Cake Endeavours

This year I hosted our 4th annual cookie exchange. Mr. T (ha, love that nick name) and I spent the better part of the weekend cleaning and getting the place ready for Christmas in time for the exchange. Miss E was off at her grandparents playing for the weekend.  Our poor cat was put through the wringer with all the activity.  For the exchange she hung out with everyone but was flaked out on the arm of a couch. For the exchange we each made a dozen cookies/bars for each participant plus another dozen for tasting.  I made some stand by dishes for our regular get-togethers plus a new one that was a big hit.  I got this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, Garlic Butter Roasted Mushrooms ,  They are so good.  I highly recommend making these. To go with all the food, I made Colonial Hot Buttered Rum .  A now favourite recipe that I discovered a few years ago.  Left overs do store well in the fridge.  Though I would recommend to guest to bring a thermos for a to go bag, to be stored in the trun

A good friend of mine's hubby and his co-worker asked me to make a cake for their boss.  Their request for the cake was for it to be chocolate, with orange coloured filling, covered in green fondant with a horse on it.  Hmm...how to make an obvious guy's idea of a cool cake and make it a bit feminine?  Fortunately, the people I make cakes for a pretty good at letting me take artistic liberties. The chocolate part was easy to take care of.  For the filling and the crumb coat I made a buttercream icing with just a hint of cinnamon and dyed it a soft orange.  Peach sounds too eighties. I made a silhouette of a horse in black along with the lettering.  I had some left over green fondant from the Mad Hatter cake but cut in some white fondant to make it more of a sage green.  What I didn't realise at the time though, was that the white fondant had a bit of a crust on it and when mixed in left all these little lumps.  *sigh*  Well, that's what the stars are for, to cover so

My lovely co-worker passes me a note yesterday in a meeting advising that she needs a cake for today.... So, she wanted the Perfect Chocolate Cake but wanted it covered in fondant.  At first I was horrified because really, it's the Perfect Chocolate Cake.  You don't mess with it.  After some bantering back and forth I had to agree for a 50th birthday it needed to be special and it's hard to do that with just chocolate, I guess. :) Anyway, I covered it with Tiffany Blue coloured fondant.  It doesn't look so much like Tiffany Blue from the picture (should have used my camera instead of Tim's).  As per request I added silver dragees all around the cake.  I love the effect even though it was a tad time consuming.  I kept dropping them on the floor and the cat would chase them as they rolled away.