unique and fantastic idea.  I took isomalt and melted it in the microwave and added some blue airbrush food colour.  If you ever try this be extremely careful as the sugar is VERY hot, use precautions not to burn yourself!  I wrote his name (Cohen) with the isomalt and it set up very quickly.

The fire helmet was made using a half of a Wilton ball pan.  I used long rolls of fondant to create the raised portion on the helmet and then covered the entire thing with black fondant.  Most of the front plate with the "2" is made with gumpaste and the straps were made with fondant.

To make the 10 inch round look like a whole roll of hose I watered down some brown food colouring with vodka and painted the top of the cake and around the sides of the cake.  I wanted to tone down the brown "dirty" spots on the sides but unfortunately I broke my bottle of vodka and didn't have any more to use to rub down the cake.  You can't use water because it will leave shiny spots on the cake.

Thanks for looking!

Roses for a 60th Birthday!

I loved doing this cake!  It has been awhile since I have done any flowers and my grandmother had bought me some new rose cutters that I was dying to try.  This cake is red velvet , I love to use Paula Deen's recipe and you can find it here.  It tastes fabulous with cream cheese icing as a filling.  I used fondant to cover the cake and also for the beads around the bottom.  The "60" and roses were made from gumpaste a few days before I made the cake.  After completion I air brushed the entire cake with a sheen colour which made it just a little bit sparkly!

Dirt Bike Cake

What little boy (or big boy for that matter!) doesn't love dirt bikes?!  This is a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling, covered in fondant and green buttercream "grass".  The dirt pile is a chocolate cupcake lathered in chocolate buttercream and the rocks are made of chocolate too.  I made the "2" out of gumpaste and airbrushed it and the bottom tier with royal blue food colouring.  I hope you like it!

The Chocolate Moustache

How much fun are these!  I have never done chocolates for a customer before but these were by special request for a Super Mario Party.  These are super simple and easy to make, I used a mold ordered off of Amazon and milk chocolate.  Each one was individually wrapped and tied with a red ribbon in honour of Mario!

When my husband saw these he was inspired to host a Movember Party to raise money for prostate cancer.  I can't wait to make these again and try some different colours too!

Lemon Loaf with Lemon Glaze

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day but we decided to stay home together as a family and have a relaxing day.  My son wanted to make something so badly with the lemons we had so we decided on lemon loaf  which is one of my absolute favourites!  The only thing that was disappointing to me with this recipe is that it wasn't quite as lemony as I usually like to have it.  The glaze definitely helped but I would probably add some extra lemon juice or more zest to the recipe.  That is just my take on it though, if you like a more subtle flavour then this recipe is perfect as is.  I doubled the recipe and it made one loaf plus 6 mini loaves.  Here is the recipe for the lemon loaf and I used this recipe for the lemon glaze.

I do have one other suggestion for making the loaf.  In the recipe it says to oil the pan which didn't work out well for me at all.  What I will try next time is to butter the pan and then flour it.  Hopefully then I won't have any trouble with the bread sticking.  Happy baking!

Pina Colada Cupcake Recipe

I had an order for "something tropical" for a little girls birthday.  What's more tropical than Pina Colada's?!  This recipe was terrific with vanilla buttercream but next time I will definitely try it with cream cheese frosting.  I might just have to have one more before going to bed....

Pina Colada Cupcakes

Wizard of Oz Cake

This was really fun to make!  This is completely edible except for the lollipop sticks.  The cake is vanilla filled with chocolate buttercream.  The shoes were made from modelling chocolate and covered with disco dust, I was really happy with how they turned out!  All other accents are made with fondant.

Pretty in Pink!

I will have to start by saying that this is one of my favourite designs to date.  I actually got the inspiration from a cake I saw on the Cake Central website by a member by the name Cakesue.  Her version was black and white with a large bow on the side instead of flowers like I did on the top.  This is actually not a cake but a cake dummy.  I have done only a few wedding cakes so I thought that if I wanted to appeal to more brides then I would have to show them my talents as a wedding cake designer and not just  as someone who does lots of celebration cakes.  All of the decorations on this cake dummy are made of fondant with just a few spots of buttercream piping.  This was my first attempt at ribbon roses, once I got the hang of it they were very easy to do.  I learned to do them just by watching You Tube videos!  It is amazing what you can learn off the internet! When it was complete I airbrushed the entire cake with an edible shimmer paint.

 Last week I purchased a photo tent off of Ebay and I must say it was probably the best $100 I ever spent.  I am by no means a photographer but at least now I can take some pictures that I don't have to be totally embarrassed about! I am hoping to do many more cake dummies this fall so say tuned!

Shiver Me Timbers! It's a Pirate Cake!

This was so much fun to make!  This was a last minute order from a friend of mine who actually designed my logo for me. She lives in Victoria and was making a short notice trip to Kelowna to help her mom move.  It is her son's birthday next week and they are celebrating with a Pirate Party complete with a ride on a pirate ship!  I only had a couple of days notice so I didn't have time to do any gum paste decorations ahead of time.  That being said I am very happy with how it turned out.  I hope it survives her plane ride home!